Brits may not know who he was, but Cosell used to be the biggest name in sports announcing in the US. He called many boxing matches, football games and baseball games. He was extremely arrogant and condescending. Most people watched him because they hated him. ABC took him off the air in the mid 1980s because he wrote a book trashing all the other announcers, including his broadcasting partners. How many remember him? What did you think of him? This content is protected
I can't imagine anyone in the Classic Boxing Forum would know him, i mean seriously why would people in the Classic Boxing Forum know a guy announcing 100s of fights from the 60s to the 80s.
He was incredibly annoying, more arrogant than Donald Trump (!), top ten biggest a holes in the world, ugly, narcissistic, insulting and mad. But I miss his boxing commentary.
He ruined old fights with his commentary. When I was a teenager, I found him annoying when I watched reruns of old fights, but missed his commentary when it wasn't there anymore. Now I just find him annoying.
Do you remember when he got his wig knocked off? He was interviewing two fighters, one on each side of him. One fighter slapped at the other , raked his arm across Cosell's head and knocked his wig off. Cosell left the camera, crawled around the floor and put his wig back on. He bobbed back up and the wig was on crooked. One of the funniest things I've seen on TV.
He had a very distinctive voice but his fight commentary was so senseless it made Larry merchant sound like Al Bernstein
he had his good points. His take on fights actually interested me even if he wasnt genuinely into the sport
Cosell’s legacy is complex for sure. He was the guy people loved to hate … but at the same time if he was calling an event it was just bigger. His presence lent it credibility. He latched onto Muhammad Ali (then Clay) early and was a true proponent of Ali through his religious conversion and his exile from boxing when he refused induction. And he got a lot of access and never shied away from asking the tough questions either. He was also very powerful at ABC and was an advocate for the network going all in on boxing, including primetime specials and televising fights from around the world. Without his advocacy, it’s probable that ABC doesn’t get heavily involved in boxing — and that led CBS and NBC to also double down on boxing coverage. I remember he had a thing on the radio where he did like 2-minute daily spots (with a commercial break) five days a week (there was no real sports talk radio at the time, but music stations would carry this during drive time after work so it was widely listened to) and it was maybe 40-50 percent boxing. He’d tell you why the undercard fight of Ray Leonard vs. Andy Price (who most people had never heard of) mattered because Price held wins over then-welterweight champs Pipino Cuevas and Carlos Palomino and give you his background and why he could be a tricky test (OK that one turned out not to be so), or go to Roberto Duran’s training camp for Leonard to give reports. His team with Don Meredith on Monday Night Football at one point helped make it the highest-rated weekly sporting telecast, and those games were treated as more special than just an average regular-season contest. They’d do things like interview John Lennon at halftime and I think a president or two. It became must-see TV and had crossover appeal beyond just football fans. In the end he was losing power within ABC and became very bitter. He was also a pompous ass, but his sense of self-importance managed to somehow become reality so that he lent magnitude to events he broadcast. It came to a crashing end with boxing when he stepped away from the sport (or was taken off it) after criticizing his own network for carrying Larry Holmes-Tex Cobb, which he said was a mismatch and a public slaughter. And then he said something that some people interpreted as racist during a MNF game and that was the end of him at ABC and the end of his broadcast career.
The vast majority of people weren't watching fights because he was the announcer. They were first of all watching the fight. This stands out to me in your opening thread. I admit that I disliked Cosell and that any fight I watched in which he was the announcer was because I wanted to see the fight, not Cosell. I never ever watched a fight that he announced unless I was very, very interested in seeing the fight. I am particularly glad that he is no longer a fight commentator!
I wasn't alive back then, but I never got the dislike for his announcing. If nothing else he was easily the most accurate announcer for boxing up to that point.
He was taken off MNF for calling wide receiver Alvin Garrett a "little ******". He still did Wide World of Sports and a few other things for ABC. His career ended a few years later when his book, I Never Played The Game was published. He trashed everyone in the business including Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, Terry Bradshaw et all. ABC took him totally off the air.