Any boxing fans on here

DrCornelius

cheers Snap , I had a lot of time for bomber , think the Jackson ko took a lot out of him but then again that punch would have floored anyone especially with herol coming forward and so open.

Never liked Naz , just something about him grated me although obviously he could box.

Im lucky enough to have met a few of the big fighters through boxing -

Nigel Benn - nice bloke , very normal and surprisingly small !

Eubank - seriously lovely guy with time for everyone, mad as a box of frogs though

Sugat Ray Leonard - very very impressive guy, very bright and professional . Could probably have succeeded in anything he turned his hand to.

would love to have met the hit man as he was my hero , I've got one of his signed gloves but tbf he isn't the man he was now so probably wouldn't feel the same meeting him now.

If you PM your address I'll send you Errols book which is a really good read 

EricTheWeary

I thought I'd revive this rather than comment on the Discussion about tonight's fight.

I'd say I hadn't thought about it much before but sitting through this there is so much about it I find unpleasant . It's like  a racist's wet dream and watching people beat each other up in general feels like a bad thing.
I'm really quite surprised how much I dislike this. 

Iamnobody

Please tell me how boxing is like racist's wet dream?

I'm genuinely curious about how you reached that conclusion.

I accept that boxing isn't everyone's idea of entertainment though.

EricTheWeary

Watching two large black guys (Brook and Spence) dressed like prize cockerels and beating each other up as entertainment seems like something out of an episode of Roots. Just my reaction, although five minutes of googling this morning suggests racially stereotyping boxers and seeing matches as battles along race lines is part of the sport. As if people being paid to hit each other wasn't unpleasant enough to start with.

DrCornelius

With all due respect Eric that is utter shit 

DrCornelius

Jack Johnson was blocked from fighting for the title because of his colour. It was 100 years ago.

Now all boxers are celebrated and at the top are paid incredibly well for it . Black , white , asian etc and I'd argue that the emergence of Naz and how he was respected by Brits shows how little racism exists in boxing nowadays.

Ali was a racists nightmare but he is rightly held up among boxing fans as probably not only the greatest boxer of all time but one of the greatest people that ever lived.

Anthony Joshua is virtually a national institution already FFS !

EricTheWeary

DrCornelius said:

With all due respect Eric that is utter shit 

I'm not sure that actually shows due respect but I'm only putting forward my experience,it's not intended to be a comprehensive argument or win anyone over to my point of view. Just how I saw it. 
 

Iamnobody

EricTheWeary said:

DrCornelius said:

With all due respect Eric that is utter shit 

I'm not sure that actually shows due respect but I'm only putting forward my experience,it's not intended to be a comprehensive argument or win anyone over to my point of view. Just how I saw it. 
 

For a start Kell Brook is half-caste/mixed race whatever the latest PC word is. His Mum is white and his Biological dad is/was black. His father (the man who brought him up as is own is white). 

There have been great fighters of all races but black people excel at certain sports. Is athletics racist? Let's whip the black people and see how fast they can run? Come on @erictheweary you are one of the sensible ones on here surely you don't seriously believe it.

Boxing and other sports have probably done a lot to improve race relations and have produced high profile role models from all ethnic backgrounds.

celentium

Some of you guys are like the sports version of vegans.

celentium

Also it's ironic that the sport is a racists wet dream because it happens that the two top talents last night weren't white.

EricTheWeary

Well I'm rarely called sensible so I might just be won over by that @Iamnobody ( there's a lesson in that for @DrCornelius  ...).

I have given boxing very, very little thought over the years. Basically childhood memories of my father watching it on the telly. We also knew a boxing referee a little bit, can't recall his name now but he was a top level bloke and had photos of himself refereeing one of the big Ali matches. I can't recall my father ever going to a match, certainly I've never done.

When the subject was raised in this Discussion it occurred to me how polarising a subject it could be although I was almost entirely without opinion. Filed that at the back of my brain somewhere.
Last night I noticed a Discussion about the Brook Spence match and, rather unexpectedly, found myself watching it ( the fight, they weren't putting TheFB up on a big screen) on a big screen in a pub. My first comment on here was tapped out on my knee at about 11pm so I'm surprised it's at all readable - certainly wasn't well explained. Writing my comments in the new Discussion seemed like an attempt to piss on someone's chips so I found this ( surprisingly quickly, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this now). 

And I wrote it because all of a sudden I had an opinion and quite a strong one. I was really quite moved by how unpleasant I found it. Most sport carries risk of injury but boxing seems ( and as I don't understand the rules it is just how it appears) to be just about inflicting injury. With the baying crowds ( the people in the pub were so worked up, I'm not even sure about the audience at the event), theme tunes, glitzy costumes, random pretty women in the ring it seemed very far removed from anything sport like. 
As a single event it seemed about the reduction of two black guys to animalistic stereotypes pitted against each other for our entertainment. The imagery seemed to be more cock fights and lawn jockeys than a sport [ I'm trying to avoid more, hmm, inflammatory language here].
I realise that match didn't represent all boxing and all boxers. I realise that my reaction puts me in a minority and maybe in a minority of one. Maybe it's completely stupid but nonetheless that's how it struck me. A Google of racism in boxing didn't bring up anything to support my argument although quite a bit about how boxers can be racially stereotyped and fights supported along racial lines. Although I know​ I could have found parallel results for football, probably three day eventing for all I know.

