Popcorn & Punches Update
By: Andrew Harrison
Category: floyd mayweather, golden boy, joe frazier, juan manuel marquez, muhammad ali, tyneside cinema, Uncategorized
After writing about Golden Boy pushing the promotional envelope by slipping Mayweather-Marquez back into US cinemas, I thought I’d try and do a bit of lobbying by emailing Newcastle’s premier cinema, The Tyneside, asking if they’d ever consider indulging me. Here’s a response from their press officer Chris Scott:
Currently we haven’t got any plans to screen Boxing in the cinema, however we are always looking for new ways to use the venue and we will definitely look into screening events such as this in the future.
If Mayweather-Marquez is a hit Stateside, I’ll try and feed them some figures, perhaps this could help persuade them to give it a whirl. Try it yourself, fling your local picture house an email, can’t hurt can it?
While I’m in mini-activist mode, check out the attached petition also, an attempt from Boxing News to get boxing back on the BBC which you should sign:
http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/BN08/bbc.asp
6 comments on “Popcorn & Punches Update”
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I’ve always been of the opinion that the BBC secretly hates boxing and finds it morally repugnant. Why else would they not invest in a sport that has proven time and time again to be a massive ratings hit when it’s promoted right? The way the Beeb treated boxing when they covered it from 01 to 03 was simply shocking. Showing delayed coverage of top American bouts and putting them on at Dracula’s hour on a Sunday night when most people have to be up early for work the following morning? Insane! It was almost as if they intentionally tried to sabotage their own ratings as if to prove that boxing is no longer a financially viable investment. I’m sure it came as a great embarrasment to the BBC when one of Khan’s fights on ITV (think it was the Gomez one) TROUNCED Match of The Day in the ratings.
I’d love to see boxing back on the beeb (the more TV coverage that boxing can get the better) but I won’t be holding my breath for it to happen anytime soon!
Great comments Dave and you could be right. It really used to grate on me when Adrian Chiles would almost mock the sport when presenting it, the De la Hoya-Vargas fight had an admittedly chessy (hey I like all that stuff) build up on HBO, after which the camera pans to Chiles and he glibly remarked, ‘what’s all that about? the Yanks love all that don’t they?’……..way to go Beeb.
Tris Dixon’s recent article was really well written, he made some valid points. How well would The Super Six do if sandwiched between the National Lottery and Match of the Day on a Saturday night he asked? Bloody well I’d imagine.
He also noted that back during the period you mention they had three fighters signed up, Audley Harrison, Carl Froch and David Haye…………now which one did they choose to pump their money into????
Unfortunately we have a bit of an Alan Partridge thing going on where we’re waiting and hoping for a controller to take over who believes in the sport. I don’t suppose the Setanta debacle helps though, ‘the home of boxing’ going bust just adds fuel to the sceptics’ fire.
I’ve given myself images of Partridge punting tv show ideas to Tony Hares now……”Inner City Sumo?….Arm Wrestling with Chas and Dave?…..Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank?………World Class Boxing????”
I mean even the BBC boxing section on the net is woefully inadequate, how hard can it be to make that more appealing? Just give it to someone with a passion for the sport.
Ha Ha, yeah I remember that Chiles comment now that you mention it Haz. If I also remember correctly, the fight was buried on a Sunday Grandstand schedule (in between skiing and bowls, I think) and was barely even advertised.
Yup Dave, they never bloody advertised the fights, their half assed approach was annoying. True story this one: If I knew a big fight was to be repeated on terrestrial on a Sunday I’d avoid the result like the plague. Phone off, no text, total solitude. Anyway, the Beeb were due to show Mosley-Wright 2 and I was well up for it, I really fancied Mosley’s chances in the rematch.
Anyway, the programme starts and they use the HBO trailer which as I said before I like, some find cheesy and I can understand that also. John Inverdale pops up as host and proceeds to say something along the lines of, ‘Has Mosley had his day, I mean he’s lost 4 now’……….quick mental reccy….Forrest….Forrest…..Wright……who’s the other……oh I see Inverdale, he loses this one…..thanks a bunch….again!!
LOL, what a tool. I mean that is just sheer incompetence. I recall something similar happening with the Audley Harrision vs Matthew Ellis fight which was screened on a delayed basis for some strange reason. If you remember, there was a post-fight scuffle involving Herbie Hide and Audley’s minders (why a 6’4 Olympic super-heavyweight gold-medal winner requires several minders I don’t know, but I digress) and at the start of the programme Inverdale immediately told us about the “riot” (handbags stuff really) and said it all started by Harrison calling Hide out after beating Ellis!!!
Not that Ellis ever had a prayer of winning, but still what’s the bloody point of telling us the result before we get the chance to see it for ourselves?
I think we boxing fans are a forgiving bunch, perhaps to our own detriment. Football fans would never put up with such nonsense. Remember all the furore over the ITV impromptu ad-break during the FA Cup game between Liverpool and Everton last season? There was a massive inquiry into it and I think someone eventually got the boot.
Yet, as you and I have pointed out, the Beeb continually made a complete cock-up of their boxing coverage and there wasn’t a word said about it.
Having Harrison-Ellis in a prime time slot says it all really, Tris Dixon recently compared it to having Man Utd play Kidderminster in a run of the mill friendly affair…….football fans wouldn’t put up with that either.
Until a boxing fanatic lands the top job there, they’re unlikely to invest.
It’s defo time boxing fans became more vocal and actually got on the cases of this mob, we pay the annual fee, they should be forced to listen.
Found this the other day, made me quite nostalgic for ITV’s old coverage!!