Boxing News to review small hall coverage

[Muttley]

Agree with the last post..some valid points there .Fighters not trying so to speak should be across the board ,problem is the journeymen not boxing for a month if they get stopped is a big obstacle !

This has been going on since time began. Everyone in boxing knows how it works. Small hall shows would fall apart without the 60-54 journeyman. From the boxer through to the board knows the score. Apart from the feather duster prospect's 100 plus family and friends of course.

[Muttley]

Keep the same space but use it differently. Choose the most competitive small hall show of the week and use that as the in depth report across two pages with pics.

As for the 60-54 shows, just run a list of results in the final column of that spread. No need for any description- waste of time.

In other words, give everything what it's worth

While I would want more than just the results, cutting the space given to predictable fights is reasonable enough.
Saying that BN journalists were usually on terrible money so I wouldn't like to see their pay cut further.

Some of them will not even be getting paid at all. It was bad enough 20 years so it must be even worse now the circulation has dwindled

[Spud]

Although I disagree with less coverage of small hall shows I will still buy it as it feeds my obsession of boxing.

[olij999]

Agree with the last post..some valid points there .Fighters not trying so to speak should be across the board ,problem is the journeymen not boxing for a month if they get stopped is a big obstacle !

This has been going on since time began. Everyone in boxing knows how it works. Small hall shows would fall apart without the 60-54 journeyman. From the boxer through to the board knows the score. Apart from the feather duster prospect's 100 plus family and friends of course.

Respectfully, I disagree that this has always been going on. Take a random year from the era when we would all believe fighters fought more often, say 1964. According to Boxing News in early 65, Brian Cartwright was the busiest British fighter in 1964. He had 13 fights – 8 wins, 3 losses, 2 draws. Only 13 British boxers fought 10 times or more in 1964. There's no-one there fighting 25 times and hardly winning a round. That's something that has become more pronounced in the last 20 years. And it seems only to be happening in British rings. Where are the Mexicans, Americans or Japanese with records of 10 or 15 wins in 300 fights?

I don't think small hall shows would fall apart as you'd still have journeymen. But they wouldn't reach 200 or 300 fights if they were forced to throw punches rather than tuck up. No-one's expecting each four rounder or six rounder to be Hagler-Hearns, but just to be a boxing match rather than a non-aggression pact. And as I've said before on a number of threads, I don't criticise the journeymen for this - if I were in their shoes and could get through a fight, collect my money and be out again in a week or two, I'd do exactly the same,

[aumonier]

I am not a reader of BN so I can't give a very detailed impression of it. But seen from where I am (in France), I think it is great to have a media dedicated to boxing. Even if a lot of fights are not well balanced and only done to make a boxer's career progress, if you start not mentioning them because they are less relevant that world titles fights or other belts fights, then you start cutting people from the reality (boxing is also made of hundreds of small fights and not only of five stars fights in superb arenas like Wembley or O2). Because once you have started not covering some fights, you will make boxing less real for people, and the general interest for boxing will go down to a point it has reached in France : no one cares, one press media mostly covering top fights, and not very extensively, and no one really interested inthe sport even when french boxers are involved (even our world champions have to fight in other countries - Oubaali, Goulamirian, Hamadouche...). And almost every fight happening in France is only covered in local medias.

[margaret thatcher]

exactly, this 100 losses, lose every other week culture exists nowhere else in the world, at least nowhere near the same extent

if british boxing cant survive without it as some suggest, how did it come to this?

[martinmrts]

A lot of the small hall shows follow the ticket seller vs journeyman model, so the write-ups could be done in advance really, and don't really offer any interest to the reader. Perhaps a classified style round-up of the results with an actual report on anything exceptional

[Wake up call]

I don't know whether I'm speaking out of turn here, but as an on-off BN contributor since the late 2000s I've covered dozens of small hall shows and would be saddened if coverage was cut back.

