While it is true that a stag do is seldom the best environment for conversation, sometimes certain questions are asked during the awkward small-talk phase which get you thinking on a deeper level than you might have expected. This is often the result of a group of men getting together and not knowing quite what to say or how to break the ice. It is the result of meeting people you either do not know or have not seen for some time and then trying to explain to them what you do for a living in a way that both simplifies it and doesn’t kill the mood.
Achieve this and you will see them nod their head, rub their chin. You will even get the odd question, as if they have a genuine interest in what you do and wish to know more. Last weekend, for example, I was asked on a stag do, “So, what’s the next big fight [meaning in Britain]?” I was then asked: “Who are the next big stars coming through?”
Although it was nice to detect some modicum of interest, I didn’t expect to be grilled or held accountable for British boxing sliding off the general sports map – on a stag do no less. I also had no pre-prepared answers, nothing, that is, on the tip of my tongue. It was only later in fact that I remembered that Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn would fight again in November and that heavyweights Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley were due to box in London next month, not Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as I had first assumed. By then it was too late to return to the conversation and insert either a “by the way” or an “FYI”. By then the moment had passed.
It was also too late to tell them about the future stars coming through; the next wave; the ones set to replace the likes of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, and Josh Taylor as guiding lights. Those names were harder to come by, in truth, and even when prompted to name a single world champion from the UK I found the task no easier. I had one, of course. His name was Nick Ball. But I was reluctant to say the Liverpudlian’s name for fear of seeing on the face of the person asking the question a look of bewilderment or indifference. Ball is not, alas, a household name, nor someone with whom anybody at that gathering would have been remotely familiar. As good as he is, three of Ball’s last five fights have taken place in Saudi Arabia and therefore his profile in Britain is no greater than his height.
As for other options, there were none. For now, it is just Nick Ball, the WBA featherweight champion. He is, at the time of writing, Britain’s only current male world champion and the only name you can offer when blokes at a stag do want to understand our nation’s excellence on the world stage via the names of world champions. Not old names, either, but new names. Not Fury, Joshua, and guys from that era, but fighters capable of taking the sport into the next one. Fighters like Nick Ball, aged 28. Fighters like…
Maybe it was just a lack of knowledge on my part. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t give my friend what he wanted and why I failed to produce a list of promising British fighters on command. Or perhaps the truth of the matter is that I am no good at selling a product I don’t believe in or of which I worry about the future. Perhaps that’s why I stuttered and panicked under questioning. Perhaps that’s why I made it appear as though nothing was happening in British boxing these days and suggested, if you wanted to see the best Britain has to offer, you should book a trip to the Middle East.
That said, if my friend had looked elsewhere for insight and positivity, he would have found it. If, for instance, he had waited a couple of days and listened to Mike Coppinger on Inside The Ring, The Ring’s new web show, he would have been far better off. “It's not a revival, it’s a renaissance,” said Coppinger, an American reporter with an affection for both turtlenecks and Turki Alalshikh. “Boxing’s bigger than it has ever been in the UK. I give [promoter] Eddie Hearn a lot of credit for boxing being so big in the UK right now. He’s done a lot of big fights over the last 15 years and I’ve been in the UK three times this year already. Anywhere you go people want to know, ‘Who’s going to win, Eubank or Benn?’”
Frankly, even though it came from the mouth of an American working for a Saudi-owned website, I was relieved to hear this prognosis. There I was worrying – unnecessarily it turns out – about the health of the sport in Britain only to discover, post-stag do, that everything was actually fine. In fact, sources said it was not just fine, but better than it had ever been. A renaissance, sources claimed.
Which surely begs the question: Why had I been so concerned in the first place? Why, among a dozen blokes, had it been such a problem coming up with fights and names and reasons for British boxing fans to be cheerful?
Was it because I can remember the time when there were over 11 active world champions from Britain? Or was it because I can remember the time when British boxers were built and promoted in their homeland rather than elsewhere?
It’s true. It wasn’t all that long ago that British boxing had a football team of world champions – some more established than others – and these world champions would defend their titles on home soil on a semi-regular basis. Together, with mixed results, they took on the world and they managed to fill the boxing calendar and ensure there were fights most weekends. Some fights were bigger than others, granted, but there was always something going on – a sense of motion, momentum, connection.
Today, in contrast, we have not only a dearth of world champions from Great Britain but fewer ways for their profile to be built once they reach that level. Sky Sports, with whom Eddie Hearn worked for so many years, are no longer involved in the building process, nor, despite Channel 5’s dalliance and Boxxer’s recent linkup with the BBC, are any of the major terrestrial channels keen to invest – properly invest – in a sport with a propensity to disappoint as much delight. This means that a lot of the heavy lifting has been left to subscription apps and pay-per-view. It means that boxing personalities must scream into the social media abyss just to get eyeballs on the sport and experience the illusion of relevance and importance.
If the fight is big enough, it will still appeal and transcend, of course, but the more marginalized and hidden the sport becomes, the harder it is to understand how it can possibly be deemed “bigger than ever”. On the streets, and at stag dos, that is certainly not the impression one gets. That is certainly not the impression one gets when breaking out of the boxing bubble and conversing with real humans who come with other interests and thoughts of their own. In their company, boxing has never felt more niche, peculiar, perverted. When it becomes the topic of discussion, which in itself is rare, these passersby tip-toe around it, content only to rubberneck. They speak as if unsure of its place or if it still exists. They speak as though they can’t work out whether you’re telling the truth about your involvement in it or just spending your days writing about something that you have simply imagined.
In fact, the only fight-related subject on which we could connect last weekend was Ricky Hatton – a fighter no longer with us. His tragic passing the previous Sunday became a frequent topic of conversation and both his career and sudden absence seemed to resonate with a group of thirtysomething men whose interest in boxing had over the years started to wane.
It was once via Hatton that they had a way in; someone to follow and something easy to understand. It wasn’t just them, either. Hatton, for us all, represented a time when British boxing was truly thriving and when boxers were built at home and not shipped off to the Middle East to mitigate the financial risk of promoters in the UK. Self-made, self-funded, and self-aware, Hatton was the last great ticket-seller, the last one-city man, and the last cult hero of British boxing. He had fans, actual fans, and these fans would follow him wherever he went. They were not big-event fans, as we see today, but Ricky Hatton fans. Tens of thousands of them in Manchester; the same amount in Las Vegas. Even if they didn’t know him personally, they felt they did. At the very least they connected with him. At the very least they watched him.
Twenty years ago, in the time of The Hitman, you would not have been asked to name world champions from the UK or list notable upcoming fights to prove boxing is still breathing. You would have instead been asked, “When is Hatton fighting next?” Or, “Who is Hatton fighting next?” Or, “What do you know about his opponent?” You would have then been asked similar questions about Joe Calzaghe and in subsequent years Amir Khan, David Haye, Carl Froch, Carl Frampton, Anthony Joshua, and Tyson Fury. You would, as boxing’s advocate, have had a lot more to talk about and a lot less to hide.
