Broadcast Team: HBO vs. Showtime

[Ruthless-RKO]

I made a similar thread in the British Forums comparing Sky Sports and Box-Nation..

Thought i'd do the same here for HBO and Showtime..

HBO
Jim Lampley - blow-by-blow
Max Kellerman - color commentator and post-fight interviewer
Roy Jones, Jr - Analyst (Andre Ward or Bernard Hopkins fill in when Jones is unavailable.)
Harold Lederman - Unofficial scorer
Michael Buffer - Unofficial member as ring announcer

Showtime
Mauro Ranallo - blow-by-blow
Al Bernstein - chief color analyst
Paulie Malignaggi - analyst (when available) (Guest analysts incl. Amir Khan, Austin Trout)
Jim Gray - chief reporter
Jimmy Lennon Jr. - ring announcer

[Ruthless-RKO]

I'm from UK, but I watch a lot of videos on Youtube.. for example, I watched a lot of fights on Sky Sports and Box-Nation, but then I watch the same fights on Youtube that are broadcast by HBO and Showtime or anyone else.

e.g. I watched GGG vs. Brook live on Sky Sports PPV, but I have watched highlights many times on HBO..

Whenever I miss a fight in the UK, maybe it's late night, e.g. Wilder vs. Stiverne II was shown on Sky Sports, But I missed in. So the next day, I watched in on Youtube and it was from the Showtime broadcast..

Based on my views, I prefer HBO.

[Ossyrules]

I went with hbo but I don’t have too much preference between them and showtime

[Ruthless-RKO]

I went with hbo but I don’t have too much preference between them and showtime

The only recent thing that I don't like what HBO did, was when Rigo fought Flores.. Lampley kept going on about DQ'ing Rigo. I was actually watching it on Sky Sports in the UK, but they were showing all this post-fight, Lampley kept going on and on.. He brought Bob Bennett in and watched the replays many times.. Even when Bennet said they would analyse it later, Lampley still kept going on and it got a bit annoying. Maybe they were wasting time, due to the fight ending after the first round and Ward/Kov weren't ready.. I have no idea. But later on, when Ward won, via a questionable TKO, they hardly 'analysed' anything.

[pizzakid13]

HBO

Mostly because I can't stand Mauro on Showtime. He is just too over the top. Al is good and so is Paulie.

[ElJefe]

Lampley vs Ranallo - Lampley hands down for me. Mauro is OK but grates on me a bit. Nobody captures the big moments like Lampley IMO.
Kellerman vs Bernstein - This one is close. I like Kellerman but understand the criticism as he does seem to have his favourites. Bernstein is also good and probably more neutral. Kellerman doubles up with the interviewer role as well though. Draw.
Roy vs Paulie - Paulie gets a lot of praise but I prefer Roy. Both are good but Paulie seems to talk for the sake of it sometimes and repeats his points too often, Roy better understands the role and I actually think he's more perceptive.
Lederman vs Farhood - Haven't really paid much attention to Farhood but can't think of any strange scorecards off the top of my head so I'll go with him. Lederman favours aggression for the sake of aggression too much for me.
Buffer vs Lennon Jr - Lennon Jr takes this one all day. Buffer is shot to shite. Makes a mistake nearly every card these days. Plus from my completely uneducated point of view, Lennon's Spanish seems cool af.

2 HBO, 2 Showtime, 1 even. Give me a choice though and I'd go HBO as Lampley and Mauro have the biggest roles so I'll give more weight to that one.

