I know commentating can't be easy but

[Hagler2002]

Adam Smith is shockingly bad, screeching Maidana was finished after the knockdown in the first, it was a better fight that Barrera-Morales, Khan let him hit on the chin to prove a point to himself

[Hagler2002]

So you agree it was a better fight that Barrera-Morales and Khan let Maidana hit him on the chin to prove a point to himself?

[Datsue]

So you agree it was a better fight that Barrera-Morales and Khan let Maidana hit him on the chin to prove a point to himself?

i'm not saying he is perfect but IMO thought they both did a good job, Smith obviously has a huge love for boxing which means he can get carried away bit but in general i dont think he is that bad and works well with Watt.

I get why people like him, but I can't stand the theatrics, myself.

Boxing is a spectacle anyway, it just seems hollow, cheap & false to put on a silly deep voice & intone portentously. Over-eggs the pudding, like.

[ourkid1984]

It always makes me laugh when he's interviewing someone and when they make a point that either he agrees with or is something like "I can beat him with a massive knock down" he looks at the camera with an agknowleged looking face on him.

I liked his commentary on Saturday and agreed that Maidana was finished after that punch but didn't agree with his comments like Khan get hit to prove your chin but he's just another huge boxing fan getting over excited, His comment on whether the fight was better than Berrara - Morales or not is down to oppinions and if that is his oppinion then fair enough.

[boxerbob]

had a wee laugh at my countryman jim watt in the 10th when i watched the fight again

"maidana looks tires and his punches are arm punched"

BANG

"amirs in trouble , he sagging"

lol

[reggaereggae]

I just get sick of SKY commentators saying what a great fight we're seeing. That is not commentary. Is disctracting, annoying. We can see it's a good fight fir crying out loud.

Adam SMith spent ages saying how the first round was one of the best evr.....blah b;ah.....how this was the best fight he had seen...blah blah

Jim Watt must've said the fight was incredible or amazing about 100 times......

[Bricks]

So you agree it was a better fight that Barrera-Morales and Khan let Maidana hit him on the chin to prove a point to himself?

i'm not saying he is perfect but IMO thought they both did a good job, Smith obviously has a huge love for boxing which means he can get carried away bit but in general i dont think he is that bad and works well with Watt.

I get why people like him, but I can't stand the theatrics, myself.

Boxing is a spectacle anyway, it just seems hollow, cheap & false to put on a silly deep voice & intone portentously. Over-eggs the pudding, like.

exactly smith is a company man which is why he is in the position he is in. right background and upbringing.

purely as a commentator he is awful and has no style of his own. he has taken on the annoying heavy voiced forced delivery of glen mcrory and added echoes of ian darke.

i realise its asking a hell of a lot to find another cosell or carpenter but c'mon.

by the way if anyone watched german football on setanta a few years ago and espn now, there is a guy who i swear is like a mix of cosell (in terms of his delivery and ability to prose), brian clough and geoffrey boycott! has to be heard to be beleived.

btw while on the subject bob mee is awful awful awful on eurosport. horrible voice and accent and he 100% cramps holdsworth. back in the early 2000's steve holdsworth was an incredible 1 man show.part embittered ex fighter who never made it, part tabloid journalist and all around entertainer. the powers that be would give him a lousy heavyweight explosion bill but steve would tell a story for the 2 hour telecast and sometimes comment at length on things like the referees choice of hair dye and somehow make it relavent to the action unfolding in front of him and the referees judgememnts!

[iwz678]

ian darke is a miles better commentator, is he still with sky? rawling has been great since he came in, made itv boxing great when he was there.

smith loves the sport and knows a lot about boxing, ok fair enough he does overplay things, but i suppose he and watt just want to be partisan towards the british fighter, boxing does have a biased element to it, scorecards etc

[orbtastic]

I used to like listening to Holdsworth, not really for his commentary but more for the where's he going to go with this, or seeing how far he can go off piste ala Bunce. He was always pretty derisory about the loser, usually with a told you so tone. He was never ringside for any of the European bouts anyway, he was in a broom cupboard watching the feed. I would sometimes change the audio feed to the Germans just to hear them say ZUPER! every 2 seconds.

