Who can remember...

I was watching an old fight on YouTube just a few months ago that originally aired on ABC...already forget the fight...but Alex Wallau on a hot mic between rounds was using some really foul language, completely unaware that the World was listening. If anybody remembers which fight, refresh my memory on that one.

Same thing happened with Barry Tompkins on ESPN back in the day. Another hot mic moment between rounds where Tompkins, after they accidentally switched back to ringside between two commercials, could clearly be overheard saying, "I think Rosario would beat the **** out of him". The "him" Tompkins was referring to had to be Tracy Spann, whose fight just ended and he was rumored for a possible fight with Rosario. When they came back from commercial break, Tompkins was talking about what an interesting fight it would be. Don't recall Spann's opponent that night though. If anybody recalls that, I'd like to rewatch that one as well...

 

This one was on either Tuesday Night Fights on ESPN’s Top Rank Boxing (or whatever it might have been called at the time).

I think I found it one time after an exhaustive deep dive on boxrec, but can’t recall what year or details of who fought, however …

It was a St. Patrick’s Day edition (hence my interest, haha), full TV card of two hours. I’m pretty sure (for some reason) it was in the Northeast — Boston, Atlantic City, maybe Philly.

So to keep with the theme, every fighter wore either green trunks with white stripes or white trunks with green stripes (provided by the promoter, I’m pretty sure). And every fighter — whether black, white, Hispanic or whatever — was introduced as ‘Irish’ (fill in name here).

It was hilarious.

I don’t think there were any big-name attractions, but maybe one side of the main event was more of a true Irish extraction, wanna say it wasa a white guy and around middleweight, but I could be way off here.

I’d love to have some affirmation. My brother remembers it, too, but also not enough details to look it up, so I’m pretty sure this isn’t a fever dream.

 

I think everyone following boxing in HBO era remembers how Larry Merchant would get really grumpy from time to time if He didn't enjoy the action.

I remember one particular fight, where Larry would sit quiet for I think at least a full round, then after some time Jim Lampley asked him "Larry, what's going on? You've been quiet for a while". To which Larry replied, like a kid whose parents forced him to go to the theather "This sucks!".
I don't know, maybe I have an odd sense of humour, but I thought it was hilarious and a classic Larry moment. If someone knows which fight it was, I'd like to check that out again. I only know it was in the 2000s and likely a fight below Welterweight.

 

When Bert Cooper was entering the ring to fight Holyfield, Larry quoted Ron Sanders's wife before he fought Frazier. "You don't enter a Pinto into the Indy 500 unless you know a helluva shortcut."
Then Merchant says 'Bert Cooper is like a big European car, sometimes he just goes off the road and decides to stay there. Sometimes he can really GO!"

 

On the subject of the hot mic moment, one has to check out the second fight between Maurice Hope and Rocky Mattioli. Howard Cosell was commentating for ABC and clearly didn't know his mic was on between rounds. Every round at the interval he is talking to someone in the ABC truck and was getting nastier and nastier in regards to Alex Wallau. Too funny.

 

It was Ali and Frazier. No punches were thrown but Ali's brother Rudy (Rahman) came onto the stage to calm things down but Frazier said something like "Are you getting into this?" It was then that Ali jumped up and said something like, "Sit down Joe" and started grappling with him and they ended up wrestling on the floor while Cosell watched.

 

Just watched. Cosell literally was doing that between the majority of the rounds it seemed. Here's one of the ones towards Wallau time stamped...

This content is protected

 

Dude, that was awesome. Thanks for posting this. Man, you can just feel the ire he had for Wallau. And like you said, most of those 1 minute intervals Cosell was sniping about Wallau. Too funny.

 

People are often shocked or surprised at how on-air people talk when they’re off air (or think they are, like between rounds). It’s not that big of a deal. I’m sure the people who worked with Howard knew well that he was an ass but an ass who had value.

On a slightly different note, I think it was Larry Homes vs Ossie Ocasio, which aired in prime time on ABC as that network would do from time to time with big fights (and any heavyweight championship bout in those days was a big fight).

This is more a live mic oops that can happen in live sports.

There’s a point where OO backs Larry to the ropes early in the fight and Riche Giachetti can be heard saying ‘Get off the ropes, get off the ropes,’ to Holmes, who is, indeed, on the ropes but not in any distress. Larry answers (during the action), ‘I’m not on the ****ing ropes!’

Young me was like ‘oooh, I can’t believe I just heard that on TV … he’s gonna be in big trouble!’

 

I remember this. I think it was in Boston.

Talking about Irish , I was surprised to find out both Muhammad Ali and Leroy Haly, may bth rest in peace, were Irish!

 

Nowadays it's common to hear gym-speak on air because they had the bright idea to stick a microphone in a corner between rounds. But before it was common i remember watching the grudge match between Bruce Curry and Monroe Brooks. There was a bit of a back-story on this one as the former friends had a falling out over some chick. And they wanted to take each other's head off. Anyways, after the fight, Gil Clancy was in the ring to give a post fight interview and Brooks, the loser of the bout, came over and said in a sort of buzzed way, "I know there was some bad s**t between us..." That was the first time I heard that on network TV and you should have seen the look on Clancy's face. It was priceless.

 

I vaguely remember a TV fight with a double knockdown — both guys hitting the canvas.

This would be mid to late 1980s/early 1980s.

There’s a tiny inkling Alexis Arguello may have been involved but I’m nowhere near sure of that.

Also, there exists the very real possibility that it wasn’t actually a double knockdown, that maybe one guy got knocked down and the guy who landed the knockdown punch slipped or fell and his wasn’t counted as a knockdown — that it just seemed that way to younger me, or that I remember it as a double knockdown because both guys hit the canvas and one of them doing down was as result of a punch and the other wasn’t.

It would have been a weekend network TV fight, like on ABC’s Wild World of Sports, CBS’s Sports Spectacular or NBC’s SportsWorld.

Any ideas on which fight this might have been?

 

This was the first boxing match I ever watched. While not great it will always have a special place for me. I think I was only in the 3rd grade at the time