More Loose Connections Trivia Quiz

Answer: Middleweight Boxing Champions

Marvelous Marvin Hagler was the undisputed world middleweight boxing champion from 1980 to 1987. He first won the title with a dominant win over the reigning champion, Britain's Alan Minter in London. He successfully defended his title on 12 occasions before losing a controversial split decision to Sugar Ray Leonard at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas.

He would never box again after that defeat, his first in 11 years, retiring with a record of 62 wins, 2 draws and 3 defeats.

Answer: Middleweight Boxing Champions

Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns was a world champion title holder at numerous weights, winning titles at cruiserweight, light heavyweight, super middleweight, welterweight and middleweight. His first title came at welterweight in 1980, his 29th fight and 29th career win. His sixth title, his last major world title, was at light heavyweight in 1991.

Despite these many years of success, Hearns is arguably best remembered for a fight that he lost, a 1982 middleweight tear-up with Marvin Hagler. It only lasted three rounds but the three rounds contained some of the most brutal, ferocious boxing ever seen. In the first round Hearns broke his hand but also opened a large cut on Hagler's head. Hagler responded by going all-out to win the fight before the referee stopped him. Hearns had great success using his greater reach to jab and move but Hagler eventually got through and knocked him to the canvas in the third. The referee stopped the fight. Hearns had lost but his reputation was greatly enhanced.

Answer: Middleweight Boxing Champions

Sugar Ray Leonard was, like Tommy Hearns, a five-weight world champion. In addition to the successes of his 20-year professional career, he also won an Olympic gold medal at light welterweight at the Montreal Olympics of 1976.

Leonard won his first professional world title at welterweight in 1979 and successfully defended his title several times, until he was defeated by number one contender Roberto Duran, a former lightweight champion, in 1980. In a famous rematch later that year, Leonard regained his title with a brilliant, dominant display that saw Duran famously quit telling the referee "No mas" after Leonard starting showboating.

Leonard added the light middleweight title in 1981 before announcing his retirement a year later. However, his retirement was short-lived and he returned to the ring in 1984, but it was another three years before he became world champion again with victory over Marvin Hagler giving him his third championship belt, this time at middleweight. Super middleweight and light heavyweight titles would follow before a second retirement in 1991. Leonard returned for one more fight in 1997 before retiring for good with a record of 36 wins in 40 fights.

Answer: Middleweight Boxing Champions

Sugar Ray Robinson was listed by several boxing experts as the greatest pound-for-pound boxer of the 20th century. He won 174 professional fights and along the way picked up world championship belts at both welterweight (which he held for five years) and middleweight.

He first won the middleweight belt in 1951, whilst he was still world welterweight champion but lost it again later in the year to Britain's Randolph Turpin. He reclaimed it in a rematch and retained the belt until he retired in 1952. Three years later he returned to the ring and won and lost the world middleweight title three times, becoming the first boxer to win a single belt on five occasions.

Answer: Repeated Band Names

UK new romantic band Duran Duran took their name from a character in the 1968 movie "Barbarella". They formed in 1978, with their classic line-up of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, Andy Taylor, John Taylor and Roger Taylor coming together in 1980. One year later, they hit the UK charts for the first time with the single "Planet Earth". Taken from their self-titled debut album, it also spawned their first top ten hit "Girls on Film" helped in no measure by a racy video that was banned by the BBC.

Though they had charted in Australia and New Zealand with their early singles, big international success came with their second album "Rio". The album hit the top ten in numerous countries, including the US and the UK where it reached number two and hits like "Hungry Like the Wolf" made the top ten in multiple countries.

Their biggest hit was "The Reflex" a remix of a track from third album "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" that hit the top of the US Billboard and UK singles charts. They continued to record with varying degrees of commercial success well into the 21st century with their 15th album "Future Past" released in 2021.

Answer: Repeated Band Names

The The was originally formed as a band by Matt Johnson and his friend Keith Laws. More musicians would be added in the early years but by the time the first The The album "Soul Mining" was released in 1983, Johnson was the only permanent member of the band. He had already released a solo album under his own name, "Burning Blue Soul" that would retrospectively be re-released under the The The moniker.

Though the first album was a critical success, The The didn't see a commercial breakthrough until the release of the single "Heartland" in 1986. A critique of the "special relationship" between the US and the UK, it broke into the UK top 30 and helped propel the album "Infected" towards the top ten.

Following its success, The The released two top ten albums in "Mind Bomb" (1989) and "Dusk" (1993), featuring guest musicians such as Johnny Marr and Sinead O'Connor.

Answer: Repeated Band Names

Wet Wet Wet are a Scottish pop band best known for their 1994 worldwide smash hit "Love Is All Around". The song, a cover of an original by 60s garage band The Troggs, featured on the soundtrack of the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral". It reached the top of numerous charts around the world including the UK, Australia and the Netherlands.

In the UK it stayed on top of the singles charts for 15 weeks, falling just one shy of the record for consecutive weeks at number one held by Bryan Adams with "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)".

It stayed in the UK Top 75 for more than 30 weeks until the band chose to delete it, as radio stations began to ban it from the airwaves because listeners were getting so fed up with hearing it.

