Question For Long-Time Aussie Fans...

[shoutout]

when checking out the stats for boxing in australia, i notice a big decline in number of fight cards held today, compared to the period during 1950s to early 1980s!! now there are usually about 70-90 fight cards nationally compared to well over 100 per year in late 1970s and early 80s, and sometimes more than 200 or 300 per year in 1950s-70s!!

any idea why the decrease? did it have to do with TV coverage and how does TV coverage of aussie bouts today compared to what it was back then? did you guys have a lot of terrestrial TV broadcast of fights before the days of cable TV like we did here in usa?

thanks for you opinions/input!!

Topic edited. No need to shout (All Caps), it's no more important than other topics

[Sweet P]

Back in the 70's there was boxing on normal TV nearly every week, Now it is only on pay TV and we get to see an Aussie card maybe 12-15 times a year, We get Friday night fights on ESPN and Tuesday night fights but its shown on Tuesday and there both aboput 3 weeks behind so we know the winner well before its on. We get bigtime Boxing from England every couple of weeks and thats about it.

[bollox]

The 70's was a golden era in Aus boxing. There were many more active fighters out there and I vaguely remember the live fights from the channel 7 studios from the very early 70's The channel 7 honcho at the time Ron Casey (not the Sydney Ron Casey) was a huge boxing man and as a result he gave it some serious airtime

The decline in the early 80's? There are probably a few factors involved. Proliferation of titles, big money coming into other sports, and the alleged onset of sophistication of our society, where boxing started becoming seen as not PC :x

[shoutout]

sounds alot like the situation in the usa!! or britain or italy or any one of the western nations where an increasing feast of sports options has diluted the boxing landscape!!

[Grant]

In the olden days :)
Like the 70s A Commonwealth Title fight was big newsDidn't fammo fight for the Commonwealth title? against ummmmm John O'brien. anyway state tiles were also big but I guess now there is some bu lls hit title out there with no contenders, no ratings and no challengers. Sigh.

[AntonS]

Boxing in OZ started declining from 1975 when there were 166 promotions.
Best ever since 1961 was in 1970 with 378 shows. Worst was 1988 with 54.

These were the good years -
1969 - 248
1970 - 378
1971 - 359
1972 - 277
1973 - 241
1974 - 222

Prior to 1969 best was in 1962 with 185 shows , worst 1966 with 89

Since 1986 it’s always been below 100, except 1993 when there were 100.

Cheers

[Aldo Pravisani]

When as a teenager I started following and practicing active boxing in the early sixties, oltimers already were trying to convince me that the sport was dead and buried in Australia.

Be as it may, Stadium Limited opened the doors of Melbourne Festival Hall regularly every Friday night, run or shine, with radio station 3DB (now defunct) broadcasting the main bout live and Sydney had regular fights every Monday night with once again the fights being radio broadcast.

The main referees in Melbourne were Terry Reilly and Al Basten and Sydney's were Vic Patrick.

While indeed some of the main fighters were not great pugilists, we still had some boxers who were held in great esteem, perhaps none more so than the much loved George Bracken, Australian Lightweight Champion.

I met him again a couple of years ago, and indeed as a fit seventy year old man, he is still held in the same high respect as he was when he held the Aussie Title.

At the time Australia had only had one fully recognised world champion in the former bantam king Jimmy Carruthers, who was shortly to embark in an ill advised come back, and the professional careers of Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon were still in the future.

Australia's wide, there was only one local boxing magazine, that fine little publication edited by Ray Mitchell, called Australian Ring.

The American Ring and Boxing Illustrated magazines could be purchased quite easily in most newsagencies for the princely sum of 2 shillings and 6 pence (2/6), the equivalent of 25 Australian cents.

The National Champs when I first started following the sport were:

H- Vacant
Lh-Clive Stewart
M-Peter Read
W- George Barnes
L-George Bracken
F-Wally Taylor
B-Johnny Jarret
F-Alan Gibbards

There were no phoney titles and weights. One and only one per division.

Similarly, in the world rankings, the champions were:

Floyd Patterson
Archie Moore
Paul Pender
Emile Griffith
Joe Brown
Davey Moore
Eder Jofre
Pone Kingpetch

Occasionally I look at the fights nowadays, and obviously I too have become an old timer: I do not care for what I see, I do not care for the 3000 current world champions. All those shitty weight divisions and ruling bodies. And I think: Yuk! Boxing is dead. :-)

Just joking Joyce.

Admittedly, the sport is not feeling too well, but it will survive. It has done it before and the doomsayers have been forecasting its demise forever.

[Brute]

Aldo, didn't you fight Jimmy Carruthers in his first comeback fight? I remember listening to it on the radio.

[Brute]

I trained at Bernie Hall's gym in the early '70s. There were always plenty of blokes there. Fights used to be held at most of the Leagues Clubs in New South Wales, as well as Mounties and some RSL clubs, with major events at Stadiums Limited arenas and open air arenas. Channel 7 showed fights from Festival Hall, Melbourne on Monday nights and Channel 9 showed fights from South Sydney Leagues Club on Thursday nights. Channel 0 in Melbourne (which became Channel 10 after SBS started) had fights on as well, but I do not remember when they were on. I don't think they were shown outside Victoria. That was three channels showing fights when there were only five channels! The ABC and SBS were the only holdouts.

[Brute]

In the olden days :)
Like the 70s A Commonwealth Title fight was big newsDidn't fammo fight for the Commonwealth title? against ummmmm John O'brien. anyway state tiles were also big but I guess now there is some bu lls hit title out there with no contenders, no ratings and no challengers. Sigh.

