TV drama: Floyd Mayweather squares up to Ricky Hatton. Photograph: AP/Jae C. Hong
A great television event takes place in the early hours of Sunday morning and it will pass many people by. Ricky Hatton takes on Floyd Mayweather for the welterweight championship of the world and for those of us watching the action at parties, projected on to big screens, the anticipation could not be greater - we're talking Crossroads' final episode multiplied by a thousand. It is something of a tragedy that boxing has largely disappeared from our terrestrial screens because no other sport can come close to the drama of a live boxing broadcast. Like many of my generation, I was raised on the broadcasts from Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and Madison Square Garden in the 1980s when, by some strange fluke, four boxing gods Hearns, Hagler, Leonard and Duran stalked the middle divisions, all at their peak, all fighting each other in unforgettable contests that made Dallas seem pale and colourless in comparison.
Not everyone agrees of course, but boxing and television were made for each other. Great broadcasters gravitate towards the sport, sensing its narrative power. Can you ever imagine soccer producing a broadcasting giant like Howard Cosell, with his legendary sparring matches with Muhammad Ali? Or a fearless maverick like Larry Merchant (whose assessment of Mike Tyson as "an emotionally-disturbed washed-up sociopath" was typically astute)? I'll even include George Foreman on the roll call, one of the most surreal co-commentators in any sport.
Boxing is a truly universal sport - the televisual Esperanto of unarmed combat doesn't require commentary or subtitles. And it is the only sport capable of producing such TV drama as Ali knocking out Foreman in Zaire, a bloodied and battered Chris Eubank climbing off the canvas to throw the uppercut that would finish Michael Watson's career and almost end his life or Julio Cesar Chavez, trailing on all the scorecards, knocking out Meldrick Taylor with two seconds remaining.
For all its brutality, corruption and sleaze, boxing contains all the elements necessary for historically great television. In no other sport are the stakes as high. Personally, I'm predicting Mayweather by points and the television event of the year. Anyone joining me?
