By Terence Dooley
Oxford’s Jim Rosenthal has seen many fighters come and go in his decades spent working in the sport of boxing yet he believes that in Anthony Joshua the UK scene has someone who can help ensure that more British fighters win over the wider, and lucrative, US market by leading his own State and worldwide charge, blazing a new trail in the process.
Rosenthal has worked for the BBC, ITV, BoxNation and is currently continuing his broadcasting work with MUFC TV and a few other outlets; he has kept his eye on boxing and is open to a return to the sport, especially now it is thriving under the stewardship of the current WBA Super, IBF World and IBO titlist. Indeed, with Hughie Fury vying for the WBO belt against Joseph Parker at the Manchester Arena on September 23 Rosenthal believes that the best is yet to come from the sport's flagship division.
“Joshua is fantastic, he conducted himself unbelievably well before, during and after that fight against [Wlad] Klitschko,” he said when speaking to BoxingScene. “His recovery at Wembley was fantastic, but, and has he has pointed out, he is very much a work in progress. British boxing now has got a real pied piper, a cheerleader and someone to get behind, which is really good for the sport.
“I don’t know if he has had media training, and this also applies to Klitschko, but what happened at Wembley—and Sky did a great job promoting it—showed that you can still sell out places without resorting to abuse, swearing and personal vilification—those guys proved it.”
Now a fully paid up member of the digital world, the 69-year-old has his own Twitter account and has enjoyed his recent online interaction with fans, fighters and fellow pundits. However, he is also weary of the double-edged nature of the social networking site, pointing out that some people can go too far when interacting on there. Rosenthal pointed to how Curtis Woodhouse dealt with someone who insulted him in 2013 as an example of how it can go wrong while also praising Woodshouse's decision to track down and confront his abuser.
“I primarily use Twitter as an information tool, but because of the very nature of it there is a lot of toing and froing and personal abuse—it is very easy to see stuff you don’t want to see,” he said. “Good old Curtis Woodhouse made one of the great achievements of our times when he tracked the guy down who was abusing him.
“Curtis was a very good footballer and fighter, he blew up the Twitter bubble by knocking on the man’s door. In many ways that underlined the Twitter myth for me in that people build themselves up into alleged experts, but some are not, they are just sat in the privacy of their own homes giving out personal abuse. Some of it is not particularly revelatory, but if you don’t like it then you don’t have read it.”
Still, he baulks at the suggestion that in order to criticise performances of boxers or others sportsmen you have to have taken part in the sport yourself, arguing that the debates can be a healthy and essential part of following a sport.
“Everyone has a right to talk about sport and debate is the spice of any sport,” he said. “I never got near a Formula One car, but I still covered 153 races and have spoken about it without telling people how to drive. I’m not going to tell people how to throw a punch, that doesn’t stop me having a reasonable view about boxing.”
On the other hand, he has worked with countless former boxers as part of his role and believes that a good pundit can bring a whole new level of analysis, saying: “Then you have experts like Barry Jones, who will talk about a fight and explain to people what they’ve done.
“Going back a bit, I was put with Barry McGuigan and he was so good the fighters would go to him after their fights to ask for advice. Being able to do that is a gift, and it is also a gift to be able to broadcast comfortably alongside someone else and to give an insight.”
Speaking of broadcasting partnerships, getting them right can be very hit-and-miss. The art of putting a show on relies on the alchemy of putting together the right team, with Rosenthal’s name often mentioned when talk turns to the top men in British boxing broadcasting. He told me that there is no fixed rule of thumb when it comes to getting it right.
“I’m very flattered about that as well,” he said when reminded that people still talk about ITV’s The Big Fight—Live! days. “You can’t create punditry or commentary partnerships, there is no magic formula for them. Again, and going back to my Formula One days, Murray Walker and Martin Brundle were thrown together then become a dream team. It is the voices, relationships and the level of knowledge. In boxing terms, I happen to think that [BoxNation’s] Barry Jones is outstanding after working with him for quite a while—him and John Rawling are the best team out there at the moment.
“If you watch a fight or a game of football then you are going to have different opinions on it. In broadcasting terms, it is a happy coincidence if you are thrown together and it works. Everyone sees a fight differently, a commentator might see it one way and the judges another. Going back to Klitschko against Joshua, how two judges had Joshua ahead at the time of the knockout defies logic, but that is what happens. I always have sympathy with commentators who get a decision wrong as over the years you might get sceptical about judges.”
Rosenthal’s former BoxNation colleague Steve Bunce has argued that modern boxing fans are very lucky due to amount of TV coverage the sport receives across different channels. Although he agrees with this, Rosenthal has always championed the sport as being perfect for terrestrial TV and once again begged TV bosses to buy into the sport again despite the fact that, as we saw last week with the Frampton-Gutierrez cancellation, it can be unpredictable.
“I agree with Steve to a point, you could also say the same thing with football, live games were a rarity in the 1980s then twenty years on along came Sky, and more recently BT, and now you cannot turn on the TV without seeing a football game from somewhere in the world,” stated Rosenthal.
“The rarity factor now applies to the NFL, we get sixteen games a season and that seems to work. It is not the amount of boxing that is on that irks me, it is the way that terrestrial television has treated boxing. The fact that Joshua-Klitschko wasn’t picked up as delayed footage was ridiculous. We had 90,000 people at Wembley, it was pay-per-view and I don’t understand why a terrestrial channel did not try to get in on the Wednesday. You can’t tell me that it wouldn’t have got big figures.
“It is terribly sad. The people in charge don’t buy into the inherent drama and messiness of boxing, and if you don’t then you simply don’t get it. For too many years, there hasn’t been a Head of Sports on any of the main terrestrial channels that has felt inclined to do that.
“My memory is that ITV started getting the big fights and the BBC was sort of a fading boxing force. When I left the BBC for ITV I was accused of being a traitor and that sort of thing, but it wasn’t a personal rivalry. It would be wonderful for boxing if there still was that rivalry between the BBC and ITV for the big fights because while satellite has kept the sport alive in many ways there is nothing that beats big fights live on terrestrial television.”
The dearth of fifty-fifty fights, postponements, injuries and the general slog of boxing can get to fight figures, fans and writers alike. A lot of people go into the sport thinking that they can change it for the better only to discover that their efforts come to naught. Like politics and the English national football team, everyone has an opinion on boxing and how to fix it yet putting them into practice is where the difficulties lie.
As a sport, it can be glorious when things go well, as a business it can grind you down, especially if you want to break into writing or broadcasting and earn some money for your work. Before we wound up, Rosenthal had some advice for anyone who wants to make a difference.
“I love youthful enthusiasm, drive and ambition, but changing sports is like mission impossible—you can find something you are unhappy with and try to expose it yet you cannot radically change them,” he said.
“When I started in the Oxford Mail I was getting paid thirteen-and-a-half pounds a week, but at least I was getting paid and trained. It is really tough for people now, they are doing their best and not getting anything for it, which is unacceptable, yet there is no way around it as you want experience and exposure. It is as tough as a 12 rounder, really—although I do believe that talent does come through in the end. It is a bit like a fight, you can get knocked down, be wobbled, lose a few rounds yet if you have the technique, ambition and background you will come through. It is a tough terrain to start out in, my main line would be: don’t give up and don’t despair.”
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