People have said that the reports lack insight and that's fair enough but they have to put together in a way that provides the basic details in the shortest number of words possible because of space constraints.

More insight would mean longer pieces and thus small hall shows being given more coverage rather than less.

When I first got involved in boxing, there would often be four or five reporters at ringside for even the smallest of shows because there were websites that existed on providing good coverage (Boxing News, Britishboxing.net, SecondsOut, Saddo, LiveFight etc) but those sites have either changed the way operate or have ceased to exist.

If I go to a show nowadays I'm usually the only reporter there and I suspect the BN reporter is the only media at ringside for the majority of small hall shows up and down the country now. Getting rid of small hall reports in BN would mean that the boxers on those shows receive no coverage at all and that would be very sad.

Maybe a compromise would be for the magazine to run basic reports, but longer more considered reports to be published on BN's website where space constraints do not apply?

[Deserter]

More insight would mean longer pieces and thus small hall shows being given more coverage rather than less.

it's not that binary an equation mate. As a number of us have already stated, if you provide the insight on a fight that was actually competitive and/or featured a prospect worth keeping an eye on, that could be offset by reducing the filler pieces. Amount of real estate could remain the same. Basically quality over quantity.
As it stands the current pieces are incredibly formulaic e.g. always open on the headliner, even if he was a routine winner against a punchbag import and there was actually a cracking fight on the undercard far more deserving of attention.

[veriton]

It just feels like a lot of coverage is given to 'vanity' bouts, where a local tough belts around an Eastern European or UK journeyman while family and friends cheer on.

People don't take vanity published books seriously so why do these types of fights get a write up? It's about discernment.

I doubt many of the fans attending vanity bouts are BN readers so losing that coverage is unlikely to have an effect on sales.

But using that space to instead highlight genuine small hall contests or prospects going somewhere is likely to increase sales, or at least benefit readers (I've been reading for 30 years).

Give Area titles more play and it may push fighters that way too.

[martinmrts]

I'd like to see the term Vanity Bout adopted in BN.

e.g. The bill consists of 1 title fight, 1 eliminator and 4 Vanity Bouts

[Counter-puncher]

.

I doubt many of the fans attending vanity bouts are BN readers so losing that coverage is unlikely to have an effect on sales.

to say the least

w/r/t small hall shows i wonder if more attention could be paid in the previews to the bouts that aren't vanity bouts? like, the do usual generic/ dismissive preview but mention 'there's good match on the such and such card coming up when undefeated boxer X faces Boxer Y who has lost just 2 of his 14..' or whatever.

Tom Podmore used to do that when he was comprehensively reviewing the midlands scene for britishboxing.net

[orbtastic]

I read last week’s issue on the train yesterday. I saw the letter but In the issue the small hall shows only took up 3 pages. You could argue one page was photos so it’s only 2 pages of writing /results.

It looked fine to me. I noticed (cos I was on a train with limited space to turn pages) that a lot of the longer articles and previews were photos. So for example the preview for the cruiserweight fight was ten pages. I’d say about six pages of that was made up of photos. Again I’ve no issue with that. I think j prefer this incarnation of BN to the days of when it was yellow and the tris Dixon early years.

I would like to see yesterday heroes expanded and make more use of Miles’s writing and maybe introduce a look back on old fights from previous decades. I know the commonwealth games got a big preview so maybe that ate into the local shows bit.

They are not averse to letting boxers talk about their favourite boxers or fights so I can’t see anyone complaining reading up on past classics. I personally don’t care for the last page but it’s only one page and it’s at the end so I just skip it.

I also liked the pieces on talking vs action and the state of modern boxing and social media

[rpf7389]

Out of curiosity .. do boxrec keep an archive of their old “boxrec news” articles? I remember boxrec used to cover local British amateur shows as well .. be good to have a read up on some old articles

[mickey1975]

Big article on journeymen in this weeks BN. Interesting for the casual, I suppose, but nothing anyone inclined to buy BN wouldn't already know.
On the plus side there's a quite in depth preview and photos of a local amateur show for me....