[lazboy]

HBO have sickened me lately, attempting to create hype. Jacobs is a special fighter has special skills who proceeded to be somewhat spoiled by arias. Lemieux has special power like Julian Jackson and then he proceeded to not knocking out his opponent (Reyes) in that fight. Kellerman is good with history and stats and can recognise things like, he has a great left hook etc but I don’t know if he knows more than that although sometimes he surprises me. Lampley imo sometimes doesn’t know a left hook from a jab. Both of them Kellerman and Lampley don’t look like they’ve ever been punched in the face although I’m sure Kellerman has as he has a motor mouth. I also feel Kellerman post fight interviews are awkward and not in a good way like how Jim greys are awkward and amazing. I generally like Harold lederman although he has minimal time on air. If there’s ever a controversy or some such Lampley and co generally try to contain the situation, basically sweep it under the rug.

Showtime I think are better, Paulie can be fking annoying, although I feel like he is honest and generally says things how they are impulsively. Sometimes you agree with it sometimes you don’t but I respect his candour. I like Bernstein and of course Jim Grey.

What I mostly like is having a Foriegn language stream which I don’t understand which is of good quality. Where the voices aren’t to loud as so you can’t not hear the punches. That’s the best.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Not a fan of either, but I'll take Showtime for Al's career of excellence. There was a time when Lampley set the stage better than anyone, but it was long ago. I think Max gets more heat than he might deserve, but he and Roy politely arguing annoys me. Paulie is pretty solid.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

What I mostly like is having a Foriegn language stream which I don’t understand which is of good quality. Where the voices aren’t to loud as so you can’t not hear the punches. That’s the best.

Totally agree. I never do that when I have it on my TV, but when I stream and get one of them I love it. I don't understand the focus of people that can mute a fight. Impressive as it is, I need the crowd noise to keep me fully involved.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Lampley vs Ranallo - Lampley hands down for me. Mauro is OK but grates on me a bit. Nobody captures the big moments like Lampley IMO.
Kellerman vs Bernstein - This one is close. I like Kellerman but understand the criticism as he does seem to have his favourites. Bernstein is also good and probably more neutral. Kellerman doubles up with the interviewer role as well though. Draw.
Roy vs Paulie - Paulie gets a lot of praise but I prefer Roy. Both are good but Paulie seems to talk for the sake of it sometimes and repeats his points too often, Roy better understands the role and I actually think he's more perceptive.
Lederman vs Farhood - Haven't really paid much attention to Farhood but can't think of any strange scorecards off the top of my head so I'll go with him. Lederman favours aggression for the sake of aggression too much for me.
Buffer vs Lennon Jr - Lennon Jr takes this one all day. Buffer is shot to shite. Makes a mistake nearly every card these days. Plus from my completely uneducated point of view, Lennon's Spanish seems cool af.

2 HBO, 2 Showtime, 1 even. Give me a choice though and I'd go HBO as Lampley and Mauro have the biggest roles so I'll give more weight to that one.

I have to agree here. Ranallo's voice can be annoying at times.

[lazboy]

What I mostly like is having a Foriegn language stream which I don’t understand which is of good quality. Where the voices aren’t to loud as so you can’t not hear the punches. That’s the best.

Totally agree. I never do that when I have it on my TV, but when I stream and get one of them I love it. I don't understand the focus of people that can mute a fight. Impressive as it is, I need the crowd noise to keep me fully involved.

They are either very focused or very strange, sound is needed.

[gilgamesh]

I like the HBO crew ok. Though Al Bernstein and Steve Farhood (for ShoBox) are better on Showtime than any of the HBO guys right now. Mauro Ranallo's voice annoys the sh*t outta me.

And as for Paulie. I like Paulie better as a commentator than I did as a fighter honestly. He's a solid commentator.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I hate farhood and while he was a nice guy nick Charles was terrible. Czyz was awful. Showtime has had some rough ones.

[gilgamesh]

I hate farhood and while he was a nice guy nick Charles was terrible. Czyz was awful. Showtime has had some rough ones.

Ferdie Pacheco sucked ass too as a commentator.

"That's the quickest knockout in the 3rd round I've ever seen"

He actually said that once

[SaadOffTheDeck]

He was just Ali's doctor, crazy they treated him like an expert. Albert was good, he covered for Ferdie a bit but when they had Pacheco and czyz they were horrendous. Czyz was almost atlas level bad for holy/Tyson.

