Flatpuss Boxing - straight talk from the fearless one

Flatpuss Boxing captures life's important moments! 

40 years of experience including work with The Ring magazine, World Boxing Board, Boxing Digest, Banner Promotions, former publisher of Boxing Prospects magazine,  Boxing Writer of the Year  (WBB,) photographer for  Fox Sports Beyond the Glory - the Roberto Duran Story, author of Looking for Jimmy Wilde, The Last Round, Heart of a Champion, and author of 12 rather unsuccessful novels.

TO THOSE WHO ALSO SERVE

Ring Announcer Barrie Eget www.barrieeget.com

Move over Michael Buffer, Barrie Eget wants your job. Of course, since you are a man he admires he is willing to wait until you retire. Eget might be new to ring announcing but he is not new to boxing. His father was with the World Boxing Hall of Fame and started dragging Eget  to fights almost as soon as he could hit a speed bag. Breaking into the world of ring announcing is not easy but Eget has always been determined. Having a great, deep, clear, voice, and a decent personality that comes across the television helps. He has already done 15 shows for ESPN and has freelanced for HBO, Showtime, and Fox Sports.

Being a ring announcer is more than just standing in the ring and running your mouth. The day before the match Get must attend the weigh-in and place the bouts in order. Because fighters come from all over the world he talks to each one personally and learns how to pronounce their names. He practices these names in the evening and before the fights.

He waited for the queues from the television director before he announces the fighters. He must talk at a reasonable pace so he can be understood. After each bout he must read the scores, if it has not been a knockout, and announce them in order to maintain a certain amount of suspense. If bouts are delayed a good sense of ad-libbing is important. Eget does all of this well. At the moment the most famous tag line is Burrer's "Let's get ready to rumble." Someday it might be Eget's. "It's time to throw down."

Photography and boxing have always been roommates. The history started with posed shots because any kind of action was impossible due to the technology of the day. Eventually, with the advent of faster films and flash bulbs, boxers start to line the ring apron with 4X5 press cameras, flash bulbs, and a single shot at a time. Enter the 35mm camera and the action started to heat up. When the auto winder came into play photographers had a chance to get action shots like never before. At big fights many photographers brought several cameras and an assistant to constantly reload them. Master photographers now started to emerge like Tom Casino and Shane Sims. Now the digital age has arrived and with it an endless number of people who claim to be photographers although they seem to know very little about it. They are really videographers. They just push the button on their cameras and hope, by shooting thousands of pictures, they might get one or two good ones. Older photographers find this disrespectful to the art.

Occasionally  a real professional emerges. Brittini Moten is just such a photographer. She knows her business and does it well. She also knows how to use all the electronics now available to photographers. She not only shoots the fights but, between rounds, uploads and publishes the pictures to various media. It is comforting to know that boxing photographing is being left to someone so capable.