Would boxing have been better or worse to watch without Cosell's commentary?

The thing that it’s easy to not recognize through the lens of time, unless you were around to witness is it, was how much Cosell being at a sporting event made it an EVENT.

If Howard was there, it meant it was important. He was, perhaps, the first national media figure to latch onto Muhammad Ali and proclaim ‘this is a guy you need to pay attention to.’ When a fighter rose through the ranks, like Larry Holmes, Cosell putting his seal of approval on the new champ (not immediately, probably around the second Shavers fight) that fighter was ‘crowned.’

Was he a blow-hard? Yes. Self-important? No doubt. But he also (obviously not at the end) truly championed boxing and said ‘this is an important sport, these stars of the sport are as big as or bigger than the day’s football, baseball or basketball players.’ And if Howard said it, even people who hated Howard believed it.

I was one who both loved and hated Howard coming up. But I never doubted his sincerity when he told me Muhammad Ali or Ray Leonard or Arthur Ashe or so many others were worth my attention.

One thing I remember was he cut these like 2-minute daily sports updates for radio that were, I presume, syndicated and they would run during drive time on music radio (which was an important medium in those days — you’d listen in the car but also on your home radio — as sort of an aside to the news. I tuned in pretty much daily to hear what Howard had to say.

 

I always kind of liked Howard on the call. Still like watching the old fights with him on the mic

 

His commentary during the Ali-Spinks rematch was amazing: you're not fighting your fight, you're fighting his fight, and oh, how many fighters fought his fight, and then quoting Dylan's Forever Young. Oh, how he met the moment.

 

Cosell never figured out what a left jab was, he always called them "lead left hands." Luckily, in his time there were few if any fighters fighting out of a southpaw stance. I don't know if he didn't know anything about the sport or if he was just stubborn.

 

Howard didn't need boxing anymore. He was at the height of his fame. He was self serving.

 

He was not a boxing lover, but a sports personality, but he made it more interesting for the people who were not big boxing fans but mainstream. Guys like Cosell bring in the guys who watch boxing on Sat. or Sunday, as it used to be.

 

I’ll counter with my opinion that I don’t need a lot of ‘experts’ dissecting every punch in a fight and overloading a broadcast with too many words and too many technical observations.

Some former fighter telling me ‘if Fighter A will just do this then he can turn it in his favor’ … and the guy attempts to do just that and it doesn’t change anything.

I don’t need three or more people tripping over each other to get their takes in every minute of every round. One guy, if he’s a good broadcaster, can call a fight just fine, and he doesn’t have to know all that much — that’s the beauty of boxing, actually … you, me and everybody else can see if a guy lands a big right and the other guy is hurt.

 

This is pretty much it. For me I guess, I only realize how bad he is when I consider the other great broadcasting teams in boxing history. The gap is frankly enormous looking at it that way.

Then again, he was always a solo act. Can't imagine him allowing his stage to be shared.

 

I just saw a graphic from the Tim Tszyu-Terrell Gausha fight last weekend.

There were 9 ... NINE ... commentators on the Showtime team calling that fight.

NINE PEOPLE to a call a non-title super welterweight fight in Minneapolis.

People thought Cosell talked too much.

There isn't a moment of silence on any broadcast today. NONE, not with NINE PEOPLE constantly talking.

And not a single one of them could call a fight alone. They wouldn't know what to do. Al Bernstein, included. I heard Al TRY to do blow-by-blow once when Barry Tompkins didn't show up on an ESPN show. It was a train wreck.

People have no idea how difficult it is to do. They really don't.

 

Wrong. Cosell loved boxing. Ever see the video footage taken of him at ringside doing the "Down Goes Frazier!" call? He was on his feet TREMBLING. He lost his voice he was so excited.

He was calling fights on ABC radio in the late 50s with Rocky Marciano. He just got tired of calling mismatches after nearly 30 years because ABC thought if they brought in Cosell he could make even a bad fight more exciting. But there got to be more bad fights than good ones.

Watch him ringside in 1973 for Frazier-Foreman and watch him ringside nearly a decade later for Holmes-Cobb ... and that's a guy totally burned out on the sport.

I love boxing. But I'm not going to watch ANY boxing. After decades of sitting through a lot of garbage, I want to watch good entertaining fights. The bad or boring ones ... they're just a waste of time.

I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did, frankly. Lots of guys burned out a lot faster even with a partner ... or NINE!

 

i find him generally irritating and esp thought he was being a little ridiculous in the Holmes-Tex Cobb fight. but to be fair i'm not old enough to have experienced him live in the time the fight occured, so i lack some context.

 

What a ridiculous post.

 

To me Cossell was 50/50. I liked about half of what he said and couldn't stand the rest. I actually agreed with him that the Holmes Cobb fight should have been stopped but then his constant whining and megalomania really rubbed me raw. . Overall though he's better than the brood of announcers they need today.