What are your Top 3 reasons for your LOVE of Boxing?

[NoSavingByTheBell]

Great points by Tito fan and Memphis and Slim

Yes the ring walk and the psychological game leading up to the ring and stepping through the ropes and the adrenaline and the heart pounding. That whole pre fight activity right up until the staredown. sometimes I thought I was going to pass out just watching it.

And no doubt the idea that a person could die or get seriously hurt is also a kind of weird background understanding we all have when we watch grown men throw punches with the force sometimes it seems of a bullet or a missile at someone else's face.

Some of those missed punches when we say HOLYSHIT THAT WOULD HAVE ENDED IT RIGHT THERE! I think that's when we really get the understanding that that really would have taken the guy's head off almost literally. Knowing at any moment it could happen....

[SlimTrae]

Every professional card I've attended, I found myself happy/proud to be among boxing fans-when an overmatched opponent is being exposed. Each fight like that, I can remember a collective gasp-that's enough! No one who I watched catching a beatdown, drew the crowd into-beat him some more.

1st/only time I saw Lateef Kayode- who turned out to be a huge letdown...I saw him deck a guy so hard, most of the fans was like...Throw in the towel! Man he cant take power!

To me boxing isn't about blood and beatdowns, rather that is the result of 1 of 2 things. 1.someone was overmatched (we rail against that) or 2. a great boxer got compromised with his skill -set so he threw caution into the wind- that is when I think us boxing fans love the gore and blood.
Not for the sake of seeing someone beaten to a pulp-that's what youtube is for.
Corrales vs Castillo, Leonard vs Benitez, Marquez vs Vazquez...events where the skill level got compromised so both fighters THEN obliged to fight it out.

I love boxing when two top notch well trained boxers cant get the upper hand due to ebb n flow, so they throw caution out window.

On the ring entrance good point. Only time I liked entrance in any other sport was during the run of the Unstop a Bulls...there ring/center court entrance was a mutha...hell it was event just to see what color hair would Rodman have!

[SlimTrae]

Not a ring entrance, but one helluva a court entrance. Only time I came close to getting goose bumps like Tyson-Spinks, Tyson-Holmes, Tyson-Berbick, or Ruddock.
I loved RJJ & Hamed entrance for the entertainment -but only Tyson's ring walk- had me nervous...like I am about to have a fight! Energy so tense, we cant even sit down in the house...truly an event! But Michael J...did that to me as well!

[Dia bando]

Remember watching Ali v Cooper in the 60s with my Dad on the TV.
My son boxed from the age of 11 I used to help out in his old club.
I now watch boxing with my son on TV and he has treated me to many live fights which we both go together to watch.🙂

[Spicoli]

To boil it down basically the individuality of it. No teams to shadow in, just a man center ring whos life is forever steered by every single time out. Boxing seems a metaphor for life. The individual stories of strife struggle and sudden achievement cannot be matched. Also in a weird way I've always been drawn to the almost anonymity of being a boxing fan. It's not like it has 101 channels and articles dedicated to it. Before internet point and click you had to search it out to stay reasonably informed, almost had to work to follow it. That was appealing in a way. Dare I saw we're a rare select if not slightly defective group . Memories too for sure. I first sat down to watch a fight in 86. I became hooked for good in 89 and today find myself recalling some life memories based on what was happening in a certain year in boxing. Not to go overboard silly arse Oprah cliché but recalling fights is a lot like recalling the first time you listened to a certain song. It all comes back, mostly.

[SlimTrae]

Remember watching Ali v Cooper in the 60s with my Dad on the TV.
My son boxed from the age of 11 I used to help out in his old club.
I now watch boxing with my son on TV and he has treated me to many live fights which we both go together to watch.🙂

You're a fortunate son turned cool dad. Memories of bonding father & son never fade. My pop only took me to one event but it was memorable. Hulk Hogan headlined the card!

[Dark Lord Al]

Blood, Sweat, Tears.

[Dia bando]

Remember watching Ali v Cooper in the 60s with my Dad on the TV.
My son boxed from the age of 11 I used to help out in his old club.
I now watch boxing with my son on TV and he has treated me to many live fights which we both go together to watch.🙂

You're a fortunate son turned cool dad. Memories of bonding father & son never fade. My pop only took me to one event but it was memorable. Hulk Hogan headlined the card!

Nice one Hulk Hogan I would have loved to have been there.👍

[Master]

Remember watching Ali v Cooper in the 60s with my Dad on the TV.
My son boxed from the age of 11 I used to help out in his old club.
I now watch boxing with my son on TV and he has treated me to many live fights which we both go together to watch.🙂

You're a fortunate son turned cool dad. Memories of bonding father & son never fade. My pop only took me to one event but it was memorable. Hulk Hogan headlined the card!

Nice one Hulk Hogan I would have loved to have been there.👍

I saw Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki at the civic centre with my dad.

[Beanz]

3 is hard and i am not sure these are my Top 3 but 3 off the top of my head

1. It is more than the sum of it's parts.

That indefinable magic that means however technically great , or fit, or powerful , or talented a couple of fighters are you can never predict with 100% accuracy, not only how fights between them will be decided, but how great those events will be. Sometimes two journeymen will in a trade fight eclipse the marquee names at the top of the bill. Moments of brilliance can come from nowhere and the combination of venue, atmosphere, spectacle, history and sheer determination make upsets genuinely historic when on paper they seem impossible.

2. It is both an artform, a sporting contest and a mental excercise

The ability to master a physical skillset of techniques to such a point that you can deploy them in a subconcious way whilst still retaining intention is not confined to boxing. It is what makes great musicians, sportsmen, actors, etc but to be able to do so under such great physical duress, while constantly improvising and within an activity that draws on your most primal reactions, is surely unique.

3. It is Show Business.

Prizefighting and the circus, The traveling show is all there wrapped up in a fight that brings fighters together across the country or internationally for press conferences, open training sessions and then the big show itself, in which ringmaster promoters have for over a 100 years tried to outdo each other in putting on the greatest show on earth.