[Deserter]

Big article on journeymen in this weeks BN. Interesting for the casual, I suppose, but nothing anyone inclined to buy BN wouldn't already know.
On the plus side there's a quite in depth preview and photos of a local amateur show for me....

Going off at a slight tangent but in the same issue there's 6 pages devoted to a 'debrief' of the Usyk vs Joshua fight by Thomas Hauser. I normally really rate Hauser, but I'm genuinely mystified as to how this got published - eagerly got stuck into it only to be left hugely disappointed as it was basically a chronological retread of everything any boxing fan would already know... absolutely nothing new or noteworthy in there at all and just struck me as a complete waste of space.

[dbflex]

In this week’s BN, a long-time reader has complained in the Letters section that small hall coverage takes up too much space in BN. The mag have invited other readers to comment and provide feedback on this.

I’m paraphrasing, but the reader’s argument is that reading about an endless string of 60-54 fights featuring prospects vs journeymen is boring and a waste of time. Instead, BN should only give coverage to fights and shows that deserve it.

BN has scaled back its UK coverage in recent years, but the mag remains an institution for the ‘every fight, every week’ coverage it provides.

If BN scale back their UK coverage further this would leave a void for domestic shows and small hall promoters. Since the demise of BoxRec News and BBN before that, there’s no other website to my knowledge that does justice to grassroots boxing.

But I think the reader’s points have merit. There’s too many poor, predictable fights littering domestic shows that don’t deserve column inches.

BS, the essence of the BN is to cover every British fight, it's a trade mag and it will be a sorry day if it is stopped

Danny flexen did this before and it was when me and a lot of others stopped buying it religiously.They tried to do it as a round up type thing and miss results.

What do you think of the mag overall now Jon?

[jonp]

BS, the essence of the BN is to cover every British fight, it's a trade mag and it will be a sorry day if it is stopped

Danny flexen did this before and it was when me and a lot of others stopped buying it religiously.They tried to do it as a round up type thing and miss results.

What do you think of the mag overall now Jon?

I think yr looking back thinking mission accomplished lol

[Jimmy2025]

I don't care about the vast majority of small hall boxing or boxers. I would like to know which fighters on those shows are the minority I.e. the sleepers that have gone under the radar (or not participated) in the amateurs but have real potential.

The BN contributors should be giving comprehensive scouting reports on the quality operators, not doing what BoxRec does better. If a journalist attends a show and there's nobody decent, don't write it up.

[dbflex]

Think it's Jimmy vs Peggy on that score? Or I've misunderstood.

[dbflex]

[/quote]

Hi everyone.

This is my latest list of potential writers for an as-yet unnamed but exciting (for me at least) project.

Please tell me whose work you like, whose you don't and why (perhaps privately for the latter), plus who is amazing that I've left off the list.


Carlos Acevedo
Mark Butcher
Nigel Collins
Tony Connolly
John Dennen
Terry Dooley
Tom Gerbasi
Oliver Goldstein
Tom Kershaw
Zach Levin
Chris McKenna
Don McRae
Kev Mitchell
Gabe Montoya
Kieran Mulvaney
Sean Nam
Joe O'Neill
Paul Wheeler
Elliot Worsell

NB: No Tris Dixon for now, as I think he is Boxing Scene Exclusive; no Miles Templeton (he's on my 'ideal' template) and no Steve Wellings, because it goes without saying I'd love to work with him.

[MightyWarrior]

Worsell and Goldstein both absolutely terrible. Best writers on the list clearly McRae and Gerbasi- Kev Mitchell an excellent writer, but mainly tennis, he doesn’t really follow boxing ( he scored Pac-Man over mayweather in his guardian coverage )

[dbflex]

Lol he may be less into it now, but is author of War, Baby - one of the very best boxing books of all time.