''Pabst Blue Ribbon Bouts'', later ''The Wednesday Night Fights'', is a television program that broadcast

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

matches from New York's

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

featuring

Russ Hodges Russell Pleasant Hodges (June 18, 1910 – April 19, 1971) was an American sportscaster who did play-by-play for several baseball teams, most notably the New York Giants / San Francisco Giants. He is perhaps best remembered for his call of Bo ...

Jack Drees John Henry Drees (February 8, 1917 – July 27, 1988) was an American sportscaster who worked for ABC and CBS, as well as various stations in Chicago. Early life and career Drees was born on February 8, 1917, in Chicago. He attended Austin Hig ...

, and

Bill Nimmo William Lorne Nimmo (June 18, 1917 – February 22, 2011) was a television and radio personality whose career spanned seven decades. Early life and pre-network career Nimmo was born on June 18, 1917, in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating fr ...

. It finished at #26 for the 1950-1951 season in the

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

, followed by #17 in 1951-1952, #14 in 1952-1953, #23 in 1953-1954 and #25 in 1954-1955. After its cancellation on CBS, the series was picked up by ABC, renamed ''The Wednesday Night Fights'', and continued until 1960.

Kinescopes Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s ...

of some of these matches were later re-broadcast under the title ''Blue Ribbon Classics''. In recent years,

ESPN Classic ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television television network, network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which controlled an 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which had 20%). The channel was ...

has aired some of the bouts. Most Pabst Blue Ribbon fights can be viewed at TVS Classic Sports Network.Com. During the 1954-55 season, this show was pre-empted every fourth week by ''

The Best of Broadway ''The Best of Broadway'' is a 60-minute live television anthology series that aired on CBS Television on Wednesdays at 10p.m. Eastern Standard Time from September 15, 1954, to May 4, 1955, for a total of nine episodes. Each show was broadcast liv ...

'', which ran a total of nine episodes for the season.

References

External links

''Pabst Blue Ribbon Bouts'' at IMDB
{{Boxing on ABC Boxing television series CBS Sports CBS original programming 1948 American television series debuts 1955 American television series endings Pabst Brewing Company