Eddie and Frank debate on Five Live

[Wake up call]

From last night if anyone missed it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r994k

[Counter-puncher]

I enjoyed it, from both sides. I do like bunny when he's all bristling and combative.

[forcefraser]

Bunny is a survivor. If a nuclear bomb fell the only things left would be him and a load of insects.

[Ezzard]

Me too. Bunce is good on the radio. I think they're all right to varing degrees. Particularly in the case that it's obvious that there is not enough money in the game to pay fighters megabucks just for turning over.

Boxing marginalised itself by moving to Sky in the first place. The argument that I'm wrong because Ricky was the most popular fighter the country has ever seen and he didn't fight on terrestrial television once is weak. Ricky's fanbase were the kids who grew up on Benn vs Eubank etc on ITV. There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Spot on mate. Once you’ve sold the crown jewels they’re gone.

SKY doesn’t have the reach to develop fighters into household names. And terrestrial won’t do it just so the fighters can run off to SKY the moment the big fights are on the horizon.

[The Insider]

Thanks for that. Big Chiz is always a good listen.

[Chris W 1982]

Great listen. I see Bunce as a allegedly presenter now and no longer an impartial sports journalist.

[leforge]

Great listen. I see Bunce as a Allegedly channel presenter now and no longer an impartial sports journalist.

He was not the same presenter he was on Setanta for sure.

[Chambers2]

Me too. Bunce is good on the radio. I think they're all right to varing degrees. Particularly in the case that it's obvious that there is not enough money in the game to pay fighters megabucks just for turning over.

Boxing marginalised itself by moving to Sky in the first place. The argument that I'm wrong because Ricky was the most popular fighter the country has ever seen and he didn't fight on terrestrial television once is weak. Ricky's fanbase were the kids who grew up on Benn vs Eubank etc on ITV. There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Didn't Boxing have to look for a new home when ITV lost interest after Benn-McLellan? Rather than it being boxings choice to go to Sky

[forcefraser]

I see Bunce as a Allegedly channel presenter now and no longer an impartial sports journalist.

Has there ever been an exclusively impartial journalist? Name me one.

What about Sean Monaghan?

[banjo]

Me too. Bunce is good on the radio. I think they're all right to varing degrees. Particularly in the case that it's obvious that there is not enough money in the game to pay fighters megabucks just for turning over.

Boxing marginalised itself by moving to Sky in the first place. The argument that I'm wrong because Ricky was the most popular fighter the country has ever seen and he didn't fight on terrestrial television once is weak. Ricky's fanbase were the kids who grew up on Benn vs Eubank etc on ITV. There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Didn't Boxing have to look for a new home when ITV lost interest after Benn-McLellan? Rather than it being boxings choice to go to Sky

Correct Sky picked up boxing when nobody else wanted it.

[black panther]

There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Agree with this. If you look at the youtube generation; a UFC promo video will get close to 1 million hits whereas a HBO or Showtime video promoting a video only numbers in the thousands.

[Glyn Leach]

From last night if anyone missed it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r994k

Ta Andy, well played

[mickey1975]

There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Agree with this. If you look at the youtube generation; a UFC promo video will get close to 1 million hits whereas a HBO or Showtime video promoting a video only numbers in the thousands.

Well, in York, we only had one gym for as long as i can remember, now we have four in the aba, all the kids want to give it a go. We have lads out in Leeds tonight, Barnsley tomorrow and Leeds again Friday. It truly is thriving. Maybe when this lot grow up, they will become fans. Maybe amatuer will replace pro in terms of popularity? Luke Campbell is already one of the best known fighters in the country and will be earning more than all the Bantams if you throw in his Dancing and other commercial stuff around Yorkshire. He must have turned on every Christmas lights in a 40 mile radius of Hull!

[hitman_hatton1]

Yes, if I remember correctly the week after the Benn fight Naz was on ITV and was very disrespectful in defending his euro title. This I believe was the final straw for ITV

Nah, you're thinking of when he clowned about Vs Belcastro live on ITV. Hamed fought the week after McClellan and sparked out Liendo. It was a scary KO and Hamed didn't appear contrite enough about having KO'd someone a week after the McClellan tragedy. ITV lost their nerve. By April 6 Warren had moved his fighters to Sky in a 50,000,000 deal. ITV stumbled along, but the McClellan fight had knocked the stuffing out of them.

Yes that was it. I was running a sports bar in the early days of Sky / Warrens boxing relationship and we always be packed for the fight nights, I remember the big night that was Naz - Johnson which I thi k ended up a record day due to a decent football international in the afternoon

watched that fight round a neighbours house.

i wanted johnson to knock hamed's head off.

[lefty]

I dont know if id consider that a true debate, it was a good listen but id prefered hearing them both on the line at the same time. It wouldnt happen though understandably as there would probably be some expletives being thrown about.

