HBO commentary: a comedy. Can the entire crew - pretty please?

HBO has been trying to shove the "house" fighter down our throats for a good couple of years now.

 

I agree with nearly everything you said but that comment from Merchant actually had merit. He was essentially addressing the tendency to back the comeback/underdog story which is more or less human nature and is definitely relevant in boxing at times. What he actually said was quite a bit different from your paraphrase if i remember correctly.

With that said though he is borderline senile nowdays, takes him forever to rattle off a couple of words in a sentence. Manny Steward is also very annoying as he isn't so much about the HBO agenda, he has his own agenda. That agenda is called the Manny Steward is a boxing god agenda, once he depicts something in a fight a certain way he will base all of his future commentary around supporting that notion, even if its consistently being undermined by the action in the fight. I'd love to see Showtime continually improve and start sticking it to HBO.

 

Larry Merchant is no longer appealing...he's a nuisance.

 

It's called a mute button people.

 

b-a-r-r-e-r-a

barrera!

 

Showtime completely destroys HBO Commentating. Al Bernstein, Steve Albert, and Antonio Tarver are like exponentially better as a commentating team. Al is just far more professional. Steve makes for some of the most exciting fights, and Tarver is a good insight into a fighter's psyche and for some technical referencing. Gus Johnson is pretty damn good himself. I can't really nitpick too much, they are just far more professional and even-keeled than the HBO team. They're just better, and more consistent with much less bias.

As for HBO... they can make exciting commentating too. But that's about the best they offer, and lately they have been slipping. Showtime was much much better this year than HBO. Lampley, while a bit of a bias cheerleader can keep things exciting and asks sometimes decent questions to invoke good commentatory. I feel like Steward is the best of the bunch... he has sometimes a bit of an ego, but he's usually fairly insightful and can predict how the tone of a fight is going. Unfortunately, if he prematurely makes a statement on this he'll do everything to make it seem as if he's right in his forecast. Merchant is just a drunken lost old guy out there now... it's embarrassing. He was never half as insightful or poetic as people made him out to be. His 5 words a minute pseudo-philosophical statements really don't add much to the commentary. If he talks little, he can be of value.

As someone mentioned earlier, Max Kellerman overthinks. It's like he's the new young kid on the team and he's always trying to impress his co-workers, or say something that sounds insightful or astute. And he's pretty damn bad in post-fight interviews himself. Here you are getting knocked out Paul. I know it's not an easy job, but there should be some common sense. Post fight interviews don't have to be long if there's not much to say. He did good with saying "I know it's hard to say but what happened."

 

I'm really glad somebody brought this up! I'm a regular boxing watcher but my buddy even recognized HBO's lackluster performance on the Marquez-Katsidis fight. Wasn't their best performance to say the least...

 

Totally agree with you, Larry f***ed up that interview

 

HBO are terrible. Manny Steward is terrible.

 

that was the worst HBO performance I've ever seen.

Larry Merchant whom I usually love was absolutely terrible. Embarassing.

 

showtime with bernstein and tarver is much better,and their analysis on weaknesses strenghts and the line drawing for puches ect is really good.

these old hbo bums need to drink less and work harder and be more professional and less careless.

think sugar gave good advice,if you want to decide whos winning a fight,turn of the volume and ignore the commentry.

 

the worst commentator in the entire team is max kellerman!! Damn that guy is so irritating. I remember when mosley came into the ring to challenge mayweather and when they started to trash talk a little that ***** interrupted like he was breaking up a kindergarden fight. He's trying to hard to get famous

 

Nah man are you serious!! Thats ****ing hilarious!!

 

I mean a primadonna in that he doesn't show up to meetings on time. Does whatever he wants, et cetera. Not his actual performance behind the mic, which i think is pretty good.