Larry Merchant hospitalized

Boxing icon Larry Merchant hospitalized in critical condition

 

For some reason I thought he was already dead.

 

You were just probably thinking of Fury's legacy.

 

At his age, might be the end of the line. Or he could recover, depending on what caused the emergency and depending on his overall health. But if he does go, he's fortunate to have made it to 92. Very few do.

 

Per mannix

 

Can...that man... survive!

 

HBO era was the best.

 

Lampley is a wuss

 

Hopefully now Wilder calls him out and gets back to his winning ways

 

A great clip....

 

George: "You need to grab and hold"...

 

It wasn't a sudden fall.









It was a FLASH KNOCKDOWN

 

George: HE BROKE HIS LEG

 

"He's still alive George."

"Whooooooooo! Unheard of! Un... heard... of!"

 

My favorite all-time Merchant call is RJJ-Hall when he said the referee should be pistol whipped

 

In an era of Chris Mannix and Mark Kriegal, it's impossible NOT to miss a prime Merchant.

I suspected even back then that Merchant was the last of his kind, and would be missed in time, but I never anticipated that boxing commentary would devolve to this low a level...

Let's just call a spade a spade. No other platform or network will ever call fights like HBO. They weren't perfect, and we give him enough criticism, but the production level and commentary level was something we'll never see again.

 

Dougie Fischer....smfh

 

It gets no worse than Mannix tbough...

I'd rather listen to Bobby Czyz & Ferdie Pacheco on repeat forever than suffer one minute of Mannix.

 

Yeah Pacheco and Chezz sound authoritative in contrast.

They should never have let boxing fans in charge of any aspect of boxing.

 

On this same note don Dunphy was great and I always liked colonel Bob sheridan. Ferdie and Bobby were pretty bad but nothing like Tim Bradley, Mannix, etc. The modern guys are absolutely horrendous.

Never thought I'd miss RJJ and Emanuel steward on the mic. George, Larry, and Jim was an amazing team.

 

Merchant was a loser and a fraud.
There are certain people involved in the sport who really love it, really have passion for it.
Max, Harold, Buffer, Bernstein...
But Merchant wasn't a fan. He was a user. Not worthless because he could make worthwhile points, but his ignorance often resulted in really stupid, insipid commentary.

 

Merchant still watches boxing. He's not a fan?

If you ever spoke to him you can tell his passion for it, whether or not he became jaded to some of the drawbacks of the sport over the years

 

Yeah, call him cynical or call him an asshole, fine. But claiming he's not a boxing fan is asinine.

Merchant was boxing obsessed before any of us were born, and as Neil said, still follows the sport.

I thought it was always very apparent in his commentary that he loves the actual sport, and had a VERY high knowledge of boxing history.

He wasn't some boxing tourist like Mannix.

 

Adding to that: I really don't see Kellerman as any more of a boxing fan than Merchant. They're just different people. Merchant was a cynic who was willing to call out boxing's dark side, while Kellerman is an optimist and more of a company man.

But what they have in common is that they're both jews from NYC who love boxing. Neither is perfect; there's criticisms that could be levied against both, but overall I think they both had a positive impact on boxing.

 

Even growing up well past Merchant's time, him and Lampely are still the voice of boxing for me.

 

100% agREED...

REED Doesn't Wish Death Upon ANYONE, But Fuck All This Caring and Sensitive Shit for Larry Merchant of All People...He's NOT the Least Bit Deserving of the Warm, Nor the Fuzzy...Dude was a MISERABLE, INSUFFERABLE Prick Who Commentated as if He'd Rather Be ANYWHERE Else Than the Ringside Seat He Occupied...

Worse, He Was an Overt Race Baiter Who ABUSED His Position @ HBO to Minimize Fighters and Their Cultures...Sure, REED Misses CERTAIN Aspects of HBO's Boxing Presentation; Most Notably Lamps Excitedly Screaming "Tale of the Tape" Just Prior to the Ringwalks, But Larry Merchant's Perpetual NEGATIVITY Damn Sure Ain't One of Them...

if, If, IF Merchant was a "Fan", He was a Fan of a PARTICULAR ERA of Boxing, a BYGONE Era of Boxing...But as the Game Changed, Merchant's "Love" for the Sport CLEARLY WANED....Even Merchant's Biggest Dick Riders CAN'T Deny That & As Such, FUCK That Geriatric Piece of Shit...

Again, NOT Wishing Death Upon Merchant or Anyone Else, But w/All That Said, BYE BITCH!!!....




REED

 

Not Sure How Many Other Fightbeaters Can Say This, But REED is Literally OLD Enough to Remember Some of HBO's EARLIEST Days...

Larry Holmes vs. Mike Weaver/Roberto Duran vs. Carlos Palomino...REED Recalls Watching this Doubleheader on HBO as a Child...Back in the Day, Larry Merchant was an AMBASSADOR of the Sport, a Person That Made You WANT to Be a Part of It...His Excitement, His LOVE For What He was Privy to JUMPED Off the TV Screen...But as He AGED, as He Got More COMFORTABLE In His HBO Seat (After the Departure of Barry Tompkins), as His Tenure and EGO Grew, Larry Merchant's Fandom DIPPED Noticeably...

It Got to a Point REED Thought, "Damn Dude, if You DISLIKE the Sport and the People Within it THAT Much, WHY Do You Return Every Fucking Weekend for Another Boxing Telecast"...You Could Literally Start a DRINKING Game Off of Merchant's Perpetual Negativity and You'd Be SHIT FACED Drunk By the End of Most HBO Boxing Broadcasts...

Merchant Couldn't Mask His DISDAIN for Inner City Black Fighters Like Aaron Pryor and Their Entourages in Particular...He Was Openly OFFENDED When Oscar dela Hoya, a MEXICAN Last Time REED Checked, DARED to Ringwalk in a Bull Fighter's Outfit and He Made a Habit of Cutting Fighters Off Mid-Sentence, as They Thanked Those That AIDED in Helping Them Achieve the Very Win Resulting in Merchant Wanting to Interview Them in the 1st Fucking Place...

Merchant MILKED the Fact He was a Sawed Off Old Man to Say Shit He Definitely WOULDN'T Say, if He were In a Younger, More ACCOUNTABLE Body...And FUCK Larry Merchant for that, Forever...When You Give Off THAT Much Negativity, Don't Say SHIT When Some of it Boomerangs Back to Your Ass...

Again, BYE BITCH!!!



REED