Latest news with #BigJohn
The Independent
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Who are the ‘Bosh Soldiers' of the ‘Romford Bull Army' led by Big John, the viral supporters of Johnny Fisher?
Johnny Fisher, 13-0 (11), returns to action this evening, facing fellow British heavyweight Dave Allen, 23-7-2 (18), in a rematch that is headlining a night of boxing at the Copper Box Arena. An unbeaten prospect with hopes of becoming a household name for his boxing skills, Fisher is better known for his relation to viral internet sensation, Big John. Big John will be in attendance, leading the Bosh soldiers of the Romford Bull Army. Confused by those terms? Let us explain. Who is Big John? Boxers often have their family in their corner, sometimes literally, and Fisher is no different. Formerly a boxer himself, albeit at an amateur level, John Fisher has travelled to the USA and Saudi Arabia in support of his son. Arguably more well-known than his son, Big John has carved out a niche on social media as an internet sensation. Across various accounts on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, Big John has amassed over a million followers Big John has created a following based on his large appetite and trademark saying of 'bosh', leading to his fans being referred to as the 'Bosh Army'. A connoisseur of Chinese takeaways, Big John and Fisher have been spotted sharing some chicken balls to celebrate a win for the Romford Bull in the past. Big John picked up 'bosh' from his friend and fellow Romford personality Tom Skinner. His son has also utilised the term, referring to tonight's venue as the Copper 'Bosh' Arena. Who are the Romford Bull Army? Whilst Big John has his own Bosh Army, his son's supporters are named the 'Romford Bull Army'. There is overlap between the two, with members of the Romford Bull Army labelled 'Bosh Soldiers' by Big John, who has stylised himself as the group's leader. Fisher's supporters named themselves after their favourite fighter's nickname, a term given to the Essex-born heavyweight when he was sparring in Las Vegas. American trainers were impressed with his style, stating that he fought like a bull. Raised in Romford, Fisher added his hometown to the descriptor to create his new moniker. Partly thanks to their viral leader, Big John, the Romford Bull Army have a healthy presence on social media, with 15,000 followers on Instagram. Other famous members include Ethan Payne, a YouTuber better known as Behzinga, who is part of the Sidemen, a group of YouTubers with 22m followers. On their Instagram account, the Romford Bull Army shows plenty of support for their man, selling merchandise and organising watch parties for Fisher's fights. The Romford Bull Army travel well, having supported Fisher out in Las Vegas and Riyadh, but they will not have far to travel to east London this evening. Fisher's supporters were in full voice during Friday's press conference, indicating that he will have quite a few fans in attendance when he faces Dave Allen.
The Independent
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Who is Johnny Fisher? Fight record, stats, next bout, and more
Johnny Fisher returns to the ring this weekend when he faces Dave Allen for a second time, but who is the man they call the 'Romford Bull'? The unbeaten heavyweight garnered notoriety at the end of 2024 for his controversial victory over Allen – and his internet sensation father 'Big John'. But 26-year-old Fisher is a fighter first-and-foremost, a heavyweight with big ambitions on the world stage. Who is Johnny Fisher? Born and raised in Romford, Essex, Fisher was a keen sportsman as he grew up. Not only did he start boxing in his early teens, but his physique and strength translated well to rugby. Fisher briefly drifted away from the sweet science, but returned to boxing whilst studying history at Exeter University. Whilst at uni, he sparred with Joe Joyce, partly reigniting his love for the sport. He turned professional in 2021, securing a first-round stoppage against Matt Gordon at Wembley Arena. Fisher currently trains under the watchful eye of Mark Tibbs at the Origin Gym in Essex. What is Johnny Fisher's record? Fisher remains unbeaten since starting his professional career in 2021, with 13 wins from 13 bouts. Impressively, Fisher has won 11 of those fights by way of knockout, including a run of seven straight stoppages until his split decision win over Dave Allen last time out. After his debut in February 2021, Fisher racked up experience. He fought a further three times in 2021, before settling into a rhythm of three fights a year in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Aside from his victory against Allen, Fisher had respectable wins over Dmytro Bezus and Alen Babic, who had respectively records of 10-1 and 12-1 at the time. Fisher's bout with Bezus was staged in Las Vegas, with the 'Romford Bull' fighting on the undercard of Conor Benn's victory against Peter Dobson alongside stablemates George Liddard and Jimmy Sains. When is Johnny Fisher's next fight? Johnny Fisher returns to action this weekend, when he headlines a card at the Copperbox Arena, London, live on DAZN. He faces fellow Brit Dave Allen in a rematch, following Fisher's somewhat controversial victory against the Yorkshireman in Saudi Arabia last year. Knocked down by Allen, Fisher did well to recover, but many fans felt that the Romford Bull was beaten by his opponent. The card takes place on Saturday, May 17, with the main event ringwalks set for approximately 10pm.
