Snobs...

[hitman_hatton1]

great venue.

seen the stereophonics there. :)

great mid size london venue.

not many of our fighters are big enough to fill the arena's.

albert hall would seem perfect.

[bennie]

Great seats, great venue with great history...but, it costs a fortune and during the last 20 years how many fights have been there?

Forget nostalgia because the future is the Echo, the MEN and the O2 - venues where promoters can make a few quid - and safe venues like York Hall where promoters will not lose too much.

I read some..."boxing will never be the same without the RAH" quotes and it makes me laugh - many of the fighters talking about the venue ended up skint! I bet one or two of the Seventies world champions wish they had fought in front 0f 20,000 at the MEN/O2 and made some proper money instead of about 3,300 (the figure without the debenture holders) at the elegantly located RAH!

I will be asking for RAH boxing memories on BBC London 94.9 tonight between 8-9pm - email:[email protected] or text 07786 200 949.

Adios.

The capacity for a normal let at the Albert Hall is more like 4,000 and 5,500 for an exclusive, which in the Duff/Barrett days was normally one or two a year.
Cost? I don't know what it is now, but about 3 years ago it was about £10,000.
And how many Seventies world title fights were there? Duff put all his bigger fights at Wembley Arena, some earlier ones went to Earls Court, while really big fights went to football grounds. Wembley Arena normally had 2-3 shows a year, the Albert Hall had 6 or 7. The only world title fights I really remember there were Honeyghan-Blocker and Nelson-McDonnell.
Realistically, how many London fights recently have been too big for the Albert Hall? It would have been perfect for the last Wembley bill. And how many paid to get in to Haye-Barrett, or some of the recent fights at the Excel?
Charlie Magri's world title fights went to Wembley Arena and didn't sell out by any means. The night he lost the title, he needed Frank Bruno on the undercard to help shift tickets.
And I bet you can't get the O2 for under £20,000 per night. If the Albert Hall was too small and too expensive, no one would want to promote anything there, yet the main problem for promoters has been an inability to get dates because it is booked up so far in advance. Wembley Conference Centre was smaller than the Albert Hall by some way, yet it was considered big enough for most.
What London lacks is not a stadium sized venue, it lacks something between the York Hall or Goresbrook Leisure Centre and Wembley or O2. And that is the gap the Albert Hall used to fill.

Come on Ron, I took that fiver off you on the night Marsh beat Kameda.

PS: An excellent post.

[RLewis]

Great seats, great venue with great history...but, it costs a fortune and during the last 20 years how many fights have been there?

Forget nostalgia because the future is the Echo, the MEN and the O2 - venues where promoters can make a few quid - and safe venues like York Hall where promoters will not lose too much.

I read some..."boxing will never be the same without the RAH" quotes and it makes me laugh - many of the fighters talking about the venue ended up skint! I bet one or two of the Seventies world champions wish they had fought in front 0f 20,000 at the MEN/O2 and made some proper money instead of about 3,300 (the figure without the debenture holders) at the elegantly located RAH!

I will be asking for RAH boxing memories on BBC London 94.9 tonight between 8-9pm - email:[email protected] or text 07786 200 949.

Adios.

The capacity for a normal let at the Albert Hall is more like 4,000 and 5,500 for an exclusive, which in the Duff/Barrett days was normally one or two a year.
Cost? I don't know what it is now, but about 3 years ago it was about £10,000.
And how many Seventies world title fights were there? Duff put all his bigger fights at Wembley Arena, some earlier ones went to Earls Court, while really big fights went to football grounds. Wembley Arena normally had 2-3 shows a year, the Albert Hall had 6 or 7. The only world title fights I really remember there were Honeyghan-Blocker and Nelson-McDonnell.
Realistically, how many London fights recently have been too big for the Albert Hall? It would have been perfect for the last Wembley bill. And how many paid to get in to Haye-Barrett, or some of the recent fights at the Excel?
Charlie Magri's world title fights went to Wembley Arena and didn't sell out by any means. The night he lost the title, he needed Frank Bruno on the undercard to help shift tickets.
And I bet you can't get the O2 for under £20,000 per night. If the Albert Hall was too small and too expensive, no one would want to promote anything there, yet the main problem for promoters has been an inability to get dates because it is booked up so far in advance. Wembley Conference Centre was smaller than the Albert Hall by some way, yet it was considered big enough for most.
What London lacks is not a stadium sized venue, it lacks something between the York Hall or Goresbrook Leisure Centre and Wembley or O2. And that is the gap the Albert Hall used to fill.

