There were a couple of fights on the TV on Saturday.
Good one’s too – at least on paper – James Degale winning his European title and Nathan Cleverley just about seeing off Tony Bellew in a fight that was a lot harder than we thought.
The coverage was good. John Rawling commentated. It was flashy. There were plenty of camera angles, but it wasn’t on Sky. And mercifully Nick Halling was nowhere in sight.
The fight card at the Liverpool Echo arena – and indeed the Bernard Hopkins v “Bad” Chad Dawson fight (which at the time of writing I haven’t seen yet) were on Box Nation a channel “on the sky platform” i.e. you have to Sky to get it, but at the moment it’s free to air before moving to £10 a month.
The channel launched a couple of weeks ago, but last weekend was the first really big show.
It was a shock, I admit, when I returned home on Saturday night to watch the action to find Richard Keys presenting the programme, but let’s be honest, hairy hands can hold together a sports broadcast, and as a live event, it was more than satisfactory.
Frank Warren is a shareholder in the venture and said on its launch: “This channel's all about boxing. It's about our sport and giving the fans what they want.
"This is what all boxing fans have been waiting for — a dedicated channel, 100 per cent committed to showing the best fights from around the world.”
I am inclined to agree and £10 a month seems reasonable enough, especially when you consider Sky charging £15 for their pay-per-view events.
Actually, the move does raise a couple of questions though. Firstly, now Sky have lost Warren – or at least his best fighters – exactly what are they left with? Are they even that bothered about boxing anymore?
Because assuming you are prepared to pay £10 a month for Boxnation and another £6.99 for Premier Sports – who show Spencer Fearon’s shows and some half decent stuff from around the world, notably Shobox – you actually wouldn’t miss Sky’s boxing too much. And if Matchroom, Ricky Hatton and Frank Maloney haven’t got anything to show than Sky basically have nothing – their schedule was blank last week and on Ringside they didn’t really seem to want to talk about Cleverley/Bellew too much (perhaps understandably)
Add in of course that Tyson Fury seems to have found a home on Channel Five these really are golden times to be an armchair boxing fan. There will probably come a time when saturation point is reached in a similar way to football and cricket, but for now let’s just enjoy it.
That said, Rob Norton fights on Friday night – I am sure that will be exciting…
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