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Your favourite podcast is now a video – but are vodcasts the future, or just ‘crap telly'?
It is four in the afternoon at Pellicci's, a family-run cafe on Bethnal Green Road in London that has been an East End institution for 125 years. Its famously loudmouthed owners, British-Italian siblings Nevio and Anna, have been serving fry-ups, soups, pasta and jam roly-polies since eight this morning. The cafe is now closed, but Anna and Nevio are just getting started on their second job as hosts of the podcast series Down the Caff, in which they interview people about food and life over a meal of the guest's choosing. The conversations are sweary, chaotic and an absolute hoot. Their guests so far include actor and Pellicci's regular Ray Winstone, Dexys' Kevin Rowland, rapper Hak Baker and 86-year-old YouTuber Marge Keefe, AKA Grime Gran. Today's interviewees are TikTok star John Fisher, AKA Big John, and his son, the boxer Johnny Fisher. When I tell Anna she must be due a lie down, she says: 'Tell me about it. In fact, tell him!' pointing at their longsuffering producer George Sexton-Kerr, who is busy moving Formica tables around to make way for the film crew. Why the film crew, I hear you ask? Podcasts are for ears, not eyes, aren't they? It's because the past 18 months have brought a shift in how pods are consumed, with scores of shows moving into video. In February, YouTube announced it had 1 billion monthly users watching podcast content, meaning the platform has leapfrogged Spotify (which in 2023 reported 100 million regular podcast listeners) and Apple to become the market leader. Little wonder Spotify is trying to catch up, with many of its top podcasts, including The Joe Rogan Experience, The Mel Robbins Podcast and Call Her Daddy now publishing in video. This year, the BBC launched The Traitors: Uncloaked and Uncanny: Post Mortem in video as well as audio formats, while Business Insider has reported that Netflix is also preparing to move into visualised pods. Reflecting this trend, the British Podcast awards has this year added a new visual innovation award for 'outstanding visual podcasting'. All of which means, like it or not, visualised podcasts – or vodcasts, as some are calling them – are happening. Speaking to both listeners and creators about this brave new audiovisual world, it seems opinions are divided. Dedicated audiophiles quite reasonably ask why they would want to watch a podcast when their TV to-watch list is already out of control, but others say they enjoy having a choice and it can be fun to see the hosts whose voices they know so well. I also spoke to several independent audio producers who don't wish to be named, who worry about YouTube's dominance over the industry and are sceptical of audio being restyled as 'crap telly'. That's not to say that visualised podcasts are expected to compete with mainstream TV: just as celebrity interviewer Amelia Dimoldenberg, the host of YouTube's Chicken Shop Date, can exist alongside Graham Norton on the BBC, so can visualised pods exist in parallel with better resourced and produced television shows. Nonetheless, as a listener and podcast critic, I confess I too have reservations. For me, the delight of audio lies in the intimacy of having voices and soundscapes piped straight into my ears and sparking my imagination. Plus, I do most of my listening while doing other things such as cooking and walking the dog. The last thing I need is another form of entertainment that requires me to gape at a screen. I am, however, up for watching pods where the visuals have a clear purpose and Down the Caff, which launched last year, is absolutely one of those. Sexton-Kerr, a radio and pod producer who took two years to persuade Anna and Nevio to make the series, imagined it as an audiovisual package from the off. 