BoxRec

RLewis wrote:Boxing's best hope for a bright future is for more presence in the mainstream and that means newspapers and magazines, not just TV. If you want to see more, don't just put your complaints up here where nobody in power reads them, but write to Sky or the BBC or to national newspaper sports editors. It is generally figured that for every person who bothers to write, threre are another 20 that feel the same. The more emails and letters they get, the more they will take notice.

B*llocks!!!

I have been banging on about you journalists for years and years - some of the threads about my complaints and journalist and the lack of boxing coverage is well documented!!! - all you journalists bleat on about it how you are at the mercy of your editors!!!

You put the onus onto the boxing fans!! - again - I state b*llocks - if the journalist was genuinally passionate about the sport and not just "a yes man" then I will always argue a lot more articles would have gone to print!!!

In addition - time and time again and I have truly lost count the amount of times I have been at European title fights and even a couple of world title fights and where are the journo's - nowhere to be f*cking seen !!! - yet the journalist is quick to criticise those who genuinally try their best on the internet as not being "qualified" - at least they get their fingers out of their arses and prove 100% their passion for the sport.

Also - if certain journalists were not so far up the arse of a certain promoter then perhaps just perhaps they would have realised its other promoters who also put on quality shows!!! - I note those journalists are always present at Las Vegas shows grovelling around!!!

I will however agree entirely on your points concerning the BBC - nothing but a 100% contrated campaign at those snobbish lazy ****s at the BBC will suffice they need to know at the dissatifaction of the waste of taxpayers money on Formula 1 etc etc and that boxing does have a place on our terrestrial screens

Finally I will also disagree with your comment concerning that noone reads anything on these forums - b*llocks absolute total b*llocks - All of the boxing writers for both the tabloids and the broadsheets come on here to see what has been written - in addition I can assure a lot of the relevant TV companies read this forum too - I have had many an interesting conversation with some of them - and as for the promoters - I would argue every single one of the promotional companies comes onto this forum to see what has been written. The owners and editors of the various boxing websites will concur with that point because they have received many a complaint about what has been written.

I really hope BBC start doing boxing again get Buncey and maybe pick up a Hennessy contract or maybe Hayemaker that would be great for boxing because atm the only coverage you get is SKY and ESPN Classics and the occasional Eurosport its not enough

alexpaterson wrote:I really hope BBC start doing boxing again get Buncey and maybe pick up a Hennessy contract or maybe Hayemaker that would be great for boxing because atm the only coverage you get is SKY and ESPN Classics and the occasional Eurosport its not enough

The BBC simply do not have the money - in addition the latest news on a possbility of them having to give up some of the licence fee money will mean a tightening of the purse strings even more.

I honestly believe the best chance of coverage whether be on the BBC or ITV - is highlights packages - both channels can drive the price down with the promoter a lot more!!! - purely my opinion but I feel that is boxing's only chance on the terrestrial channels - highlights and thats it.

BBC coverage is shite.

They gave us delayed fights and made us listen to the likes of jim neilly commentating. more of the same will happen if they come back.

sky box office would put on a great event if haye was fighting vitali. Thats what i would rather see.

Feck, I cancelled Sky Sports the other week, so I hope the BBC pick this fight up, not like it will happen though. I would even listen to John Motson commentating if they pick this up. And Motson's on my list of five men I want to personally behead. Al-Qaeda style.

Even if they did delay the fights at least you could watch them if Motson was commontating i think id have it mute cant stand that man

alexpaterson wrote:Even if they did delay the fights at least you could watch them if Motson was commontating i think id have it mute cant stand that man

nah they would have Mike Costello - he is class and knows his stuff!!!

Alex, I was kidding about John Motson. I hate his football 'commentary', so if he took up boxing too, I might just feck my cat.

Spud wrote:

RLewis wrote:Boxing's best hope for a bright future is for more presence in the mainstream and that means newspapers and magazines, not just TV. If you want to see more, don't just put your complaints up here where nobody in power reads them, but write to Sky or the BBC or to national newspaper sports editors. It is generally figured that for every person who bothers to write, threre are another 20 that feel the same. The more emails and letters they get, the more they will take notice.

B*llocks!!!

