Ricky Gervais:- Why I Like Boxing

?BOXING is a complex art. They talk about the Tour de France and running marathons, those big tests of endurance, but try doing that while getting punched in the face the whole time! All Big Brother contestants should have to do a couple of rounds with Tyson. So says actor, stand-up comedian and, don?t forget, BAFTA-winning script-writer, Ricky Gervais. He may or may not have said ?Fact!? at the end of that statement.Like Why I Like Boxing contemporary Andy Murray, Gervais credits Muhammad Ali with sparking his interest in boxing. ?My dad was a fan so I used to watch the fights with him and my brothers,? he recalled. ?My earliest memory was Cassius Clay against Henry Cooper. I loved Ali. When you?re a kid, you like a winner. Then, as I got older, I got into Ali refusing to go to Vietnam. Even now, Ali?s bigger than boxing ? a real hero.? As Ricky got older, the lower weight classes grabbed his attention in the early 1980s.?I was fascinated with Leornard, Hearns, Hagler, Duran, all great and they could all beat each other. Joe Calzaghe deserves the plaudits they got but, obviously, that was a different era.? But Ricky is, by his own admission, a fan of the big men, first and foremost. ?Yeah, well, obviously Ali, then I thought Tyson would never lose ? the sheer power and excitement of him. Just shows how wrong you can be. Lennox Lewis was a natural athlete. I can?t name you one of the big heavyweights now and that?s a shame.? Indeed, Ricky is well aware of the reasons why boxing is less known to the man or woman on the street than in Ali?s day. ?Boxing has too many belts and divisions ? who are the stars? These days boxers want to hold on to their titles for sponsorship, merchandise, etc. It?s not like, ?I?ll fight anyone?. Fighters are so protected.?But it?s not all doom and gloom. Ricky sees promise in new ideas in boxing, in particular The Contender series.?One of the best boxing matches I?ve seen in the past five years was The Contender final . They both went for it and it was so entertainin.

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how to have a ruck, rather than box.?There was a big adrenalin rush before the bell and then you just go mental ? I thought my heart was going to explode. ?He was ?Granite? Grant Bovey and I was Ricky ?Balboa?. I won by one point . We both wanted to die at the end. All my injuries were self-inflicted. I was swinging punches like a bloody cartoon, seriously, and using muscles I?d never used before. ?I still do boxing now. Someone trains me at home. The minutiae of each punch is incredible. It?s taken me three years just to get the jab right. You never stop learning.?Ricky is a big fan of Calzaghe?s, and British boxers in general for that matter.?I?m so impressed with Joe. He is one of the best fighters ever but doesn?t get the plaudits he deserves. I?m right behind Calzaghe and Hatton because I?m British, but also, of course, because they?re great.?

16y ago

SusieQ

They weren?t trying to win on points. In The Contender, every fight is important. ?My girlfriend and I bet on The Contender. We each had to pick a fighter on the first night, then we got £50 for each time they won with £100 on the final. She picked Bika and I picked Codrington, so we were even before the final, then she took £100 off me in the final!?Ricky lives with his wager-winning girlfriend, Jane Fallon, a TV producer, and their dog Ollie in Hampstead, north London. She (Jane, not Ollie), is a big boxing fan, too, having accompanied Ricky to Watson-Eubank I and Frank Bruno-James ?Bonecrusher? Smith. They also watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on TV and Ricky feels boxing could learn some lessons from the mixed martial arts organisation.?They get bonuses for knockouts and fines for lack of aggression, so excitement is incentivised. It?s still in its infancy in comparison to boxing and I would rather watch a classic boxing match than a great UFC match any day. But out of 10 matches, there will be maybe one exciting boxing match and nine exciting UFC matches. ?But my heart will always be with boxing due to its history and its heroes who changed the world. It?s my favourite sport ? it?s noble.?Ricky?s passion for boxing is fervent. This interview took a while to finish for two main reasons: 1. Ricky was (unsurprisingly) very busy, shooting a film in New York when we spoke and 2. Once you start talking to him about boxing, you absolutely cannot get him to stop! In fact, Ricky is such a big fan, he once indulged in the televised Celebrity Boxing, facing entrepreneur and partner (now husband) of TV presenter Anthea Turner, Grant Bovey. Gervais was trained for the charity match (in 2002) by Frank and Eugene Maloney at the Fight Factory in south London. But it wasn?t just the good cause that sparked Ricky?s interest.?It was an excuse to learn to box. I stupidly agreed to do it when I was the unfittest I?ve been in my life. Because of that, Frank Maloney taught me how to

16y ago