Lewis-Bruno vs. Joshua-Fury : “Best of BrItish”

[margaret thatcher]

Josh vs Fury bigger defo, easily worldwide, and uk too

[nobleart1978]

I was 15 at the time.

The fight was massive.

Remember that back then the papers really covered boxing. Leading up to the fight they would be on the back page and the next two inside as well ! Not to mention the glossies on a sunday. Those were the days when the sun and the mirror sold 20 million papers every day !!! Bruno was the national treasure, but hard nosed boxing people favoured Lewis.

[Onamastus]

Less than 2% of the UK had a Sky dish in 1993, and the man in the street barely knew who Lennox Lewis was. It was Team Lewis who wanted it staged in Cardiff, because they felt London would give Bruno the hometown advantage, and they also wanted to avoid the ignominy of Lewis being booed in Britain, which he would have been at Wembley vs Bruno. Instead he suffered the ignominy of defending his title in a half-empty stadium with about 100K people watching on TV. Bruno's next fight, back on the beeb versus Jesse Ferguson, had 15m viewers.

Fury/joshua is the much, much bigger fight. Sans Covid they could get 100K in the stadium, with millions watching around the world.

I don't think that's true at all, the average person (and definitely the average British sports fan) knew who Lennox Lewis was by 1993 - they just didn't care all that much about him. Bruno was a bonafide A list British celebrity - everyone knew him and was very popular, the reason the fight wasn't as big as it should have been because nobody expected Bruno to win.

2% of households had a dish by 1993? I don't like the look of that percentage, have you got anything to back that up? We had a dish and if we had a dish that means more than 2% of the British population had one...

Happy to go along with people knew him but didn't care about him. Which explains why he couldn't fill Wembley Arena v McCall and Botha.

Btw: anyone remember the live broadcast of Lewis/McCall? Probably not, they buried it on Wire TV. Dear god, who was advising Lewis!?

The 2% figure comes from a 1993 editorial about Lewis/Bruno from Boxing Monthly, and was mentioned at other times the same year in the same publication.

[JimStone]

Does that 2% include cable?

[mickey1975]

I was 15 at the time.

The fight was massive.

Remember that back then the papers really covered boxing. Leading up to the fight they would be on the back page and the next two inside as well ! Not to mention the glossies on a sunday. Those were the days when the sun and the mirror sold 20 million papers every day !!! Bruno was the national treasure, but hard nosed boxing people favoured Lewis.

The papers will be back on board for this, but nobody reads them! The internet is already full of it.

[Cyclops]

What? Tyson filled up 20,000 seat MEN versus a punching bag months before Lewis couldn't give tickets away in 5,000 seat Wembley.

Big boxing events not popular back then? Sleep through all those Naz, Eubank, Benn, Collins nights then? Shocking post even by your standards.

To go for a one off night out at Wembley or Millennium. Nobody really knew how to get tickets, today it is easy just go online and go for the crack.

Try getting a face value ticket for Fury-AJ and then tell me how easy it was.

Say theoretically, we somehow navigate COVID safely and get a Wembley fight next Summer, how much do you think even the cheapest seats are going to be on the secondary market, Micky? They'll be f*ckin expensive face value anyway as everybody with a job still will want to go to this. I wouldn't put it past them to charge £80 for nosebleed seats. More if there's social distancing still in place.

[mickey1975]

To go for a one off night out at Wembley or Millennium. Nobody really knew how to get tickets, today it is easy just go online and go for the crack.

Try getting a face value ticket for Fury-AJ and then tell me how easy it was.

Say theoretically, we somehow navigate COVID safely and get a Wembley fight next Summer, how much do you think even the cheapest seats are going to be on the secondary market, Micky? They'll be f*ckin expensive face value anyway as everybody with a job still will want to go to this. I wouldn't put it past them to charge £80 for nosebleed seats. More if there's social distancing still in place.

£250+

[Fray Bentos]

The 2% figure comes from a 1993 editorial about Lewis/Bruno from Boxing Monthly, and was mentioned at other times the same year in the same publication.

They were wrong, in April 1993, 2.2 million British households had a satellite dish and how many others had cable TV like JimStone stated. we don't know but it certainly wasn't just 2% of the population.

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/satel ... ises--1350

You probably misrembered the figure, I do that all the time.

[stujones]

On YouTube you can find an episode of this is your life with bruno in early 1993....Lewis showed up....safe to say he was well known by the reaction

[littlepug]

On YouTube you can find an episode of this is your life with bruno in early 1993....Lewis showed up....safe to say he was well known by the reaction

Yeah Jimmy Savile turns up towards the end and puts on his usual cringe performance.

[coghaugen11]

Never see anything remotely like those times again.

Fighters today are ill-mannered creeps and alienate the public.

[keirw]

Technically there have been other "battles of Britain" for the Heavyweight title - big four titles.

Bentt vs Hide

Akinwande vs Welch.

I remember Bennt and Hide didn't it go off at the press conference? It was on the news I think.

It was a long time ago now and I may be misremembering but seemed a serious incident at the time, more akin to Have/Chisora in Germany than the fake beef we are used to now (Bellew getting held back by Coldwell while shouting at a bemused Cleverly springs to mind).

[mickey1975]

Never see anything see anything remotely like those times again.

Fighters today are ill-mannered creeps and alienate the public.

I think that attendance has been doubled.