I still think Dave Brenner is who Alan Partridge was based on, but he had a style I never got bored of listening to, even if it was inane platitudes.

[Darling]

it would make sense he trained in theatrical arts as his facial expressions at times are bizzare and very stage like, i bet you he did some Gilbert & Sullivan at UNI

You rarely hear them singing anything along these lines though:

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream.

[Dioufy]

Adam Smith may well be a nice guy, but oh my days. It's horrid when he commentates. Bring in Mr. Mee - he's awesome. Or even Darke. Perhaps Rawling. Just lose the plank; Smith.

[Dioufy]

And he's pull some weird arse faces - I'd actually hate to see his cum-face.

[IRLangmaid25]

Did he not study theatrical arts or something (Deserter?), that may explain away his mild hysterics. I don't mind it, to be honest. I did prefer the Howard Cosell style but it wouldn't do for everybody to sound like they were produced in the same factory, like they used to on the BBC in the black and white days.

When I watched Juan Manuel Marquez fight Michael Katidis on Youtube last night which was on HBO (I could tell from the graphics, I did not actually get messers Lampley, Merchant, Steward and Letterman, instead I got commentary by Dave Bontempo who I have heard before on Youtube and I have been impressed by. He is very knowledgeable, impartial as well and does not talk for the sake of it, and when I have watched Sky I have always prefered Ian Darke over Adam Smith.

[Darling]

Anyone but Rawling for me.

[Coco]

Adam Smith may well be a nice guy, but oh my days. It's horrid when he commentates. Bring in Mr. Mee - he's awesome. Or even Darke. Perhaps Rawling. Just lose the plank; Smith.

Hopefully with is new job 'upstairs' he will be able to use his love of the game for better means. He has always struggled with commentary

[Deserter]

Did he not study theatrical arts or something (Deserter?).

Yep, can't remember the exact title of the course but it was drama or theatre studies at Warwick University from 1990-93 to the best of my knowledge.
Absolutely gutted I missed the fight!

[oliverfennell]

had a wee laugh at my countryman jim watt in the 10th when i watched the fight again

"maidana looks tires and his punches are arm punched"

BANG

"amirs in trouble , he sagging"

lol

Yep, the commentators' curse. Seems to happen quite often with Watt (obviously not his fault!). Another good one was when he was talking about how Frenkel was looking sorry for himself vs Maccarinelli and wasn't throwing power shots anymore. Two seconds later....

[Datsue]

It wasn't quite as bad as the UK commentary for Manny-El Cheato. Massive venue, great atmosphere but we didn't get to sample it as the commetary team spoke incessantly for the entire contest. Contrast this with the commentary for the recent Barca-Real Madrid game, the crowd went bonkers and the commentator said, "Xavi is leaving the pitch and the crowd is on its feet, his is a wonderful atmosphere -- I'll be quiet so you can soak it in."

Not sure who the guy was, but they should consider getting him in for the boxing, or get Sky's current team to watch this piece of commentary, then watch a reel of their own rapid fire babble and compare and contrast.

I feel quite fortunate I've caught the "international" HBO feed the last few big fights -- Dave Bontempo (or whatever his name is) seems to be on the wrong side of a handful of benzos most of the time but I prefer that immensely to either Lampley's constant caterwauling or the SKY efforts, which seem more & more to be trying to ape the regular HBO approach.

I have to admit I do quite like the Showtime team, meself, nice balance I feel, don't get a sense of competing egos like you do on HBO.

Although obviously, the best commentary feed to pick up is the Romanian, 'cos that always sounds like a subdued bloke in a broom closet in Bucharest trying to stay awake over his Borscht & you can actually hear everything, the ref, the punches, the crowd. It's like watching a very old fight film of a current event. Though it's probably less soothing if you can actually understand Romanian.

