The Best TV Announcer of All-Time

[Seamus]

Ferdie Pacheco

[Goodnight, Irene]

Ferdie Pacheco

Wow. What a giant douche this guy always was. Him & Bobby Czyz together sounded like amateur hour.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Ferdie Pacheco

Wow. What a giant douche this guy always was. Him & Bobby Czyz together sounded like amateur hour.

Amen! Thank God I don't ever have to hear that pompous windbag blabber on about how he was in Ali's corner again. Like that made his outlandish commentary more respectable. Why not have Michael jordan's chiropractor do NBA games?

[Goodnight, Irene]

^^^He was good though, for one line, once, ever...

"Coming into the arena tonight, some people mistook me for Larry Merchant --- it was maybe the lowpoint of my entire life."

[wvboxer]

Cosell does seem to add to the "size" of the event. When he called a match , it seemed big!

I love Barry Thompkins & Larry Merchant! That's the team I grew up with. So polished. I never understand why so many hate Merchant. He brought the old school newspaper journalist mentality to the telecasts. I appreciated that.

My "education" came from Gil Clancy & Al Bernstein. Clancy was great!

[Rover]

Who in your view was the best TV Announcer for boxing?

I've never heard of Jim Clancy. Is he an old-time announcer or from somewhere outside the U.S.?
I've only heard of Gil.

[Rover]

I voted for Tompkins.

[Rover]

Top two

Barry Tompkins is smooth delivery

Col. Bob is a necessary cheerleader for boxing

(Al Bernstein is the best analyst ever).

Agree about Bernstein as an analyst.

[Rover]

Cosell does seem to add to the "size" of the event. When he called a match , it seemed big!

I love Barry Thompkins & Larry Merchant! That's the team I grew up with. So polished. I never understand why so many hate Merchant. He brought the old school newspaper journalist mentality to the telecasts. I appreciated that.

My "education" came from Gil Clancy & Al Bernstein. Clancy was great!

I find Cosell irritating.

[Rover]

Don Dunphy.

In an all-round sense, Dunphy may be the best bet. Analysis, colour-commentary, & overall knowledge, I would not rank any of the others above him.

Tompkins was quite good & pretty inoffensive, but I find him a hair over-rated by some who watched during his era (before my time).

I want to give a shout-out to two oft-maligned callers --- Jim Lampley & Bob Sheridan. Couldn't be assed going into it right now, but I like these guys.

I started watching during his ESPN days, and he seems under-rated if anything to me.

[Rover]

Lampley is a nice guy, but he has a couple of flaws as an announcer.
1. He is sometimes biased. Lennox Lewis, the Klitschkos and a few other regular HBO fighters were clearly his favorites. This was to the point of not mentioning their faults, and sometimes almost ingoring their opponent.
2. He constantly says fighter A landed a punch when it was really his opponent. I have never seen anyone else do that so often.
Certainly not the worst announcer, but not one of the best.

A few of guys that many people seemed to have forgotten.
Chris Schenkel who did many of the the play by play for ABC from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. Alex Wallau was pretty good as well as the "expert" announcer for ABC in the 1980s.

Tim Ryan who was the play by play for CBS in the late 1970s and early 1980s was pretty good.

Having said that, my favorite was always Marv Albert. He was fairly knowledegable, enthusiastic, and sometimes funny.

I saw Ryan still doing boxing on CBS with Clancy in the mid 90s.

[Rover]

My favorite TV announcer is the "mute" button.

[Rover]

^^^He was good though, for one line, once, ever...

"Coming into the arena tonight, some people mistook me for Larry Merchant --- it was maybe the lowpoint of my entire life."

Tyson/Bruno II, right?

[Rover]

,,,buzz always makes a post after i do....this time it just took him longer. he knows damn well that dunphy was the best, though buzzy would know him only from tv...but as there is nothing to add on this one he had to add just wordage....with no foolish attempt to disagree. pay no attention to him. :

I think Cosell used the word extremely.

[Rover]

Ferdie Pacheco

Wow. Just wow.

[Brutu]

Howard Cossell was usually entertaining due to his pomposity and self importance and making a fight seem more important then it actually was always seemed a little absurd in hearing him,but I voted for
Don Dunphy was old school and a connection to boxing's golden era.
What was the last fight that he announced on tv?

