Trouble at the Boxing

[winkveron]

Liverpool Echo Arena is the only place I've ever watched boxing where I was able to take my drink to my seat. I was just gutted I was driving.

sods law that is!lol

Yeah that was cool. But closing the bar at 10.30pm might be another reason why people shove a load of beer down their necks before the bar shuts. It was proper kicking off at the Riverside entrance when I was leaving.

[whicker]

Wait til an incident makes the press... then watch what happens to public opinion of boxing, which is on fragile enough ground as it is.

[stujones]

I wondered at the Magnificent 7 how such a large number of Welsh supporters got seats together? How was that arranged? With a big group of Birmingham fans chanting 'sheep sh*ggers', that was only a matter of time and it should have been anticipated.

They need proper security teams, not stewards who are more like ushers and seem unprepared for these sorts of situations. The time taken for most of them to get to the scene was unacceptable, not that they seemed capable of breaking it up when they got there. With one of the fights near a balcony, I was only glad noone went over, it could have been the end of the show. That lad was out harder than Enzo.

Agree on the prosecution, although I have no idea what happened afterwards, I remember the announcer saying 'That t**t in the green needs to be arrested' or something similar and getting a large cheer.

There's just no need for it and I can understand why people wouldn't want to take kids. It's not that common, but is too common, and in a whole different league to football. You get almost no trouble inside football stadiums, or around the immediate area.

Were they proper Welsh then? Most Welsh guys don't mind taking the "taffy the sheep shagger" stuff.

[Scottrf]

Were they proper Welsh then? Most Welsh guys don't mind taking the "taffy the sheep shagger" stuff.

Well they had flags etc and went crazy for Macca and Clev. Maybe that wasn't the only thing that started it, but it raised tensions.

[casual85]

I imagine it would be quite difficult to shift from reactive to pro-active measures at boxing unlike football.

For example in the main football fans travel from one town to another for a match (I appreciate the cockney reds etc are different) so the football intelligence teams can monitor and control people before they ever reach the stadium. Inside the ground there is clear segregation between the 2 sets of fans. How would that work in a boxing environment? You can't really have a police spotter assigned to each boxers fan group, I imagine you could look at trends to spot fighters who have a particularly violent following. But I appreciate the real need is for preventing trouble in the arena.

However, the nature of ticket sales between the two also makes segregation and keeping troublemakers difficult. There's so many more ways to buy boxing tickets, (from promoters, boxers, cash sales on the door) and at small hall shows like york hall its unreserved seating in the main anyway. Given the nature of sales and the difficulty in following known troublemakers I don't see how football style banning orders would work. How is someone working on the door of Wembley Arena going to know Joe Bloggs is actually banned from boxing because he nutted someone in Manchester?

So how do you keep people apart? I genuinely don't know the answer. The only other alternative is to get police in the arena and when there is trouble come down on them like a tonne of bricks in the hope it acts as a deterrent. I'm a Cardiff supporter and there's currently a whole load of lads getting serious bird for the trouble at Chelsea considering a lot of them weren't involved in serious fighting

Sorry for the long post incredibly bored at work

[Scottrf]

Casual, appreciate a lot of your points. However, as much as pro-active measures can be more difficult in boxing, the reactive measures just aren't good enough. The security just seem unable to break it up once it starts. At the Mag 7 there were blocks of Welsh and Birmingham fans together. I don't know how that happened, but it might be wise to avoid that in future. Perhaps not giving a particular boxer tickets all in one area may be a start.

[revporl]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

[damianhucker1]

Casual, appreciate a lot of your points. However, as much as pro-active measures can be more difficult in boxing, the reactive measures just aren't good enough. The security just seem unable to break it up once it starts. At the Mag 7 there were blocks of Welsh and Birmingham fans together. I don't know how that happened, but it might be wise to avoid that in future. Perhaps not giving a particular boxer tickets all in one area may be a start.

you could argue also that making all specific fans be placed together makes it easier to whats happening for the security than if they were spread throughout the stadium

[n1ebf]

they should just have a rule whereby if you look like a fcking c*nt you don't get in...It's not as unfair as it sounds. You can either leave the venue at once, or exercise your right of appeal. If you exercise your right of appeal, then it's down to your 3 mates. If your 3 mates look ok, you all get in. In they look like a bunch of c*nts then you all f*ck off.
We all know what these twats look like. Fat, skin-head, beer-bellied, fckin Stone Island wearin twats....or failin that, 6 protein shake a day arms with a tribal tattoo (that monkey boy doesn't even understand) and a fckin carphone warehouse style haircut.
We know what the c*nts look like so fckin ban the sad bastards.

