Is Andy Murray the first to admit this?

It was an honour to play in front of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graff and Rod Laver. I think I spotted Jeremy Piven, who plays Ari Gold in one of my favourite programmes, Entourage, and you may also have noticed Johnny Nelson sat with my team in the stands.

Johnny is a former cruiserweight world champion and I followed his boxing career with interest. When I was playing at the Italian Open in Rome, he came over to interview me and I told him to get in touch if he wanted to see any matches at Wimbledon or Queen's.

He was meant to come to my first round match against Nikolay Davydenko, but snapped his patella tendon in sparring the day before and needed surgery. He hobbled down on crutches for the Ferrer match.

If he is the first I am happy to be the second, I like Johnny Nelson, there I said it.

hahaha, Murray has the personality of a Johnny Nelson fight so it is probably true

rowley wrote:If he is the first I am happy to be the second, I like Johnny Nelson, there I said it.

I'm sure he's a very nice person. But did you like his career?

Murray seems to be a bit of a boxing nut. You should get him on through twitter.

im with Jeff, I like Nelson on Ringside. Thought he was a bit of a plank to begin with on the fight night shows but sort have got used to him now.

I sometimes forget he even fought haha

Would say I admired it rather than liked it Sean, to rebuild from the DeLeon and Wareing fights into a solid, if unspectacular world champion shows character, particularly when you consider that Nelson used to be laughed out of the gym when he first started training.

This video manages, somehow, to be nearly three minutes long...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbOUVdX-te8

i believe the injury mentioned above was during training with tony bellew.

I have to confess that, despite his inability to say most words properly for some reason ("Amir Khan fights this July for the dubyabubbaweecee (WBC) title!", I have also found myself really warming to Johnny over the years in the studio. Always enthusiastic and normally talks sense, seems very genuine, too. Have spoken to a few people who've met him at various times and they're unanimous in saying that he comes across as a lovely bloke.

As Jeff says, a bloody hard worker, too, much in the Bruno and Andries mould. I respect the hell out of him, even if all of his fights I've seen (his title win over Thompson aside) were duller than golf.

He's enthusiastic and honest. How many other ex boxers have admitted to being Poopie scared of the game at times.

Can't believe the word sh1t has been banned.

What else have we got;

Poopie
Flip
Kumquat
Bar Steward
bumhole
five knuckle shuffle
Frank Warren
Tinkywinky

rowley wrote:If he is the first I am happy to be the second, I like Johnny Nelson, there I said it.

What! No you don't! I've always said Nelson has a better Cruiser record than Haye only to be gunned down by all and sundry - including you!