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***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie***
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 08:45
by caldo2025
I have a real hard time with this question because I really do enjoy both of crews. But if I had to choose one over the other, I would go with the HBO boys. Both networks are self serving to a fault but Lampley is the best in the business. His love for this sport and ability to dissect a situation is unmatched. I'm not a huge fan of Max because I think that he does a very poor post fight interview. HBO would be served to use a specialist for this, like Showtime. Roy Jones Jr, though he butchers the English language, seldom is he wrong. Not many have fought on his level of greatness and he does an excellent job letting us inside his head. I just wish he worked on speaking more properly because he's fantastic. (Emmanual Stewart was great).
The Showtime crew would be a lot better off if they either replaced Mauro or toned him down a great deal. I still consider him a MMA guy and his act is better suited for WWE. Al and Paulie definitely pick up the slack for him. I am very impressed with Paulie's analysis and his intelligence. I could do without Brian Kenny and his flat top hair. I think that Jim Gray does a better job than Max with post fight interviews but he's such a scumbag that it's hard to like him.
If it were a fight to this point, i'd give HBO a unanimous decision. Which crew do you prefer and why?
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 09:05
by uptconnect
I suppose I like the HBO crew better because I like Lampley the most, and because Mauro is the worst ever, in the history of the world and everything in it.
-I prefer Paulie to Roy, although one fighter is pretty much the same as the next, if they're active fighters with an agenda.
-I love Max's enthusiasm, even though I completely disagree with him about 50% of the time and I can't say anything at all bad about Bernstein, aside from he's a little monotone and boring. I respect his game, though.
I associate Lampley's voice with big fight moments, so for me, maybe it's the nostalgia of HBO boxing that gives them the edge.
Also, lately, because of the cold-war no doubt, it seems to me that Jim and Max have been much more blatantly biased and partial when it comes to HBO fighters. That bugs me. Especially with Jim.
Most often though, there's either no volume, or the noise is such I can't hear when I watch.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 10:14
by cletomex
cletomex wrote:I also believe HBO has a better production, but I guess that all hinges on Jim Lampley. Which is weird, because Lampley seems like a egotistical douche and prick. But I do think Paulie is better than Roy. And Al Bernstein is a better analyst than Max Kellerman. And I enjoy Steve Farhood.....he is very knowledgeable and has better scorecards than Harold Ledderman. I guess I don't mind his pubes on his head. But Lampley has that voice that brings excitement and drama.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 11:08
by ReggieDiggs
Man, these crews are some mixed bag specials lol.
I think I gotta go with Showtime. To me Al Bernstein is what all announcers or just people covering boxing, talking boxing should aspire to. When Al dies its gonna be one of the saddest boxing losses for me since Emanuel Steward died due to what both of those guys represent involving what is great about this sport from the non-participants (in the ring) line.
Paulie is the best boxer talking about boxing out there for me. He breaks it down in a understandable & simple way & without throwing his dick on the table as so many boxers talking about boxing seem to do.
Mauro.....*cough*.....*cough*.....................................................*cough*. He'd do great talking about semi-naked male grappling.
From the HBO side the biggest upside to me is just the history of HBO in boxing & what it represents to my life. The day they got rid of Larry Merchant's grumby for the last 20 years ass I wanted to celebrate like a 7th grade cheerleader after her first home game win, but then I felt old as f#ck & realized in some sort of way I was gonna miss his Mark Twain nonsensical story right after a Floyd fight ass. Thats how I expect to feel once Jim retires with his nutty yelling at missed punches, just a great voice with rocks in his head, ass.
I do like Max just off his genuine love of the sport & I think when Max (as I expect anyway) leads the HBO team at some point it'll be an improved team with him helming it. I love his background from his days of a public access boxing show host & passion-wise I think he may have the most passion for this sport that he is able to show on any night than anyone else on his level. Some people get a little uppity with his opinions as he tends to be uppity himself sometimes, but regardless if I agree or disagree with him I love his passion for boxing & to me its the best thing about HBO announcing.
Roy is just Roy (that's probably what Roy would unironically say oddly enough). He's kinda like Big George in that he's gonna have some gems at times, but he's throwing his dick on the table in one way or another far too often for me. It can be like a bad comedy routine at times. I do think he's lost some of the ego sh!t since his getting ktfo days of late, but I just don't see him offering that much outside of his name, which always seems like HBO's ultimate goal with their boxer commentators since the beginning. Its name over substance to me.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 11:50
by TheWigwam
Kellerman is occasionally annoying but overall he's decent and I like the face-offs he does
Like Al, Paulie and Roy, Lampley is good. Mauro isn't
that bad.
