BoxRec

SKY get bashed week in week out but Smith, Nelson and McCrory are handling this pretty well. Fairly impartial, zerp cheerleading and easy on the ear IMO

Standard isn't high with Halling but agreed as much stick as Smith gets on here I've always thought he was a good commentator.

Sky made sure the judges were terrible instead.

Apart from Mcrorys 'swooooping hooooks' of course

Turgid repetitive horse pish.

I prefer Smith to Halling.

Halling is dreadful and I'm very tired of Watt.

I've always liked McCrory. I even like Jim Watt's voice, it's just the words are not so great. I kind of zone out over the commentary anyway, if you know your boxing you don't really need the commentary but turning the sound off takes the atmosphere away.

Don't they say that commentary is really for the casual fan / laymen not the hardcore.

The annoying thing about Halling's commentary is that he is probably knowledgeable enough to do a decent job if he just stuck to calling the action in a play-by-play, punch-by-punch sort of way. The problem comes when he starts trying to tell the story of the fight. You're not Jim Ross, it's not WWE. It works there because the outcome is pre-determined, but it doesn't work with boxing. Not when the fight can be constantly changing and nobody knows what will happen next. There doesn't need to be a narrative. Just call what you see.

ElJefe wrote:The annoying thing about Halling's commentary is that he is probably knowledgeable enough to do a decent job if he just stuck to calling the action in a play-by-play, punch-by-punch sort of way. The problem comes when he starts trying to tell the story of the fight. You're not Jim Ross, it's not WWE. It works there because the outcome is pre-determined, but it doesn't work with boxing. Not when the fight can be constantly changing and nobody knows what will happen next. There doesn't need to be a narrative. Just call what you see.

Across all sports commentators get way too obsessive about narratives. It's like watching a film with somebody constantly trying to tell you what's going on. We're watching, we can see...

Should be a commentary mute button for all sports.

Halling can spoil and does spoil a fair few fights for me. Especially hate the talking over the corner work and over the ring walk.