I use to dislike larry merchant as a commentator but i grew to kinda like him as for max i doubt it at least when merchant says something dumb its funny but when max does it comes off as annoying lampley thought he had it bad sitting next to merchant for more than 15 years it will only get worse with max
Max’s knowledge of the sport of boxing is exstensive – the guy knows what he’s talking about. He may be a bit opinionated – but what commentator isn’t. He did a great job on Friday Night Fights for ESPN and I think he did a pretty good job on Boxing After Dark. He may not be the best at what he does – but he’s pretty good.
I actually just watched this fight again. He actually scored it 9-3 for Mayweather(I had the same score). Overall, I think he's a solid commentator sometimes he gets annoying though.
Larry has personality and that air of paternal wisdom with a touch of dementia. But when you really stack them side by side his mic skills aren't that much greater than Max's. They are a dead wash in knowledge/critical analysis/insight. The people who strongly dislike Max, whatever other flimsy reasons they give, dislike him because he's young and earnest. And the people who like him, whatever other flimsy reasons they give, like him because he's young and earnest. Just different tastes, cannot be reconciled.
i used to like Max when he was on public access here in nyc, continued to like him on FNF and Around the Horn, but hate him as a HBO broadcaster dunno why i guess when comparing him to Lampley, Merchant, and even Foreman theres no comparison really.
This is the problem with boxing, it's too subjective. My most important critera when scoring a round is clean effective punching. Oscar didn't land many clean punches the whole fight. There were two rounds that Oscar clearly won. There was another one that was a toss up that I gave to DLH(they landed the same amount of punches that round). The 12th round was also close, but I gave it to Mayweather. The rest of the rounds, Mayweather won with relative ease. There were a couple of good jabs that Oscar landed, the rest of his punches were all arm punches that either grazed Floyd or were blocked. All those flurries against the ropes made it look like Oscar was doing something, but they weren't landing.
