When did you become a boxing fan?

[Cyberspace]

When Whitaker and Chavez were dominating the lower weights!

[TBear]

I grew up watching boxing among other sports. My whole family watched sports all the time and every time a big fight was on tv we would all be around the tv. Probably during the Ali era it became number one for me.

Funny but in the seventies I started watching every fight that was on tv and never stopped.

[Rspen46]

Ali-Frazier I

I was born in 1961, so very young when Ali-Frazier I happened, I remember as a kid we bought boxing gloves and my friends come over and we would box and pick who we were, I always Picked Frazier, because at that time, no one like Ali, I mean no one, but as time went on he became one of my favorites after I realized he was more show than the crap he talked.

But Frazier as Champ got us somewhat interested, but it was the big fight between them, that got me 100% invested in boxing, but since it's not what it use to be, I gone to the UFC more, but I still watch the big Boxing matches., but not everything they way I use to do.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

As a child in the 80s

Rocky 3 put me onto boxing as it had mr.t, rocky, and hulk hogan.. A trifecta of awesomeness in the 80s..

Then it was all the cool nicknames.. If you didn't have a nickname that was awesome, then I thought you sucked...
Iron Mike
Sugar ray
Hitman hearns
Marvelous marvin
Macho Camacho
Real deal holyfield
Boom boom Mancini

That's what first drew me to the sport.. By 1990 i was a dedicated fan and knew all the fighters regardless of their nickname

[nivek535]

i became a boxing fan after play sparring boxing with my blackbelt taekwondo friend whos like 80lbs heavier than me hahha.

and then i started trying to keep up with the current boxing scene, heard the biggest names were may and pac... and then pac marquez 4 happened.. thats all i rmbr lol.

edit: oh yea i watched pac marq 4 on a laggy 240p stream on the internet lol.

[sonnyboyx2]

i started in the late 1960s my father was a huge boxing fan

[Thread Stealer]

I got into it hardcore in 1991 when I was 11. I remember seeing quite a few fights in 1990, which was sort of a warmup for 1991 when I turned into a boxing nerd.

A lot of HW fights that peaked my interest.

Tyson-Ruddock 1-2
Holyfield-Foreman
Mercer-Morrison
Holyfield-Tyson (cancelled 3 weeks before the scheduled date, I think they announced it on the Mercer-Morrison broadcast).

I also remember other fights like Toney-Nunn. I was/am a big 49er fan and Nunn is, or was, the brother in law of Roger Craig. There was Toney-McCallum 1 on TVKO later that year, Norris-Leonard early in the year, Holyfield-Cooper, and a bunch of other fights.

My first memory of seeing a boxing match on TV was Spinks-Holmes. I don't remember if it was the first or second bout.

[billeau2]

When did you discover boxing? When did you become a fan? Who was the fighter that made you a fan of the sport? For me, it was watching boxing on ABC and NBC at times as a kid, but became a bigger fan when I started watching more of it on HBO and seeing fighters like Leonard, Hagler, Holmes, Tyson and later Holyfield. What was the first big fight you watched? For me, it was Leonard-Hagler. Watching Tyson and later Holyfield become heavyweight champion made me a fan for life.

Do you guys still have the passion for the sport you had when you discovered it? It started to wane for me in the late '90s, then was reignited watching guys like Cotto, Gatti, and Mayweather on DVD.

I of course discovered a lot of the old films of guys like Louis, Robinson, Demsey and Marciano, at which point he became my favorite and that's why he's now my avatar.

As a kid in East Harlem fighting was a type of currency. Guys like Wilfred benitez and Camacho were heroes because of there status as fighters and many of my Puerto Rican friends had fathers, even grandfathers who took them to the gym and taught them how to box. naturally as a kid I grew enamored of the fighting because it was part of life...

Also at this time Ali was big and my mother being an antiwar demonstrator really admired Ali. My dad also had boxed in the Marine Corps and admired Ali, after being a Joe Louis fan in his own childhood.

Boxing just permeated the whole community! Boxing and salsa music lol.

[JadeaKallen]

I became a boxing fan aged seven when I watched Rocky 3 on TV. First time I watched it I thought -that's what I want to be-

With nowhere in my area to do boxing, I started kickboxing. It turns out I'm a much better kickboxer than a boxer, as my boxing ability is not exceptional but my kicking ability is. A leg is longer than an arm so I can out-kick my opponents at a range that they can't outbox me.

Boxing is still my first love though.

[BKM-]

I joined this forum when I was 15 and I was into it already for a couple of years, so early 00s is when I became a big fan probably due to Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson.

I also remember watching some big fights with my family in the 90s. Namely the Tyson-Holyfield and Lewis-Holyfield fights.

The Rocky movies started it all though.