[Counter-puncher]

Yes, if I remember correctly the week after the Benn fight Naz was on ITV and was very disrespectful in defending his euro title. This I believe was the final straw for ITV

Nah, you're thinking of when he clowned about Vs Belcastro live on ITV. Hamed fought the week after McClellan and sparked out Liendo. It was a scary KO and Hamed didn't appear contrite enough about having KO'd someone a week after the McClellan tragedy. ITV lost their nerve. By April 6 Warren had moved his fighters to Sky in a 50,000,000 deal. ITV stumbled along, but the McClellan fight had knocked the stuffing out of them.

well played

[Counter-puncher]

anyone care to offer an opinion on the legal case? ha. i mean, my default position is bunny doesn't have a history of getting involved with too many legal cases that he doesn't win. but then Bellew managed it....

i lol'd when bunny described Morrison as 'his stupid half-manager- and he is a stupid man....'

[robpalmer135]

There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Agree with this. If you look at the youtube generation; a UFC promo video will get close to 1 million hits whereas a HBO or Showtime video promoting a video only numbers in the thousands.

UFC was exclusive to PPV and cable TV in the US until the past year. Its all about marketing.

[JamesH]

UFC are the Microsoft of sport. They took a product, packaged it up all pretty, and voilà. The skill is marketing, that's all, but they have it wrapped up beautifully - and I'm not even a fan of it.

[jameswilson]

Bunny is a survivor. If a nuclear bomb fell the only things left would be him and a load of insects.

Don't forget Destiny's child. They would be there too singing that song.

[Deserter]

UFC are the Microsoft of sport. They took a product, packaged it up all pretty, and voilà. The skill is marketing, that's all, but they have it wrapped up beautifully - and I'm not even a fan of it.

This is exactly it... while boxing's promoters have remained in the dark ages in marketing terms and refused to invest in their product. They're now paying the price for that short-termism...

[ArtOfWar]

[*]

There is no significant new generation of boxing fan.

Agree with this. If you look at the youtube generation; a UFC promo video will get close to 1 million hits whereas a HBO or Showtime video promoting a video only numbers in the thousands.

Well, in York, we only had one gym for as long as i can remember, now we have four in the aba, all the kids want to give it a go. We have lads out in Leeds tonight, Barnsley tomorrow and Leeds again Friday. It truly is thriving. Maybe when this lot grow up, they will become fans. Maybe amatuer will replace pro in terms of popularity? Luke Campbell is already one of the best known fighters in the country and will be earning more than all the Bantams if you throw in his Dancing and other commercial stuff around Yorkshire. He must have turned on every Christmas lights in a 40 mile radius of Hull!

You can have millions of kids, but that means nothing if they've got nothing to watch. Boxing is becoming more and more marginalised, because almost every promoter in the sport is a self righteous/self serving cock end. Over the last few years it been clearly proven that you can't go round matching your fighters up with dummies for 20 to 25 fights and then refuse to work with other promoters in making the fights the fans want to see. Yet this continues to happen. Boxing is the only sport where the athlete's and promoters/managers try to tell the paying customer what we want to see. Then you have fighters expecting to make silly numbers to take any sort of risk. That's all good well, but if the money is not there, it's not there. You have to be realistic, especially if your not a ticket sller.

Promoter - 'My guy is facing this guy, it's gonna be a great fight and you must tune in'. It's a fight everyone has been waiting for'.
Fan - 'What the f**k are you talking about? No one wants to see this fight you plonker'.

Channel 5 have dumped MH and only Matchroom are on Sky. allegedly is only gonna attract existing boxing fans. Doesn't really look good does it.

Now let's go Stateside where the money for almost every big fight comes from:

Just this week HBO have announced they will no longer be working with Golden Boy. Showtime's head of boxing, Stephen Espinoza has a cozy relationship with Golden Boy, and basically has an exclusive deal with them now. They've taken Floyd and this has pissed HBO off. That leaves Top Rank, Lou Dibella, Gary Shaw etc on HBO.

Now we've been missing out on big fights anyway, because Top Rank and Golden Boy won't work with each other. But now it's impossible for any two fighters from these two stable's to be matched up, because they are on completely different networks. When you think of the fighters these two have, that's a hell of a lot of fights we're not going to see.

The lack of any sort of organised structure in this sport has always been a problem and the above shows why.

Muppets the lot of them and they have the cheek to call us 'anoraks' or 'keyboard warriors'.

[magnus]

Some good points. At the press conference for next month's Cleverly bill, it seems all the talk was around Nathan maybe fighting Hopkins next, and Chisora possibly fighting Price in the Summer. As opposed to, y'know, the actual event you're trying to sell. Expecting box office records to be shattered in April then.

[dondada]

Some good stuff there, Art

[stujones]

Some interesting discussion re itv earlier in the thread. If itv lost their nerve with the sport after Benn why did they sign a deal to showcase Shea Neary fights. This was done after Warren left. They also showed some fights from the states delayed (eg dlh vs Hernandez)