Hello All.
I have looked at a lot of fights as I am an avid fight fan. I have seen commentators and ex-boxers come on and give sometimes ridiculous claims statements about a match. Which is excusable I think. It is just their opinion after all.
But what I can no longer over-look is when commentators are obviously unfair and borderline RACIST!.
Larry merchant seems like he just asks harder questions and is offensive to the African-American fighters and is so lenient with the other fighters. I noticed in the DLH-Hopkins fight that he blatantly yelled at hopkins that :confused: he was losing the fight in the early rounds while when he got to oscar, tried to give him and excuse. Like his hand being cut. But oscar being the man he is declined to make excuses. He does it in other fights as well. I do not like him and will start writing to get him off or perhaps start a campaign to stop watching boxing shows that he commentates.

I was just wondering what other peoples opinion was...

i dont think he is racist, just didnt like the fact that Hopkins did not press the fight early.

Larry does come across like a prick at times. But thats what he is there for. I have a hard time with the way Larry tries to find a higher meaning to a fight we just saw. But one thing Larry has always done is ask the tough questions, and is never afraid to correct a fighter when he is wrong. Hopkins thought he was winning the early Rounds, Larry called him on it. Larry wanted to see if Oscar would use the Cut as a excuse, he didnt. Larry is there to ask questions that may get a contraversal answer.

Larry Racist? Doubt it.

Vizcaya
http://fightsondvd.com

I like Larry and I too had DLH ahead in the fight at the time of the KO.

I know he told Bernard that he had him loosing the fight, and I dont thinks that a big deal, but I dont remember him trying to make excuses for Oscar. It could have happened, I just didnt hear it.

That being said, Larry Merchant often is very blunt with fighters in post fight interviews. If he is more blunt with black fighters than he is with others, I havent noticed.

Larry Merchant probably shot the nose off the Sphinx and destroyed all ancient evidence of the gliders and mothership as well. Word 'em up on the level..... :eek:

I think that Oscar was winning the fight at the time of the KO and I was thinking many of the questions Larry asked both fighters. He's just a reporter and, as such, is there as our representation to the fighters. He asks the questions he believes most of us would ask given an opportunity to step in the ring with the fighters right after the match.

That being said, I do see some bias in his commentating sometimes. He tends to dislike Puerto Rican fighters while he adores Mexicans. Just look at any Trinidad fight and compare it to a DLH fight. Larry was always being corrected and his arguments disputed by Foreman when he was there. Larry always seems to put down PR fighters but George would always call Larry out on his comments.

Larry and Bernard have had beef in the past. Larry apparently still holds a grudge.

The race thing is ridiculous; after the Felix Sturm fight, Larry was just as hard on DLH. One of his first questions was "Was this decision a make up for the Mosley decision?"

And yes, I know Sturm was white, but I'm comparing DLH from one fight to the next and guessing that it's the fight, not the race of the two fighters, that matters.

How can HBO have a white racist under contract when the majority of the fighters on HBO are non-white?

People jump to conclusions too quickly sometimes. If you think he was hard on Hopkins after this one, go back and watch his interview with him after the fight vs. Morrade Hakkar. When he put down Hopkins' opponent and Hopkins said HBO paid him to fight this mandatory, Larry arrogantly said "Well it won't happen again."

The two looked like they might rumble (bad news for Merchant) a couple times there and in a taped interview segment prior to the fight when Larry told Hopkins his business sense was lacking and that he was not doing a good job promoting himself.

He and George Foreman did often have conflicting opinions, but that made the telecast fairly interesting, unlike when Oscar fights and all 3 commentators kiss his ass for 12 rounds.

I also find it strange that Foreman, and now Steward, are busy telling us how good the guy getting whipped is, like they can justify the match-up and convince you the fight is good even if it's not. Kelson Pinto and Orlando Salido got way too much praise from Steward.

Larry merchant does say some awkward things sometimes to fighters. I noticed the difference in his interviewing persona when he was interviewing each fighter. He was all smiles for Oscar and when he interviewed Bernard he was more abrupt and straight to the point.

Larry Merchant is annoying and he is an idiot, but it isn't the same watching boxing without him and Lampley.

he is
did u seehpw he handled the Lewis interview with klitschko
he seems to try to talk down to the black fighters
but most the times its when the fighter doesnt do what he was supose to
as inlewis with Vit and Mayweather with Castillo 1
but he does seem to have an alter ego reporter for the black guys
ive seen him be fair to all other tho
never seen him bad talk pr
he does love us mexicans tho

bernard fought a great fight the boxing was very close how can larry say delahoya was outboxing him when nard landed more shots lol.. and the harder shots ... delhoya just has that fighting style that looks good

I have always liked Larry Merchant, but for some reason it does seem like he has some kind of problem with Hopkins-- I don't understand it.