I have been banging on about you journalists for years and years - some of the threads about my complaints and journalist and the lack of boxing coverage is well documented!!! - all you journalists bleat on about it how you are at the mercy of your editors!!!

You put the onus onto the boxing fans!! - again - I state b*llocks - if the journalist was genuinally passionate about the sport and not just "a yes man" then I will always argue a lot more articles would have gone to print!!!

In addition - time and time again and I have truly lost count the amount of times I have been at European title fights and even a couple of world title fights and where are the journo's - nowhere to be f*cking seen !!! - yet the journalist is quick to criticise those who genuinally try their best on the internet as not being "qualified" - at least they get their fingers out of their arses and prove 100% their passion for the sport.

Also - if certain journalists were not so far up the arse of a certain promoter then perhaps just perhaps they would have realised its other promoters who also put on quality shows!!! - I note those journalists are always present at Las Vegas shows grovelling around!!!

I will however agree entirely on your points concerning the BBC - nothing but a 100% contrated campaign at those snobbish lazy ****s at the BBC will suffice they need to know at the dissatifaction of the waste of taxpayers money on Formula 1 etc etc and that boxing does have a place on our terrestrial screens

Finally I will also disagree with your comment concerning that noone reads anything on these forums - b*llocks absolute total b*llocks - All of the boxing writers for both the tabloids and the broadsheets come on here to see what has been written - in addition I can assure a lot of the relevant TV companies read this forum too - I have had many an interesting conversation with some of them - and as for the promoters - I would argue every single one of the promotional companies comes onto this forum to see what has been written. The owners and editors of the various boxing websites will concur with that point because they have received many a complaint about what has been written.

Spud, Have you any idea how hard it is to get boxing into a national paper? Most of the boxing writers on the nationals would love to go to more boxing, but it's not that easy.

National papers are dominated by football and many of the writers who cover boxing have to cover football. Often people are pulled off boxing shows and told to cover football. I've known people having to drive 300 miles after doing a Saturday afternoon game to go to a Saturday night fight, and the paper has told them "go if you want". It's got nothing to do passion, it's a job, you have to do what your boss tells you.

And getting stuff in isn't easy. Take this week, I couldn't get a word in on Alexis Arguello. I wasn't waiting for the office to call me, I called them. I interviewed Jim Watt. No space.
I go to as many live fights as I can, but I've got to earn a living. My sports editor is not going to have me going to Scotland to write one paragraph, when I could be in the office doing a full subbing shift. Most of the fights I go to are on my days off. Being a journalist isn't all company cars and lavish meals on expenses.

Just about every day I try to get stuff in the paper, but that doesn't make me any different from any other writer at the paper. Every sport, apart from football, fights for space. And the more papers cut back, the tougher it gets.

Strangely, it is often easier to get things in the paper during foreign trips than fights in Britain. Once you have gone through the saga of getting a trip approved, they tend to make space to make it worth the investment, rather than just throwing things in the mix with all the other non-football sports. How do you think the swimming correspondent on my paper feels going to the world championship trials and getting 50 words a day in the paper?

And while journalists undoubtedly read these forums, do you really think it's them that they make the decisions about space? Do you really think the sports editors of the Mail or The Sun come on here? Of course not. I'm telling my office every day about stories I think are news worthy. You have no idea how many stories I have written/researched that never saw the light of day, or how many fights/press conferences I have attended. Why can't Buncey get much stuff in The Independent? Do you think it's because he's lazy? Don't be daft.

What the people in charge need convincing of is that their readers want to read about boxing, rather than football or any other sport. I can argue the case for boxing all day and compared to most other papers I am pretty successful. But while boxers like Hatton and Calzaghe are always going to interest them, stories on the Jon Thaxtons of this world are always going to be difficult because you are always fighting to explain who they are. The most gutted I have been this year is when Jamie Moore's European title win didn't get in.

Sports editors often believe the view that boxing is dying. That's not my view, obviously, but it's something I have been told thousands of times. They are the people you have to convince, not me.

Ron,

I have read your post above - you completely contradict yourself as you in your original post you write the best chance for boxing is to get stuff in the national press amongst other things - then you write above how terribly difficult and unrealistic things to get things past your editor.

You then proceed to state you have to do what your boss tells you - what about some of you doing what all the internet writers do - prove your passion for the sport - by driving to the venue at your own expense - pay for your own hotel and pen your own article and then show your boss what you have done off your own back in your own time.

