Beeb's Boxing Recovery Faces Knock-out Blow

Boxing fans will have eyes squarer than a pug's jaw if they avail themselves of all the opportunities to watch their sport on television this week.

Next Saturday there are four different bills live on the box, two of them on Sky and one each on the BBC and British Eurosport.

The Beeb's involvement in the pugilistic art - they are also showing a title bout this evening - is the most interesting after a long spell when Auntie virtually ignored it.

The renewed enthusiasm stems from director general Greg Dyke's penchant for a good scrap and has clearly been unaffected by the not entirely satisfactory association with Audley Harrison.

Harrison, of course, is the Olympic champion whose first 10 pro fights cost the Beeb one million notes and delivered marginally more thrills than you would expect at a village horticultural show.

Now, though, the word is that boxing on the Beeb may be about to suffer from a sports budget that has been exhausted by the massive investment in winning back Premiership football highlights from ITV.

No longer are the Corporation's rights buyers looking around feverishly for something on which to spend their cash. The impending return of the traditional, club-football-based Match of the Day has seen to that.

Which is not good news for those at Television Centre who have been working diligently on Dyke's boxing project.

They are feeling frustrated that, just when it seemed possible that boxing on the Beeb would become firmly re-established, with attractive fights such as the proposed heavyweight showdown between Danny Williams and Herbie Hide coming up, they are facing the possibility of its being wound down again.

It is not just boxing that gets a good airing this week. There is even more live football than usual with matches from the Premiership and across Europe, including the Champions League, coming your way.

The most intriguing, though, has to be tonight's fixture between the United States and that stalwart of President Bush's 'axis of evil', North Korea, in the women's World Cup in Columbus, Ohio.

TV commentators in the US, where the tournament is being staged and all matches are being televised live, will no doubt have plenty of opportunities to roll out a few inappropriately bellicose metaphors.

The match can be seen here live on British Eurosport.