I've never been that big on him to be honest, but he generally calls the action pretty fairly. But last night he was absolutely awful - it wasn't a one-sided beatdown, it wasn't a schooling. It was a close fight. Sky always try to insult the intelligence of it's viewers in boxing, in many ways. Why can't their coverage of boxing be as good as it's coverage of rugby, or cricket?
Uzi, if they can get Richie Woodhall then fair enough but otherwise I think they should stick with Jim Watt. If we're talking about change then they should sort the studio out first rather than the commentary team IMHO. As soon as a commentator calls a fight differently from how some people saw it he becomes '****'? My card was similar to Watts (4 rounds like David Haye), and no, it wasn't because I was swayed by his commentary. It was just my opinion, like a closer card is someone elses opinion.
I'd second that Gaz. The studio team are, to put it simply, crap. They seem to be driven by their own agenda and/or have pre-written scripts. Perhaps it is because they have all been on for ages and their roles are getting a bit tired. It was a welcome change to have Ricky Hatton in the studio now and again, Haye has always been excellent - from the Hatton/Mayweather studio work to his views last night. Froch has done a decent job on ITV4, as has Barker, though the pick of those was Jon Thaxton.
I'm just sick of it all GAZ. Totally agree the panel needs sorted out as well. The coverage of Khans last PPV was the turning point for me. Bunch of yes men going over the same bull****. Need a change,just bored.
Fair enough mate, but I'd hate to see change for changes sake. Fury was 'supposed' to win last night but at least Watt called it as he saw it and gave his opinion, we don't have to agree with it. I thought Nelson was pretty poor post fight trying to tell us that it was a decent dispplay from Fury and that he was on track for great things. Whatever you think of the decision I reckon Fury will be a little more circumspect in who he 'calls out' in the next 12 months or so.....;O)
You can take the fight in one of two ways, either a 21 year old, 7 fight novice came through a difficult test against a decent pro and has things to work on in the gym if he is to progress further OR there were some very fundamental flaws shown up last night that are going to be very hard, if not impossible, to recify. Take yer pick....
He was brilliant when he was on the panel for the PBF-Hatton fight as well. That said, he's probably passed an IQ test recently so Sky won't have him full-time. As annoying as it is, the Sky panel is here to stay. In an ideal world they'd all go (keep Johnny Nelson, though), but I'd settle with Adam Smith and Dave Clark going. I can't stand either- it's like they're continually reading from a script- there's nothing original or angled at seeing both sides of an arguement in questioning or analysis at all. Sky's continuous talk of the mythical P4P title was also mentioned more times than it had to be to plug for PBF-JMMatsch. I wonder how many times P4P will be mentioned next week?:think
By all accounts Adam Smith is a really nice bloke who loves boxing. That doesn't make him a good commentator though - he really sucks. There are nice blokes everywhere who love boxing, most of those would suck as well, but at least they would call the fight objectively rather than pumping the house fighter constantly. I'm not a huge fan of John Rawling - but at least there is some semblance of what is actually happening in the ring.
Spot on BB. Rawling is up-for-grabs at the end of the year anyway- just replace the whole Sky team with the ITV one:yep. I highly doubt he'll as Sky have had Smith and the rest for ages now, though. Here to stay.
Compare the ITV crew to the Sky one...... Rawling > Smith McKenzie = Watt Thaxton > Nelson McGuigan > Piper Froch > McCrory Last but not least...... Rosenthal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Clark