Its all too easy for the journalists like your original post to tell us fans what we have to do to improve boxing yet - you as journalists are not prepared to do anything yourselves!!!

Time and time again I have seen Bunce at venues and being the only national press writer there writing articles for various "Sundays" or monday papers - or doing a favour for another journalist.

I expect whether Haye wins or loses, the fight will be shown a week later on the beeb(don't bother, it's an insult to true fans) I have always wanted one of the boxers who attend the Sports Personality Of The Year awards to rant about the lack of coverage the sports gets from the BBC when interviewed but sadly this has never happened. The fact is boxing only make the headlines when something bad happens like Tyson/Holyfield II but good guys like Jamie Moore and Rendall Munroe get zero attention.

Spud,

I am sure RLewis will answer you - but looking at this from an "outsider" his scenerio is different to Internet scribes. His main source of income is his journalist work (from what I can gather), most of the internet scribes have another source of income and do it as a hobby.... very commendable yes, enough respect for them. However, the pressure is not the same.

What Bunce does is fantastic for the sport, but Bunce has the advantage of being a Boxing personality.... as much as a journalist. Editors will want to see him writing about boxing, he is famous for it and as much a TV personality as he is journalist now. Well done to Bunce, but Bunce is also now in a position when he knows his work will get accepted on boxing - cause he is known as the voice of boxing.

However, national journo's work to very strict deadlines and really what is the point of them bombing up and down the country from a football game to a boxing event - neglecting their work on the football for a straight out "no" about the boxing.... and soon being replaced cause their work in the football has gone shoddy. It aint an easy job, and doing the boxing would almost be a hobby.

Without meaning to disrespect the internet, non paid scribes - who work darn hard and produce good work. A national journo isn't just working 9-5 as their main source of income and then can attend the boxing in the evening, their working all kinds of weird hours. Sometimes football has evening games, different sports, going from one football match to another etc. I know (I did work BRIEFLY in my local rag) it looks like they have the cushiest job in the world when at the event - but before and after that, it aint so cushy.

Even if they did... and they manage to cover a football match in the day and a boxing event in the evening - must get disheartning if the paper says "no" all the time to the boxing, and I aint convinced they will be allowed to publish it elsewhere (e.g. an internet site), I would imagine that would depend on their contract. If your free lance then yes they could I would imagine.

Spud wrote:Ron,

I have read your post above - you completely contradict yourself as you in your original post you write the best chance for boxing is to get stuff in the national press amongst other things - then you write above how terribly difficult and unrealistic things to get things past your editor.

You then proceed to state you have to do what your boss tells you - what about some of you doing what all the internet writers do - prove your passion for the sport - by driving to the venue at your own expense - pay for your own hotel and pen your own article and then show your boss what you have done off your own back in your own time.

Its all too easy for the journalists like your original post to tell us fans what we have to do to improve boxing yet - you as journalists are not prepared to do anything yourselves!!!

Time and time again I have seen Bunce at venues and being the only national press writer there writing articles for various "Sundays" or monday papers - or doing a favour for another journalist.

My passion for the sport? I started writing about boxing when I was 15, paying to get into shows and sending off reports to my local paper.

I'm not prepared to do anything myself? How insulting is that. You have no idea how hard I work. I bet I watch more live fights than Steve, or you. I can't remember the last time I saw Steve ringside, unless he was working for BBC Radio or Setanta. But it's not a competition, I get to as many shows as I can, whether I'm going to get anything in the paper or not. Don't believe me? Ask some of the journos on here from Boxing News or britishboxing.net.

pay for your own hotel and pen your own article and then show your boss what you have done off your own back in your own time

Do you have any idea how newspapers work? It's not a student magazine. And it's not a matter of "paying for a hotel". I've done plenty of 200-mile trips for a fights I have no chance of getting more than 50 words in the paper. But get real, it's a job, not a hobby.

I tell you what I did today in "my own time". I wrote the latest part of my top 50 light-heavyweights of all time for my blog. That took bloody hours. Then I went and did a 7-hour evening subbing shift in the office. Tomorrow I've got another evening shift, but I'll be chasing up to England amateurs after the weekend's four nations tournament in Dublin, and probably phoning round a bunch of promoters, even though, with The Ashes starting on Wednesday and Wimbledon and Lions round-ups and only an 11-page sports section, there is zero chance of it making the paper.

