Alex Wallau, the long-time ABC network boxing commentator who called many of the top boxing matches of the eighties and nineties, died Friday at the age of 80.
The news was announced by Wallau’s wife, Martha, who attributed his death to the throat cancer he was first diagnosed with in 1987. Wallau, who was ABC’s on-air boxing analyst from 1986 until their last broadcast in June 2000, was initially diagnosed with stage four cancer in his throat before it was revealed it had spread to his tongue. The diagnosis did not stop his career and, in 1988, he returned to the airwaves six months later following numerous surgeries to call the IBF junior lightweight title fight between Rocky Lockridge and Harold Knight in Atlantic City.
Wallau, one of seven children, was born January 11, 1945 in Manhattan. He grew up in Connecticut and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, after which he began working as a sports writer and editor, plus a public relations consultant on various political campaigns. Wallau joined ABC in 1976 as a producer and director before taking over the on-air boxing analyst job in a newly constructed, two-man broadcast set-up. Prior to taking over broadcast duties, Wallau had been the executive in charge of selecting, negotiating and purchasing the fights that aired on ABC Sports.
In a 1988 News Day article Wallau said of boxing: “I can justify the sport. I don’t go to boxing to see blows or to see hurt. I see people in the most basic of dramatic situations trying to deal with the one thing we all try to avoid - pain - and to summon up that one quality one rarely exhibits - courage.”
Wallau rarely held back with his opinions, which put him at odds with some fighters and, at times, with promoters. Wallau told the Poughkeepsie Journal that the most at risk he had ever felt due to his professional duties was following criticism of Don King’s controversial 1977 United States Boxing Championships Series, after which Wallau was made aware of testimony in Congress about threats against him.
In that same profile story, Wallau shared what one of the biggest lessons he had learned from his years at the commentary desk.
“Don’t fool the public… If you have a fight that’s a dog, say it’s a dog. Don’t be stupid,” said Wallau.
One of the people Wallau shared the commentary desk with was Jim Lampley, the former ABC commentator who later called fights for three decades on HBO. Lampley credited Wallau with helping mold his understanding of the sport en route to a Hall of Fame induction in 2015.
“As much as any boxer I covered via the vast foundation of knowledge with which he and he alone first blessed me, Alex Wallau was a FIGHTER,” said Lampley in a statement to BoxingScene. “His survival in a gruesome battle with throat cancer in the early 1990s was beyond courageous. The simple fact he endured for another thirty years is an example of epic courage. He taught me how to see and call boxing matches, and through that the eventual emblem of my entire fifty year career was a gift from him. I'm devastated that he is gone, but eternally grateful he was here. All his friends and familial survivors have my deepest and most heartfelt sympathy. Thank you forever Alex.”
Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler, who first announced the news publicly on Sunday, paid tribute to Wallau as well. “Boxing lost a courageous man with the passing of former commentator Alex Wallau, dear friend of many in the business,” Trampler wrote on Twitter. “Alex faced death threats after exposing the crooked Don King tournament, was the brain behind Howard Cosell and later president of ABC TV for Bob Iger. Should be HOF.”
Aside from his work as a boxing commentator, Wallau won two Emmy Awards as a producer and director under ABC Sports, and was named President of ABC in 2000. In 2007, he was named Senior Strategic Advisor for The Walt Disney Company's Corporate Strategy Business Development and Technology Group, and in 2017 moved to the company's division that eventually created the streaming service known as Disney+, according to his Wikipedia page. Wallau retired in 2000.