Is Anthony Joshua the most popular British boxer of all time?

[dirk2686]

18 million people watched McGuigan v Pedroza in 1985.

That was more than watched England - Germany world cup semi-final in Italia 90.

McGuigan was the most popular boxer of my lifetime.

Viewing figures will always be an odd one because of the limited choices though. To repeat a point; a big sporting event is always going to get bigger viewing figures when the other options are three channels. I don't even know how many TV channels I have access to but it's clearly well into the hundreds. Add to that hundreds of thousands of available hours of films and television series at the click of a button.

A personal comparison, but if I was my age in the mid-80's, chances are I'd be watching things like Formula 1 if the other options were an old film I had no interest in, a soap, and a children's programme. Today, the range of choice means I can watch pretty much anything that comes to mind.

[freddydoesdallas]

18 million people watched McGuigan v Pedroza in 1985.

That was more than watched England - Germany world cup semi-final in Italia 90.

McGuigan was the most popular boxer of my lifetime.

Viewing figures will always be an odd one because of the limited choices though. To repeat a point; a big sporting event is always going to get bigger viewing figures when the other options are three channels. I don't even know how many TV channels I have access to but it's clearly well into the hundreds. Add to that hundreds of thousands of available hours of films and television series at the click of a button.

A personal comparison, but if I was my age in the mid-80's, chances are I'd be watching things like Formula 1 if the other options were an old film I had no interest in, a soap, and a children's programme. Today, the range of choice means I can watch pretty much anything that comes to mind.

That's true but you can also say the same about ticket sales these days. Someone made the point earlier about how easy it is now to go and get a ticket for something. You get to work, log in and carry on as normal and then at a certain time you try and get the tickets from the comfort of your desk, toilet, whatever it may be.

20 years or so ago it was telephone calling and physically going to the box office. Prior to that it was just physically going to the box office only. That meant you had to be really committed to getting a ticket and possibly taking time from work with a good chance of not getting one

[ILikeBeer]

He has solely sold out Wembley with a crowd of 90K and could be more in attendance if they release more tickets but has any other British boxer come close to sell out a stadium of 90K+ by himself.

Carl Froch and Groves sold 80 thousand tickets but before it was sold out but Anthony Joshua was also on the bill early on so I cannot imagine Froch and Groves did the selling entirely themselves James Degale also had a decent following so I would imagine he was also responsible for a good amount of tickets.

As there is no one else on the Wembley bill apart from Katie Taylor you have to give all credit to AJ for selling out Wembley single handedly.

So any other boxer done better than AJ or is he truly the most popular British boxer of all time?

Solely? So the fact that he has fighting Klitschko is nothing to do with it?

[dirk2686]

He has solely sold out Wembley with a crowd of 90K and could be more in attendance if they release more tickets but has any other British boxer come close to sell out a stadium of 90K+ by himself.

Carl Froch and Groves sold 80 thousand tickets but before it was sold out but Anthony Joshua was also on the bill early on so I cannot imagine Froch and Groves did the selling entirely themselves James Degale also had a decent following so I would imagine he was also responsible for a good amount of tickets.

As there is no one else on the Wembley bill apart from Katie Taylor you have to give all credit to AJ for selling out Wembley single handedly.

So any other boxer done better than AJ or is he truly the most popular British boxer of all time?

Solely? So the fact that he has fighting Klitschko is nothing to do with it?

This will sound like a non-answer, but Klitschko has everything to do with it, and at the same time very little.

The 'event' is as big as it is because a fighter of Klitschko's stature is involved. But the number of people who have thought 'wow, a Wladimir Klitschko fight? Get me a ticket now!' is an essentially insignificant fraction of those in attendance. Joshua is selling out Wembley against him just as he'd sell out the same venue for Haye, Wilder and Tyson Fury.

[Mimmy]

He has solely sold out Wembley with a crowd of 90K and could be more in attendance if they release more tickets but has any other British boxer come close to sell out a stadium of 90K+ by himself.

Carl Froch and Groves sold 80 thousand tickets but before it was sold out but Anthony Joshua was also on the bill early on so I cannot imagine Froch and Groves did the selling entirely themselves James Degale also had a decent following so I would imagine he was also responsible for a good amount of tickets.

As there is no one else on the Wembley bill apart from Katie Taylor you have to give all credit to AJ for selling out Wembley single handedly.

So any other boxer done better than AJ or is he truly the most popular British boxer of all time?

Solely? So the fact that he has fighting Klitschko is nothing to do with it?

Im only making assumptions on what others are saying. Outside of his own country does Klit sell many tickets? If this was Klit against Hughie Fury or Tyson Fury, is it likely that would sell 90K? Its been said in this thread that Klit isnt a great ticket seller

Tyson fury v Klit would sell 90k? before he cancelled the Klit 2 fight that was selling indoors so im guessing it wouldnt sell as big as this fight.

