British & Irish boxing 52 fight history knowledge challenge

[davie]

1982 Ring magazine upset of the year
Kirkland Laing vs Roberto Duran

https://youtu.be/pr76moW7Ojg

[davie]

Jack Doyle vs. Jack Peterson, 1933, White City Stadium
Pre-war, in July 1933, just over 70,000 spectators watched Irishman Jack 'Gorgeous Gael' Doyle fight the Welshman Jack Petersen at White City, the 1908 Olympic Stadium, for the British heavyweight title.

Doyle – the Tyson Fury of his day – 19 years-old, and 6ft 5ins tall, had, by some accounts, done most of his warming up in a Public House not far from the bout.

Within the opening seconds he knew he was in trouble and decided to take the easy way out. He was disqualified for repeatedly punching low.

Until this Wembley Stadium rematch between Carl Froch and George Groves, it remains the biggest crowd attendance at any fight in this country.

https://youtu.be/sxge3eFKsrQ

[davie]

Henry Cooper v Cassius Clay - Wembley Stadium in 1963 and Highbury Stadium in 1966
Cassius Clay – not yet Muhammad Ali - came to London and not yet a widely-known star, was knocked over by Henry Cooper’s left hook at the end of the fourth round at Wembley Stadium in front of 35,000 spectators in 1963.

Ali had longer to recover between rounds after a split in his glove was opened up by trainer Angelo Dundee. In the next round, Ali stopped a bloody-faced Cooper on cuts. It is seen as one of the best yet most controversial bouts in history.

With seconds remaining in the fourth round, Cooper caught Clay with one of his infamous hammer left-hook blows and left Clay bouncing down the ropes and onto his backside. A year later, Clay quipped that Cooper's punch "had hit him so hard that his ancestors in Africa felt it".

https://youtu.be/8hwn2mqNI1I

[davie]

Muhammad Ali vs Henry Cooper, 1966, Highbury
Three years later, Cooper took on Clay - now Muhammad Ali - in front of 46,000 fans at Arsenal Football Club’s Highbury Stadium. Ali had become a world champion by now, and England had its first world heavyweight title challenger for almost six decades. Ali, banned from fighting in the USA and stripped of his world title for refusing to fight in Vietnam, was brought to London by promoter Bob Arum. This time, Ali showed his speed and reflexes. Ali cut Cooper with a right hand in the sixth round, opening a cut above his left eye. The fight was stopped; Ali had not only beaten Cooper twice in two different football stadiums, but also under the guise of two different names.

https://youtu.be/sXo0FqZaRUE

[davie]

Joe Bugner v Frank Bruno - White Hart Lane, 1987
Australian Joe Bugner, ever the heel, had fought against Henry Cooper, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and was coming to the end of the his powers. He was jeered by a stentorian White Hart Lane crowd against home-favourite and household name Frank Bruno.

Bugner, the British and European heavyweight champion, was up against Bruno, who, a year earlier had lost his first title at a world title against Tim Witherspoon, also at Wembley Stadium. Bugner had mocked Bruno in the build-up, calling his a ‘C-grade’ fighter, but Bruno stopped his foe in the eighth round.

https://youtu.be/9uDnJT1RmHU

[Horse]

Horse - out of interest, what is your cut-off point? (i.e. When do you consider to be history?). There is a wide range of posters here with (presumably) a wide range of historical knowledge. My own in-depth knowledge probably comes from the mid-90s onwards which presumably you don't class as history per se, but what about everyone else?...Would be good to know so we can start researching properly.

I don't want any hard and fast rules about what qualifies, but I've seen the vast majority of significant domestic fights from the last decade, so I'd rather not have too many, or any, of them. Anything before that is fine by me though.

Calzaghe vs Reid from 1999 is actually my first nomination for this thread. It might not really be a classic and a lot of us have already seen it, but less of us will have scored it and the discussion could be interesting.

I want the fights selected to be spread out fairly evenly over the decades and I don't want more recent history to be neglected.

[Horse]

Some good recommendations so far horse

I say, just wait until you're up to 52, put them into chronological order, and away we go....

I'd rather not have all of the fights for the year lined up straight away. I'd rather we choose them as we go.

Having plenty of recommendations on here for people to consider is good though.

[Horse]

Should we attempt to pick our first fight then?

Maybe we should all nominate one fight each and then choose one of those.

[davie]

There's a lot of older fighters that don't have a lot of extensive footage or whole fights to view.
Could we perhaps look at documentaries or compilations of fights from certain fighters. We could maybe analyse some stats, articles etc of the fighters to gain a fuller picture, where the youtube videos let us down?
I've thrown some suggestions in below

Benny Lynch documentary
:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... VPqcSfjwB2

Ted kid Lewis
https://youtu.be/KvaruylPBUM

Jackie Patterson:
https://youtu.be/awYS-L2ARgI
https://youtu.be/r9Tcnd2G0fc
https://youtu.be/58EveVa1ieQ
https://youtu.be/k6onDOzgY1Y


Freddie Welsh
https://youtu.be/1d_AMoQN1Bs

Welsh greats like Freddie welsh, Jimmy Wilde & Farr
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... MNsDKN8yBT

Len Harvey & Jock Mcavoy
https://youtu.be/kuAuQ_aFIMI
https://youtu.be/sHBF0zsST7Q
https://youtu.be/NJGCTySChDE

[davie]

Randy Turpin vs SRR 1&2
https://youtu.be/3c9o_lJag10
https://youtu.be/5D8JGJlz1kU

[davie]

Horse - out of interest, what is your cut-off point? (i.e. When do you consider to be history?). There is a wide range of posters here with (presumably) a wide range of historical knowledge. My own in-depth knowledge probably comes from the mid-90s onwards which presumably you don't class as history per se, but what about everyone else?...Would be good to know so we can start researching properly.

