why boxing is still popular in britain

It has been an impressive 12 months for British boxing, recapturing the imagination of the general public with crowds twice surpassing 50,000 and Ricky Hatton selling over one million television pay per views for his contest against Floyd Mayweather. Joe Calzaghe finally received the praise he had so clamoured for winning the BBC Sports Personality award and twice fighting at the Millennium Stadium in 2007.

Whether Hatton pulling in 55,000 for a bout of little significance is more impressive than Calzaghe attracting 50,000 for a bout in the small hours of the morning is up for debate. However it is interesting to compare the pair to a selection of bouts that made boxing such an attraction to the British population to begin with.

The most obvious place to start is the autumn 1993 rematch between Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank, up until last year the last fight to break the 40,000 spectator mark. That night 42,000 watched as the pair fought to a thrilling draw at Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United Football Club. A potential third bout could have eclipsed the attendance of the previous two, with Wembley Stadium a rumoured venue, but never came to pass.

Football stadiums have always proved suitable settings for boxing’s biggest match-ups, so it was fitting that the so called ‘home of football’ Wembley Stadium played host to boxing’s biggest star. A young Cassius Marcellus Clay faced Henry Cooper in front of 35,000 at Wembley Stadium in 1963, in his first fight outside of his homeland. Clay defeated Cooper in the fifth, as he had earlier predicted, proclaiming before the fight “if this bum goes over five rounds, I won’t return to the United States for 30 days.” He returned to the US for his shot at the world title against Sonny Liston, deemed by Ring Magazine as the fight of the year for 1964.

Clay, now named Muhammad Ali and Heavyweight Champion, would reappear in the UK two years after the Liston fight to rematch Cooper at Highbury Stadium. The stadium helped eclipse the attendance for their first fight by some 5,000 as Ali took one round longer to dismantle Cooper, a deep gash forcing the stoppage.

Anfield Football Stadium was also filled to capacity as it hosted bouts in the 30s and 40s. The battle between Freddie Miller and Nel Tarleton in 1933 saw a crowd of over 30,000 flock to the venue. Tarleton had been so keen to fight Miller that he offered to fight for free just to get his shot, whilst Miller received £2000, a significant sum at the time. The biggest highlight at Anfield came five years later when Peter Kane fought Jackie Jurich for the vacant flyweight title. An official gate recorded an attendance of 35,800 though some estimates put the figure at over 40,000. It remains the record crowd for a Merseyside boxing event.

To this day however the highest ever attendance for a fight held in Britain belongs to the match-up between Len Harvey and Jock McAvoy at the White City Stadium in London in 1938.

The pair had first met at Haringay Arena watched by just over 10,000, and was the first time boxing was to be recorded for television, although it was not transmitted to the general public. They fought for the British Light Heavyweight title, with Harvey eventually dropping the points decision after 15 rounds.

On the 10th of July 1939, just over a year after their first bout the pair met again in front of a live gate of an estimated 90,000 at the White City Stadium. Harvey climbed off the canvas in the second round ending the fight strongly to again take a points decision victory. The venue hosted many events for the 1908 Olympic Games, but has since been demolished with the site now used by the BBC.

Having accomplished a life goal of headlining Las Vegas with Madison Square Garden a strong possibility against Malignaggi, perhaps Hatton should look towards breaking the record for UK attendance at the revamped Wembley Stadium against Floyd Mayweather as his swansong. After all ,he’ll need all the support he can get if he’s to stand any chance of defeating ‘Money’ Mayweather.

Even though I have never been there and only watched events broadcast from there on the television I personally think British fans are the best in the world.

They seem to be the one place where they do not ride the bandwagon. Once they have a favorite they stick with them no matter how they are doing, in fact they just root harder to help their guy with some moral support in the tough times.

Here we discard them the second they lose the big one. If I was a pro athlete I would defiantly want the British crowd behind me.

Good post Hammer, good post.

terrestrial TV... the norm fans non sky tv got hooked in with Hatton Tyszu and Calzaghe Lacy... added to that Amir Khan being showcased on itv all that produces new fans and gives the sport more exposure thus creating more fans... like in the benn eubank bruno days ;)

What are the alternatives in Britain? Football?

Maybe rugby or cricket or something ???


THe real question is why is boxing still popular in the US. We have NBA, NFL, NHL, and the almighty blood sucking parasite STD: MMA

Even the major channels here are starting to showcase mma. I saw that CBS is airing some mma bout tonight. Bah. They need to get f'king get boxing back on national television. But mma is great cause the fighters earn chump change and anybody can be a "somebody" in it so you know it's cheap for them to license.

Boxing in UK is popular for one reason only and that's Ricky Hatton. Most(about 99%) of UK boxing fans know barely anything about boxing(the 1% are on this forum). I have had many conversations where peeps tell me they like boxing, I ask who are your faves and I get the same answer EVERY time:Tyson,Hamed,MAB etc(fighters from 10 years ago!).

The most you'll see in a newspaper about boxing is 2 pages and that's for a Hatton fight. Other than that, 1 small column is usually used.

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Originally Posted by El Gamo

Boxing in UK is popular for one reason only and that's Ricky Hatton. Most(about 99%) of UK boxing fans know barely anything about boxing(the 1% are on this forum). I have had many conversations where peeps tell me they like boxing, I ask who are your faves and I get the same answer EVERY time:Tyson,Hamed,MAB etc(fighters from 10 years ago!).

The most you'll see in a newspaper about boxing is 2 pages and that's for a Hatton fight. Other than that, 1 small column is usually used.

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But thats pretty much the same as our second and third sports cricket and rugby which apart from the regular fan get virtually no attention whatsoever.

Football is like a religion over here, its a multi billion pound empire that makes 20 times more money than the next sport, not liking football in the UK is virtually not an option.

Boxing has always had to compete within a sideshow status in the UK and but for the weekend of hatton-mayweather when it took centre stage its been that way since i can remember.

Your average fan will probably have no idea who the likes of bernard hopkins/floyd mayweather/ roy jones jr etc are yet will all know the names of prince naseem hamed, chris eubank, frank bruno, ricky hatton etc.

Hattons status has re-risen the popularity in the sport and put it back into the headlines then, when you consider all the millionaires football has made with 150,000 pound a week contracts its extrodinary to see ricky hatton was the 2nd highest sporting earner of 2007 only behind david beckham.

Boxings got a long way to go over here until we can get back to the glory days of benn/eubank/bruno/hamed etc, but hattons career has done it the power of good and hopefully with young stars like amir khan, frankie gavin and kevin mitchell the sport can continue to flourish here and although it`ll never ever compete with footie its quite feasible to believe it can regain its status as prime time family viewing on a more regular basis.