By Terence Dooley
BoxingScene understands that Sky Sports will no longer show Ringside, their boxing magazine show, after this month and will instead encourage users to check out the videos, interviews and other media on the boxing section of their website for their boxing fix.
The show began in its current format in 2010. Sky announced that “The one-hour magazine show will feature in-depth news, previews, interviews and expert analysis, offering Sky Sports viewers a greater focus on the world of boxing,” when launching the show again after a sabbatical, but it has grown somewhat stale in recent years so the switch will offer fans the chance to pick up their boxing in bite sized chunks.
There have been highlights, though, such as in-depth interviews with the likes of Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, the friendly rivalry shown by John Murray and Kevin Mitchell before they clashed in 2011, the pure toxicity that was the build-up to James DeGales’ fight with George Groves in the same year and, more recently, an emotional episode in which Ricky Hatton held out an olive branch to his estranged former trainer Billy Graham, who reciprocated in Boxing Monthly.
On the downside, it did sometimes seem like they were treading water during some episodes and, although a good idea in principle, the decision to have legions of fans standing in the background, and a dimly lit one to boot, did make it seem like we were witnessing the start of the zombie apocalypse rather than a boxing show.
Whatever your perspective of Ringside, the decision to move the content online is a blow for the many boxing fans who pencilled Ringside into their diaries and placed into their planner on a weekly basis. It was also a fertile breeding ground for their new generation of pundits such as Jamie Moore, Paul Smith and other former fighters.
In future, the show is set to be broken into web-sized pieces and hosted on http://www1.skysports.com/boxing/ in a move towards online content, although there is no indication that Sky’s many football-related shows will follow this innovative format.
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