The Golden Age of British Boxing that No One Seems to Have Noticed

British boxing has gone through many dry years. Decades even. Since 'Alan Minter' lost his middleweight crown to the excellent 'Marvin Hagler' in 1980, Britain's claims to boxing fame have been few and far between. Aside from 'Frank Bruno's' never-ending attempts to wrestle the heavyweight title from not particularly talented second-rate American boxers, something he finally accomplished in 1995 by wresting the WBC title from someone called 'Oliver McCall' (BBC Sports) - Who?, to the 'Is he Canadian or British? - Lennox Lewis' Heavyweight championships bouts, there hasn't been much to shout about from the British Isles. The British public being a thing of particular inscrutability have supported many pretenders to the heavyweight throne which I supposed made things exciting. But by the time Frank Bruno had finally won one of the (4) sanctioned Heavyweight titles it seemed that Britain's public had lost interest. Add to this the later spiraling downfall of 'Mike Tyson' and the excitement of Boxing amongst spectators worldwide seemed to deflate all round.

As of January 2008, Britain finds itself with (5) bona-fide world champions & pretty good ones at that. According to the latest information from 'boxing.about.com' they are 'David Haye' who holds the WBA & WBC Cruiserweight titles, 'Clinton Woods' who holds the IBF Light Heavyweight title, 'Joe Calzaghe' (probably the best of the bunch) who holds the WBA & WBO Super Middleweight titles, 'Gavin Rees' who holds the WBA Super Lightweight and 'Junior Witter who hold the WBC Super Lightweight title. 'Ricky Hatton's' recent loss to 'Floyd Mayweather, Jr.' ('Mayweather' being generally considered the best pound for pound fighter in the world) was certainly no disgrace and taking everything into consideration this should really be considered the golden age of British Boxing although it seems to engender nothing more than a feeling of apathy amongst the British public and media.

Boxing seems to be a character-driven sport. 'Frank Bruno' had a certain big-puppy dog appeal and is still to this day one of the most beloved of all British Sportspeople and that would have continued whether he'd eventually won a world title or not. Even ol' 'Henry Cooper' & 'Joe Bugner' are more recognizable names than today's British world champions. Apparently with so many current British World Champions around the thrill of supporting the local underdog has all but disappeared. The Brits liking a good challenge seem to find it a bit difficult to cope with having so many boxing successes. As Ol' Henry Cooper himself used to say, 'It's a funny old game'.

Gone are the days of 'Muhammad Ali's' sparkling wit of the early '70s or the ruthlessly soft-spoken Mike Tyson of the '80s, whose ferocious and exciting destruction of intimidated opponents on his way to the world title hasn't been matched before or since. With all the great names of the past 30-40 years: Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Sugar Ray, Hagler, Holyfield having faded into the sports halls of fame the sport seems to be waiting for the next spark to ignite it.