Quite like Teddy Atlas and that Grisham bloke, not a popular choice lol but I enjoy that whole show every week and look forward to its return :P
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 12:14
by uptconnect
Mauro isn't that bad.
He's worse than
that bad. He literally doesn't know the difference between a cross and a jab.
He tries to compensate for his lack of boxing knowledge by doing an over-the-top hyped up caricature of a sports announcer voice, with bad timing, to boot.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 12:54
by montrealsuper
Showtime is okay, they all sound like shills most of the time. HBO is good, really miss Larry Merchant. Roy is fun, Max is getting better, Lamps is good. Really miss the days of guys like Howard Cosell, Tim Ryan, Gil Clancy, Chris Shenkel, these guys could call a fight.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 14:55
by ReggieDiggs
montrealsuper wrote:they all sound like shills most of the time
Sh!t if I was running these shows they damn sure better sound like shills. You can't pay a guy to talk about Pepsi & that mfer says "eh, pepsi is kinda sh!tty". He better do a mfing backflip, go into a split & say "Pepsi changed my life & cured my grandmothers cancer". I never understood how Seth Abrahams or whoever was running boxing back in the day on HBO wasn't firing Larry & Lampley when they would sh!t on a HBO fight while cashing HBO checks. Now granted I don't really think guys should be shills, but I want a mfer looking at a half full glass like Al Bernstein & Sean O"Grady tend to do. It is absolutely unacceptable, unless your ball-less as a CEO, to let any announcer sh!t on a fight for like 20% of the time the fight is happening after you probably paid $1M+ for that fight. Its kinda like calling the people stupid for watching the fight when they used to sh!t on the fight.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 15:09
by Rodian
HBO by a country mile. better broadcast team overall and better presentation.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 15:12
by Rodian
montrealsuper wrote:Showtime is okay, they all sound like shills most of the time. HBO is good, really miss Larry Merchant. Roy is fun, Max is getting better, Lamps is good. Really miss the days of guys like Howard Cosell, Tim Ryan, Gil Clancy, Chris Shenkel, these guys could call a fight.
theres nothing wrong with being a shill. Broadcasting nowadays is all about personality and how the viewer connects with guys.
the problem with Showtime is that they are shills but hide that fact, like hater Paulie Malignaggi, Al Haymon buffoon and professional hater. Mauro sounds like a parody of an over the top fake announcer guy.
Lamps on the other hand has a preference for certain guys like Pacquiao. He doesnt hide it and thats OK, atleast we know where he stands. Lamps is also pretty damn likeable and a nice guy and thats why we put up with his buffoonery unlike hater Paulie.
Anyway, fans dont blame him because most fans like excitement, not boring boxing.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 15:32
by ReggieDiggs
uptconnect wrote:Mauro isn't that bad.
He's worse than
that bad. He literally doesn't know the difference between a cross and a jab.
He tries to compensate for his lack of boxing knowledge by doing an over-the-top hyped up caricature of a sports announcer voice, with bad timing, to boot.
lol. Yea he seems so out of place among Al & Paulie. I like his excitement level mind you, but he's like a sassy black woman doing a Presidential debate. He's just off on a whole other plane of reality during these shows. Have him calling Wrestlemania & he's the sh!t (I didn't even like him calling MMA tbqh).
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 19:44
by caldo2025
These replies are all great! Thank you! You don't hear much about the competition and the preference between the two crews. Uptconnect mentioned the "cold war" and he or she was right on. If you have seen the last 2 "The Fight Game", Lampley is blatantly going after SHOWTIME boxers and their promoters and kissing HBO boxers asses up and done. Case in point: Adonis Stevenson was one of the focus boxers on HBO's menu along with GGG, Kovalev and Manny. They pub'd him up big time and once he pulled the switcharoo on them a few months back, he became enemy of the state. I quote Bob Sugar from "Jerry Maguire", "it's show business, not show friends". They could have spent some money and locked him down long term but that's not HBO's gig.
Love these replies, keep em coming!
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 10 Jan 2015, 06:58
by rampage
ReggieDiggs wrote:Man, these crews are some mixed bag specials lol.
I think I gotta go with Showtime. To me Al Bernstein is what all announcers or just people covering boxing, talking boxing should aspire to. When Al dies its gonna be one of the saddest boxing losses for me since Emanuel Steward died due to what both of those guys represent involving what is great about this sport from the non-participants (in the ring) line.
Paulie is the best boxer talking about boxing out there for me. He breaks it down in a understandable & simple way & without throwing his dick on the table as so many boxers talking about boxing seem to do.
Mauro.....*cough*.....*cough*.....................................................*cough*. He'd do great talking about semi-naked male grappling.