Someone is selling tickets for this fight and by the looks of it there is currently only Klit, AJ and Katie T on the show. Katie T isnt going to sell more than 500 tickets she isnt a box office seller yet, and possibly will never be with the male audiance. So the show is being sold by 2 people AJ and Klit, do you think Klit has sold 45k?

[Mimmy]

He has solely sold out Wembley with a crowd of 90K and could be more in attendance if they release more tickets but has any other British boxer come close to sell out a stadium of 90K+ by himself.

Carl Froch and Groves sold 80 thousand tickets but before it was sold out but Anthony Joshua was also on the bill early on so I cannot imagine Froch and Groves did the selling entirely themselves James Degale also had a decent following so I would imagine he was also responsible for a good amount of tickets.

As there is no one else on the Wembley bill apart from Katie Taylor you have to give all credit to AJ for selling out Wembley single handedly.

So any other boxer done better than AJ or is he truly the most popular British boxer of all time?

Solely? So the fact that he has fighting Klitschko is nothing to do with it?

This will sound like a non-answer, but Klitschko has everything to do with it, and at the same time very little.

The 'event' is as big as it is because a fighter of Klitschko's stature is involved. But the number of people who have thought 'wow, a Wladimir Klitschko fight? Get me a ticket now!' is an essentially insignificant fraction of those in attendance. Joshua is selling out Wembley against him just as he'd sell out the same venue for Haye, Wilder and Tyson Fury.

Thats the whole point of this post. Of cours eit would be another 90k against Haye, but im thinking Haye would shift a few of those 90K as many people would be interested to see if AJ could knock Haye out. I for 1 would be jumping on a ticket or 2.

Im not bothered about buying a ticket for this fight because im not excited enough to see AJ v Klit. This fight would not be as interesting as AJ v Haye. I would be happy to travel over 250 miles to see that but not that interested to travel that distance to see this one. And im sure there will be lots of people who have that attitude towards this fight too.

I cant imagine Klit has sold thousands of tickets purely because people want to see him fight.

[dirk2686]

With a few weeks to go before Fury v Klitschko II you could buy pretty much as many tickets as you wanted at a venue that only holds just over 20k.

Fury isn't a big seller in the UK but Klitschko is even less so. I imagine of the 90k who attend there will be somewhere around 200 UK-based Ukrainians supporting their man, a similar number who have travelled from Europe, and less than a hundred British fans who are going purely to see Wladimir.

Everyone else will be there to see Joshua bar those attached to the undercard fighters.

[danconnollyeire]

People are going Wembley for the event not the personality. Hatton was a rare character who was bigger than the sport himself. Anyone that went to/watched at Hatton fight did it because of Hatton, over boxing and the event. Joshua can only sell out Wembley vs a Klit type. Hatton could sell out vs a hamburger

[freddydoesdallas]

With a few weeks to go before Fury v Klitschko II you could buy pretty much as many tickets as you wanted at a venue that only holds just over 20k.

Fury isn't a big seller in the UK but Klitschko is even less so. I imagine of the 90k who attend there will be somewhere around 200 UK-based Ukrainians supporting their man, a similar number who have travelled from Europe, and less than a hundred British fans who are going purely to see Wladimir.

Everyone else will be there to see Joshua bar those attached to the undercard fighters.

Barely anyone outside of this forum knew that fight was going ahead and it was way overpriced. This fight has had massive coverage on sky sports and social media. Hearn & Joshua do social media well

[REEVE]

Cooper Bruno Hatton naz

[ILikeBeer]

This will sound like a non-answer, but Klitschko has everything to do with it, and at the same time very little.

The 'event' is as big as it is because a fighter of Klitschko's stature is involved. But the number of people who have thought 'wow, a Wladimir Klitschko fight? Get me a ticket now!' is an essentially insignificant fraction of those in attendance. Joshua is selling out Wembley against him just as he'd sell out the same venue for Haye, Wilder and Tyson Fury.

Though I see your point, and agree with it to an extent, Haye, Wilder and Fury are also top-end names. Joshua still wouldn't be the one solely selling out Wembley. Saying that Joshua is solely responsible for selling out 90k at Wembley, sounds like your saying he'd still be doing the same numbers whoever he fought. The fact that it's a big fight featuring him sells it out too, he wouldn't sell 90k against a random Latvian binman.

It's still an impressive number, and more than the aforementioned Bruno made, so you could argue I was being pedantic.

[dirk2686]

This will sound like a non-answer, but Klitschko has everything to do with it, and at the same time very little.

