Roy Rates His Top Five Boxing Commentators of His Generation

By Roy Bennett (Who else would it be by?)

Actions speak louder than words. Boxers have chosen a dangerous language in which to be articulate. And it speaks for itself through the courage shown, punches thrown, and blood spilled. However, a boxing commentator can positively add to the experience of watching a good fight where two pugilists attempt to tell their own story in a battle of will and skill.

Let it be said there is a fine line between informing the viewer of the relevant details while acting as a compliment to the action, and becoming over involved in the proceedings by talking too much, instead of letting the action in the ring tell its own unique tale. If the commentator makes the mistake of trying to over embellish everything or cheerleads a fighter during a fight he degrades the viewing experience for the TV audience and they find themselves trying to tune out from the commentary and refocus solely on the fight itself.

On TV a good boxing commentator will take a measured approach. He knows his job is to inform and involve the viewer in the action. If he can inject a little personality and sometimes humour into things all the better. But he’s not the star. The boxers are the stars. He knows his job is not to solely entertain the viewer. That’s the job of the boxers. His main job is to help his audience understand the circumstances by which a boxer has arrived at his current opportunity. A little background history here. An interview quote there. He’s also there to share his insight of the goings on once the bell rings. But he doesn’t take his audience for a bunch of fools. He knows his viewers are knowledgeable. He knows some may know more about the sport than himself. And some may be watching for the first time. So he tries to find the middle ground. That place the best commentators inhabit. Informative but not condescending. He lets the fighters speak for themselves with their fists. And he weaves a narrative around the action rather than describing it blow for blow, as too many do nowadays.

Here is a list of my 5 favorite boxing commentators, who were the voices behind the sweet science on network TV in our house in the 1970’s and 80’s when I was growing up.

5. Barry Tompkins

Quote: “When they write the book on boxing it’ll be hard to write it any better than that first round.”
– On Marvin Hagler’s performance against Syrian strongman Mustafa Hamsho.

Tompkins always sounded like the guy who was really pleased to be there. It was as if he’d turned up to a night at the fights without a ticket, and had managed to sweet talk his way past security and the ticket collectors into the best seat in the house. You always got the feeling he was having a good time and his enthusiasm permeated his easy going commentary style. What he lacked in understanding about the technical nuances of the sport was generally covered by a co-analyst like Sugar Ray Leonard, who sat ringside with Tompkins to do colour commentary for many big fights in the 1980’s.

4. Tim Ryan

Analysts Quote: “He’s throwing punches from across the street.”
– On Claude Noel trying desperately to turn around his fight against Art Frias.
– Gil Clancy

Ryan may have looked like an insurance salesman but that didn’t matter in the slightest. He was never one to deviate from the formula of the script nor was he one to offer a pithy quote. What made him memorable was the ease of his delivery. Natural and unhurried he gave you the nuts and bolts about the fighters and let them get on with showing you what they could do. It was the boxers stage and Ryan didn’t try to take it away from them and make it all about himself, like some commentators try to do nowadays. Dissecting fight strategy and explaining a boxer’s technical strengths and weaknesses was left to a co-analyst like Gil Clancy. Every time Clancy opened his mouth, for boxing fans like me, a pearl of wisdom fell out. Ryan and Clancy complimented each other and as a commentary team in the early 1980’s they were great.

3. Harry Carpenter

Quote: “Oh my God, he’s won the title back at 32!”
– From ringside in Zaire in 1974 after
Muhammad Ali knocked out the seemingly indestructible George Foreman.

Carpenter knew the sport extremely well. He covered every Olympic Games from 1956-1992, and was the BBC’s full time boxing correspondent from 1962-1994. His commentary was always impartial and fair but if a British fighter won a world title or a Olympic gold medal he wasn’t afraid to to show his support for his fellow countryman on air, post fight. Harry was the lone commentator at ringside for the BBC. There wasn’t any need for a co-analyst. He had it all covered. Astute observations on a boxer’s technical style and, long before the Internet, details on boxers records, amateur status, etc were all meticulously researched and gathered beforehand. His delivery during a bout was impeccable. Clear and concise, with no banalities. And it was a joy to listen to. You got the essential details about the boxers and the type of classy measured commentary that enhanced, rather than took away from, your viewing experience.

2. Howard Cosell

Quote: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”
– On George Foreman’s terrifying display of power punching in ripping the heavyweight crown from Joe Frazier.

Cosell had a voice which wouldn’t have been out of place narrating a pulp fiction detective movie. You could almost see Humphrey Bogart playing the hard bitten private detective, sitting in his office behind his desk across from a drop dead gorgeous blonde, with Cosell narrating the background story in his gravelly tone on how she came to be there. The missing presumed dead husband. The late night crank phone calls. The gun in her purse.

Cosell would’ve been perfect for it. He spoke slowly and deliberately. Never hurried. He told a story about what unfolded in the ring and liked his fighters to have skill and personality.
Of course Muhammad Ali was his muse and Cosell was Ali’s fall guy. They were perfect for one another. They fed off each other and created a magic around almost three decades of boxing history. When you look more closely at that period in time it is impossible not to see how important their contribution to it was.

After Ali, Cosell became Sugar Ray Leonard’s biggest cheerleader when the kid from Palmer Park, Maryland steamrolled the opposition to win the Olympic gold medal in 1976. Leonard gave Cosell a new lease of boxing life until he quit the sport in disgust after the Larry Holmes v Randall “Tex” Cobb beatdown in 1982.

1) Reg Gutteridge

“The ego has landed.”
– On Prince Naseem Hamed after he somersaulted over the ropes to enter the ring.

Nowadays commentary teams won’t shut up. Up to four guys babbling on trying show how clever they are. Reg was different. Reg told you what you needed to know and let the action speak for itself. He had a good sense of humor and would inject the odd funny analogy into his observations. He never talked down to his audience. It was as if you were sat next to him at a bar drinking a beer and sharing some easy conversation to go with it. But Reg knew his subject inside out. He came from boxing stock. His Grandfather had been a pro fighter and both his father and uncle were respected boxing trainers. Reg himself also had a promising amateur career as a flyweight before losing a leg in a land mine incident in the Second World War. Commentators that lacked real boxing knowledge irritated him. He once said, “Some of them wouldn’t know a left hook from a meat hook,” and he was right.

Both the audience and the fighters, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard among them, respected him greatly. There is no higher praise. All of the above commentators made watching boxing on network TV a truly memorable experience in the 1970’s and 80’s. There were others too but these men were the ones I enjoyed the most.

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