[Rover]

Howard Cossell was usually entertaining due to his pomposity and self importance and making a fight seem more important then it actually was always seemed a little absurd in hearing him,but I voted for
Don Dunphy was old school and a connection to boxing's golden era.
What was the last fight that he announced on tv?

He did Leonard-Hearns I. I'm not sure it was his last one, but it's the last one I remember.

[klompton]

Don Dunphy. He knew when to speak and when to shut up. Thats an art that has been lost since Howard Cosell decided he wanted to be a part of the show and not a sportscaster.

[Ambling Alp II]

I liked them both for different reasons. Dunphy was knowlegable and unbiased. Cosell made the fight seem like a big event. He was also great at asking questions and getting good answers before and after fights.

Most post fight interviews involve questions like "are you going to fight so and so next?' The answer is usually something like "I will fight anyone, anytime'. Which doesn't answer the question and the interviewer does not followup.

Tompkins and Bernstein were pretty good. Sean O'Grady was good, although he didn't have many great fights to call on the USA Network fights.

[Ambling Alp II]

Lampley is a nice guy, but he has a couple of flaws as an announcer.
1. He is sometimes biased. Lennox Lewis, the Klitschkos and a few other regular HBO fighters were clearly his favorites. This was to the point of not mentioning their faults, and sometimes almost ingoring their opponent.
2. He constantly says fighter A landed a punch when it was really his opponent. I have never seen anyone else do that so often.
Certainly not the worst announcer, but not one of the best.

A few of guys that many people seemed to have forgotten.
Chris Schenkel who did many of the the play by play for ABC from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. Alex Wallau was pretty good as well as the "expert" announcer for ABC in the 1980s.

Tim Ryan who was the play by play for CBS in the late 1970s and early 1980s was pretty good.

Having said that, my favorite was always Marv Albert. He was fairly knowledegable, enthusiastic, and sometimes funny.

I saw Ryan still doing boxing on CBS with Clancy in the mid 90s.

I meant when they were in their heyday; boxing was on the networks a lot more in the 1970s and early 1980s. It gradually was broadcast less on the networks less and less. By the mid-1990s, it was not on network TV nearly as often.

[pbchron]

I always enjoyed Jack Drees the best, Great voice, knowledgable, and knew when to talk and when to let the action speak for itself. Starting in 1955 I started watching the Dumont shows, the Pabst Wednesday night shows and the friday Gillette cards and always thought that the Wednesday Pabst offerings were superior to the Gillette programs. And after recently reviewing the lists of the televised bouts from the various series' I still feel that the quality match ups on the wednesday shows (for the most part) were better week in and week out. Many kids grew up watching the friday shows with their dads because of no school the next day so the Gillette matches had (and have) a special place with a lot of the old timers.
C. H.

[Bricks]

Harry Carpenter was the best

Tim Ryan was very good especially with Gil Clancy and a "color" man like Hagler in tandem.

Those two names should really be on the list.

Gutteridge was too cocky and banal for my liking

[Bricks]

worst guy in a commentary booth ever. The senile and retarded Ferdie Pacheco. very very rude and disrespectful to fighters and a hypocrite.

[Rover]

Harry Carpenter was the best

Tim Ryan was very good especially with Gil Clancy and a "color" man like Hagler in tandem.

Those two names should really be on the list.

Gutteridge was too cocky and banal for my liking

I was really happy to see Ryan back on HBO last month.

[SenorPipino]

Here's one you may have overlooked...Jim Healy, best known for calling the Thursday night Olympic Auditorium fights from the early to mid-70s.
More glib than most announcers of that era, Healy was a veteran sports broadcast/ journalist who smoothly called the action nearly 52 weeks a year.
Always remember him for ducking under a ringside table during one of those unpopular decision riots and calling out in a shaky voice "Good Night (long pause) from the Olympic!" as the sound of breaking bottles echoed around him."
Also would practically sing out "It's alllllll oveeeeeer" when a referee stopped a fight.
Still remains a memorable character from my youth and one of boxing's best, unsung announcers.