What to expect from a live boxing match

Float like a butterfly...sting like a bee

The day started sunny, warm and beautiful. I donned my new floral summer dress, grabbed my lipgloss and my date before heading out for a day with a difference.


Leaving behind our bustling market town, we caught a train into the big smoke (well, little smoke but the nearest city to us). A mad dash ensued as we saw the barriers come down and the train getting ready to depart. We made it just in the nick of time!

I love taking the train far more than any other transport - it always feels like an adventure somehow.

We decided to enjoy the warm weather and take up residence in some of the lovely cafe bars in the tree lined avenues and people watch over a few cold ones.

Before long we were baked and a little tiddly so headed off to our reservation at El Toro Tapas bar. Now, from the outside it could be mistaken for a fairly run of the mill restaurant but make no mistake, the food offering is startlingly good. Being major foodies we wanted to really test this place out and so proceeded to order more tapas than was probably strictly necessary or good for us.

Fresh seafood, sexy melted cheeses and succulent garlic mushrooms; El Toro had it all. My dinner date absolutely loved the marchego ham, too. The frozen margheritas were delish and the service polite and efficient. I would go as far to say that this is one of the most authentic tapas restaurants in this area. So much so that I even unconciously uttered 'muchos gracias' as we were leaving. That's some real shiz, yo!

You may think this was the end of a perfectly lovely day, but no, t'was just the beginning. In fact it was a warm up to the main event...a professional boxing match. I mean, sky sports were there, that's how professional it was. We were there to see this young man, Luke Campbell, Olympic boxer and Hull born star.

There were several warm up events before Luke came on to make his professional debut which were pretty uneventful in all honesty. However, the last three fights really saw the atmosphere ramp up several notches. People shouted and cheered for their favourites, hugged strangers to celebrate victories and bets were won.

There were a couple of knock-outs and sore losses but also some brave efforts and gallant defeats.

They even had proper ring girls, which made it feel even more like we were ringside in Las Vegas.

Eventually we made our way home, full, tipsy and entertained. The obligatory Sky + re-watch occurred to see if we'd made it onto the box but long before it ended, I was in the land of nod blissfully slumbering.