Howard Cosell`s Exit from Boxing....Your opinion?

mcvey · Aug 9, 2018

Dubblechin said: ↑

I would argue he knew a lot about both sports. You don't sit ringside or walk on the field every week for decades and get to know all the participants personally and not know the nuances of the sport. I'd argue most fans didn't have a clue of the nuances going on behind the scenes at the networks, and a guy like Cosell had to go on camera, often alone, for more than an hour, and try not to step on too many toes (on either side). And, more often than not, he'd anger someone because you can't walk that tightrope alone.

Paulie Malignaggi knows all about boxing. He's been broadcasting - with a half-dozen people by his side - for years.

If you told him to cover boxing telecasts alone every week for a month, and interview everyone afterward, in no time at all he'd insult everyone on air and curl up in a ball and quit before the first month was out.

Fellow announcers provide A LOT of cover for people. You say something stupid and you can be quiet for a while and regroup. Or, if you're having an off night, you can let others fill time. You can't do that when you're on the mic alone.
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Malinaggi is terrific although I sometimes have trouble with his ,"Brooklynese". Cosell didn't know much about boxing but he was a sponge, he stored and repeated what more knowledgeable people said.Ken Norton beating Ali made him look foolish

Reinhardt · Aug 9, 2018

mcvey said: ↑

Cosell thought himself too good for the boxing fraternity.
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mcvey,,, that is one accurate statement! He was the most arrogant announcer in history. If he did make a correct prediction you heard about it for 20 years.

ETM · Aug 9, 2018

mcvey said: ↑

Cosell thought himself too good for the boxing fraternity.
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He was often at war with the print media as well.

jowcol · Aug 9, 2018

The Morlocks said: ↑

The very best I think was Ryan. Although I really thought Quarry was great with Tom Brookshire. A great team. Barry Thompkons rules also.
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Quarry called a good fight IMO as did Norton. Hope I didn't miss one their embarrassing moments.

red cobra · Aug 9, 2018

jowcol said: ↑

Quarry called a good fight IMO as did Norton. Hope I didn't miss one their embarrassing moments.
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Check yer inbox bud!

Clinton · Aug 13, 2018

mcvey said: ↑

Cosell thought himself too good for the boxing fraternity.
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Yup

Titan1 · Aug 13, 2018

Howard had that swag and immortal toupee to make him stand out, but he probably had gotten tired of the sport. Also, he realized that Larry Holmes probably didn't have the charisma of Ali and Holmes, and couldn't deal with dealing with Larry for another few years, so he packed it in. Still wondering why he tried to feel up Larry that one time.....

Titan1 · Aug 13, 2018

The Morlocks said: ↑

Yes friend. Exactly. And never forget, Cooney had lost (cosell loved him) and Leonard had retired. He had no lose relationships with others. Cosell hated Hagler and his buds were gone. Ironically he quit in the middle of the greatest 30 days in boxing history for me.
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. Holmes wins big. And of course ta daaaaaaaaa PryorArguello ManciniKim .GOMEZPINTOR and the coup de grau BAZOOKASCHOOLBOY 4. **** Cosell the drama queen. Though he made the fights bigger and more exciting.
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LOL!

ETM · Aug 13, 2018

Titan1 said: ↑

Howard had that swag and immortal toupee to make him stand out, but he probably had gotten tired of the sport. Also, he realized that Larry Holmes probably didn't have the charisma of Ali and Holmes, and couldn't deal with dealing with Larry for another few years, so he packed it in. Still wondering why he tried to feel up Larry that one time.....
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Well Larry had a great Ass!

Titan1 · Aug 13, 2018

ETM said: ↑

Well Larry had a great Ass!
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LOL, guess he did.

GoldenHulk · Aug 14, 2018

redrooster said: ↑

actually, Howard didnt seem to like any of the fighters outside Ali and Leonard which is why I didnt like Howard

all he did was ride the coat tails of Ali and Ali even told him so during interviews. later, he did the same with Leonard but he had no real interest with the sport itself and he had no skill or knowledge. Referee Arthur Mercante even said that he'd comment on a fight and Howard would then take the comment and then repeat it over the air

I didnt like the dribble from his mouth and his exit from the sport was a disgrace
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I didn't care for him too much either but I'd still take Howard or even Larry Merchant( I liked Larry actually), over Jim Gray anyday

steve21 · Aug 14, 2018

jowcol said: ↑

Quarry called a good fight IMO as did Norton. Hope I didn't miss one their embarrassing moments.
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Ken Norton was part of the four-man crew providing commentary at the Thrilla in Manilla - the rest of the team were Don Dunphy, Flip Wilson and Hugh O'Brien. Norton was easily the best informed of the bunch, having fought Ali and sparred with Frazier and gave great insight, but kept getting overshadowed by the two TV stars. He was always a gracious man and said nothing, but it was a bit frustrating to listen to.

I just heard Quarry for the first time in the video someone shared of Scott LeDoux fighting George Foreman - he also gave a good accounting of himself, and all the more tragic the way he wound up.

redrooster · Aug 14, 2018

GoldenHulk said: ↑

I didn't care for him too much either but I'd still take Howard or even Larry Merchant( I liked Larry actually), over Jim Gray anyday
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I never found any of Merchant's comments to be very interesting or insightful

Titan1 · Aug 14, 2018

He had the balls to call out Floyd Mayweather, and he could definitely have taken him in a street fight 50 years ago, no doubt.

Thread Stealer · Jan 24, 2021

Cosell was a notoriously pompous egomaniac but entitled to his own views on boxing. I can’t say if he was just grandstanding or if he just genuinely got sick and tired of the negatives of boxing.

I never thought he was very good in commentating boxing anyway, at least in the fights I’ve seen. He seemed better at doing MNF.