'I always wanted it to be a multifaceted thing. It's partly about the food, and Anna and Nev, who are this brilliant double act. But it's also about the beauty of just sitting in here over a cup of tea and having a chat. It's a grade II-listed building with all this art deco panelling and you need to see that.' Nevio adds that, during the first couple of episodes, 'Me and Anna didn't know what we were doing, so it's a lot of people shouting over each other. But we've got better, mainly because George has been telling us off. We're thinking a bit more about how it will work [in audio and visual mediums] now.' When my producer friends talk about pods as 'crap telly', they are referring to interview pods and chat-casts that, in theory, lend themselves to a visual format. For productions such as Begin Again With Davina McCall, Fashion Neurosis With Bella Freud or Call Her Daddy, this means you see hosts and interviewees on TV sets arranged like fancy living rooms complete with coffee-table books and mood lighting. Often, though, it's a camera squeezed into a sound booth or, worse, a crummy Zoom recording. One such offender is The Rest Is Politics, the chart-topping series presented by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. Since the hosts are rarely in the same place, viewers invariably watch them in split screen, each beaming in fuzzily from their respective hotel rooms or home offices. Not for nothing did YouTube executive Pedro Pina recently say that The Rest Is Politics 'feels like a high school [production]', adding that 'viewers determine the production values that they're prepared to accept' – a polite way of saying that the show's audience don't care about quality. Matt Deegan, a partner at the podcast marketing company Podcast Discovery, says: 'For some audiences it's less about consuming a podcast and more about consuming 'a show'. There are definitely younger audiences who don't listen to audio podcasts but are very comfortable on YouTube.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion No matter the production values, the video versions can be easily clipped up for social media, boosting audience awareness of the shows. For a podcast looking to grow its audience, says Deegan, 'the repetition of seeing fun, informative, silly or serious stuff from a show makes someone far more likely to hit Follow on their podcast app'. This is echoed by Sexton-Kerr, who notes: 'We're sticking minute-long Down the Caff reels up on Insta and TikTok and we're getting more than 400,000 views on some of them. You can't pay for that kind of publicity.' For interview pods, the benefit of video content is clear, not least because it's straightforward to make. Turning a narrative podcast into a decent visual proposition is a far bigger challenge, though there are already podcasters giving it a go. George Mpanga (AKA George the Poet) and Benbrick, creators of Have You Heard George's Podcast?, the Peabody award-winning series about race, history and culture, are in the process of going back over their audio episodes and remaking them for a video audience. 'We need to go where the audience is,' Benbrick explains. 'Even if your strategy is audio-first, it is insane to leave out [YouTube]. And if you're going there, you might as well give that content the best chance to resonate. It kind of feels you can do anything right now, so we're trying it out and seeing what it could look like. I don't think it's in its final form yet.' Does all this spell doom for audio? While some in the industry worry that visualised content could further squeeze indie podcasters out of a crowded market, Benbrick believes it will create space 'for productions that really consider their audio. With video content it's hard to do really intricate audio work and, as a producer, I want what I put out to sound beautiful. This is a moment to make exceptional work.' Back at Pellicci's, as Nevio plonks down two enormous platefuls of jam tart on our table, Sexton-Kerr says he is certain it will all shake out. 'It's like that song Video Killed the Radio Star, isn't it? But we still have radio stars. I have podcasts that I still love listening to, so I think there's space for both. They'll just live next door to each other.'
