BOXING is like a lint roller to cliches. Once they stick, that’s it, you will never shake them off. These idioms are commonly wedged into boxing commentary and articles, and almost everyone has been guilty of infringements over the years.
Classics include ‘sparring is sparring’ (self-explanatory), ‘one of the best cutmen in the business’ (applies to all cutmen), ‘robbery’ (the fighter you wanted to win, didn’t), and in scoring a fight, ‘it’s what you like’ (trust me, it isn’t). While ‘styles make fights’ whether you have ‘long levers’ or are simply ‘teak tough’ (one for Harry Carpenter, perhaps).
In recent times, ‘stacked undercard’ has been added to this rogue’s gallery of boxing terminology, popularised by master salesman Eddie Hearn and sometimes used when the supporting fights are anything but.
A card loaded with A-sides may add star quality but it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to compelling fights. The recent cards in Saudi Arabia and Wembley (via Riyadh season) have given fight fans a welcome glimpse of what ‘stacked cards’ truly can be. These undercards have brought genuine intrigue and that £19.99 Pay-Per-View charge has, for the first time in a long time, not felt so objectionable.
This week the undercard to Usyk-Fury II was announced and it’s a solid foundation to a momentous rematch that could survive and thrive without a supporting cast. But it doesn’t quite shimmer with same golden quality of Five vs Five or other cards though Serhii Bohachuk vs Israil Madrimov is excellent (Bohachuk vs anyone in the Top 20 at 154lbs guarantees excitement) and I particularly like Dennis McCann vs Peter McGrail (that’s a fascinating match between two quality men, bang in form).
But we need to rewind further if we want to unearth the original stacked cards of boxing. Twenty-seven years ago this week, I was ringside for original Full Monty card, presented by our old friend Frank Warren, that is the best top to tail card I’ve ever attended in the UK.
Back In those pre-internet days, boxing cards were revealed via the fax machine that happened to be about a metre behind my desk in Boxing News’ old offices in Poland Street. The creaking BN fax would lurch into life and, when you saw Frank Warren’s old Sports Network logo at the top of the paper, it meant one of two things: a new fight card was being announced or we might be getting sued.
In the late 1990s, Warren, driven by the exhilarating Naseem Hamed, was producing consistently brilliant cards around the country in what I’d dub the modern golden era of British boxing, if sheer quality of cards is the measuring stick.
The Full Monty card took it to new levels with an astonishing TEN 12-rounders showcasing Hamed against Puerto Rican contender Jose Badillo and Joe Calzaghe in a gut check Chris Eubank, as well as one European and two British title fights.
From around 4pm, I was ringside at Sheffield Arena for at least 10 hours working for Sky Sports Boxing and Boxing News simultaneously. Despite the large number of fights to clear, the show somehow found the time to stop to bring us the closing coverage of England’s 0-0 draw with Italy in Rome that took Glenn Hoddle’s men to the 1998 World Cup (where I would see them lose first hand to Argentina on penalties in St Etienne, another story altogether). From memory, the card ended around 2am with a surging Paul Ingle stopping the capable Jonjo Irwin with the arena just about empty apart from those fighters’ diehard supporters.
But for the true elite of stacked cards, there is only one winner in the modern era. Don King’s shows in the 1990s were on another planet altogether with four or five world title fights on promotions generally featuring the stars of the sport in meaningful fights.
In my home office, I have a framed poster from ‘The Rematches’ show on May 7, 1994 that featured Julio Cesar Chavez vs Frankie Randall II, Gerald McClellan vs Julian Jackson II, Simon Brown vs Terry Norris II and Azumah Nelson vs Jesse James Leija II. Beneath those main four fights, great Mexican Ricardo Lopez defended his WBC strawweight crown against the unbeaten Kermin Guardia while former world champions Meldrick Taylor, Giovanni Parisi and Christy Martin also featured.
Four months earlier, again at the MGM Grand, King had staged a card including Chavez vs Randall I, Felix Trinidad vs Hector Camacho, Brown vs Troy Waters plus a supporting cast of Thomas Hearns, Razor Ruddock, Tim Austin, Terron Millet, Taylor, Parisi and Martin. Ludicrous stuff and King was knocking out four of these promotions a year. We’ll never see the likes of those cards again.
With leading fighters and their representatives choosing reward over risk, the sheer financials involved mean that stacked cards are only likely now with the immense cash injection of the Saudis or other high-level bankrollers. Ultimately, that isn’t sustainable as a business model in the medium term so maybe we should relish these intriguing undercards while we still can. These days only eye-watering money seems to bring out the brave matchmaking.