like when Hopkins said "I dont know if you disagree?" Larry said Yeah I do, what a prick, dlh started slow to last in the later rounds,however that gave hopkins the edge to figure him out, it was kinda close I had the fight 76-76 going into the 9th giving DLH rounds 1,2,4 and 6 Hopkins 3,5,7, & 8 , the body shot didnt look like much but then again it was in the right spot,

Larry merchant does say some awkward things sometimes to fighters. I noticed the difference in his interviewing persona when he was interviewing each fighter. He was all smiles for Oscar and when he interviewed Bernard he was more abrupt and straight to the point.
That is exactly my point. You should have the same demeanor and ask tough questions of both fighters. Anything other than that is unfair. How anyone can be negative to a fighter who handily won a fight is beyond me....

That is exactly my point. You should have the same demeanor and ask tough questions of both fighters. Anything other than that is unfair. How anyone can be negative to a fighter who handily won a fight is beyond me....

I guess Lary didnt think he handily won the fight, and neither did I. Before the KO I had Oscar up.

That is exactly my point. You should have the same demeanor and ask tough questions of both fighters. Anything other than that is unfair. How anyone can be negative to a fighter who handily won a fight is beyond me....

Larry has been guilty of this so many times. He talked to Lennox like trash after his fight with Vitali too. He should be neutral but his bias side has come through so many times in his interviews.

:D The funniest one i saw though was when he gave Mayorga a cigarette to test him and Mayorga just lit it and smoked it. I bet Larry wasn't expecting him to take it.

I guess Lary didnt think he handily won the fight, and neither did I. Before the KO I had Oscar up.

Larry wasn't happy but Bernard cannot be blamed for doing his job. Larry could have at least gave Bernard a smile.

All three of them sounded like they were at a funeral after Hopkins floored Oscar. I've hear Lampley flat out screamed when a fighter knocks the other guy out, but all three of them sounded like they wanted to take off their headsets(if they have) after they saw Oscar on the canvas.

All three of them sounded like they were at a funeral after Hopkins floored Oscar. I've hear Lampley flat out screamed when a fighter knocks the other guy out, but all three of them sounded like they wanted to take off their headsets(if they have) after they saw Oscar on the canvas.

Yep. Quite frankly, I thought Larry's performance Sat. night was embarassing. I mean, it's well known that he and Hopkins traded some barbs in the Hakkar post-fight interview but he really needs to get over himself and call the fight honestly.

1) In the middle of the first round, he says that Oscar was beating Bernard to the punch when Oscar hadn't landed anything yet. Steward was as befuddled as everyone I was watching the fight with when he said 'um, I haven't seen Oscar do much of anything'

2) Somehow, he had the fight 4 rounds to 1 for Oscar after 5. That's giving Oscar every, every benefit of the doubt. I've seen the fight four times now and I still don't know how you could give DLH more than 3 rounds if you were scoring it with at least some honesty.

3) Once again, sometime during the middle rounds he said Oscar was beating Hopkins to the punch when he wasn't.

4) In rounds 7-9, when Hops was taking over the fight with ring generalship and clean punching, he still refused to give him credit. Saying some bull**** like 'I wish Hopkins would stop looking menacing, and start BEING menacing'. Shut the **** up.

5) He couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice when DLH got KO'd.

6) Again, he tried to discredit what Hopkins did by later saying 'Bernard wasn't the better man, he was just the bigger man'. To rewrite a Jay-Z line, "do you WATCH boxing or do you just skim through it?" Hopkins did what he always does: start out relatively slowly, studies his opponent, warms up in the middle rounds, and dominates the 2nd half of the fight. He was the one who used his ring IQ to figure out his opponent, not De La Hoya.

Merchant isn't racist, but he needs to either be professional or just stay at home during a fight that involves a boxer he doesn't like.

Larry has been guilty of this so many times. He talked to Lennox like trash after his fight with Vitali too. He should be neutral but his bias side has come through so many times in his interviews.

:D The funniest one i saw though was when he gave Mayorga a cigarette to test him and Mayorga just lit it and smoked it. I bet Larry wasn't expecting him to take it.
yea very true and i aint a lewis fan..but larry he is real ****y and thinks the way he sees the fight is the right way...and he never been in the ring..being in the ring lets you know alot more about a fight ..did yall notice how emanual steward kept sayin hopkins will knock him out soon becuase he knows the inside and outs .. i could tell merchant disagreed but steward is never worng..look who was right

P4p and take away Bernard's power advantage and I think Oscar would have won it. But yea, Merchant was being an ass that night.

i personally feel that in this chess match hopkins did exactly what he wanted to do. he used his smarts to win this fight. although i think it came a little sooner than he thought. hopkins even looked a little frustrated for a minute but i knew better. if the fight would have gone any further dlh would have ended up on the cavas twitching. not to take away from dlh, i really respect him and he impressed the hell outta me. mad props to that guy. but he really did bite of a little more than he could chew. hopkins always shows up to the big fight at his best and so does dlh. who knows what is next for these guys. i'd like to see them both go on to do more great things for the boxing world.