I don't want any hard and fast rules about what qualifies, but I've seen the vast majority of significant domestic fights from the last decade, so I'd rather not have too many, or any, of them. Anything before that is fine by me though.

Calzaghe vs Reid from 1999 is actually my first nomination for this thread. It might not really be a classic and a lot of us have already seen it, but less of us will have scored it and the discussion could be interesting.

I want the fights selected to be spread out fairly evenly over the decades and I don't want more recent history to be neglected.

I've never seen Calzaghe vs Reid before.
That'd do for starters for Davie.

[reggaereggae]

Jim McDonnell - Azumah Nelson. Jim performed admirably and came close
Billy Hardy - Orlando Canizales 1. Billy came very close to a major upset. I thought he scraped the win. Got destroyed in the rematch.
Mark Kaylor - Errol Christie. A big fight for many reasons. I trained with Errol for a bit after he'd retired. He's very likeable.

[Horse]

There's a lot of older fighters that don't have a lot of extensive footage or whole fights to view.
Could we perhaps look at documentaries or compilations of fights from certain fighters. We could maybe analyse some stats, articles etc of the fighters to gain a fuller picture, where the youtube videos let us down?
I've thrown some suggestions in below

Maybe we can do that down the road, but to begin with I think we should just stick with the fights.

[Horse]

I've never seen Calzaghe vs Reid before.
That'd do for starters for Davie.

[davie]

Are you going to start seperate thread for each week or keep it all together in this one?

[Horse]

Are you going to start seperate thread for each week or keep it all together in this one?

I thought I'd keep it in here for now, but what do you think?

Starting a new thread for each fight might get more new people into it.

I'd be worried that an overzealous mod might move those threads into the 'Boxers of the past' section though.

[davie]

Are you going to start seperate thread for each week or keep it all together in this one?

I thought I'd keep it in here for now, but what do you think?

Starting a new thread for each fight might get more new people into it.

I'd be worried that an overzealous mod might move those threads into the 'Boxers of the past' section though.

Not sure, it's kind of why I asked.
1 big superthread would be good and keep it all in one place but as you said new threads will have people getting involved and everything might get a bit lost in one thread.
Maybe keep this running for suggestions and a log of what we've watched while starting weekly fight threads?

[Horse]

Not sure, it's kind of why I asked.
1 big superthread would be good and keep it all in one place but as you said new threads will have people getting involved and everything might get a bit lost in one thread.
Maybe keep this running for suggestions and a log of what we've watched while starting weekly fight threads?

Yeah, maybe.

[handsofstone]

Are we scoring these fights people??

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

I think what we could do (and nobody go apeshite, it is just a suggestion), is limit it to
fights against British opposition, how many times do we get to talk about historic domestic
fights? Hardly ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsHs1dKtJ2o

Najib Daho vs Pat Cowdell 1 - which was a contreversial ending but it got Daho a world ranking and a world and an EBU title shot on the back of it, all of which pissed off Cowdell greatly and made it known to everyone who would listen, what would happen to Daho if he dared stepped back in the ring with him, which leads us onto the rematch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaI2g9rEhkg

[Horse]

Are we scoring these fights people??

I will be.

[Boxerbeetle]

Are we scoring these fights people??

I will be.

Definitely. My Excel hasn't been used at home for a while, will be good to get a huge spreadsheet on the go for this.

[davie]

I think what we could do (and nobody go apeshite, it is just a suggestion), is limit it to
fights against British opposition, how many times do we get to talk about historic domestic
fights? Hardly ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsHs1dKtJ2o

Najib Daho vs Pat Cowdell 1 - which was a contreversial ending but it got Daho a world ranking and a world and an EBU title shot on the back of it, all of which pissed off Cowdell greatly and made it known to everyone who would listen, what would happen to Daho if he dared stepped back in the ring with him, which leads us onto the rematch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaI2g9rEhkg

Apeshit? Do you know how long I spent searching for all those fights this morning.
I'll leave it to the 'community' but I'd be happy to see a sprinkling of foreign talent as long as it involves a British fighter, in fact this is Horses baby, he can make the call.
But by all means suggest all domestic fights. I was planning on looking for some famous british title fights later anyway.

[Horse]

I think what we could do (and nobody go apeshite, it is just a suggestion), is limit it to
fights against British opposition, how many times do we get to talk about historic domestic
fights? Hardly ever.

I think that we should have plenty of all British fights, but I think it would be better if we didn't put too many limitations on what can be picked.

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

I think what we could do (and nobody go apeshite, it is just a suggestion), is limit it to
fights against British opposition, how many times do we get to talk about historic domestic
fights? Hardly ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsHs1dKtJ2o

Najib Daho vs Pat Cowdell 1 - which was a contreversial ending but it got Daho a world ranking and a world and an EBU title shot on the back of it, all of which pissed off Cowdell greatly and made it known to everyone who would listen, what would happen to Daho if he dared stepped back in the ring with him, which leads us onto the rematch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaI2g9rEhkg

Apeshit? Do you know how long I spent searching for all those fights this morning.
I'll leave it to the 'community' but I'd be happy to see a sprinkling of foreign talent as long as it involves a British fighter, in fact this is Horses baby, he can make the call.
But by all means suggest all domestic fights. I was planning on looking for some famous british title fights later anyway.

Nice one Davie, looking forward to seeing your picks!