From the HBO side the biggest upside to me is just the history of HBO in boxing & what it represents to my life. The day they got rid of Larry Merchant's grumby for the last 20 years ass I wanted to celebrate like a 7th grade cheerleader after her first home game win, but then I felt old as f#ck & realized in some sort of way I was gonna miss his Mark Twain nonsensical story right after a Floyd fight ass. Thats how I expect to feel once Jim retires with his nutty yelling at missed punches, just a great voice with rocks in his head, ass.
I do like Max just off his genuine love of the sport & I think when Max (as I expect anyway) leads the HBO team at some point it'll be an improved team with him helming it. I love his background from his days of a public access boxing show host & passion-wise I think he may have the most passion for this sport that he is able to show on any night than anyone else on his level. Some people get a little uppity with his opinions as he tends to be uppity himself sometimes, but regardless if I agree or disagree with him I love his passion for boxing & to me its the best thing about HBO announcing.
Roy is just Roy (that's probably what Roy would unironically say oddly enough). He's kinda like Big George in that he's gonna have some gems at times, but he's throwing his dick on the table in one way or another far too often for me. It can be like a bad comedy routine at times. I do think he's lost some of the ego sh!t since his getting ktfo days of late, but I just don't see him offering that much outside of his name, which always seems like HBO's ultimate goal with their boxer commentators since the beginning. Its name over substance to me.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Showtime takes it for me.
-Paulie is the best. He's been my favorite boxer for probably the last 10 years or so, and I think he is great as an announcer. Like you said, he breaks things down in a very understandable way, analyzes it very intelligently, and is charismatic as hell. He even points out little subtle things that an experienced boxing fan may not notice right away.
-Bernstein is excellent as well. I actually used to not like him when I first started watching boxing because I thought he was really smug. But he has an immense knowledge of the sport and relays it well, and he is very fair in his commentary. Rarely if ever is there any bias. Simply put, he calls fights the way a commentator should, and he does so intelligently.
-Mauro is a joke, and a bad one at that. He's more obnoxious than Bob Sheridan, and that's hard to do. I actually used to give MMA fans a hard time because they had to put up with him and we didn't--then, lo and behold, we get stuck with him...
As for HBO:
-Roy is good. I like Paulie better, but I still think Roy breaks down fights and tactics pretty well, and he is generally very accurate with predicting what will happen later in the fight due to the tactics or styles of the boxers. It's interesting to me to see how all that plays out.
-Max is ok, but I liked him better when he was still on ESPN. He used to speak his mind no matter what, and his knowledge and enthusiasm made it very interesting. Since he made the move to HBO, he seems to fall into group think a lot more, and he is much more of a biased cheerleader than he used to be. True, he was always a little biased toward guys like Jones and Judah, but I think that shines through more now.
-Lampley sucks. Great voice, but he is so heavily biased that it makes it very hard to take him seriously. Frequently calling missed punches, heavily favoring one fighter over another in a blatant fashion, and talking just to hear himself talk/fill the silence.
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 10 Jan 2015, 07:05
by TheWigwam
ReggieDiggs wrote:uptconnect wrote:Mauro isn't that bad.
He's worse than
that bad. He literally doesn't know the difference between a cross and a jab.
He tries to compensate for his lack of boxing knowledge by doing an over-the-top hyped up caricature of a sports announcer voice, with bad timing, to boot.
lol. Yea he seems so out of place among Al & Paulie. I like his excitement level mind you, but he's like a sassy black woman doing a Presidential debate. He's just off on a whole other plane of reality during these shows. Have him calling Wrestlemania & he's the sh!t (I didn't even like him calling MMA tbqh).
Yeah I guess the wool was pulled over my eyes with his enthusiasm, but in contrast with some of the guys on some of the British small hall shows he's not half as boring
Re: ***Lampley, Max & Jones Jr VS. Mauro, Bernstein & Paulie
Posted: 11 Jan 2015, 22:13
by Onekrazyrican
I would merge both teams.
Paulie is the best fighter/analyst I've seen in years. He's always had the mindset of an all times great but unfortunately had the punching power of a 5 years old girl so he underachieved as a fighter imo. As a commentator tho he doesn't have to hit anyone so I expect to have him around for many years. I truly think his "future legend" dreams are possible as a broadcaster.
I like both Max and Al but I kinda feel better about Max. I remember watching him on ESPN as a guy not that much older than me and imagining myself in his position. It's like he represents a young hardcore fan that landed a dream job so I would alternate but keep him most of the time.
Lampley has already achieved legend status in my book. Even with moments like the "bang! bang!" stuff when pac fought Clottey.