The 'event' is as big as it is because a fighter of Klitschko's stature is involved. But the number of people who have thought 'wow, a Wladimir Klitschko fight? Get me a ticket now!' is an essentially insignificant fraction of those in attendance. Joshua is selling out Wembley against him just as he'd sell out the same venue for Haye, Wilder and Tyson Fury.

Though I see your point, and agree with it to an extent, Haye, Wilder and Fury are also top-end names. Joshua still wouldn't be the one solely selling out Wembley. Saying that Joshua is solely responsible for selling out 90k at Wembley, sounds like your saying he'd still be doing the same numbers whoever he fought. The fact that it's a big fight featuring him sells it out too, he wouldn't sell 90k against a random Latvian binman.

It's still an impressive number, and more than the aforementioned Bruno made, so you could argue I was being pedantic.

I think the point I'm making is this. Joshua would not sell out Wembley against a binman. But this fight is marketed as a big event for Joshua. I think it would largely be identical to Wilder. You can sell it easily; we all knew Joshua was going to beat Molina, but Klitschko is a legend, Wilder is an unbeaten world champion and so on. But how many people would be making that journey to see Wilder as their reason for attending? Not many.

Haye, and to a lesser extent Fury, would draw people who are coming to see THEM in big fights. So whilst the event is still massive, Joshua isn't really pulling the entire crowd on his own. To that extent I think you could argue those fights are probably the biggest that they could possibly be for anyone involved. Build a theoretical stadium of well over 100k and would Joshua sell out against Klitschko? Maybe not. Against Haye? Quite possibly.

[Taansend]

Even your grandma knew Henry cooper and frank Bruno.

I remember Henry Coopers 50th birthday party dinner being shown on live primetime telly back in the 80's.

Joshua could never be close to this.

That's not his fault. Back then there was less tv (channels & airtime), less sports & more newspaper specialised coverage.

Ted 'Kid' Lewis, Jack 'Kid' Berg, Jack Petersen, Eric Boon & Arthur Danahar, Randy Turpin, Terry Downes and many, many more were household names. Winning a British title made you a household name back then.

Different times.

[Grilling Machine]

naz

I very nearly added him to my list on the last page, but I think he'd be the clear winner of Fastest Fall into Relative Obscurity. In the mid-'90s he was absolutely huge (just fighting huge back then!), and everyone from my mum to my uncle in Canada had heard of him. But towards the end of his career he faded away from news reports and TV coverage in general.

I'm defining popular as heard-of by Joe Public, by the way. In Lewis' case, the unusual name of Lennox helped to make him memorable. After Ali, Tyson and Bruno, I reckon most non-fans in the UK'd mention him alongside Frazier and Foreman. Ahead of Holyfield. And Eubank's also well-known (if not well-liked) for his persona and the many impressions of him through the years. Maybe because of Theroux's doc, as well.

[In the know 85]

Not a patch on Bruno, Hatton, Benn, cooper! And arguably Lennox!

[brilo33]

more popular he gets the least i like him, think that is why i am a de gale ,selby fan

[Oiky]

I'd say no

[jamesmcdonnell]

Cooper. By a country mile.

[brilo33]

i think hatton has got to be the best supported fighter,, gutted werent apart of it , i remember when about 5000,hatton fans turned up for the Floyd Mayweather vs Ricky Hatton Full Weigh In

[Terminator666]

Bruno more popular for me regardless of ticket sales- most the people at Wembley had never heard of Froch and groves before the fight- on the other hand rewind to 1990 and everyone had heard of Benn and Eubank beforehand- basically because in those days boxing was on terrestrial but Bruno had a big personality as well

[gp.]

When you talk about ticket sales you have to take how much easier travelling is into account as well. It would be a major commitment for someone from the North to go and watch Henry Cooper fight in London in his heyday. The M1 wasn't finished until 1968.

[mullenman]

Viewing figures are a joke as if aj fights on itv it smashes all records...

Aj is king.. all the haters get in board a living legend..

[gp.]

I just asked my wife, who has no interest in boxing, if she knew who Anthony Joshua is. She didn't have a clue.

She's in her late forties and the British boxers she could name are Frank Bruno, Amir Khan, Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe (we are in Wales), "the Northern Irish one that they used to play Danny Boy when he came on" and "the wanker with the monocle".

I realise this is an unscientific survey.

[mickey1975]

I've just taken a black south London woman to a prison in the taxi, she had no idea who Joshua was, she knew Big Frank though.

[ILikeBeer]

I'm surprised so many people don't recognise Anthony Joshua, to be fair. I thought a big portion of his fanbase were the 'casuals'. I thought he'd be quite recognisable to people, but maybe not?

Probably change in the build up to the Klitschko fight.