BoxRec

Having been going through my boxing tapes recently I have been thinking about the various merits of the varying commentators. I often find the modern day penchant of having dual commentators jabbering away non-stop during a fight highly irratating, especially when they sometimes seem more interested in their own comments and jokes than the fight going on in front of them. Personally I prefer a more subtle approach... hence my favourite commentator has to be Harry Carpentor. Always knowledgable and interesting he never said too much or too little.
I also enjoy the commentaries of the American Don Dunphy, whose commentaries I have on some of my old tapes such as QUARRY VS Chuvalo, among others. The only double act I ve ever been really sold on was Reg Gutteridge and Jim Watt.
I d be interested in other peoples opinions on boxing commentators.... is a fight better without a commentator?. I have some fights that have no commentary (FRAZIER VS ALI 1, SHAVERS vs LYLE among others) and enjoy the experience of watching the fights with no intruding voices.
I certainly prefer no commentary as opposed to a bad commentary.
Too many modern Boxing commentators seem to think they are on a Football field. And many of them probably have more knowledge of that particular sport than of boxing.
As for the BBCs recent comeback to boxing I ve one thing to say.... "BRING BACK HARRY!!"

man your crazy. reg and harry were terrible and lacked real knowledge. jim watt was knowledgeble but a little too stern.

i think 1 is not enough. not enough opinions. however the americna hbo guys are horrible, constantly bombarding you with statistics and misinformed opinions troughout, and they have no sense of drama.

ian darke i think is pretty good, but i prefer his work with an intelligent and articulate accomplice like gary mason or nicky piper, as opposed to the moronic glen mccrory.

I have the Lyle/SHavers fight too. Can you imagine Cosell screaming over that one?

Carpenter and Gutteridge to be honest were (still are Reg!) VERY fine commentators.

I used to listen to the odd Radio fight also......can't remember who fought though!

Phil

the problem i have with reg is that he constantly made small jokes that weren't funny and seemed to have only a stock collection of "catch phrases" ("they don't get paid for overtime" etc) that he used again and again, decade after decade.

just watched a tape of LaMotta/Bob Murphy ll and it reminded me of the early days of TV when the announcers knew they were doing tv, not radio, and didn't have to keep jabbering.Most of the time comment which was typical of the time, was when a particularly good shot was landed or an occcasional word or two about something like fatigue, which wasn't easy to see on tv compared to ringside. In those days, every now and then there would be a loss of the tv picture , and the commentator would say"We're having picture trouble in some areas so I'm going to call it blow for blow" as on radio. In other words, they knew the diffrence.Dunphy switched from radio to Tv better than anybody. When I am looking at a tape of a fight I like to study, I just turn the sound down.I kind of miss the crowd noise, but it's so much easier to judge what's going on.I've seen more fights than the current tv guys have anyway and often their ignorance is appalling.

I agree Jaclem. The current two or even three member american announcing teams are terrible. They feel they are celebrities and "dead air" is a sin. With few exceptions it seems they would rather say something inaccurate or some dumb cliche rather than let the fight speak for it's self.


The worst and most inaccurate cliche I hear a lot is after a good punch is landed and the announcer says "well that certainly got his attention". I had a few amatuer fights and my opponent always had my complete attention. It was only after being hit with a good punch that I would lose my focus.


Being an ex-boxer does'nt seem to help though when it comes to being a boxing commentator as Foreman, Czyz and O'Grady all are useless IMO.

Although, his partner Nick Charles is terrible, I like Shobox's Steve Farhood. He's low key, doesn't use catch phrases and doesn't feel the need to build crescendos with his voice. He lets the excitement of the fight build itself. I liked Bob Sheridan better than the current crop of HBO and Showtime guys.

bob sheriden lies through his teeth. he is way too favourable of don king fighters, and even back in 74 hes watching the rumble in the jungle seeing ali take horrible shots and constantly saying "these punches aren't doing any damage"