[caldo2025]

I can't stand Ranallo. That guy belongs on WWE or WWF or whatever they call fake sports nowadays. He brings absolutely nothing to the telecast for me except for ill timed pop references that make no sense whatsoever. The HBO Team used to be my favorite by a long shot but i'm finding them to now be blindly watching fights and action and erroneously backing the HBO fighters that they have obviously decided to market prior to the fight. They try to change narrative of the fight playing itself out in front of them. Sad. I'm a big fan of Lampley but he's selling out now.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Lamps has always been a fan. I'm sure he has Barrera and Taylor bathwater in his home.

[Counter-puncher]

Taylor?

[Ruthless-RKO]

I left out ESPN.. i guess it could be other..

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Taylor?

Jermain. Big right hand from Taylor!!!!!!!

[jujigatame]

I lean towards Showtime. Bernstein is as good as it gets, and Paulie is much better than RJJ, who mainly seems to repeat other people and make extremely inane comments. The biggest problem with Showtime is Mauro. Back when he did MMA, he was a thoroughly obnoxious twat. When he first switched to boxing, I didn't mind him because he seemed to be toning down all his worst traits. But now that he's gotten more comfortable in his role, he's back to being annoying as hell. He is definitely cut from the mold of a pro wrestling announcer.

I do like Kellerman and Lederman, but Lampley is a total blowhard who I find difficult to listen to.

[Evander]

They got Jones and Ward HBO ... hard to beat that.

Jim ... Does a great job considering what he's got to deal with sometimes, Lampley is legendary and deserves the utmost respect.

Max ... I like Max but he pisses me off sometimes when he tries to fast track boxing.
Some of it is good and moves us forward quickly in short spurts, some of it just obvious cheap and overly manipulative.
His enthusiasm, buzzed up for it excited enthusiastic and energetic personality when he is full on is impressive.

[punchingpundit]

Showtime! Paulie calls it as it is! I noticed in recent fights that HBO guys like Max, Jim & Jones Jr. Tend to have their guy picked. They will actually be telling you how great the guy is doing WHILE HE IS GETTING BEAT. Turn the volume down and watch the fight first then watch it again with the volume up and listen to the mind games they seem to deliver.

[Thomastearns]

I'd go with HBO, but its a shame that Max has lost his courage and just seems to go with the rest of the team.
Its almost like these guys are too close to various fighters and camps and don't want to risk upsetting the boat (unlike a certain Teddy Atlas). They better sharpen up because there's plenty of great analysts like Michael Montero, Steve Kim, and Doug Fisher out there snapping at their heels.

Its a shame how bad the British have got. Costello and Bunce (BBC) are entertaining, but hardly informative. I do like Ben Dirs as a writer (BBC), but generally the standards have sunk so low, almost to football pundits on tv. Neutrality seems to have gone out of the window regarding commentary. At one time BBC sport had master commentators like the legendary David Coleman at the helm.

Des Lynam and Harry Carpenter were pretty special (old school), although Harry, bless, him couldn't read a fight for toffee. The one thing they did was to give you the feeling that you knew the fighters personally.

I remember the days of Jim Rosenthal, Jim Watt, and Reg Gutteridge on ITV. They could really bring out the buzz in boxing, no matter what the fight.

Of course it can't be easy when a single punch can instantly devalue everything you've been saying previously and make you look stupid. There is no substitute for experience when it comes to boxing.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Showtime! Paulie calls it as it is! I noticed in recent fights that HBO guys like Max, Jim & Jones Jr. Tend to have their guy picked. They will actually be telling you how great the guy is doing WHILE HE IS GETTING BEAT. Turn the volume down and watch the fight first then watch it again with the volume up and listen to the mind games they seem to deliver.

He's good on Sky Sports in the UK as well.. Not been on for a while.