There are only two world title fights in Britain I have missed in the past 5 years. Clinton Woods v Rico Hoye, which had a start time of 11.45pm, when my paper's final edition that night had a deadline of 11.30pm. And Clinton Woods v Jason De Lisle, which clashed with a Hatton-Collazo fight where I was. All your views seem based in about 2003, not the present day.

What I find so sadly typical of your reply, is that I give a genuine first-hand account of working of newspapers and you come back with a load of deep-seated prejudices. "Journalists all just want to go to Vegas", "they're all in Warren's pocket". As I presume I know all the national newspaper writers better than you, I can guarantee you that is not true. I certainly make an effort to get on with and treat all promoters equally. At the end of the day, it's about the fighters not the promoters. And as often as not, a boxing writer will lose out on a Vegas trip so the chief sports writer can go.

I don't really understand how I am meant to have contradicted myself. My original point was that the people that matter at newspapers and broadcasters need to know that there is demand for boxing. I tell them that on a daily basis.

For what it's worth, I agree with Ron's points and I've enjoyed the articles he's written on boxing. It's not the journalist's duty to get boxing in the news, it will happen because of popularity. If the national newspapers received hundreds of emails from boxing fans I'm sure they'd take notice.

Ron,

Excuse my ignorance - which paper do you write for?

And by the way I concede one point to you - yep I have deep seated prejudices against journalists!!! - and yep I am being serious - I have first hand experience in dealing with them at many a show in addition - how utterly 2 faced (of course in my opinion) some of them can be!!!

Thanks for your reply by the way

"those snobbish lazy ****s at the BBC will suffice they need to know at the dissatifaction of the waste of taxpayers money on Formula 1"

See, comments like this make me laugh, I'm a huge motorsport fan although admittedly not much of an F1 fan(prefer two-wheeled action myself) because other motorsports are more competitive BUT what can't be denied is that F1 is one of the biggest sports on the planet in every sense, they sell out every event they are a huge marketing machine. The BBC show it and fork out a fortune for the rights to show it because that is what the people want to see.

I'd love to see boxing on terrestrial tv but it just makes me laugh when people criticise other sports which are shown over their preferred sport, I can't stand golf or tennis or cricket but I don't rant on about TV stations wasting money to show these sports just because I don't like them, it's just the same as when you get the tossers who refer to boxers as just a bunch of thugs punching each other - they don't like boxing so they slag it off.

Spud wrote:Ron,

Excuse my ignorance - which paper do you write for?

And by the way I concede one point to you - yep I have deep seated prejudices against journalists!!! - and yep I am being serious - I have first hand experience in dealing with them at many a show in addition - how utterly 2 faced (of course in my opinion) some of them can be!!!

Thanks for your reply by the way

He writes for The Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 549814.ece

Ron thanks for the insights from the inside. I can well imagine how tough it is to explain to the powers that be what is worth covering when our sport is so splitered and confusing to anyone who doesn't invest a lot of time on it.

Great piece on the Bunce and Setanta situation by the way Ron. It is brave (and correct) of you to criticise Sky Sports News and their editorial decision which are really advertising, when ultimately both Sky and the Times are owned by News Corp.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/boxing/2 ... tanta.html

Spud you anger is misdirected here mate

Spud wrote:Ron,

Excuse my ignorance - which paper do you write for?

And by the way I concede one point to you - yep I have deep seated prejudices against journalists!!! - and yep I am being serious - I have first hand experience in dealing with them at many a show in addition - how utterly 2 faced (of course in my opinion) some of them can be!!!

Thanks for your reply by the way

Who do I write for?! And to think I agreed to your facebook friend request!!

