BoxRec

Grant wrote: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.

Aldo Pravisani wrote: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.

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

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

Brute wrote: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.

Collins2000 wrote:

Brute wrote: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)