By Steve Bunce

IT IS attainable that the Ulster Corridor has the very best seat wherever on the planet to look at boxing.

The optimum seat on the balcony, which is even nearer to the ring than the one at York Corridor, may simply be about 10 toes away from and three toes increased than the boxers within the ring. It may additionally be an optical phantasm, impressed by the environment.

Each time I am going to a struggle there, I’m reminded of simply how magnificent the place is. It’s fancy, ornate and on the identical time it appears like a bear pit when the boxing is on. It will get busy with only a few hundred folks, chaotic with a thousand singing in concord and consuming in tandem. It’s particular and it was final weekend; a uncommon struggle evening that was over earlier than 10pm – the primary occasion was waved off at 9:58pm. It was good.

In 2009, I was practically bundled off the stage on the Ulster Corridor when Setanta screened the Martin Lindsay and Paul Appleby British featherweight title struggle. The place was packed to past capability and our presentation area on the stage was shrinking by the minute. There was no safety, only a digicam or two and me and Andy Kerr. When the struggle was stopped within the sixth, we had been clinging on like climbers to the very fringe of the stage. I believe that when the director got here again to the 2 of us on the finish, an enormous, bald geezer was hugging and attempting to kiss my head. Lindsay was the brand new champion; the struggle, by the best way, was particular. Lindsay was unbeaten in 13 and Appleby unbeaten in 14, and so they had each taken care of some good males on their solution to the Ulster Corridor. It’s wonderful what number of gems are misplaced.

I used to be born too late to look at fights at Shoreditch City Corridor, which I’m reliably advised was sensible. I do bear in mind the purpose-built boxing area at Aldershot. It was, just like the Nationwide Stadium in Dublin, a top quality and decaying venue. Within the Eighties, there was at all times a spherical of the Schoolboy championships within the Aldershot area. I did some 35-bout marathon periods there.

I as soon as noticed, from a seat within the balcony proper above the ring, Dennis Andries knock out a person from the Lynn at Seymour Baths. I believe it was the London semi-finals and Andries was boxing for the near legendary Colvestone membership. It was a very long time in the past, however that was an amazing venue and an amazing seat.

I had a tour of the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia and even within the afternoon with no one there, it was apparent the place was distinctive. The thought that Bennie Briscoe had his 96th and final struggle there – a full 20 years after his first struggle in that fabled place – was mind-blowing. I suppose it might be the identical for followers at York Corridor, figuring out that after upon an East Finish evening, Johnny Tapia walked to the identical ring. The Tapia ring from York Corridor, if I’m not mistaken, lives in a palace in Riyadh now.

The Ulster Corridor has that really feel, that sense that you’re strolling in historical past. It was within the ring there that Barry McGuigan gained the vacant British featherweight title in 1983 when he dropped and stopped Vernon Penprase in two rounds. That might be my kind of fantasy boxing evening, overlook Las Vegas for a second and let me sit on the balcony for McGuigan’s entrance. That might be wild.

In 2010 I used to be there for Carl Frampton’s win over Gavin Reid for the Celtic super-bantamweight title. It completed within the second and was an actual style of issues to return. There was an analogous sense final weekend with Lewis Crocker; the boys in crocodile fits dancing on the stage helped, however then once more, it’s a lot more durable to purchase a novelty jackal swimsuit.  Frampton lived lower than a mile from the venue – I really like the concept a boxer tops the invoice and might stroll to the venue. That’s old-school Rocky stuff.

Final Saturday on the Ulster Corridor there was nearly each single emotion and that’s the approach it needs to be. In Fibber Magee’s at midnight, there have been nonetheless punters throwing the large looping shot that dropped Jose Felix. I’m certain that on the identical time, folks that care had been placing a delicate hand on Tommy McCarthy’s shoulder. I hope they had been.

Crocker will probably be again for greater nights in a Belfast ring and McCarthy might want to do some lengthy and onerous pondering. The folks with him ought to do the identical.

The Paddy Donovan and Andy Lee cameo added plenty of class to the invoice. Lee was a world star, however there was one evening of his in Eire that I actually want I had seen. It was 2005 on the Nationwide Stadium in Dublin and he beat the Cuban Yordanis Despaigne. This was a time when British and Irish boxers had lastly, after about 35 years of defeats, began to beat the very best Cubans. I wish to think about that Lee towards Despaigne was the final struggle of the evening and victory for the blended British and Irish staff was depending on the win. It was neither, but it surely was a pleasant thought. That venue is particular.

The Ulster Corridor glows at evening within the moist and the darkish. Inside it’s even higher. When you ever get an opportunity, go see a struggle there and get a kind of prime balcony seats after which shut your eyes and picture.