[Craig14]

dont sell drink at the boxing? easy quick fix... i doubt they make serious collar off the booze compared to tickets and such

If you banned alcohol you would atleast half the crowd, your in a big minority if you don't drink at the boxing. Hell even most of the boxers have a couple of beers after there fight.

[orbtastic]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

I've seen fighting in the US, at the Hamed/McCullough card there were 4-5 kick-offs in the arena, one of them fairly major.

[mickey1975]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

I've seen fighting in the US, at the Hamed/McCullough card there were 4-5 kick-offs in the arena, one of them fairly major.

It was probably the Brits!

[freddydoesdallas]

they should just have a rule whereby if you look like a fcking c*nt you don't get in...It's not as unfair as it sounds. You can either leave the venue at once, or exercise your right of appeal. If you exercise your right of appeal, then it's down to your 3 mates. If your 3 mates look ok, you all get in. In they look like a bunch of c*nts then you all f*ck off.
We all know what these twats look like. Fat, skin-head, beer-bellied, fckin Stone Island wearin twats....or failin that, 6 protein shake a day arms with a tribal tattoo (that monkey boy doesn't even understand) and a fckin carphone warehouse style haircut.
We know what the c*nts look like so fckin ban the sad bastards.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. You could even go as far to ban those who have a 'runny nose' and talk too fast

[winkveron]

they should just have a rule whereby if you look like a fcking c*nt you don't get in...It's not as unfair as it sounds. You can either leave the venue at once, or exercise your right of appeal. If you exercise your right of appeal, then it's down to your 3 mates. If your 3 mates look ok, you all get in. In they look like a bunch of c*nts then you all f*ck off.
We all know what these twats look like. Fat, skin-head, beer-bellied, fckin Stone Island wearin twats....or failin that, 6 protein shake a day arms with a tribal tattoo (that monkey boy doesn't even understand) and a fckin carphone warehouse style haircut.
We know what the c*nts look like so fckin ban the sad bastards.

[orbtastic]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

I've seen fighting in the US, at the Hamed/McCullough card there were 4-5 kick-offs in the arena, one of them fairly major.

It was probably the Brits!

There weren't actually too many English about. Lots of Irish but mostly Americans. There were two English guys behind me, one in a Man U top and I jokingly asked him if he was lost and he took that as a some sort of threat and ran off.

I remember one of the fights was right in the middle of one of the stands, some huge black guy launched himself over about ten people and took about 3 guys out. It was pretty impressive stuff.

[m1kee50]

dont sell drink at the boxing? easy quick fix... i doubt they make serious collar off the booze compared to tickets and such

If you banned alcohol you would atleast half the crowd, your in a big minority if you don't drink at the boxing. Hell even most of the boxers have a couple of beers after there fight.

i dont drink at all, which puts me in the sober law-abiding minority at most events, in fact i think a lot of people on here must post drunk. so the people who are put off by crowd violence can fcuk off to satisfy the beer-swillers just because there appear to be more of them? Am I interpreting that correctly?

[jBacca]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

Aye but everyone's asleep at the Klit fights.

[Craig14]

dont sell drink at the boxing? easy quick fix... i doubt they make serious collar off the booze compared to tickets and such

If you banned alcohol you would atleast half the crowd, your in a big minority if you don't drink at the boxing. Hell even most of the boxers have a couple of beers after there fight.

i dont drink at all, which puts me in the sober law-abiding minority at most events, in fact i think a lot of people on here must post drunk. so the people who are put off by crowd violence can fcuk off to satisfy the beer-swillers just because there appear to be more of them? Am I interpreting that correctly?

What a stupid attitude. Most people can handle there drink, Just because a few idiots can't doesn't mean you should ban it at boxing events. And they definatly make a huge 'collar' off the alcohol sold at events, and it's in plastic bottles ofwhich you can't take back to your seat, which is stopping people going to boxing shows in itself- boxing and beer go together abit like West Ham and relegation.

