The Main Event Boxing Podcast · Fox Sports Australia

2023 IN REVIEW - Boxing reporters Nick Walshaw and Brendan Bradford break down a big year

·59 min·4 clips

Tim Zoo was days from a fight when reporters heard he had been bitten by a dog.

1. The Main Event Boxing Podcast episode reviews 2023 in Australian boxing with Ben Damon, Brendan Bradford, and Nick Walshaw. 2. Ben Damon is the host, while Bradford writes for Code and the Daily Telegraph and Walshaw covers boxing for Fox Sports. 3. The episode asks what 2023 meant for Australian boxing and why the year felt bigger than earlier seasons. 4. Nick Walshaw says Australian boxing and MMA now have emerging global stars and better-run local events. 5. Walshaw says shows now feel like big shows and says that has made everyone lift together. 6. Brendan Bradford says he has always loved boxing because his grandad got him into it. 7. Bradford says boxing has a romance around it, whether the fight is Tim Zhu versus a world-title opponent or a club bout at the end of the night. 8. Both hosts say the sport keeps familiar themes even as the production level improves. 9. Walshaw picks the Tim Zoo dog bite as his favourite story of the year. 10. He says the injury report was unexpected, the fight looked close to being off, and the stitch count changed depending on who he asked. 11. Walshaw also says his favourite interview was Tim Zoo at the gym, where posters of Kostya Zoo had been replaced by Tim and Nikita. 12. He reads that visual change as a sign that Tim Zoo had become the lead man in his own career. 13. Bradford says his favourite interview was with Nikita Zou, who talked about a tree species, a bed he built himself, and drinking king cobra blood. 14. Bradford also names Jack Brubaker's brawl in Bali with about 15 bikies as a standout story. 15. The pair discuss Tony Harrison as a perfect opponent for the Tim Zoo lead-up because he refused to call him Tim Zoo and called him Timothy and Tim to Zoo. 16. They say Harrison convinced many observers that Tim Zoo was in trouble before the fight, but the performance did not match the talk. 17. Walshaw says the Biggs-Nikita Zoo walkout drama summed up Aussie boxing because it dragged on for days and ended with threats over the purse. 18. The episode has a loose, conversational style with back-and-forth interruptions, shared memories, and many specific fight-week anecdotes. 19. Listeners who follow Australian boxing personalities, press conferences, and fight-week drama should get a lot from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a strict round-by-round fight recap may skip this one.

As heard by us

A year-end boxing chat with local colour, fight-week characters, and a clear sense of how the scene is changing.

The Main Event Boxing Podcast ends the year in a loose, familiar way, with Ben Damon talking with Brendan Bradford and Nick Walshaw about Australian boxing and how the scene has changed around them.

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Why you'd press play

You want a year-end boxing wrap with journalists Brendan Bradford and Nick Walshaw on how Australian boxing changed in 2023.

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