BIGMARK wrote:i have always had issues with jornos but in reality its not their fault as the blame lies with the people who decide what makes it into the paper and not. Of course in these times of newspapers selling less and being forced to tighten their budgets sports like boxing will suffer. I personal have always enjoyed reading Ron's stuff and he comes across as one of good guys and i for one would love to be in his position as a sports writter but the politics would drive me mad as it seems it does him. The only way to raise boxing profile and get it back on the back pages is if the BBC or ITV run it prime time. I am a tennis fan but the BBC's Wimbledon coverage does my head in as it's like tennis only exists for 2 weeks a year. If boxing was given just 20% of the budget of Wimbledon it would do great figures but that will never happen as it does fall in line with what the BBC want. Lets face facts if Murray isnt playing what sort of viewing figures are these matches getting (except for the final) because what i have seen of Wimbledon this year some of the courts have had large empty spaces (ladies semi for example) so how many are really watching on the telly? Give me the US open any day over the over hyped, outdated wimbledon. Grass is what cows eat and not for playing tennis as its a surface that just suits powerful players and gives us boring matches as todays final proved , Great tension but boring match.

prefer the US Open meself bigmark.

arthur ashe court is the best stage in tennis.

under the lights with 25,000 cheering spectators.

can't beat it.

i give wimbledon a bit more respect than your cows comment though.

hitman_hatton1 wrote:

BIGMARK wrote:i have always had issues with jornos but in reality its not their fault as the blame lies with the people who decide what makes it into the paper and not. Of course in these times of newspapers selling less and being forced to tighten their budgets sports like boxing will suffer. I personal have always enjoyed reading Ron's stuff and he comes across as one of good guys and i for one would love to be in his position as a sports writter but the politics would drive me mad as it seems it does him. The only way to raise boxing profile and get it back on the back pages is if the BBC or ITV run it prime time. I am a tennis fan but the BBC's Wimbledon coverage does my head in as it's like tennis only exists for 2 weeks a year. If boxing was given just 20% of the budget of Wimbledon it would do great figures but that will never happen as it does fall in line with what the BBC want. Lets face facts if Murray isnt playing what sort of viewing figures are these matches getting (except for the final) because what i have seen of Wimbledon this year some of the courts have had large empty spaces (ladies semi for example) so how many are really watching on the telly? Give me the US open any day over the over hyped, outdated wimbledon. Grass is what cows eat and not for playing tennis as its a surface that just suits powerful players and gives us boring matches as todays final proved , Great tension but boring match.

prefer the US Open meself bigmark.

arthur ashe court is the best stage in tennis.

under the lights with 25,000 cheering spectators.

can't beat it.

i give wimbledon a bit more respect than your cows comment though.

I agree, I love staying up for the US open every september. It's a great atmosphere and for me there is just something about staying up to watch something that makes it all the more special. I much prefer staying up til about 3 or 4 to watch a fight because it makes the fight more exciting in my book. Weird maybe, but thats just the way it is.

lirva wrote:I agree, I love staying up for the US open every september. It's a great atmosphere and for me there is just something about staying up to watch something that makes it all the more special. I much prefer staying up til about 3 or 4 to watch a fight because it makes the fight more exciting in my book. Weird maybe, but thats just the way it is.

remember staying up till about 5 in the morning watching agassi-blake a few yrs ago.

one of the best matches i've ever seen.

The day Alexis Arguello died, I waited to see Sky Sports News report about his death but they didn't even mention it. Teletext only reported the story the day after. Sky Sports News did cover the death of NFL star who died but was that a bigger story the death of a boxing legend?

RLewis wrote:

Spud wrote:Ron,

I have read your post above - you completely contradict yourself as you in your original post you write the best chance for boxing is to get stuff in the national press amongst other things - then you write above how terribly difficult and unrealistic things to get things past your editor.

You then proceed to state you have to do what your boss tells you - what about some of you doing what all the internet writers do - prove your passion for the sport - by driving to the venue at your own expense - pay for your own hotel and pen your own article and then show your boss what you have done off your own back in your own time.

Its all too easy for the journalists like your original post to tell us fans what we have to do to improve boxing yet - you as journalists are not prepared to do anything yourselves!!!

Time and time again I have seen Bunce at venues and being the only national press writer there writing articles for various "Sundays" or monday papers - or doing a favour for another journalist.

My passion for the sport? I started writing about boxing when I was 15, paying to get into shows and sending off reports to my local paper.

