He would travel the country to film and photograph pretty much every noteworthy amateur event too. For many years, in fact, the omnipresent Guy – armed with his unique sense of humour and cartoon smile – was part of the industry furniture. Guy, a former amateur who also filmed bodybuilding events, would regularly transport boxers and their teams from A to B, allowing him to build strong relationships with fighters like Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno, Michael Watson and Anthony Joshua, among countless others. Guy would be employed by Matchroom and Frank Maloney to film press conferences, record footage from behind the scenes and, on occasion, provide MC duties at weigh-ins. He was a great bloke and a genuine boxing man. Helder said: “I spent many a time in Eric’s company talking about his life and career. ”Īnd he did, introducing IFL co-founders Kugan Cassius and James Helder to early interviewees like Anthony Small and facilitating meetings with others. But I did everything I could to help them. And I never really liked the half-hour interviews they did, that’s too long, I preferred to speak to the boxers for a few minutes so they didn’t have to stand and talk for too long. “I never saw IFL as a rival when they came along because I was doing different things, like filming fights, and they never do that. The only other people there filming was ITV, BBC and Eurosport sometimes. “I was filming everything, all the press conferences, all the fights. “I did it all before any of them,” Guy told BN in recent months. It would be unfair on those who followed him to say without Eric Guy there would have been no YouTube boxing content, because of course there would, but his influence over the next generation should never be understated. He died in his sleep last week, aged just 66 and suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, after a miserable few years in which financial stress attributed to his poor health. In many ways, Eric was a trailblazer, albeit one who never really got to enjoy the fruits of his foresight. He first appeared on the circuit in 1987, a time when YouTube was non-existent and the internet so young it barely knew its own name. LONG before boxing press conferences were overrun with hopeful young videographers of varying ability and experience, Eric Guy was the only person – aside from ITV employees and the like – who attended such events with a video camera.
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