What did you think of Larry Merchant?

I thought he was great, he could be opinionated but he had personality, unlike Jim Gray who seems timid when he does interviews. Merchant was never scared to ask difficult questions when interviewing fighters.

 

I hated him after the Byrd-Ibeabuchi fight.


I liked him again after the Mayweather-Ortiz fight.

 

all the people who say they hate him are the same people who hated john madden and pat summerall. If you cant objectively appreciate larry merchants greatness as a boxing announcer/journalist, i judge you to be amateur.

He may not have been everyones up of tea (esp towards the end), but the knew boxing, and was colorful and often to me hilarious.

 

Idiot. I think he is an idiot.

 

Honestly he was the weakest link in the HBO production to me. I feel the same about Jim Grey on Showtime. I personally would much rather listen to someone that has fought or trained fighters than guys like them that think they know what they are talking about. It seemed like Larry had an axe to grind with certain guys and it showed in his post fight interviews. Came off as pompous and disrespectful to me at times.

 

I grew up listening to Larry. At times I thought he was helpful, but there were certain things he did pre-fight that negatively impacted my experience on the fight. For instance, he opened up the broadcast of the Tyson-Holmes fight with this dour look on his face, already completely counting out Holmes for all to see. I mean, many of us fans weren't at all sure Holmes would make it that fight, but the way Merchant came across was so negative...it just took away from the entertainment and underdog-whom-could-possibly-win perspective from fans.

I always wondered if Holmes watched that before he stepped into the ring...I mean, the man looked pretty demoralized and uncertain for sure.

To be fair, Marv Alpert and Cosell in general were more irritating (Alpert) and tiresome (Cosell and his soap box + unnecessary screaming, etc.) In the case of Cosell, in the beginning I loved his voice personality and at times looked forward to watching him. Right around Holmes-Shavers I he got real old for me, and I was so glad when I saw Norton-Holmes he wasn't the commentator.

 

OMG in Ike vs Byrd he was openly rooting for Ike and was so pleased when Byrd got knocked out.

 

I liked him.

 

When he said “shame on Chris Byrd for bitching to the referee” (paraphrasing from memory here) when Byrd was literally a dribbling, semi-conscious mess was disgraceful. He had a bug up his arse purely because he didn’t like Byrd’s style of fighting. Well boohoo Larry!

When Floyd Mayweather Jnr started playing the victim after being paid an obscene amount for a garbage fight and ending against Victor Ortiz and Larry called him on it he became fully rehabilitated in my eyes. Nothing better than an ornery old dude threatening to kick the arse of an entitled brat. It was boxing’s version of Gran Torino.

 

He was an entitled diva with an axe to grind, as others pointed out, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

He rightly denounced Byrd's antics in the Ibeabuchi fight, and he was fearless when he felt fighters were buckling the system at the expense of the fans.

That's already more than 90% of the current commentators right now, which have become generic and unimaginative spokemen for the industry.

 

Why though?

 

I thought he was great. I don't agree that someone has to have been a fighter to be a good boxing commentator. All the great sports journalists were just good at their trade and he struck me as one of those - he had a turn of phrase that was memorable and that's the job of an announcer, to elevate what people are seeing.

 

I really liked him but sometimes he was very unfair especially with Chris Byrd as young griffo wrote.

 

I met him at Wembley stadium after the Witherspoon-Bruno fight in July '86 and I've got to say I found him highly personable. He was "on duty" but still found the time to chat to me, a youngish boxing fan of 23 for a good 15-20 minutes, talking about the fight itself, the heavyweight division at thee time & the emerging talent that was Mike Tyson. This was just before Tyson's fight with Marvis & Merchant was very high on Tyson.

Merchant was not in the slightest bit patronising or pompous, our conversation felt like 2 fans talking about boxing.

I can see how he could be viewed as highly opinionated, but that was his job! I liked him.