ESPN2 Friday Night Fights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since October 2006.

This article is about the TV program ESPN Friday Night Fights. For a TV program with a similar name shown on the British TV channel Sky Sports 1, see Friday Fight Night. Additionally, since 1997, the Friday Night Fights NYC Series has earned significant notoriety at the local and national level. This series is a non televised event featuring amateur boxers and Muay Thai boxers. The Friday Night Fights NYC Series is the longest currently running boxing series in New York and has often been described in the media as "fight club meets night club".

ESPN Friday Night Fights (formerly ESPN2 Friday Night Fights) is a television boxing show, of the American channel ESPN2, that shows a series of live boxing fights on Friday nights, usually at 9 p.m. ET. The program, which debuted in the fall of 1998 (shortly after the demise of USA Network's Tuesday Night Fights in August of that same year), is hosted from the ESPN studio by ESPN's Brian Kenny and a guest host, usually a current or former boxer. Ringside commentary is provided by Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas. Previous seasons have featured boxing analyst Max Kellerman alongside Brian Kenny and sportscaster Bob Papa in Tessitore's role ringside with Atlas.

Friday Night Fights has also offered counterpart programs, ESPN2 Tuesday Night Fights, and in 2006, ESPN Wednesday Night Fights (formerly ESPN2 Wednesday Night Fights).

The usual set-up of the night is three matches. The first being eight rounds, the second being four, and the main event being either ten or twelve rounds. This is not always the case, though, as some matches will inevitably end early due to a knockout, disqualification, or accidental head-butt. In the event of the first fight ending early, the second match will usually move from four rounds up to six rounds. If enough fights end early, after the main event a match originally not supposed to be televised will be shown, another four-round match.

Between fights the show goes back to ESPN studios for Brian Kenny to talk about recent boxing news and/or have an interview with someone in the boxing world. Notable interviews include Bernard Hopkins, Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright and Sugar Ray Leonard, among others. The people being interviewed may or may not be in the studio with Brian. Special guests can also appear ringside. They usually only stay as guest commentators for one or two rounds and might possibly stay for a quick interview between rounds, although usually the show has commercials between rounds. Guest commentators include "Baby" Joe Mesi and Bernard Hopkins.

Title matches are not uncommon on Friday Night Fights, either. Usually this will only happen for minor belts, or if a belt (regardless of prestige) has been vacated and needs a champion.

1 Teddy Atlas' Fight Plan
2 Boxers who have fought on ESPN Friday Night Fights
3 Notes
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Teddy Atlas' Fight Plan

Before every main event, a short video recorded earlier is shown where Teddy goes over what strategies he thinks each boxer should use and uses his assistant Saul to demonstrate (they don't actually hit each other, but Teddy will use light, open-palm hits if he's demonstrating body shots). Teddy's extensive background as a boxing trainer gives these videos a great deal of accuracy, and if a boxer uses the strategies he mentioned they usually work well. In a Rogers Mtagwa fight, Teddy predicted that Mtagwa would knock out his opponent in the fourth round, and even predicted what punch would be the finishing blow; he was right on all accounts. Normally, the videos will be recorded in the ring before anybody comes to the arena, but from time to time will be filmed outside of the arena, elsewhere in the city. One sequence ended with Saul tackling Teddy into a fountain they were standing next to.

[edit] Boxers who have fought on ESPN Friday Night Fights

Boxers who have fought on ESPN2 Tuesday Night Fights:

Emanuel Augustus (2004-07-06)
Ian Gardner (2005-07-05)

Boxers who have fought on ESPN Wednesday Night Fights:

[edit] Notes

When Friday Night Fights debuted on ESPN2 in 1998, it was originally titled, ESPN2 Friday Night Fights. Since the sports net's February 2007 rebranding, the program was retitled, ESPN Friday Night Fights.

ESPN Wednesday Night Fights will return on April 11, 2007.