For what it’s worth, this is what he said in late 1982.

https://archive.is/iQBQf

HOWARD COSELL'S disaffection with boxing did not begin as he broadcast the Larry Holmes-Tex Cobb mismatch 10 days ago. That event was merely the catalyst for him to call for the end of professional boxing, one of the most public criticisms the business has ever taken.
Ten years ago, Cosell testified before a Senate subcommittee that boxing should be placed under Federal control. Now he laughs bitterly when critics say boxing can be improved from within.
''I was always deeply troubled by boxing,'' Cosell said in a telephone conversation over the weekend, following his revelation to Dave Kindred in The Washington Post last week that he was walking away from boxing.

''Nothing ever changes,'' Cosell added. ''I've done all I can. We've seen the thumbless glove, we've seen Earnie Shavers and Ray Leonard hurt their eyes, I've seen Benny Paret and Willie Classen and Cleveland Denny and Duk Koo Kim die.

''Yet we still have laissez-faire. You've got two championships. The networks must take some responsibility for that. You've got sleazy promoters. You've got reporters who are afraid to look at boxing. I've had it. No more.''

As things often are with Howard Cosell, his ''decision'' is multilayered. For one thing, Cosell will announce the 1984 Olympics and he also admits: ''I am loyal to my company, and if they asked me to do a Holmes-Cooney rematch, I would do it.''

For the past quarter-century, he has been ABC's most visible boxing product, more durable than the fighters themselves. When ABC underwrote mismatches, Cosell was sometimes critical, sometimes not. When bizarre decisions took place, he was sometimes critical, sometimes not. His public persona helped sell boxing, helped sell the sponsor's product, helped boost the ratings.

''I now favor the abolition of professional boxing,'' Howard Cosell says. ''I have a right to my opinion.'' His voice weary from too many red-eye flights, Cosell traced his love and disaffection for boxing: ''I was introduced to boxing by Bill Heinz, a great writer and a friend of boxing. I became fascinated with Floyd Patterson, with his background, hiding in a hole in the subway. I visited the Wiltwyck School with him, I ran a dinner for the school.

''I met Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore did fights with me, I read Bob Lipsyte's columns about Dick Tiger. Then along came Ali, who gravitated easily from the ghetto to the White House. There was a whole new culture, the movement against an unwanted and unending war. My own daughters saw Ali as an antihero.

''Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes. Beautiful people. I love the earthiness, the courage, the honesty, of boxers. Later there was Tom (Sarge) Johnson, the Olympic coach who taught Sugar Ray Leonard how to fight. He died in the Polish air crash. I loved that man and I loved the Olympics, a triumph of U.S. spirit, and I will do the 1984 Olympics because Olympic boxing has a mandatory 8-count and headgear.''

Cosell, a former lawyer, has often testified to Congressional subcommittees against franchises being moved, the use of public funds to build stadiums and monopolistic control of sports leagues.
After his 1972 appearance before a Senate subcommittee, Cosell recalls, ''I could see where Don King and Bob Arum were recreating the control that the courts had ruled illegal years before. But I stayed with boxing because I loved the boxers.''
Cosell says he began to get bad feelings about boxing in 1980 when Roberto Duran willingly cast himself as the villain, making crude remarks and gestures toward Ray and Juanita Leonard before the fight in Montreal.

''At the weigh-in, I was standing with my wife, Emmy, and Budd Schulberg,'' Cosell says. ''I heard people cheering Duran and booing a crestfallen Ray Leonard. I was repelled by Duran, and I turned to Budd and I said, 'I don't like this crowd. There's something wrong here.' And that's where it began for me.''

Cosell says he was saddened by deaths in the ring and by the beating Alexis Arguello suffered against Aaron Pryor. Although critical of the pairing, Cosell agreed to do the Holmes-Cobb fight because he is a company man. (''They have given me more than I can ever give back; they have made me a multimillionaire.'')

Here is where Cosell is caught in the ambiguous role of television. Newspapers cover events like boxing matches; they should expect their reporters and columnists to keep a critical distance from what they cover. Television networks support boxing matches; they expect their announcers to push the product and still sound like journalists.

After Cosell criticized the Holmes-Cobb fiasco, his numerous critics savaged him for not questioning the fighters and the referee afterward. But even a towering personage like Howard Cosell is tied into the decisions from the corporate maze. And Cosell asks how many print journalists would dare criticize their newspaper in public?

''The Cobb fight did it for me,'' Cosell says. ''I was leaving the ring and people were shouting, 'Hey, Howie, that Texan sure can take a punch, can't he?' I said, 'Don't they realize what's happening here?' Four days or four weeks or four months or four years later, that man is going to pay for the pounding he took.''

His response was to publicly announce his move away from boxing. He is open to the charge of using the violent trilogy of Kim-Arguello-Cobb to lighten his work load and focus on his excellent Sunday ''Sportsbeat'' show. Cosell could also be accused of trying to come down on the right and/or popular side of a controversy. But isn't it also possible that Howard Cosell has had a change of heart about a business he has observed for 25 years?
There have been reasonable arguments why boxing should not be abolished: other sports are also dangerous; society has no right to end a business that men enter with eager consent; it is better to work for reform from within.

Cosell says reporters have helped prolong boxing's abuses by arguing against Federal intervention. He said last week the networks should ''declare a moratorium on boxing'' until some form of unified control is imposed.

He added: ''I'm not presumptuous to think I can kill boxing by myself, but I've had it.'' In quiet conversation away from the microphone, he never used his famous expression, ''Tell it like it is.'' Yet that is exactly what Howard Cosell is doing.

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Howard Cosell`s Exit from Boxing....Your opinion?

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Howard Cosell`s Exit from Boxing....Your opinion?

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