Best HBO Co-Commentator

Wasnt Lewis on HBO for a while also?? ... I always like his commentary .. maybe that was on Boxing after dark cant remember but he did some fights too I think

 

I liked SRL commenting with Barry Tompkins. Those were some classic days for HBO.

 

he said he'd play football if it made cosell quit announcing football. he said he didn't think a rematch with larry could happen because larry was getting old and his fists couldn't take the damage that his (tex's) face would inflict.

cobb had a great sense of humor. you can tell the people around him liked him. in the pre-interviews before the holmes and cobb fight, both cosell and holmes said how much they liked cobb. i think that was partly behind cosell's meltdown during the fight, kind of "i actually like this kid and this is a total one sided beating, he's got no shot in there, why is this fight continuing?"

 

while i don't think it was known at the time, fights like that can be super damaging to the loser, and someone like a Larry Holmes did way more long term damage to opponents than someone like an Earnie Shavers. cosell really wasn't wrong that the fight should have been stopped. after a certain point, it was clear that Holmes was so much better than Cobb that Cobb had absolutely no chance of winning, or of even landing more than 1-2 punches per round. at that point, a fight should be stopped.

did you see what happened to jerry quarry? or how riddick bowe and tommy hearns speak now? boxing is awesome and all, but at some point, the fighters need to be protected from their own ego. when a fight is a clear one sided beating with the guy losing having no chance of turning it around, just stop it. live to fight another day. (and yes, luck is a factor with cte, but there's no way of knowing who will be the lucky ones)

 

I think Emanuel Steward was consistently accurate and always spot on with his comments, the other's were to flaky at times trying to entertain with flippant comments instead of giving analysis.

 

Leonard for sure. He is the great communicator.

Jones doesnt communicate quite as clear

 

I thought Lampley was terrible. He reminds me too much of a USC graduate who adopted to boxing just because he was assigned to it. Boxing is clearly not the right sport for him

 

Man, I'd written a fairly thorough reply to you about this but my total POS phone pulled some BS and now you're left with what's written on the boxrec wiki page for Bowe vs Holyfield III:
In the fifth round, Holyfield appeared to be completely exhausted. He later claimed he was fatigued because he was suffering from Hepatitis A. With about a minute left in the fifth round, HBO commentator George Foreman stood up and called for the fight to be stopped. "This man is going to end up in a pine box," Foreman said. "He's got heart trouble." Foreman was referencing Holyfield's diagnosis from the previous year. In April 1994, following his loss to Michael Moorer, Holyfield was diagnosed with a heart problem and retired. Two months later, he claimed he had been cured by faith healer Benny Hinn. Holyfield was examined by doctors at the Mayo Clinic, who said he had been misdiagnosed and was fit to return to the ring.
Unrelated sidenote, I see people bringing up the Holmes vs Cobb fight and maybe some here have never seen the hilarious roasting Cobb doles out too Larry, and if not you REALLY should give it a watch when you've a few mins to spare:

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They were all decent but analyzed with bias imo.

Everytime I think of Leonard and HBO I think of his analysis of the Chavez-Taylor fight that on its boxistical merits turned out to be one of the best Superfights in boxing history, only ruined by the ridiculous bias and awful call of the whole HBO broadcast team.

Jones was good but he incorporated to much of his own ego into his thoughts on what was happening in the ring.

The thing I liked about Foreman and even though he was the weakest of the three in terms of doing his homework on the fighters involved who were fighting, he would'nt let himself be bought off to join the pre written script HBO had outlined for their call of the fight.
So even though Foreman often did'nt understand and know the particular strenghths and weaknesses of each fighter in the fights he called, he shot from the cuff and spoke about what he was capturing seeing the fights unfold. For that, I appreciated Foreman more than Leonard and Jones.

All and all I think all three of them were pretty good but all far from great analysts.

 

I just remember Foreman saying things like “he just needs one more shot to that right side and this fella could be in trouble.” Or “three or four right hands could knock this guy on the booty”. Merchant would then say “why exactly do you think 3 or 4 punches are the key George?”

My ideal lineup was Tompkins, Leonard, & Merchant. That was the glamour era for me.

 

Could you not make the same argument for John Tate-Mike Weaver?

And some other one-sided fights that ended in sudden knockouts for the guy who was losing?

 

Jones

 

I always liked the Leonard, Merchant, Tompkins team. They had an excitement which came through.. The liked each other.