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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Bob Papa seems like a decent enough guy.
And after years of hearing him call New York Giants football games on WFAN radio and seeing him adeptly handle football and boxing duties on television for NFL Network, ESPN and the self-proclaimed “Network of Champions,” I’d surely consider him among the best in the business at his chosen crafts.
But that doesn’t change last Saturday night’s reality.
His on-air performance as part of the “Boxing After Dark” show featuring Andre Berto’s gritty WBC welterweight title defense against Luis Collazo was, well… downright B.A.D.
Ominously, the trouble started before the fighters hit the ring, with Papa continually referring to the Brooklyn-based Collazo as “Lou-eese,” while the proper pronunciation (“Lou-ee”) was correctly being used by analyst cohort Max Kellerman.
But far more maddening to these ears were the repeated in-fight references to a first-round knockdown scored by Collazo and the impact it was sure to have on a razor-thin scorecard verdict.
Only one problem… it never happened.
Oh sure, it’s true Berto was driven awkwardly backward by a well-timed straight left hand, but his gloves never touched the canvas, the referee never intervened and there was never any trace of the standing 8-count that would have immediately followed such a sequence.
Still, in spite of myriad replays and precise analysis from Kellerman and Lennox Lewis, Papa referred back to the phantom knockdown several more times – even stating at one point that it was Berto’s late-round rally in the first that kept the judges’ cards from reading 10-8 instead of 10-9. [details]
And after years of hearing him call New York Giants football games on WFAN radio and seeing him adeptly handle football and boxing duties on television for NFL Network, ESPN and the self-proclaimed “Network of Champions,” I’d surely consider him among the best in the business at his chosen crafts.
But that doesn’t change last Saturday night’s reality.
His on-air performance as part of the “Boxing After Dark” show featuring Andre Berto’s gritty WBC welterweight title defense against Luis Collazo was, well… downright B.A.D.
Ominously, the trouble started before the fighters hit the ring, with Papa continually referring to the Brooklyn-based Collazo as “Lou-eese,” while the proper pronunciation (“Lou-ee”) was correctly being used by analyst cohort Max Kellerman.
But far more maddening to these ears were the repeated in-fight references to a first-round knockdown scored by Collazo and the impact it was sure to have on a razor-thin scorecard verdict.
Only one problem… it never happened.
Oh sure, it’s true Berto was driven awkwardly backward by a well-timed straight left hand, but his gloves never touched the canvas, the referee never intervened and there was never any trace of the standing 8-count that would have immediately followed such a sequence.
Still, in spite of myriad replays and precise analysis from Kellerman and Lennox Lewis, Papa referred back to the phantom knockdown several more times – even stating at one point that it was Berto’s late-round rally in the first that kept the judges’ cards from reading 10-8 instead of 10-9. [details]
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