When Fred Brophy bangs a drum on the floodlit stage outside his boxing tent, the large crowd gathered in front of him falls silent in rapt attention. Brophy runs a boxing troupe — the last in Australia and one of the few left worldwide — travelling to outback towns where someone’s always up for a fight. Lords of the ringBack in the 1930s to 1950s, such tents were a fixture at country fairs and agricultural shows in the major cities, says Australian boxing author Grantlee Kieza. Boxing’s ‘Wild West’“It’s sort of like a carryover from the Wild Wild West days, isn’t it, the idea of tent boxing. Brophy for one is happy to play up the image of the knockabout Australian outback maverick, immortalized in the “Crocodile Dundee” Hollywood films.

Source: Egypt Independent December 10, 2018 05:26 UTC