Jim Lampley

The whole of HBO Boxing is missed.
Their production value and story telling was awesome.

Like they said “The heart and soul of boxing” was there.

 

Not blacklisted but lets face it he s 72.

Nobody is gonna give him a gig anymore.Heblindly signed in with Triller but pulled out once he saw he was gonna commentate a farce.

 

The whole of HBO is missed. Fights just don't feel as big. And yes, Lampley was a big part of that. He understood the emotional pitch of a fight in a way that the current guys just don't.

I do think Mauro of Showtime does a nice job, but he doesn't carry the narrative as well.

 

I can understand remembering the good times, but I don't know why anyone would wish for his return. He was shot to smithereens (and had become deeply annoying) long before HBO pulled the plug.

 

I was a fan of lamps and his dissection of what was going on at the moment aka play by play. He was clever and witty too. Look son, even salty max Kellerman called Jim "the best he's ever heard by his ears ever", and Roy " the best he's seen done it with his eyes." Great stuff! Rumble young man rumble.

 

Jim Lampley’s boxing commentary helped make boxing even more dramatic and exciting. I’ve always enjoyed hearing his analysis and calls during big fights. Not sure why he gets hated but his presence is really missed. All of HBO boxing crew is really missed, including Merchant and Kellerman.

 

Some classic Lampley commentary.

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

 

I don't miss the HBO crew at all. They were way past their prime.

 

I miss the old team and the HBO production. They did it right and brought so many great fights to the public. Nothing today compares to the old HBO crew. It’s too bad they had to fold. Maybe I’m biased because I watched them for so many years but they were so good. Hearing Bradley, Ward and the stooges who do so many fights these days is painful at times. Is it me or do todays announcers seem way more biased than the old HBO crew?

 

You are right, HBO broadcast was so ****ing good. I am in Australia, so I had to get tapes sent from the US to regularly view the HBO shows. Typically by the time I had internet good enough so that I could watch it live they were kaput :-(. Their pre fight hype was awesome, Lampley, best blow by blow in the business and I was a huge fan of Merchant. There was little bias with Merchant, if a fight was crap, he would say so!
You are right about the degrading quality of callers but it's a broader thing, all sports worldwide. Maybe they just don't make us, like they used too!

 

Lampley was the best and the HBO crew made boxing exciting. Lampleys voice is desperately missed in the sport today, as is the HBO Production of boxing. Nothing comes close today.

 

That is so true. It's not just boxing but it's a broader thing in sports worldwide. Growing up in the 1990s I was a huge college football fan (NCAA football) in America. Those broadcasts back in the 90's were so epic back in the day with callers like Keith Jackson. Broadcasters like Keith Jackson brought such a different feel to the telecasts and so much about the sport was different and better back then. You would literally get lost in a Saturday afternoon of college football, it was so genuinely dramatic and fun to watch a season play out.

Nowadays college football is such a shell of what it used to be, the broadcasters these days and just the production of telecasts in general can't hold a candle to what it was like in the good ol days. Now college football is pretty much treated as just the "minor leagues" of the NFL, and it was never that way in the old days. In the old days NCAA was bigger, better and more important than the NFL to many Americans. But it got so watered down over the years like many sports. The reason why I still care about boxing as much as I do is that in my opinion, it hasn't declined to the extent that other sports like NCAA football or the NBA has. College basketball was also a big part of my life but now it's gotten so crappy and watered down over the last 10 years or so I can't even watch it anymore.

I don't know if it's the same in Australia with Aussie Rules Football or Rugby, but in America, sports are not as interesting or as engaging as they were in the 1990s through the mid 2000s. A lot about sports seemed to change more noticeably for the worse when HDTVs replaced analog TVs in the mid to late 2000s. The era of the classic sports commentator is pretty much gone, and in boxing HBO was the last remnant of that as far as I'm concerned.

 

I can speak for a couple of sports in particular in Australia. AFL (Aussie Rules football) and cricket. Aussie rules, play by play callers with the exception of one or two, are ****ing terrible. The expert analysts are probably much better now but the callers of the game are not accurate and it's blatantly obvious that they don't do their home work. They just rock up and get paid big bucks for doing sweet FA! Cricket commentating has gone downhill also from the earlier days of 9 in oz and Sky in the uk. Admittedly most of the old 9 crew in oz have passed on already. Sky UK boxing broadcast is nowhere near as good as it once was too by the way.
In Australia, it has a lot to do with not as many unique characters around anymore, more robotic types nowadays.

 

Lampley was absolutely great.

Boxing isn't the same without HBO broadcasts. They were head and shoulders above what we have today.