Howard Cosell`s Exit from Boxing....Your opinion?

How can tell what was going through Cosell's mind at the time? He certainly was the most well known boxing analyst at the time, did fights by himself, so it surely took some money out of his pocket plus took him away from the boxing public's eye. I'm guessing that it was a true disgust on his part; after all it's not like he was from a boxing background and it was his entire life.

 

Due to his close personal relationship with Ali, he probably knew far better than the general public that Ali was already showing the beginnings of serious mental and physical decline and it made him see just how bad repeated punches to the head can effect a person. I believe he was sincere in his feelings about the potential dangers of boxing. Of course he said nothing when Ali was getting hit over and over by people like Ernie Shavers, but maybe he was in denial at the time and it took awhile for him to accept the reality of just how bad things can get.

 

Cosell's exit was, IMHO, pretty hypocritical. Suddenly, he couldn't withstand the "brutality" of the sport...the same sport, the same brutality that he rode to fame on. Griffith-Paret 3 was during his time, yet that didn't chase him away from boxing, he witnesses gloriously brutal displays from SRR, Gene Fullmer, Sonny Liston the Patterson-Johansson triology, his beloved Muhammad Ali and SRL...he still kept his career pursuit...didn't quit afterwards, despite the brutality which this wonderful sport is made of.....yet Holmes-Cobb was too much for him.
I was a HUGE fan of Howard Cosell...his voice, that peculiar voice he had...his insights, love 'em or hate 'em, were the sound track of the 60's and 70's for me. I grew up with Cosell and that voice. The lovey dovey attachment to Ali and Leonard kinda made me sick, but overall, the Golden Age of Boxing (for me the 60's and 70's), wouldn't have been the same without him.
Yeah, his departure from the sport was pretty much a case of bullshlt and hypocrisy.

 

The difference between a Cosell and a Don Dunphy was that Dunphy knew what was before him. To comment on the action before him, offer some insight and describe a broad background of each fighter to the viewer without showing partiality to either fighter. And he did it with class. Cosell on the other hand, became famous riding on Ali's coattails and then segued right into the Sugar Ray era. And he let his notoriety be his undoing. He truly began thinking people were tuning in to hear his diatribe rather than watch the bout before him. When one begins believing their own bull ****, they become ineffective. Towards the end I couldn't stand his BS. He was condescending in interviews to good honest opponents who planned on fighting their heart out to the 'star' fighter. He was making himself the star of the show. Perhaps it was his age, although Dunphy continued carrying himself with class to the end. I did enjoy some of his commentating before the ego took over completely, so there was good and bad. When he did his job (and he wasn't clear about it even younger, showing lack of knowledge many times) he wasn't bad.

 

I don't miss Cosell's boxing commentary because I agree his act got old. But on Monday Night Football he had a great comedy routine going with Dandy Don Meridith. And he even got some laughs doing baseball with Bob Uecker.

Here's Cosell/Uecker story. They were arguing about a guy who just bunted, whether or not it was a smart thing to do. Cosell said to Uecker "You're just being truculent. You don't even know what truculent means". Uecker said
"Yes I do. If you lent me a truck, it would be a truck you lent". Cosell was shocked into speechlessness, which was a moral victory for Uecker.

 

Yeah, really. I've often wondered about that.

 

Meh. He was first and foremost a "celebrity" and had an ego that rivalled even Ali's. He was probably just tired of the grind, was getting old, and wanted out. But what better way to go out than to ease into the sunset riding the Moral Outrage horse? A perfect exit, or so he thought. I like to think the horse's azz was at least mildly surprised when everybody said "good riddance" when he left the podium. It's about what he deserved.

 

Howard Cosell was a great broadcaster. He usually called fights and interviewed the boxers afterward on his own. He helped to make them incredibly exciting. Today, you've got SIX GUYS calling a fight and interviewing guys. Even if you left Hall of Fame announcers like Bernstein on his own to call a fight and interview everyone, he'd be lost.

Only a couple guys ever (like Don Dunphy) could do what Cosell did.

That said, he just had enough. Cosell wanted to transition from sports to news. After covering the 1972 Munich Olympics and the terrorists siege on the Israeli athletes, making the move to the ABC news organization was always on his mind. But ABC didn't want to give him the opportunity. They liked him where he was and had him under contract. So he kept doing boxing, but he began to dislike the sport the longer he was in it. (He also left Monday Night Football in 1983.) The 1984 Olympics were basically his goodbye.

Here are some quotes from Cosell after the Holmes-Cobb fight.

''I was introduced to boxing by Bill Heinz, a great writer and a friend of boxing. I became fascinated with Floyd Patterson, with his background, hiding in a hole in the subway. I visited the Wiltwyck School with him, I ran a dinner for the school.

''I met Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore did fights with me, I read Bob Lipsyte's columns about Dick Tiger. Then along came Ali, who gravitated easily from the ghetto to the White House. There was a whole new culture, the movement against an unwanted and unending war. My own daughters saw Ali as an antihero."

Cosell, a former lawyer, has often testified to Congressional subcommittees against franchises being moved, the use of public funds to build stadiums and monopolistic control of sports leagues.

After his 1972 appearance before a Senate subcommittee, Cosell recalls, ''I could see where Don King and Bob Arum were recreating the control that the courts had ruled illegal years before. But I stayed with boxing because I loved the boxers.

''Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes. Beautiful people. I love the earthiness, the courage, the honesty, of boxers. Later there was Tom (Sarge) Johnson, the Olympic coach who taught Sugar Ray Leonard how to fight. He died in the Polish air crash. I loved that man and I loved the Olympics, a triumph of U.S. spirit, and I will do the 1984 Olympics because Olympic boxing has a mandatory 8-count and headgear.''

After Cosell criticized the Holmes-Cobb fiasco, his numerous critics savaged him for not questioning the fighters and the referee afterward. But even a towering personage like Howard Cosell is tied into the decisions from the corporate maze. And Cosell asks how many print journalists would dare criticize their newspaper in public?

''The Cobb fight did it for me,'' Cosell says. ''I was leaving the ring and people were shouting, 'Hey, Howie, that Texan sure can take a punch, can't he?' I said, 'Don't they realize what's happening here?' Four days or four weeks or four months or four years later, that man is going to pay for the pounding he took.

''Nothing ever changes,'' Cosell added. ''I've done all I can. We've seen the thumbless glove, we've seen Earnie Shavers and Ray Leonard hurt their eyes, I've seen Benny Paret and Willie Classen and Cleveland Denny and Duk Koo Kim die. I now favor the abolition of professional boxing. I have a right to my opinion.''

 

Howard Cosell had a presence and was a fine interviewer. Yes, he could be extremely irritating and knew very little about the nuances of certain sports, especially boxing and football, but ABC drew tremendous ratings on football games and boxing bouts on which he acted as a TV commentator.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I like that Cosell brought up Cleveland Denny. Denny died on the undercard of Leonard-Duran I. There was a great (but short) article on Hart-Denny in RING, I believe. There was a rainstorm going on during the undercard. And he was just laid out in the ring dying getting rained on.

Cosell watched that happen. Then he had to call the next fight. And the one after that. Then ignore Denny and package those other fights up so they could promote the hell out of the Leonard-Duran replay on ABC.

I'm sure that would get to you after a while.

Even today, most boxing fans who are younger probably have no clue a guy DIED on the undercard of Leonard-Duran I.

By 1982, Ali looked like he had brain damage. Ray Leonard had a detached retina - which often led to blindness back then. I'm sure Cosell hated all of it by that point. He wanted out. It's understandable.