[Dioufy]

Not been to a bill since Murray fought Lawton in Wigan. Even though there wasn't much trouble from what I saw, I came to the sad realisation that genuine boxing fans are being vastly out-numbered by chavs, looking to get in people's faces and wait for a reason to kick off. I was also asked by a group of monkey's who would win between Calzaghe and Hatton. I'm still shocked a little by the question to this day.

[Glyn Leach]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

Seen plenty of fights in the crowd at US shows, not uncommon at all, but the difference is it's generally one-on-one rather than the group stuff we get in Britain.

[IrishPaddy]

Is this only a UK thing. Do they have the same level of violence in the US, at the big Vegas events? Watching a couple of Klitchko fights from Germany, it looked like a glamorous black tie event compared to what we're used to here!

Seen plenty of fights in the crowd at US shows, not uncommon at all, but the difference is it's generally one-on-one rather than the group stuff we get in Britain.

I agree with the one-on-one and group comment. But the crowds at all the stateside shows I've been to have been alot less hostile than you're average British show. I would'nt think twice about going up to a Puerto Rican and having the craic with him at a Cotto fight. I wouldn't do it to the scum that attend most the shows in the UK (and Ireland). It's more of a party atmosphere over in the US. Ive been to about 10 different shows over there, and all I can remember is a scuffle at MSG during Cotto-Clottey, and a scuffle after the Pacman-Clottey fight in Dallas. Both were immediatley broken up by security and expelled from the arena. The 2 guys that had the argument in Dallas were arrested within a few seconds. And trust me, those Texan policeman took no shit.

I've been to one fight in Germany. Wlad-Peter, and it was so refreshing. There was alot of people in the stadium that night. Everything perfectly organised (as you would expect from the Germans). And everybody (from young kids to very old men) were there to watch the boxing. From start to finish. No drunken yobs about at all.

I've been to 3 shows in the UK over the past 12 months, and I litterally feared for my life at times! Haye-Ruiz, some small show at the Velodrome in Manchester the night before the Mag 7 in Birmingham, and then the Mag 7 itself. Alot of the trouble stems from football, the remainder stems from binge drinking.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a quick fix. Football and boxing in the UK is intertwined, and has been for many years. I spoke to John Rawling after the Mag 7, and we both agreed that the crowd trouble definitely marred what would've been a very enjoyable night.

[IrishPaddy]

Just to throw in something also and try to balance the argument. I've heard of horror stories during Tito-Mayorga at the Garden. Lads getting practically butchered in the toilets. Knives out, you name it, the lads had it. Ricans Vs Nicaraguans.

The NYPD stood outside, let them almost kill each other. And then arrested whoever was left standing. From a reliable source!

[Ash-Weston]

Ive never seen it kick off at a show because ive only been to a couple but im gonna change this thread on its head a little bit. Went to a show in weston a few years back and thought Steve Bendalls supporters were a credit to him and were just there for a beer and a sing-song without the violence. Also fans of Paul David were ok as well. Anyone else got any other stories of fighters with a decent following who dont go just for a boot-off?

[Deserter]

Just to throw in something also and try to balance the argument. I've heard of horror stories during Tito-Mayorga at the Garden. Lads getting practically butchered in the toilets. Knives out, you name it, the lads had it. Ricans Vs Nicaraguans.

The NYPD stood outside, let them almost kill each other. And then arrested whoever was left standing. From a reliable source!

I was actually at that fight as I'd always wanted to go to MSG and that was the first time I had enough money to be able to treat myself accordingly.
Clearly I can only talk from personal experience, but I didn't even see a sniff of trouble the entire night. Many of the British boxing bills I've been to have an air of underlying tension - you can literally sense things on a knife-edge at times in terms of the potential to 'kick off'. By contrast, the atmosphere at MSG was electric without ever being threatening.... a massive contrast. The organisation, facilities etc were just on a completely different level and if memory serves me correctly the alcohol was flowing freely as well.
The other thing I'd add though is that the Garden seemed to be absolutely packed with expat Puerto Ricans and I can't recall encountering any Nicaraguans - if a small minority were present I can imagine they weren't exactly welcomed with open arms.

[Brit Ryan]

I haven't encountered trouble at Irish events