I'm not prepared to do anything myself? How insulting is that. You have no idea how hard I work. I bet I watch more live fights than Steve, or you. I can't remember the last time I saw Steve ringside, unless he was working for BBC Radio or Setanta. But it's not a competition, I get to as many shows as I can, whether I'm going to get anything in the paper or not. Don't believe me? Ask some of the journos on here from Boxing News or spam.

pay for your own hotel and pen your own article and then show your boss what you have done off your own back in your own time

Do you have any idea how newspapers work? It's not a student magazine. And it's not a matter of "paying for a hotel". I've done plenty of 200-mile trips for a fights I have no chance of getting more than 50 words in the paper. But get real, it's a job, not a hobby.

I tell you what I did today in "my own time". I wrote the latest part of my top 50 light-heavyweights of all time for my blog. That took bloody hours. Then I went and did a 7-hour evening subbing shift in the office. Tomorrow I've got another evening shift, but I'll be chasing up to England amateurs after the weekend's four nations tournament in Dublin, and probably phoning round a bunch of promoters, even though, with The Ashes starting on Wednesday and Wimbledon and Lions round-ups and only an 11-page sports section, there is zero chance of it making the paper.

There are only two world title fights in Britain I have missed in the past 5 years. Clinton Woods v Rico Hoye, which had a start time of 11.45pm, when my paper's final edition that night had a deadline of 11.30pm. And Clinton Woods v Jason De Lisle, which clashed with a Hatton-Collazo fight where I was. All your views seem based in about 2003, not the present day.

What I find so sadly typical of your reply, is that I give a genuine first-hand account of working of newspapers and you come back with a load of deep-seated prejudices. "Journalists all just want to go to Vegas", "they're all in Warren's pocket". As I presume I know all the national newspaper writers better than you, I can guarantee you that is not true. I certainly make an effort to get on with and treat all promoters equally. At the end of the day, it's about the fighters not the promoters. And as often as not, a boxing writer will lose out on a Vegas trip so the chief sports writer can go.

I don't really understand how I am meant to have contradicted myself. My original point was that the people that matter at newspapers and broadcasters need to know that there is demand for boxing. I tell them that on a daily basis.

You didn't contradict yourself Ron. You gave an honest and erudite insight into the realities of a boxing/minority sport writer.

But Spud believes his knowledge of the realities of life as a boxing journo is greater than that of an actual boxing journo because he's handed out some press passes at a dozen events.

In the same way Ron, you wouldn't understand what its like to be in the army from watching M.A.S.H. but the difference is, you don't claim to.

Spud you're being a prat again.

Newspapers respond to demand. Football sells, boxing has marginalised itself Spud - jumping up and down and shouting like a five year old in Asda wont help, it will get you noticed, noticed for your poor behaviour, bad manners and lack of discipline - which is a good summary of what's wrong with boxing if your either a TV company or a Newspaper.

Until boxing makes sense of its own confusing abyss of belts, bodies and weights it will never be a mainstream sport again. Crickey we've had 4 of the most visible, recognisable faces in British Boxing history in Audley, Hatton, Calzaghe and Khan - tell me how many of your mates would tell you what weight the latter three fought at?

Tell me if they'd know whether they we're world champions with what body and could they tell you two of their opponents?

I'll tell you they'd struggle - so why the fkk would a national trouble itself with boxers beyond these headline grabbers?

Do you know who the European Table Tennis Champion is? Do you know who the World Indoor Bowls Champion is? Do you know who won the Irish Snooker Open?

Why should you?

Look at tennis, we all get in a flap for Wimbledon, tell me who's the best mixed doubles pair, who won the Australian Womens Doubles?

Boxing is your sport Spud, you cannot make the world embrace it just by shouting loud.

You have to look at WHY its not in the Newspapers, not WHY IT SHOULD BE?

And the reason is, its an organisational mess.

And we all contributed to that mire when we recognised people who never won a world title fight or beaten a world champion as a world champion themselves.

Boxing sold its soul to the sanctioning bodies and to the satellite companies, its just taken a generation for the effect to hit home.

And with so many baubles around, there are so many easy-to-navigate routes to a belt where you build up regionalised support for your star attraction, Khan, Calzaghe, Hatton. Most fight cards featuring the fighters who actually interest the national media are processions, a 10 fight list of 10-0 fighters versus 4-34 fighters from Lithuania.

Boring. Fkking boring.

Look at the extra coverage the Prizefighter concept has earned; WHY?

Because its simple to understand and they're all even scraps.