Come on Ron, I took that fiver off you on the night Marsh beat Kameda.

PS: An excellent post.

Forgot that one. And I had the poster on my bedroom wall!

[mickey1975]

Barrera-Lloyd

[RLewis]

Barrera-Lloyd

Duke McKenzie and Gerald McClellan also won world title fights there, but the point is that the "big fights" went elsewhere.
But as an example, the Kevin Mitchell/Nathan Cleverly bill at Wembley would have filled the Albert Hall and would have attracted fans merely because of its location had it been at the Albert Hall. It would have been a huge event with a big buzz. At Wembley, people were just saying that part of the hall was shut, or that there were empty seats.

[Buncey]

London needs a smaller version of the O2 Arena and not the RAH.
The RAH was losing its appeal long before it died.
Fighters were struggling to make it there for six in the evening - I remember Phil Martin and Wally Swift sr moaning about traffic and parking.
Remove the rose tinted glasses - I had a caller on the show last night talking about Smith v Magri. A great memory from a great seat and that is all it is now.
And the world champions from the Seventies had a lot of British, European and Commonwealth title fights at a sold-out RAH.
Ron, you clearly had all your RAH tickets from your uncle Mickey which explains why you missed the Watson v McCallum world title fight. I believe Barry restricted cuddly Duff to just a few tickets for that one!
Bennie even had to remind you about the Marsh fight!
Ron provides us all with a savage reminder of just how small British boxing was just a few years ago.

Adios.

[RLewis]

London needs a smaller version of the O2 Arena and not the RAH.
The RAH was losing its appeal long before it died.
Fighters were struggling to make it there for six in the evening - I remember Phil Martin and Wally Swift sr moaning about traffic and parking.
Remove the rose tinted glasses - I had a caller on the show last night talking about Smith v Magri. A great memory from a great seat and that is all it is now.
And the world champions from the Seventies had a lot of British, European and Commonwealth title fights at a sold-out RAH.
Ron, you clearly had all your RAH tickets from your uncle Mickey which explains why you missed the Watson v McCallum world title fight. I believe Barry restricted cuddly Duff to just a few tickets for that one!
Bennie even had to remind you about the Marsh fight!
Ron provides us all with a savage reminder of just how small British boxing was just a few years ago.

Adios.

Ouch.

I wasn't at Watson-McCallum, as I was away at college then, I do however remember Graham-McCallum there

But "Uncle Mickey"???? Are you trying to imply that I got free tickets off Mickey Duff? I don't even know Mickey Duff. My early boxing writing was nearly all at small halls for Boxing News and local papers, and he wasn't promoting by the time I joined The Times.
My dad took me to boxing at the Albert Hall. We sat in the stalls. I never covered one fight there on a press ticket. Strange you feel the need to belittle my comments with such a strange accusation.

If you want to talk about small British boxing, how about David Haye boxing for a European title in front of about 200 fans in Bracknell or facing a top ten opponent at Huddersfield Leisure Centre? You must know the delights of trying to sell a "big fight" to a sports editor when it is at a venue like Brentwood or Altrincham.

London doesn't have a smaller version of the O2. The need for a middle-sized venue has been chronic for years. I remember allegedly putting on a show at a theatre off Kingsway once, where the ropes were loose, Chris Devine fell through the ropes and head first off the stage.

They tried Brixton Academy, Hammersmith Apollo but they didn't work. Maybe after the Olympics, the Excel might be able to build a proper arena venue rather than just flat seating, but getting that far out of central London always creates transport problems for shows going late. Same with Ally Pally.

And, if we're talking about bad parking, how about the poor lot who went to Wembley Arena and got charged £18 to park because there was a rugby match on at the stadium. Anyone who tried to park in the streets nearby will have got towed.
And as for traffic, ever tried driving to the O2? And, of course, boxing in those days was usually always midweek, so a Saturday show in central London would not have to cope with the London rush hour, or indeed the congestion charge.

If a proper alternative for the Albert Hall had turned up, we wouldn't have this conversation. But there isn't one.

[MightyWarrior]

Great venue, I saw Benn/Logan there, what a night that was, TV blackout at the time too..my favorite London venue, hopefully the retired colonels, oil sheiks and princes of Albert house get overruled and we see some boxing back there ASAP.