HBO or SHOWTIME: Which announcing crew do you like more and why?

Now that Emanuel and Larry are gone, easily Showtime, even with DKSAB Mauro. Lampley is a corporate cheerleader, and Roy Jones is the worst fighter-commentator since Lenny got fired.

 

I can't believe it is this close. HBO gets bashed for being biased repeatedly on these boards.

Bernstein calls it like it is. He's not afraid to criticize the house fighter or praise the other guy. Paulie provides better technical analysis than Roy Jones Jr., and the lack of Merchant and Lederman is another plus. Showtime all day.

 

lets see, HBO has Lampley and Lederman. They've made up who they are going to cheer for as soon as the fight is signed! SHO has true pros..

 

Merchant retired Saturday, which means more white rap representation.

 

Showtime and it isn't even close.

You open up with the maestro, someone HBO really should steal to take Lampley's place, Brain Kelly.

You have Steve Farhood and Joe Cortez and unofficial scorers and additional analyst.
Mauro is solid play by play man. Berstein is solid analyst, and they usually have a solid fighter to round it out.

Theire commentary is just overall more professional and competant. I really wish they would slip Tarver back though

 

Active fighters analysis are ****, we've seen this with Paulie and Austin Trout with their terrible scoring and calls for fights.

 

Lampley, for all his inaccuracy and bias, is very exciting and passionate about the sport. I'd rather have him calling an all-action fight than anyone else. Jones is my favorite technical commentator. Kellerman is corny and dramatic but points out things and perspectives most don't pick up.

The Showtime commentators are fair and give good commentary, but it always seems bland to me and there's hardly any ground-breaking analysis. I've got nothing against them but I cringe when they play back the highlights of a fighter and the showtime commentary is included as hype. I just feel at home with HBO.

 

This was financially motivated. Paulie's smart, but he wanted to make Trout-Cotto seem closer than it was so if a **** decision was to happen, he'd be able to build up his own rematch with Cotto as more legitimate than it would truly be (just weeks after his hope of a Hatton rematch was dashed.) He's not usually that bad.

 

Lampley also loves to say " XXX was really hurt by that punch!" or even more dramatic variants, - no matter that they guy was still on solid legs and immediately started to throw back with solid shots of his own. Lampley is literally clueless, and Leferman is almost as bad.

It really does make it hard to watch a fight. I'd turn the sound off, except I like to hear the crowd. when possible, I watch the BoxNation broadcast instead. That's actually a pretty good crew, especially their pre & post-fight analysis.

The Showtime crew is great, even without Paulie. Paulie just takes them over the top, the guy was born for that job.

 

HBO, SHOWTIME commentators put me to sleep :dead

SHOWTIME has been shithouse for the past 10 years or so, ever since they got rid of Bobby Czyz...... I believe he stopped commentating around Holyfield v Ruiz.

 

I like Lampley and Harold so HBO

 

I think their both ok. They are both very biased in my opinion to be honest. But so is any commentry team I've ever seen.
Al Bernstain is a nice guy but when any of his fighters are involved its obvious the bias i talking and not his neutral opinion.
Same with HBO when their "superstar" is involved.
Again I like them both and they are quite decent just seem the same to me as any other commentry team.

I probably like Jones Junior the most out of all of them but Kellerman, Lamloey nad Bernstain are ok.

 

Showtime slightly.

 

Showtime easily,

Lampley is killing me, hes terrible and too biased. :deal

 

This. Especially the points about Jones and Kellerman. They work well together because, unlike Merchant would do with Steward, Kellerman goes out of his way to set up and pull boxing knowledge out of RJJ. It's probably his best skill. And Roy delivers. Kellerman was great for Khan/Garcia ("Khan has to be careful in the exchanges")

My opinion of Showtime is a little higher than yours, but I agree with you that when the fight itself is not exciting, the weaknesses of SHO (production values) and Bernstein (inaccuracies) become more apparent. Farhood probably needs more of those assignments beyoind ShoBox and they should really consider bringing Tarver back.