Dan Rafael Shocking Lack of Professionalism

Larry Merchant is the worst. He is supposed to be promoting the sport, yet he talks like a blood thirsty drunk and treats fighters like scrubs if they don't go to war. Boxing is the only sport that has a commentator who bashes the athlete that much and whines anad complains about how boring the match is. In Tennis or baseball, they promote the event and it's stars. An announcer can make a fight better too and Merchant can have a negative influence on people's minds when watching the fight. He should be fired.

 

I can't disagree.

Rafael often comes off as childish and too emotionally wrapped-up in what he's writing about. I definitely agree with you on that. It's kind of sad.

Unfortunately, many sportswriters are like this.

 

So Haye should have stood in there with the much bigger and powerful Klitschko, toe-to-toe (no pun intended)? Have you ever boxed yourself?

Wlad got mad in the 12th? Sooo the previous 11 round he was scared to death with his constand jabbing and 2 or 3 right hands? He looked scared to death the moment Haye decided to pounce on him with a right hand.

Haye fell down becouse Wlad wrestled him down in fear the moment Haye got near him. Although yeah, a couple of those falls were questionable.

 

Also agree. Merchant can be brutal.

What usually happens with guys like Rafael and Merchant is that if you like the same fighters they like -- or dislike the same fighters they dislike -- then you will like Rafael and Merchant. If you don't, then Rafael and Merchant seem like total a**holes. I often feel this way about Max Kellerman, for example.

It's a shame there aren't more down-the-middle guys. Rafael is a reporter; he should be more objective. Merchant is more a commentator/opinion guy, as I understand it. So, that would be more his job, to offer up whatever he thinks about fighters, etc.

 

I am from UK....I thought Haye won the fight.





I am also from Phillipines....Pacquiao is greater than God.

 

I actually thought Haye did all he could. It just wasn't enough to make the fight more competitive.

Wlad was mad in the 12th, yes. He wasn't fighting scared. He was pressing forward. Could he have been less cautious? Yes. And that's what he did in the 12th after he got hit.

Haye had a strategy of falling whenever Wlad leaned on him, to prevent his energy from being sapped by the larger man. It wasn't a bad strategy, but it was brutal to watch.

I wrote yesterday that I thought Haye's using the "Valuev Gameplan" would be his best chance. He did that, and he probably did as well as he could have. Had he gone the "Sanders Gameplan" route, he probably would have been stopped in two rounds or so, after a left jab froze him coming in and a right cross put him down.

 

Bingo. Haye did come to survive. Boxing beautifully...what planet are you from. His flop tactics were embarrassing and he came of looking just like any other Wlad opponent, as Wlad himself stated. Actually Wlad was being generous....he looked worse than a few of his past opponents. The thing that makes people most critical, however, is not the lackluster flat performance itself but the disparity between what Haye said all these agonizing years and what he actually did. Haye is the ultimate chain yanker.

 

Dougie Fischer is actually pretty good, seems to have a lot of empathy for what fighters put themselves through without hugging their nuts. All he guys at Ringtv.com are better than Kevin Iole, who is leagues better than Rafael.

He's just a class below. Not sure what got him his job other than his contacts in the boxing world (contacts go a looong way in journalism, apparently).

IMO he looked almost the entire time like a guy who was just keeping his eye on the clock toward the end of a workday. If he was in it to win he would've gone for broke in the last round, if not the last 3 rounds. I thought that was his plan after his slow start. He had no plan. He sucked. He made more money in that fight than you, your kids, and your grandkids will make in their entire lives. That ain't right.

 

So he should lie to his viewers? If the fight is ****, say it's ****. No amount of screaming about how awesome a **** fight is is going to convince me that it's not ****. Merchant, like Jeff Van Gundy in basketball is the only commentator not simply shilling for the network like a goon actively trying to con people.

 

He's a lot better than Pedro Hernandez, Ben Thompson and Mike Marley that's for sure.

 

Never be shocked, or even mildly surprised, by anything Fat Dan says. He's a really disgusting person, and generally bad for boxing.

 

Don't bark like a pit if you're going to fight like a ****ing fairy. Haye is getting **** canned, deservedly so, cause his bark is FAR worse than his bite. Wlad is boring as **** but isn't getting nearly as much stick for it cause he went out and did the same thing he's been doing since forever ago. Jab, jab, jab, right hand. Haye was the one who continually talked all kinds of **** about how boring Wlad was and then proceeded to throw half as many punches while dancing around and doing his best impersonation of the Barca squad flopping about the mat at every opportunity.

 

Jezus....:blood

He's actin like a ****in' 5 yr. old on there.:-(

 

That barking is called selling a fight. In which he succeeded. Also the only reason why he kept insulting Wlad was that he (Wlad) would come out of his element, figh angry. In that he failed.

Im just saying that there was a reason he "barked".