[stujones]

Times have definately changed - perhaps I have nostalgic rose tinted classes but I would still view Bruno as a bigger celebrity that both Joshua and Fury - more grans would recognise Bruno back in 1993 than they would Joshua or Fury now...... but...... clearly in terms of selling out venues, endorsements and fight purses I am clearly wrong - Lets not forget Bruno vs McCall didn't do near 70+ thousand - Joshua can sell out a stadium very quickly (Fury still a bit untested there).

I remember Bruno vs Bugner having preview shows, making the mainstream news in the build up to the fight - e.g. even the weigh in.

But then we live in a time where one of the biggest PPV boxing events in recent times involved 2 guys who had never boxed and I'd never heard off.

[mickey1975]

Times have definately changed - perhaps I have nostalgic rose tinted classes but I would still view Bruno as a bigger celebrity that both Joshua and Fury - more grans would recognise Bruno back in 1993 than they would Joshua or Fury now...... but...... clearly in terms of selling out venues, endorsements and fight purses I am clearly wrong - Lets not forget Bruno vs McCall didn't do near 70+ thousand - Joshua can sell out a stadium very quickly (Fury still a bit untested there).

I remember Bruno vs Bugner having preview shows, making the mainstream news in the build up to the fight - e.g. even the weigh in.

But then we live in a time where one of the biggest PPV boxing events in recent times involved 2 guys who had never boxed and I'd never heard off.

Grans don’t usually buy tickets or ppv. Maybe in Liverpool they do.

[coghaugen11]

Never see anything see anything remotely like those times again.

Fighters today are ill-mannered creeps and alienate the public.

I think that attendance has been doubled.

Who cares?

[coghaugen11]

Times have definately changed - perhaps I have nostalgic rose tinted classes but I would still view Bruno as a bigger celebrity that both Joshua and Fury - more grans would recognise Bruno back in 1993 than they would Joshua or Fury now...... but...... clearly in terms of selling out venues, endorsements and fight purses I am clearly wrong - Lets not forget Bruno vs McCall didn't do near 70+ thousand - Joshua can sell out a stadium very quickly (Fury still a bit untested there).

I remember Bruno vs Bugner having preview shows, making the mainstream news in the build up to the fight - e.g. even the weigh in.

But then we live in a time where one of the biggest PPV boxing events in recent times involved 2 guys who had never boxed and I'd never heard off.

Grans don’t usually buy tickets or ppv. Maybe in Liverpool they do.

Exactly, it's become merely a money freakshow hidden away from the public at large.

[coghaugen11]

EVERYBODY watched Bruno and Eubank. They were national institutions.

[jamesmcdonnell]

EVERYBODY watched Bruno and Eubank. They were national institutions.

There was far less competition in terms of what to watch back then, you cannot really compare that era with this.

The vast majority of boxing then was free to air, and at a time when there was only a handful of channels available.

[coghaugen11]

Exactly, you can't compare.

And the behaviour we see today wouldn't of been tolerated or accepted. People would turn over, and it wouldn't of stayed on TV.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Exactly, you can't compare.

And the behaviour we see today wouldn't of been tolerated or accepted. People would turn over, and it wouldn't of stayed on TV.

What behaviour are you referring to?

[Fray Bentos]

Exactly, you can't compare.

And the behaviour we see today wouldn't of been tolerated or accepted. People would turn over, and it wouldn't of stayed on TV.

What behaviour are you referring to?

There was less exposure then so a boxers real identity could be protected - I get what cohaugen is saying - the likes of BJS wouldn't have had the platforms to make an utter prick of himself back then in the way he is able in this day and age.

Frank Bruno was carefully guided on how to act and what to say by Lawless, Duff, Barrett and co - there was no chance of him messing that up like he probably would have done in this day and age with IFL lurking around and the likes of...

[jamesmcdonnell]

Exactly, you can't compare.

And the behaviour we see today wouldn't of been tolerated or accepted. People would turn over, and it wouldn't of stayed on TV.

What behaviour are you referring to?

There was less exposure then so a boxers real identity could be protected - I get what cohaugen is saying - the likes of BJS wouldn't have had the platforms to make an utter prick of himself back then in the way he is able in this day and age.

Frank Bruno was carefully guided on how to act and what to say by Lawless, Duff, Barrett and co - there was no chance of him messing that up like he probably would have done in this day and age with IFL lurking around and the likes of...

Ah right, gotcha. Well, there's always been bad boys in boxing, let's be honest, but the difference is dipsticks like BJS have a platform on which to promote their idiocy.

BJS probably would have really struggled back then, he's a total charismectomy, and his fights are boring as shite, and he couldn't fill the boot of his car with punters, so don't see how he would have ended up getting anywhere near a title shot.

Frank was a difficult character, I know people who went to school with him, and he was a spiky character from the get go, probably had undiagnosed bipolar disorder his whole life. I do often wonder though whether living as a pantomime character contributed to his mental collapse in later life.

[coghaugen11]

They'll wear an EA7 t-shirt to a press conference today.

They wouldn't be allowed in the building in 1990 without a suit. Definitely no vile language. When did you hear Marvin Hagler eff and blind.

The baddest boy was Nigel Benn and even his conduct was immaculate - earring taken out and false tooth in to face press.

[coghaugen11]

Henry Wharton was a traveller and a soft spoken true gentleman to go with it.