I'm joined this week by one of the best in the business. International Boxing Hall of Fame and Nigel Collins covered his first fight in 1972.

He was part of that brilliant Philadelphia landscape in the 1970s and

rose to prominence as a great editor of Ring magazine in the 1980s. A man of great

integrity, a superb journalist and now deeply experienced.

Collins gave me a chance to write for the ring in 2004 and then after he left the

American Bible of boxing he wrote for me at Boxing News, the British Boxing Bible, less than

a decade later. Tyson, Mayweather, Leonard Hagler and Moore, he's covered them all. Here he looks

back on almost half a century of fights.

What was the first fight you ever covered? Do you remember?

Yes, I certainly do. The first fight I ever covered was Benny Briscoe knocking out Louis Vanallis on October 11th 1972.

Wow okay so how did did the fight stand in the memory as a as a fight or was it just because it was your first one that you remember it so clearly

Well, there was several interesting things about it

Briscoe was lined up to fight Monzon for the title.

And he went up to Scranton, Pennsylvania for a tune-up,

and he lost a decision to Louis Vanallis. So this was the rematch that he had

to win to get the title fight and he was not doing very well in the fight.

Vanallis was a mover and a jabber and Benny couldn't catch him.

And it was so upsetting that my first wife left the arena and went out in the hallway because she

couldn't stand to watch it anymore. Well Russell Peltz the promoter went out to

comfort her and whilst they around in the, there was a huge roar that went up from

the crowd and they came back just in time to see Briscoe standing over the guy and he was being

counted out. So that sort of made it a little bit special because I knew about that but

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