No not really ....ive never heard him say anything I didn't already know ..and I'm certainly not a boxing expert ...he's like those people who wear glasses to a job interview to " look intelligent"
I liked Sugar quite a bit he was a colorful fun guy I rarely turned down a chance to hear his stories but he was a story teller for sure
BTW, those two hated each other. I recall a story of some kid coming up to Cosell with a Ring Record Book for Cosell to sign (Sugar was editor at the time). Cosell refused saying only, "Bert Sugar is a crook!"
I think Bert is getting a credit here for injecting a history perspective to boxing when he was simply continuing the Ring Magazine format and bringing it to TV. Funny, yet necessary “pinch of salt” kind of guy. True aficionados could easily expose him but probably wouldn’t have his charisma or mainstream appeal to casual observers with a passing interest in boxing. So yes, the guy was required because he presented a sense of history and character. And that was really his purpose.
I know just enough Latin to infer that says something about posthumous benefit to one's reputation. Let's see if google says I'm right... Nope. Damn. Anyway, I like Voltaire's expression of this sentiment best: We owe respect to the living, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
And chomping on a wet cigar. I think his haters take Sugar far more seriously than he took himself. I don’t have to agree with someone’s opinions or even nitpick his takes (yeah, he was probably ‘wrong’ on specifics a good bit of the time but ‘right’ in a general sense of points he would make) to enjoy their personality. And that’s what he was, a personality.
