why boxing is still popular in britain

[Put Em' Up]

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.

[DatsiK]

Good post Hammer, good post.

[Saddo]

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

[Cortez The Killer]

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.

[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.

[HattonTheHammer]

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.

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.