I have no problem with Larry Merchant, besides the fact that he always tried to find a way to invalidate George Foreman's points. As far as the post fight interview. I say the fighters should start answering Merchant just like how he asks them questions..

Larry's assessment of the fight was not that far from accurate and even Hopkins aknowledged this during the post fight interview- Hopkins said that he felt a sense of urgency and that he realized he may have been a little behind on the cards. I dont feel that all of that adds up to racism on Merchant's part, at least not in the case in point. There are many gripes I do have with Merchant, but most have to do with his severly old age and selility...

I have no problem with Larry Merchant, besides the fact that he always tried to find a way to invalidate George Foreman's points. As far as the post fight interview. I say the fighters should start answering Merchant just like how he asks them questions..

I hate Foreman. He always says what HE would do and if the figher aint doing it, he tells us he should lol. Anyweyz, he makes good points AT TIMES but I rarely heard him commend a fighter for boxing well and picks on the fighter thats getting beat.

< Larry IS the man!!!

i dont think he is racist, just didnt like the fact that Hopkins did not press the fight early.

Yeah he is not racisthe is just a De La hoya Fan!!!

larry has an ego problem,plain and simple. he also has a grudge with hopkins no doubt about that. i think he's got a problem with hopkins cause he says what's on his mind. same as larry.but i've seen larry be a dick to others too. i think that if it's not an hbo fighter, or they don't do what HE expects them to do in the ring, then he gives them zero credit.....he did stick up for hopkins in the trinidad fight, when foreman was talking all sorts of trash on how hard tito punches and how great of a boxer he is. but he was sticking up for hopkins when it was obvious that trinidad was getting his ass handed to him. also he always goes to war with foreman enless they are talking about dlh or rjj.

plus larry is a drunk, a known drunk, for years... i've seen him at the bar a couple of times in vegas at the mandalay. maybe thats why he is prick in most of his interviews...and one last thing alot of boxers try to control the interview and when it's your job to do the interview, that can get annoying.... i think that since the fighters are willing to put their life on the line for our entertainment and his job i think that they should be able to say something to family and friends, and he should be a little more nice to them cause if there wasn't boxing larry wouldn't have that nice cushy job...drunk prick....he has my dream job, him and lampley..

Larry is just an old drunk guy and he isn't hurting anyone. I think he's pretty funny the way he sometimes makes things all philisophical. I think he was interviewing Vitali one time and said something like Vitali was the snake in the grass and somebody was the mongoose in the field, then Vitali paused for a minute and went "He fight hard. I win."

I remember after one fight they were talking about an upcomming fight and Larry went into this story about 2 cowboys riding on an airplane and one asked the other where they were going and he said "To Hell in a handbasket if we don't mend our wicked ways". Dunno what that has to do with boxing but it was funny. damn lush

I know who you are talking about. I like Larry Merchant too. I think he is fair.

Larry Merchant is not a racist...he is however am irritating egomaniac!

I keep waiting for Moe and Larry to join him on tv.

go to the end of tito bhop when foreman is on a total ride job of titos nuts trying to make tito out to be something hes not ... larry clearly asks forman why he isnt giving bhop the credit he deserves...

i dunno about yall but every time i see larry and hopkins together it always seems like larry gives him critisim and hopkins listens intentivitly ...if you recall he was going through pure bums untill larry said that then he went through joppy eastman delahoya and then fought taylor ....

they dont hate eachother just sometimes hopkins makes bad choices and larry tells him about it only hopkins listens to him

Larry Merchant SUX. George Forman hit the nail on the head when he asked Larry how many fights he had, or how many times he has actually boxed inside a ring... Larry's response was something like, well I have watched tonnes of fights dating back to .... Who cares what you've seen, there are hundreds of thousands of people that have watched tonnes of fights.
I can't stand listening to a guy tell me about the fundamentals of a sport that he really doesn't even understand, and then I have to watch him get into the ring and grill fighters on their performance too. Sure he does ask the "hard questions", but anyone can do that. The guy has no talent, no clue about the sweet science of boxing, and I shouldn't have to pay to hear a fool run his mouth about something he doesn't even undertand (but thinks he does; yeah and like I could tell Babe Ruth how he should have hit a ****in' fast ball! Then try and sell it to a baseball fan on PPV, it wouldn't happen). Take Teddy Atlas or any other trainer, or take Lennox Lewis, who (although he needs a lil work on his presentation of words), was awesome in breaking down the Judah Mayweather Fight, (I especially liked how he was able to comment on the right hand left hook combos which; (not to take anything from the p4p best alive, but I felt that Mayweather could have used the same combo even more often to get the KO he wanted by the end of the fight). Thats what I like to listen to when I watch boxing, ESPECIALLY ON PPV (when Larry starts babbling I usually press mute and just watch). I say FIRE MERCHANT and bring in big George or Roy or Lennox full time. Jim Lampley and Manny are awesome and Lampley leaves the science to the fighters and makes great comments on what he actually sees. As for Merchant, next time he goes off on a bull**** tantrum about something he has no real clue about he should go off the air for good.