During the Marquez-Katsidis fight (the Romanian feed), my friend repeatedly brought up that every time Katsidis' trainer screamed from ringside for the bodyshots, JMM would nail the Aussie with a left hook to the liver. It got quite funny because it got to the stage where you couldn't be sure that JMM was the one who spoke English & Katsidis Spanish, & I'm sure is something we'd've missed had we had Lampley motormouthing over the top of every single feint, Lederman squeaking away ten-to-the-dozen, & Larry Merchant's pissed-up ruminations in his... Dead... Croaking... William... S... Burroughs... Scary... Voice... which Kellerman normally interrupts anyway, thank fvck.

Actually, it appears in my ruminations I've hit on something: surely the massed, serried ranks of commentators used on pro boxing these days just have the opposite of its intended effect, i.e. it simply drowns the uninitiated casual fan in drivel, confusing them as to what's going on?

[Chambers2]

All commentators seem to have good and bad nights, Ian Darke was the most consistant IMO

Barry McGuigan shouldn't be allowed within 50 foot of a commentators mike

[IRLangmaid25]

It wasn't quite as bad as the UK commentary for Manny-El Cheato. Massive venue, great atmosphere but we didn't get to sample it as the commetary team spoke incessantly for the entire contest. Contrast this with the commentary for the recent Barca-Real Madrid game, the crowd went bonkers and the commentator said, "Xavi is leaving the pitch and the crowd is on its feet, his is a wonderful atmosphere -- I'll be quiet so you can soak it in."

Not sure who the guy was, but they should consider getting him in for the boxing, or get Sky's current team to watch this piece of commentary, then watch a reel of their own rapid fire babble and compare and contrast.

I feel quite fortunate I've caught the "international" HBO feed the last few big fights -- Dave Bontempo (or whatever his name is) seems to be on the wrong side of a handful of benzos most of the time but I prefer that immensely to either Lampley's constant caterwauling or the SKY efforts, which seem more & more to be trying to ape the regular HBO approach.

It is Dave Bontempo mate that does the international stuff for HBO as sometimes when I have gone onto Youtube to watch a Stateside fight that has been on HBO instead of getting Lampley and the gang, I have got Bontempo doing the commentary as I also had his commentary when I watched Lucian Bute v Jesse Brinkley fight in Quebec early this year. Bontempo in comparison to Lampley is unbiassed and very fair to both fighters and is very fair in his balance. Sky for the Pacman v Margarito had Rawlings and Watt if my memory serves me correctly. What does everyone make of Bob Papa on HBO as well?

[Counter-puncher]

Adam Smith is shockingly bad, screeching Maidana was finished after the knockdown in the first, :

well he wasn't the only one, i was yelling 'he's gone' and 'he's got him' and just about every other variation you could think of

Bontempo is very much acceptable IMO as are the showtime team, generally

[McCannW14]

Adam Smith is shockingly bad, screeching Maidana was finished after the knockdown in the first, it was a better fight that Barrera-Morales, Khan let him hit on the chin to prove a point to himself

I agree, he seems a nice bloke but is dreadful as a commentator. Shouts all the time, comes out with non relevant stuff, poor at describing of predicating the action and has no tactical nous whatsoever.

He is quite good on Ringside. He should stick to that.

[McCannW14]

had a wee laugh at my countryman jim watt in the 10th when i watched the fight again

"maidana looks tires and his punches are arm punched"

BANG

"amirs in trouble , he sagging"

lol

Yep, the commentators' curse. Seems to happen quite often with Watt (obviously not his fault!). Another good one was when he was talking about how Frenkel was looking sorry for himself vs Maccarinelli and wasn't throwing power shots anymore. Two seconds later....

Actually this happended just after Watt predicted that all Madiana had was wild swings. I thought Jim called it well.

[Chambers2]

Have a copy of Mormeck-Haye, Colonel once again, admits that he knows eff all about Haye. Class, at least he's honest.

Was it him who comes out with the line "That's all she wrote!" when Haye KO'd Mormeck

[stujones]

I find Colonel very hit and miss as a commentator but he is an enthusiastic fight fan and I wish him all the best and to get well soon.

Yes Terry, he just talks and talks.