A Night Out at the Circus: A Look Back at Closed Circuit Boxing
By Mike “Rubber Warrior” Plunkett
I remember the day when boxing was a regular network television occurrence. Catching a glimpse of a mainstream marquee name in action wasn’t something akin to spotting the Loch Ness Monster. Classic match-ups were regular television fare for fight fans back in the day. It was a time when our thirst for boxing was easily quenched. Often, all that was needed was a set of rabbit ears and a TV Guide and you’d be on your way.
While network television covered 80% of the sport’s notable bouts, the match-ups that stirred the collective imagination of fans around the world and inspired them to shell out hard-earned dollars were reserved exclusively for closed circuit television. Mega match-ups on the order of “Sugar” Ray Leonard’s story book comeback against reigning middleweight king Marvelous Marvin Hagler, “Gentleman” Gerry Cooney’s challenge of Larry Holmes or “The Fight of the Century, “Smokin” Joe Frazier versus Muhammad Ali were the type of blockbuster match-ups reserved for closed circuit treatment.
Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is a television transmission system in which live or pre-recorded signals are sent over a closed loop to a finite and predetermined group of receivers, either via coaxial cable or as scrambled radio waves that are unscrambled at the point of reception. The predetermined group of receivers ranged typically from that of a local theatre, your favourite watering hole or as often in my case, the old Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
It seems like a lifetime ago since I had to endure the rigors of attending a closed circuit boxing telecast. Often, the magnitude of the event predetermined the lengths to which I’d go to catch the action live. Usually it came down to me scanning the local paper in the weeks before the given match to get an idea of where I could buy tickets. For the most part, I recall spending anywhere from $29.99 to around $50.00 for the opportunity to be sardined amongst the black sheep of all sports fans for the sake of satisfying my hardcore curiosity. And that’s only if you planned ahead. Waiting until the last minute and leaving your fate in the hands of a scalper could spell trouble, as I once found out. Nobody cries alligator tears for those suckered into a $120.00 seat and a ninety-one second blowout.
Considerations thereafter, such as parking, concessions and who I’d be going with typically added anywhere from fifty to 50 to 100% to the expenditures of the evening. More often than not, investing in a closed circuit boxing event in my city was like opening a box of Crackerjacks. As I found out over time, it really didn’t matter how good the seats you purchased were. Sometimes the screen for an entire arena seemed no bigger than something a wayward uncle would use in his moldy basement when featuring home movies of that infamous trip to the beach or vacation you spent years trying to forget. And if you managed to score cheaper seats, heaven forbid, the screen would seem even smaller; no bigger than the display on a Nintendo Game Boy – a solid one-hundred or more feet away from where you sat. Then there was the quality of the picture. Screen size aside, the picture often left much to be desired. The term “high definition” had nothing to do with the experience and often the audio quality was on par with the cracked, single radio speaker in my grandfather’s 1960 Pontiac Strato Chief station wagon.
Don’t get me wrong. The inconveniences aside, I’ve always come away from a closed circuit experience with a good time under my belt for one reason or another.
I recall having to choose between going out with a young lady I had been in hot pursuit of for months, or attending the closed circuit telecast of Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney in 1982. It was, at the time, a match-up of gigantic proportions. Needless to say, it was a bout for the World heavyweight title, and I wasn’t about to let my loins undermine what I perceived to be history in the making.
Cooney was incredibly hyped as a real life Rocky whereas Holmes was regarded as some type of black hat-wearing train robber. Going up the escalators in the old Maple Leaf Gardens was a surreal event on that occasion. The place was loaded with hopeful closet-Irish loudly extolling the virtues of their man in Gerry Cooney. I was questioned by at least a half dozen aging drunkards on “which round will Gerry end it” or “are you pulling for Gerry”. By the time James “Quick” Tillis had won his preliminary bout against an aging fraction of Earnie Shavers, I had seen a handful of alcohol induced impromptu bouts between the aging, the overweight and the generally inappropriate. By the time “The Easton Assassin” had thoroughly mugged and beaten the proverbial stuffing out of Cooney, the relative silence was deafening.
On April 6th, 1987, I again found myself at Toronto’s historic Maple Leaf Gardens, this time for “Sugar” Ray Leonard’s challenge of Marvelous Marvin Hagler. There were local celebrities of every kind dressed to kill occupying many of the expensive floor seats. I had managed to buddy-up with just about every seated fan within a thirty foot perimeter, hard-pressed to find anybody that gave Leonard a chance to pull off the upset. Within minutes, side bets were being placed with a balding middle-aged East Indian fan that had Hagler pegged as all but finished. I’ll never forget hearing this guy yell instructions at Ray throughout the early rounds, as though he were Leonard’s trainer, and later his non-stop “I told you so” aimed at anyone and everyone as he collected his seemingly considerable winnings.
Perhaps my most memorable closed circuit experience was in September 1993 at the now defunct Triumph Hotel in Toronto for Julio Cesar Chavez’ challenge of Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker for Whitaker’s WBC welterweight title. It was one of those Don King mega-cards, the kind he became famous for churning out during Mike Tyson’s initial period of imprisonment. We were all stuffed into a medium-sized ballroom and for the most part, everybody was standing as opposed to sitting.
Terry Norris had just blown out an ill-equipped Joe Gatti through the ropes seconds into the 1st round to defend his WBC light middleweight title when a tall well-dressed man in front of me turned around and asked aloud, “who was that guy?”, in reference to the fallen Gatti. That well-dressed man turned out to be Kris Kristofferson, and as I went on to learn over the course of the night, he was a huge fight fan. Looking back, Kristofferson was perhaps more interested in the shapely young lady that accompanied me to the telecast as opposed to my observations throughout the evening, but it didn’t really matter to me. I managed to get his thoughts on Azumah Nelson, Jesse James Leija and the blatant robbery better known as Whitaker vs. Chavez.
Today, there can be no question about the inherent advantages of pay per view. There are no parking fees or line-ups for concessions. The menu is completely up to you and the price for refreshments simply can’t be beat. You will almost always have the best seat in the house and you’ll usually have a say in who you wish to have over to share the moment.
But I have to tell you, despite all the ruckus and general rigmarole associated with an evening spent on a closed circuit boxing telecast, I almost always came away with a story to tell and a fond memory to reflect upon. Along the way I even made a few friends. There was a charm and the side effect of unexpected camaraderie when being shouldered with hundreds of other fans that Pay Per View simply doesn’t offer. Looking back, closed circuit boxing was a great night out and in many ways, a trip to the circus.