This is for those of us who may have witnessed something boxing related on TV, maybe a long time ago, maybe something obscure, and want to know if anyone else saw it. So we have to go from memory, no google searches please. Here we go... It was early Ali, pretty sure his training camp for the first fight with Frazier. Ali is just hitting the big time. He is being interviewed by Howard Cosell, and Cosell is grilling him about his conversion to Islam. Cosell asks "Can a white man become a Muslim?" Who can remember Ali's reply? over to you. p.s. I remember the reply, it was interesting. Consider this a trivia question.
I was watching an old fight on YouTube just a few months ago that originally aired on ABC...already forget the fight...but Alex Wallau on a hot mic between rounds was using some really foul language, completely unaware that the World was listening. If anybody remembers which fight, refresh my memory on that one. Same thing happened with Barry Tompkins on ESPN back in the day. Another hot mic moment between rounds where Tompkins, after they accidentally switched back to ringside between two commercials, could clearly be overheard saying, "I think Rosario would beat the **** out of him". The "him" Tompkins was referring to had to be Tracy Spann, whose fight just ended and he was rumored for a possible fight with Rosario. When they came back from commercial break, Tompkins was talking about what an interesting fight it would be. Don't recall Spann's opponent that night though. If anybody recalls that, I'd like to rewatch that one as well...
This one was on either Tuesday Night Fights on ESPN’s Top Rank Boxing (or whatever it might have been called at the time). I think I found it one time after an exhaustive deep dive on boxrec, but can’t recall what year or details of. Who fought, however … It was a St. Patrick’s Day edition (hence my interest, haha), full TV card of two hours. I’m pretty sure (for some reason) it was in the Northeast — Boston, Atlantic City, maybe Philly. So to keep with the theme, every fighter wore either green trunks with white stripes or white trunks with green stripes (provided by the promoter, I’m pretty sure). And every fighter — whether black, white, Hispanic or whatever — was introduced as ‘Irish’ (fill in name here). It was hilarious. I don’t think there were any big-name attractions, but maybe one side of the main event was more of a true Irish extraction, wanna say it wasa a white guy and around middleweight, but I could be way off here. I’d love to have some affirmation. My brother remembers it, too, but also not enough details to look it up, so I’m pretty sure this isn’t a fever dream.
I think everyone following boxing in HBO era remembers how Larry Merchant would get really grumpy from time to time if He didn't enjoy the action. I remember one particular fight, where Larry would sit quiet for I think at least a full round, then after some time Jim Lampley asked him "Larry, what's going on? You've been quiet for a while". To which Larry replied, like a kid whose parents forced him to go to the theather "This sucks!". I don't know, maybe I have an odd sense of humour, but I thought it was hilarious and a classic Larry moment. If someone knows which fight it was, I'd like to check that out again. I only know it was in the 2000s and likely a fight below Welterweight.
When Bert Cooper was entering the ring to fight Holyfield, Larry quoted Ron Sanders's wife before he fought Frazier. "You don't enter a Pinto into the Indy 500 unless you know a helluva shortcut." Then Merchant says 'Bert Cooper is like a big European car, sometimes he just goes off the road and decides to stay there. Sometimes he can really GO!"
On the subject of the hot mic moment, one has to check out the second fight between Maurice Hope and Rocky Mattioli. Howard Cosell was commentating for ABC and clearly didn't know his mic was on between rounds. Every round at the interval he is talking to someone in the ABC truck and was getting nastier and nastier in regards to Alex Wallau. Too funny.
hmmm. I don't remember any of this stuff, but here's another one. I remember a televised interview,maybe a late night talk show, where two big name heavyweights from the golden era got into it, I don't think it was staged. It might have been a seated Ali ragging on Frazier, but the second guy got pissed off and got up out of his chair and walked over and slapped him upside the head, or gave him an open hand punch or something. Does anybody remember the two fighters?
It was Ali and Frazier. No punches were thrown but Ali's brother Rudy (Rahman) came onto the stage to calm things down but Frazier said something like "Are you getting into this?" It was then that Ali jumped up and said something like, "Sit down Joe" and started grappling with him and they ended up wrestling on the floor while Cosell watched.
Just watched. Cosell literally was doing that between the majority of the rounds it seemed. Here's one of the ones towards Wallau time stamped... This content is protected
Dude, that was awesome. Thanks for posting this. Man, you can just feel the ire he had for Wallau. And like you said, most of those 1 minute intervals Cosell was sniping about Wallau. Too funny.
