By Steve Kim
Jim Lampley has been an outspoken critic of Floyd Mayweather on his show 'the Fight Game' that airs on HBO. On Saturday night he will be calling his fight versus Manny Pacquiao from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as part of a split-broadcast that will see him alongside Roy Jones and Al Bernstein.
The veteran broadcaster has made it very clear that he isn't particularly fond of Mayweather, but come fight night he'll do his job as he always has.
"It's not difficult to clinically call the fight," he said. "In every broadcast there is a detachment process because at the end of the day, regardless of who you're covering there are some people that you like, some people that you don't like and I'm not necessarily referring to this fight but it's a human part of our process. It's a professional discipline to put that aside and deal with the information in front of you in a way that services the viewer with an 'objective call' of the fight.
"That's my job, that's what I'm trained to do, that's what I plan to do."
There is sure to be accusations of bias from the various announcers for this fight given that Pacquiao has a long-standing relationship with HBO and Mayweather is now affiliated with Showtime. But by the time the bell finally rings, it's just two boxers in there and the objective is to just narrate the action.
"James Brown is the host and he has a content operation at the host level which I assume is more general than my editorial mandate," says Lampley. "My editorial mandate is to sit there with Roy and Al and call the fight. If there's any challenge in it, really, it's working with Al for the first time but I don't regard that as a difficult challenge. I've listened to him for thirty years, I know how he works, I know what he says, I'm sure he would say the same thing about me.
"So I really don't expect this to be challenging or difficult in that regard, at least not in comparison to calling any other fight. This is just about calling the fight - does Mayweather defend and control the ring the way he always has and expects to do? Does Pacquiao find a way to pierce that armor in a way that nobody else has?
"Those are the stories I'm looking at."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
