When did you become a boxing fan?

[Eff Pandas]

I got into boxing casually for a few years at the start watching Tuesday Night Fights & Top Rank Boxing on Thursdays(?) iirc & some of the big fights on HBO after discovering the guys I watched "fighting" in the WWF & NWA weren't fighting for real lol. Thats how I recall dipping my toe into boxing at the time.

I for sure remember the day I became a hardcore boxing fan doe. It was on Aug. 4, 1988 when I tuned into Tuesday Night Fights to watch Calvin Grove (34-0), who I just read about in KO magazine & was excited to see fight, defend his title vs an unknown 22 year old ex-circus performer Jorge Paez in Paez's hometown of Mexicali, Mexico. It wasn't the greatest fight, but I remember going into the 15th round (random trivia this was the last fight to go the full 15 rounds) Sean O'Grady saying Paez needed to drop Grove 3 times to win the fight...and Paez proceeded to doing just that much to my pleasure & excitement. It was like some movie **** in retrospect & from then on I don't think I missed a fight for years, I purchased every boxing mag I could find & pretty much never watched another non-fighting sport since that day.

[Mr.MojoRisin']

It's pretty silly but I had to learn to protect myself growing up as a skinny kid and I didn't have money to get lessons anywhere so I started watching a lot of Bruce Lee films and started getting into JKD. Anyway somehow I found out that JKD and Boxing shared common technique so I started watching Marvin Hagler fights (don't know how I even stumbled upon him). Ended up getting into a few fights myself on the street so I copied what I saw Hagler do countless times and I ended up breaking a guys nose and blacken both eyes and the rest is history...

Got into it for the wrong reasons but I'm happy to be here.

[Dip_Slide]

I watched boxing as a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s but just as a casual fan, I liked watching Prince Naseem, Roy Jones and Mike Tyson and never cared who the opponent was, granted I was just a kid (Born in 1990). i would watch only 2 3 fights a year until around 2005. The Morales vs Pacquiao fight is probably the fight that made me really like boxing since I wasn't a fan of any and I accidentally watched the fight, very exciting, even matched high paced fight that I'll never forget and Morales turning southpaw in the end was one of my favorite moments in boxing.

Around that time Roy Jones also got KTFO and Floyd became the P4P best fighter in the world, I started paying attention to his story and to his fight game, he was a very pleasing fighter to watch at the time with tremendous hand/ foot speed, cat like reflexes and magnificent combinations, a totally different fighter than the one we saw in his later career. I can still remember him dancing in the ring after he knocked Henry Bruseles down and dancing on his way to casually KO him, as a teenage kid I found that really dope and closely followed his career ever since. Around that time I also started watching old documentaries and read some books about boxing. from 2006 till 2007 I boxed myself almost everyday and wanted to start competing but my family was against it and I decided to go to college instead. To this day I still however analyze all fighters and picture myself in the ring with them and think about how I'd fight them, boxing is the only sport I watch and I can't imagine my life without it.

[The Old LefHook]

Let me put it this way, I saw Sugar Ray Robinson fight on early black & white TV. I do not remember the opponent, but I can remember my dad constantly bemoaning how shot Sugar Ray was, and what he would have done to this bum five or ten years earlier.

The first fight I remember was Patterson/Moore in 1956, and that one was on TV. We were at my dad's friend's house to watch it, and I fell off a pair of stilts injuring my foreleg on a car bumper, retaining the scar to this day.

I didn't get to watch that fight because of the leg. The thing is, my dad and I had watched fights previous to that one on I think the Friday Night Fights by Gillette. We had our own television set. We were over there because the men wanted to watch it together.

[rightsideup]

Put on a set of gloves when I was 5 1966 and sparred with friends. My dad followed the heavyweights and I starting watch all weight classes in about 71 began to read a lot after that about the sports history.

[*TonyMontana*]

Watched eubank vs benn live at around 7 years old with my mom
Been hooked ever since
To be fair tho I like anything to do with fighting
It's just in our nature

[redmish]

The first fight I can remember was mcguigan v pedrosa at Loftus road in 1985. The atmosphere was incredible that night. Around the same time mike tyson emerged on the scene and I have been hooked for 31 years. Thanks barry.

[Keleneki]

George Foreman, from 1972 I believe, according to the date of this newspaper article I clipped out all those years ago as a child that I still have. I didn't think anyone would ever beat him after he got through with Frazier and Norton.

Edit: Which made me 7.

[Weltschmerz]

Tyson - Bruno, their first fight. I was 7 at the time.

[BennyST]

My dad (an aus am champ) got me into it very early. Just part of our family. It was a golden time for aussie boxing then too, and for boxing in general, and I remember growing up with TV Ringside and really great fights and rivalries like Andries/Harding, Ellis/Michael, Fenech/McCrory 'revenge' bout, Fenech/Nelson, as well as growing up on Rose and his epic fights with Harada, Chucho Castillo, Alan Rudkin and others, Famechon, Gattellari, Mattioli, Carruthers, Hec Thompson and his great fight with Duran...Great time for Australian boxing, but it was just a great time for boxing still too. Boxing was still a recognised worldwide, standard TV sport, TV Ringside had lots of great rivalries and was still shown when I was a kid (repeats by this stage), Tyson became the next big thing, and I remember getting taken to the pub with my dad and brothers for his fights, among others, and watching Tyson get drubbed by Douglas for instance and the amount of people there to watch just makes me cringe at what we see today. It was still a genuine sport back then, was talked about by everyone and big fights would make standard news. It wasn't the fringe, niche thing it's become today, hidden from the public, only viewable on PPV and rarely even seen on sporting news, let alone normal news and TV.