Answer: Repeated Band Names

Talk Talk started life as a synth-pop band, releasing the albums "The Party's Over" (1982) and "It's My Life" (1984). The first album yielded the minor hit singles, "Today", "Talk Talk" but arguably their best known song, "It's My Life" failed to chart in their native UK. However, it achieved great success for the band No Doubt, who covered it in 2003 and took it into the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100.

"Life's What You Make It", the first single off their third album, "The Colour of Spring" (1986) returned them to chart success in the UK and showcased a new style, much less synthesizer dominated and a transition towards what would become known as post-rock, the style they introduced with their critically-acclaimed fourth album "Spirit of Eden" (1988). However, by this time, the band's relationship with their record label had soured (partly because of the cost and time taken to record "Spirit of Eden" and its subsequent lack of commercial success). The band was tied up in litigation to get out of their contract which kept them out of the studio until 1991 when they released their final album "Laughing Stock" before breaking up.

Answer: Singular Sitcom Titles

"Ghosts" was originally a UK sitcom written by and starring many of the cast made famous by "Horrible Histories". It tells the story of Alison and Mike, a young married couple struggling to find a place to live, who out of nowhere inherit a stately home. After a near fatal accident, Alison suddenly discovers that she can see the ghosts of all the people (and a pigeon) that had died there and still inhabit the house.

The show ran for five seasons and finished with a Christmas special in 2023. An American version of "Ghosts", inspired by the original British show but featuring ghosts from American history, premiered in 2021.

Answer: Singular Sitcom Titles

The cultural phenomenon that was "Friends" first hit our screens in 1994 and ran for ten seasons with the final episode watched by more than 50 million people in the US. It made huge stars of its young cast, who went on to varying degrees of success in the movies and on TV. It also inspired one slightly less successful spin-off "Joey", following the exploits of the character played by Matt Le Blanc as he moved to LA to pursue his acting career. It lasted for two seasons before being cancelled.

Answer: Singular Sitcom Titles

"Cheers" was a sitcom set in the titular bar in Boston. Starring Ted Danson as bar owner Sam and featuring future stars such as Woody Harrelson as bartender Woody and Kelsey Grammer as regular patron Dr Frasier Crane, it ran for 275 episodes over 11 years. The finale in 1993 was the most watched programme of the 1990s in the United States.

Grammer's character was given its own spin-off sitcom, "Frasier" that itself ran for 11 seasons between 1993 and 2004 before being revived in 2022. A less successful spin-off "The Tortellis" based around Nick Tortelli, the ex-husband of "Cheers" waitress Carla, lasted just 13 episodes before being cancelled.

Answer: Singular Sitcom Titles

"Scrubs" was a sitcom based at Sacred Heart hospital, following the exploits of a group of medical interns as they learned the ropes of working as doctors in a busy teaching hospital. It ran for nine seasons from 2001 to 2010 with the same main cast for the first eight seasons of Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke and Donald Faison as the interns, increasing in seniority as the series progressed.

Despite the last episode of season eight being titled "My Finale", the show was renewed for a ninth season in which the cast and setting changed.

Answer: Literary Roads

"84 Charing Cross Road" was a memoir written by Helene Hanff and published in 1970. It was the real-life story of the long-distance relationship between the author and Frank Doel, who worked at the second-hand bookshop situated at the titular address in London. The book took the form of the letters sent by Hanff from her home in New York City to the book store and the responses from Doel over the course of nearly twenty years.

Hanff was inspired to write the book when she heard of the death of Doel in 1968, before they had the chance to meet. She eventually visited Charing Cross Road in 1971, a year after publication, by which time the store had closed. A diary of her visit to London and meeting with the book store's employees was published as "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street" in 1973.

Answer: Literary Roads

When Ben Okri's "The Famished Road" won the Booker Prize in 1991, it made the Nigerian Okri at 32, the youngest ever recipient of the award. Set in a post-colonial African country (that is never specified), the narrative blends the fantastical and the real as it explores the journey of a young boy from the spirit world who lives among the mortals in the ghetto of an African city. Bound to the real world by his love for his mother and father, and refusing to return to the spirit realm, he observes society and the politics of his chosen world changing.

The novel was the first in a trilogy that was completed by "Songs of Enchantment" (1993) and "Infinite Riches" (1998).

Answer: Literary Roads

Set in Great Depression-era Georgia, "Tobacco Road" by Erskine Caldwell was published in 1932. Its tale centres on Jeeter Lester, a man who despite the ever-decreasing quality of life he and his family are experiencing, refuses to give up on working his land and going to the city to find a better income. Mixing social realism with very dark humour, one of the great themes of the novel is death and its seeming imminence and inevitability for even those in the middle ages of life.

Answer: Literary Roads

"The Crow Road" was a 1992 novel written by Iain Banks. Taking its title from a colloquialism referring to death, it tells the story of Prentice, a teenager in the Scottish Highlands who decides to investigate the disappearance of his Uncle Rory.

Rory is a writer, whose unfinished manuscript, "The Crow Road" teaches Prentice much about his family's history -- affairs, betrayals, possibly even murder -- and allows Prentice to understand himself, his estranged father and what really matters to him.