I also realised I'd forgotten the first rule of The FB - post a throw away comment and it will receive more comments than any​ thought out paragraph.

DrCornelius

Fair enough @EricTheWeary ;and perhaps in hindsight my initial response was unnecessarily blunt. From reading your post I felt that you were suggesting that if you enjoyed watching boxing you were basically rascist as you must enjoy the idea of two black guys fighting for entertainment. If you are not suggesting that then I apologise ?

Brad

@EricTheWeary I'll have to dig out the quote, but I think Mohammed Ali said something along very similar lines to your initial reaction...

For what it's worth I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with boxing. I remember going to watch Amir Khan against Prescott and I could almost taste the testosterone in the air. A definite electric, hyper-aggressive atmosphere, blokes roaming round like wild animals, girls dolled up trying to catch a fighter or some other tough guy. The action itself hearing the thud, slap and raw power of the gloves, seeing the sweat and blood spray in the air. It really was a surreal experience. 

But boxing has definitely saved many young men. Bernard Hopkins turned his  life around learning to box while in prison. The vast majority of boxers come from poverty, and extreme poverty at that. Even those that don't, it channels their aggression and has been known to keep people away from a life of crime. Admittedly I don't have any stats to back up this assertion, but I'd guess in the States alone that a disproportionate amount of Afro American and Hispanic people live and grow up in these conditions and I'm sure many find boxing as a way out.  

I think the vast majority of boxing fans don't even see colour these days, I think they see style and personality (or lack of). But I agree, race was definitely an issue in boxing in the past. probably even until relatively recently, but music had it's own issues with race too. But sport and music are two of the leading lights in breaking down these problems. 

EricTheWeary

DrCornelius said:

Fair enough @EricTheWeary ;and perhaps in hindsight my initial response was unnecessarily blunt. From reading your post I felt that you were suggesting that if you enjoyed watching boxing you were basically rascist as you must enjoy the idea of two black guys fighting for entertainment. If you are not suggesting that then I apologise ?

It wasn't explained so I got whatever reaction was coming but I think there is a mindset that would watch that match and see it as reinforcing a bunch of negative/ racist ideas. I have certainly known people who would do that. 

Trying to think of a parallel - something like the eighties TV show Minipops which I'm sure 99% of people took at face value but there would have been a bunch of sex offenders somewhere going 'finally Channel 4 have taken on board our viewing needs.'  

celentium

It's fine if people don't like boxing for whatever reason and I'm not trying to convert anyone, but "casual" British boxing fans in pubs and at live events can be a put off.

Although passion is a good thing, it's normally an aggressive, horrible atmosphere reveling in the brutality of the sport rather than appreciating the more subtle skills.

In summary, if you were to watch an event with a knowledgeable fan (such as the chaps in this thread) I think it would put the sport in a different light.

Saying that, the crazy boxing fans that I naturally shirk away from are really helping fund UK boxing at the moment and we are the envy of the world with our huge and passionate crowds. Just don't stick me in the middle of them

Placidcasual79

celentium said:

It's fine if people don't like boxing for whatever reason and I'm not trying to convert anyone, but "casual" British boxing fans in pubs and at live events can be a put off.

Although passion is a good thing, it's normally an aggressive, horrible atmosphere reveling in the brutality of the sport rather than appreciating the more subtle skills.

In summary, if you were to watch an event with a knowledgeable fan (such as the chaps in this thread) I think it would put the sport in a different light.

Saying that, the crazy boxing fans that I naturally shirk away from are really helping fund UK boxing at the moment and we are the envy of the world with our huge and passionate crowds. Just don't stick me in the middle of them

This! 

I've seen more fighting at the boxing than I've ever seen at the football. 

I also understand @EricTheWeary point - to the casual observer it could seem that boxers from disadvantaged backgrounds or ethnic minorities are being exploited for entertainment and the ring girl thing is disgustingly archaic. 

However, I think boxing is, generally, a positive thing. There is little racism in boxing and women's boxing is well respected and promoted. Boxing can also be appreciated on a deeper level than two people trying to beat sh*t out of each other - its actually an incredibly technical sport that require enormous skill, mental strength and physical prowess. Boxing is big on respect, sportsmanship and discipline. 

celentium

I think combat is the purest form of sport. It's definitely a positive route for many under privileged individuals that have backgrounds that many of us could not even imagine.

It is a brutal sport, not just injury wise but how the fighters can be treated by promoters etc. Also if the fighters go on for too long, the damage can stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Next time you watch your favourite sport, listen out for the boxing metaphors they use, because boxing needs only it's own.

Placidcasual79

I totally agree @celentium - wisdom awarded. It is the purest sport and because of that it reveals the most about its participants. Thats also what makes the sport so engrossing 

DLM

I've no interest in boxing, really. But as for a link to guitar, look at Sammy Hagar and Jeff Berlin. 

celentium

Cheers @Placidcasual79, I tried to award you a wisdom forgetting I already had and it removed it and wouldn't re add. I've awarded a "wow" instead sorry! 

We'll definitely keep the boxing chat up as the boxing forums are fairly hostile to say the least!