Why was Larry Merchant arguing with Bernard Hopkins

Larry: Well it looks like tonight you got paid for doing not much

Bernard: Well let me tell you something Larry, you get paid every day on TV for not doing much.

Larry viewed it as a waste of time, which it kind of was. The opponent was a mandatory for Bernard though. Kind of a common situation in the multi-belt era.

 

I loved Larry funny as hell! His best beef imo was with Floyd Mayweather.

 

Hopkins sucked, always a snooze fest.

 

Hopkins owned him here.

 

You could argue they were both right.

 

The best was larry merchants commentary for Whitaker vs delahoya
He got sent on vacation and had to issue an apology after.

 

Merchant was just telling it like it was. That fight was garbage.

 

Bernard and Larry are two guys who would start an argument with a fence post.

They were made for each other.

 

that was hilarious. Larry never was scared to speak his mind even when it came to Mariachi music.

 

Larry Merchant was a character.
And so was Hopkins. He handled Merchant nicely there.

 

I think this was after Hopkins beat Morrare Hakkar or however his name is spelled. Hopkins was right. The issue was with the fight being a mandatory and Hopkins didn’t have the pull to drop a belt and still have the same negotiating power and demand for fights with guys like Oscar. Merchant frames it like Hopkins wanted to fight Hakkar.

 

I loved that Larry was never afraid of asking hard questions when he interviewed boxers. Unlike Jim Gray who I could never stand!

 

It's unfortunate that Merchant never brought that attitude when interviewing Roid Jones post-fight.