larry merchant is a ****ing drunken retard.

larry merchant does what he does because thats his ****ing job what do you guys want him to do go be a fan boy to who ever comes into the ring like lewis and rjj? forget that the man is paid to watch fights and learn fundamentals not be a boxer ....if he was a boxer we'd be calling him leaping larry merchant or something like that but hes not a fighter... and yall ***** and cus about getting sick of people who sound like arm chair experts HA! thats all boxing sites are full of these days..arm chair types

larry merchant does what he does because thats his ****ing job what do you guys want him to do go be a fan boy to who ever comes into the ring like lewis and rjj? forget that the man is paid to watch fights and learn fundamentals not be a boxer ....if he was a boxer we'd be calling him leaping larry merchant or something like that but hes not a fighter... and yall ***** and cus about getting sick of people who sound like arm chair experts HA! thats all boxing sites are full of these days..arm chair types
Actually I used to be a boxer (as was my dad and grandfather) and recently starting doin' ring announcing and even a lil commentary myself, and I help produce local fights to try and build this sport up again (So I I kinda know what I am talkin about since I was raised around boxin). If you took your head outta you ass long enough to read what I said, or long enough to actually watch a fight, you'd see 9 times outta 10 the guy "Merchant" has no clue. I'd prefer someone who knows and understands the sweet science to be doing the color commentary rather than a fool with a big mouth. I gave a few examples of people that have done a great job. Even take Max, the kid couldn't fight his way outta a wet paper bag with a hole in it, but he understands the sport and doesn't make unnecessary racist or derogatory comments towards athletes with more commitment to their craft than Larry could dream of attaining. (I don't know who he is blowing to keep his job but no matter how you look at it LARRY SUX)

Oh yeah and look at how many posts I've done and how many points I have (not that it's a tonne), then do the same for the guy who made that last post biggin up Larry cuz it's his job. The President of the biggest (most powerful) country in the world wasn't even elected by the people in his first term and he still has a job, who are you kidding...?

It is obvious that Larry has always been bias towards some fighters. But Racist NAH . . . I don't think so.

I like Lampley and Steward, but I have noticed he does kind of sound disrespectul or mean to certain fighters sometimes. I don't think he is a racist though.

Larry Merchant is the second reason why I purchase PPV.

He is the best commentator ever.

Judah/Mayweather fight- he said this

"Judah has a mouth full of diamonds,...... but its too bad they are in a glass setting" LOLOLOLOLOL

I think HBO cryogenically freezes Merchant after every fight, and when its fight night again they de-thaw him. This is my theory as to why it takes the mutha****a 45 minutes to complete a sentence.

I think HBO cryogenically freezes Merchant after every fight, and when its fight night again they de-thaw him. This is my theory as to why it takes the mutha****a 45 minutes to complete a sentence.
Ahahahahhahahhahahahhaha !!! That and he has to keep pullin his head outta his ass to be picked up by the mic...

jesus is there like a depression in boxing now adays? so many former and current pro fighters just doing nothing but hanging out at boxingscene day to day shooting the breeze about the one fight they had that nobodys ever heard ...are you on boxrec? some kinda record or something a photo of you holding a boxing glove something?!?!? i mean **** everybodys a god damn pro around here

jesus is there like a depression in boxing now adays? so many former and current pro fighters just doing nothing but hanging out at boxingscene day to day shooting the breeze about the one fight they had that nobodys ever heard ...are you on boxrec? some kinda record or something a photo of you holding a boxing glove something?!?!? i mean **** everybodys a god damn pro around here
Actually I do, but I totally agree, what would you care, I know I don't give a **** about who you are either so that would make sense. My comment was only to stress the fact that many people who have at least some "real" knowledge of boxing don't enjoy watching Larry try to make an ass outta a champion. And many respectable boxing people have even told him to his face on camera. So I am not gonna send you a pic of Roy Jones jr and it's ok, you can go back to jerking off to Larry Merchant now...

i know you just did not say your roy jones jr lmao

:smashfrea Of course not moron, :alcoholic :duh: you're an idiot...
:gives:

I beleive commentators have favorite fighters. Some usually give the play by in favor of their fighter. Try watching a boxing match with a spanish commentator. The commentator will cheer for the spanish fighter of course, just like on the Raheem vs. Morales fight. HBO latino commentator had Morales winning.