Johnny Famechon beat John O'Brien of Scotland for the Empire Featherweight title at Festival Hall, Melbourne in 1967. O'Brien later migrated to Australia and campaigned successfully as a lightweight, having epic battles with Jeff White and Manny Santos. Famechon beat Bobby Valdez at Sydney Stadium in 1968 for partial recognition as World Featherweight Champion, before takinf Jose Legra's WBC title in 1969. He defended this title against Fighting Harada at Sydney Stadium and again in Tokyo before losing it to Vicente Saldivar in Rome in 1970. He then retired.

[Cap]

I don't think boxing was ever main stream. It was that dirty little pleasure when men were real men, not "metrosexuals", the way they're portrayed now in popular media. The sport will persist as long as there are impoverished guys around willing to trade pain for cash. Thank gawd for eastern Europe. As for Australian boxing, it's in the same shape as boxing in Canada. Not dead or on life support yet, but in a weakened condition.

Cap

[AntonS]

Boxing had diminished in OZ in popularity simply because of exposure to & ACCEPTANCE of other sports.
In the ol’ days Cricket, Aussie rules footy & Boxing was it…...Anything else was considered WOG’s sport, which majority of Aussies just didn’t want to know.

WOGS = Italians, Greeks & Slavs

Always remember OZ is a big country (island) with only 21,144,881 earthlings, which is not enough to accommodate/support all sports.

[bollox]

When as a teenager I started following and practicing active boxing in the early sixties, oltimers already were trying to convince me that the sport was dead and buried in Australia.

Be as it may, Stadium Limited opened the doors of Melbourne Festival Hall regularly every Friday night, run or shine, with radio station 3DB (now defunct) broadcasting the main bout live and Sydney had regular fights every Monday night with once again the fights being radio broadcast.

The main referees in Melbourne were Terry Reilly and Al Basten and Sydney's were Vic Patrick.

While indeed some of the main fighters were not great pugilists, we still had some boxers who were held in great esteem, perhaps none more so than the much loved George Bracken, Australian Lightweight Champion.

I met him again a couple of years a
go, and indeed as a fit seventy year old man, he is still held in the same high respect as he was when he held the Aussie Title.

At the time Australia had only had one fully recognised world champion in the former bantam king Jimmy Carruthers, who was shortly to embark in an ill advised come back, and the professional careers of Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon were still in the future.

Australia's wide, there was only one local boxing magazine, that fine little publication edited by Ray Mitchell, called Australian Ring.

The American Ring and Boxing Illustrated magazines could be purchased quite easily in most newsagencies for the princely sum of 2 shillings and 6 pence (2/6), the equivalent of 25 Australian cents.

The National Champs when I first started following the sport were:

H- Vacant
Lh-Clive Stewart
M-Peter Read
W- George Barnes
L-George Bracken
F-Wally Taylor
B-Johnny Jarret
F-Alan Gibbards

There were no phoney titles and weights. One and only one per division.

Similarly, in the world rankings, the champions were:

Floyd Patterson
Archie Moore
Paul Pender
Emile Griffith
Joe Brown
Davey Moore
Eder Jofre
Pone Kingpetch

Occasionally I look at the fights nowadays, and obviously I too have become an old timer: I do not care for what I see, I do not care for the 3000 current world champions. All those shitty weight divisions and ruling bodies. And I think: Yuk! Boxing is dead. :-)

Just joking Joyce.

Admittedly, the sport is not feeling too well, but it will survive. It has done it before and the doomsayers have been forecasting its demise forever.

Hey, I think I remember your name from all the reading I used to do on Oz boxing some years ago. wow

[Brute]

Aldo Pravasani was an Italian boxer active between 1950 and 1970. He spent several years in Australia, winning the Australian Lightweight title. I believe he later returned to Italy.

I doubt that this poster is the actual Aldo, unless he has a computer in his crypt. Aldo died in 2004.

[iamme]

hi do you have any oher info on my grand pa alan gibbards at all? if so any info would be great.

[Marlin]

hi do you have any oher info on my grand pa alan gibbards at all? if so any info would be great.

his record is on BoxRec:

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

[patron]

hi do you have any oher info on my grand pa alan gibbards at all? if so any info would be great.

your grand pa fought the first fight telivised live from a tv studio,he fought jackie bruce over 15 rounds to retain his aussie flyweight title at tcn nine studio,300 guests watched the fight refereed by jim curruthers april 14 1961 sydney,i should have said it was the first championship fight worldwide, nat fleischers, the ring, record and boxing encyclopedia-1963. hope this little bit of imformation helps, all the best

[Collins2000]

Aldo Pravasani was an Italian boxer active between 1950 and 1970. He spent several years in Australia, winning the Australian Lightweight title. I believe he later returned to Italy.

I doubt that this poster is the actual Aldo, unless he has a computer in his crypt. Aldo died in 2004.

Aldo has been pulling our legs, Brute?

Funny thing though, he seems to be talking sense. Come back, Aldo. Be yourself and not steal some old dead fellows name. I like your posts compared to much of the shite in here.

(No offence to other posters of shite)

[Brute]

Aldo Pravasani was an Italian boxer active between 1950 and 1970. He spent several years in Australia, winning the Australian Lightweight title. I believe he later returned to Italy.

I doubt that this poster is the actual Aldo, unless he has a computer in his crypt. Aldo died in 2004.

Aldo has been pulling our legs, Brute?

Funny thing though, he seems to be talking sense. Come back, Aldo. Be yourself and not steal some old dead fellows name. I like your posts compared to much of the shite in here.

(No offence to other posters of shite)

In case you have not noticed, this thread is nearly three years old. Somebody pulled it out of the cellar.