BBC News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Fisher falls face down as Allen wins in fifth
Dave Allen set the record straight with a conclusive fifth round stoppage win over Johnny Fisher in their heavyweight rematch at London's Copper Box a tentative start by both men, the 33-year-old dropped Fisher with a barrage of powerful punches. 'The Romford Bull' rose to his feet but was dispatched in emphatic fashion, falling face down on the canvas after a ferocious left hook and right uppercut. At the same time, the 26-year-old's corner threw in the narrowly won the first fight on points, a decision many observers felt should have been awarded to Allen."This means everything to me," Allen, who wins his 24th fight in 33 bouts, said."I've been written off so many times. I knew I had the ability and at the right level, I'm a handful." After receiving medical treatment, Fisher left the ring without giving an interview. Allen scores highlight reel stoppage The likeable Allen was introduced as 'the people's champ' and received a warm welcome as he entered the – thanks in large part to his social media star father 'Big John' and their 'bosh' catchphrase - is one of domestic boxing's biggest ticket noise turned up a notch when he made his ring walk to 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' by John Denver, with just a small number of empty seats at the 8,000-capacity arena, nicknamed 'Copper Bosh' by Team failed to land with his telegraphed overhand rights and Fisher snapped out the jab as the contest struggled to catch fire early who knocked out Alen Babic in the first round at the same venue last year, landed stinging uppercuts in the third and was given a warning for throwing a punch after the referee called the 'Bull Army' in full voice, the raucous atmosphere was strikingly different to the low-key first fight in remained patient, waiting for his opening. Just like he did five months ago, he sent Fisher to the floor in the middle of the fight with brute power and came a highlight reel knockout which drew gasps from those in pair have remained friends since first sparring several years ago and Allen kept his celebrations on hold until Fisher was back on his feet. Fisher left with rebuilding job With just a handful of amateur fights before turning professional, Fisher began his career with a string of impressive knockout after such a comprehensive loss to the seasoned Allen, there are major question marks on his domestic level credentials. Allen, meanwhile, left the ring with a beaming smile in the arms of trainer Jamie self-proclaimed 'Doncaster De La Hoya' – in homage to the six-division world champion Oscar De La Hoya – Allen earned a cult following with his relaxed, refreshingly honest and sometimes overly self-critical approach to the sport."I can now buy an en-suite," he joked the rematch, Allen said he plans to box for another 22 months – until his 35th birthday - and was content in playing the gatekeeper role for other British prospects. After his latest win, he may just elevate those aspirations a little.
The Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Johnny Fisher scouts out local Chinese takeaway during Spanish training camp… but saves it for after Dave Allen rematch
JOHNNY FISHER scouted out his local Chinese house while training away in Fuerteventura - but will save it for after his Dave Allen rematch. Fisher flew out to Spain's Canary Islands for a warm weather camp to get away from the distractions of being a local Romford hero. 5 5 5 It also meant sacrificing his favourite Chinese cheat meal at the Blue Orchard - made famous by his social media star dad Big John. Fisher did hunt down a Chinese restaurant while training out in Fuerteventura - but he restrained from indulging until his mission is complete. He told SunSport: "Yeah we'll save it till after the fight. "After the fight we'll have plenty of chicken balls once we've done the job Saturday night." Fisher is one of Eddie Hearn's best ticket sellers - helped by the popularity of his takeaway-loving dad John - who is also plotting the post-fight feast. John said: "There's only one place to go, Blue Orchid. We'll go there next week sometime. So we can't wait. Bosh!" While Fisher is the fighter in the family his dad - with over 500,000 Instagram followers - might be the most famous. He tours all around the world from America to the Pacific meeting fans, leaving his son to crack on with training in his absence. CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS John said: "I knew he was out there working and I was in Australia myself so it's hard to miss someone when you're on the other side of the world. "But we knew he was out there working, doing a good job, so fair enough." Dave Allen won't let Johnny Fisher flush his boxing career away with plans to buy a house with en-suites Fisher Jr said: "My mum and dad are my mum and dad, it doesn't matter if I spend a year away from them or one day, it's never gonna change, we're always in each other's thoughts. "It's not a big deal. My dad's travelling all over the world now so it's just part and parcel of where we are." Fisher, 26, was floored by Allen, 33, last December in Saudi Arabia but returned home with a controversial split-decision win after a thriller. The former Exeter University student - who played rugby while studying - needed a brain scan after suffering a blood clot in his ear. But it has not deterred the fearless Romford Bull from having another all-out war - despite his dad having to accompany him in the Riyadh hospital. Fisher said: "I think that's naturally how I lend myself to instinctively go in and cause a fight like that. "That's just the way I am, so I'm not gonna shy away from it one bit. That's who I am. "And obviously my dad's gonna be my dad, if I had a son going into a fight, I'd be nervous. I'd get nervous watching my mates fight. "I remember watching Joe Joyce fight loads and loads of times, and he's my friend, you get nervous. "But, when you're the one doing it, there are no nerves you just go in there and do your job." 5 5
