Larry Merchant
Encyclopedia
Larry Merchant is an American former sportswriter, a longtime commentator for HBO Sports presentations of HBO World Championship Boxing, Boxing After Dark
Boxing After Dark
Boxing After Dark is an HBO boxing program, premiering in April 1996, that usually shows fights between well-known contenders, but usually not "championship" or "title" fights. Unlike its sister program, HBO World Championship Boxing, BAD features fighters who are usually moving up from ESPN's...
and HBO pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
telecasts, and is considered "the greatest television boxing analyst of all time" by ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
Boxing analyst Dan Rafael.
Life and career
Merchant was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1978, Merchant joined HBO Sports as an analyst. Prior to joining HBO Sports, Merchant was a well-regarded sports columnist with The Philadelphia Daily News and a general reporter for The New York Post.The current HBO Boxing
HBO Boxing
HBO World Championship Boxing is a sports television series, premiering in January 1973 that has shown a number of significant boxing events in the last three decades....
team consists of Merchant, Jim Lampley
Jim Lampley
James "Jim" Lampley is an American sportscaster, news anchor, movie producer, and restaurant owner. Lampley has anchored a record 14 Olympic Games U.S. television broadcasts, most recently the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China....
, and Emanuel Steward
Emanuel Steward
Emanuel Steward is an American boxing trainer, commentator and inductee of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
for championship and pay-per-view fights. Previous lineups have included Sugar Ray Leonard
Sugar Ray Leonard
Sugar Ray Leonard is an American retired professional boxer and occasional actor. He was named Ray Charles Leonard, after his mother's favorite singer, Ray Charles...
, George Foreman
George Foreman
George Edward Foreman is an American two-time former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Olympic gold medalist, ordained Baptist minister, author and successful entrepreneur...
and Roy Jones Jr.
Roy Jones Jr.
Roy Jones, Jr. is an American boxer. As a professional he has captured numerous world titles in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight divisions...
, with the latter two having clashed with Merchant. Merchant has also clashed with the unofficial judge Harold Lederman
Harold Lederman
Harold Lederman is a celebrated boxing judge and analyst. He began his career as a boxing judge in 1967 and joined the cast of HBO World Championship Boxing in 1986, where he has been ever since....
.
Among the fighters who have clashed with Merchant include Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
, Oscar de la Hoya
Oscar de la Hoya
Oscar De La Hoya is a retired American boxer of Mexican descent. Nicknamed "The Golden Boy", De La Hoya won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games shortly after graduating from Garfield High School. De La Hoya comes from a boxing family. His grandfather Vicente, father Joel Sr., and brother...
and, more recently, Floyd Mayweather Jr. The De La Hoya incident came during his fight with Pernell Whitaker
Pernell Whitaker
Pernell Whitaker , nicknamed "Sweet Pea", is a professional boxing trainer and retired American professional boxer...
. When De la Hoya entered the ring to Mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
music, Merchant stated that while he loved Mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
music, he felt that it "stunk" in this particular situation. Merchant would later apologize on the air after De La Hoya tried to have him removed from HBO.
Merchant is well known for his post fight interviews which feature his hard hitting, blunt questions and confrontational interview style. These have drawn both praise and ire in the past. Fans have claimed them to be candid and honest while detractors consider them to be purposely agitational and insensitive at times. An example of this occurred when Vernon Forrest
Vernon Forrest
Vernon Forrest, nicknamed "The Viper", was an American professional boxer who became a world champion in the welterweight and light middleweight divisions and noted for his two victories over Shane Mosley and upset losses to Ricardo Mayorga.- Early years and amateur career :Forrest began boxing at...
won a controversial decision in 2006 over Ike Quartey
Ike Quartey
Ike "Bazooka" Quartey is a former WBA Welterweight champion boxer. He has fought numerous world champion boxers including Oscar De La Hoya, Fernando Vargas, Vernon Forrest and Ronald "Winky" Wright.-Biography:...
. When Forrest thanked those close to him, Merchant quipped, "Would you also like to thank the judges?"
In 1985, Merchant received the Sam Taub Award
Sam Taub Award
The Sam Taub Award is a yearly award presented by the International Boxing Hall of Fame for Excellence in Broadcasting Journalism. The award is named after Sam Taub, a journalist and radio broadcaster who is best known for his work covering boxing. It is similar to Major League Baseball's Ford C....
for Boxing Broadcast Journalism presented by the Boxing Writers Association of America. He is also the author of three books. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma.
In October 2002, he was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame
World Boxing Hall of Fame
The World Boxing Hall of Fame is located in Riverside, California, United States, in Southern California. The WBHF is one of two recognized international boxing halls of fame with the other being the International Boxing Hall of Fame , with the IBHOF being the more widely recognized...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
On June 8, 2007, due to a storm of negative publicity from Merchant's impending departure, Merchant and HBO agreed on a two-year contract extension. Under this agreement, Merchant's heir apparent
Heir apparent
An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....
, Max Kellerman
Max Kellerman
Max Kellerman is an American boxing commentator and sports talk radio host based in Los Angeles. He currently appears as a color commentator on HBO World Championship Boxing and HBO Boxing After Dark and as of January 3, 2011, is hosting a midday talk show on 710 ESPN radio in Los Angeles.Prior...
, received an expanded role and alternated with Merchant on HBO World Championship Boxing and pay-per-view broadcasts.
On January 23, 2009, HBO picked up Merchant's two-year option at the end of his 2007 contract. Merchant will continue to alternate "World Championship Boxing" telecasts and HBO PPV cards with Kellerman.
In September 2011, following the Victor Ortiz vs. Floyd Mayweather
Victor Ortiz vs. Floyd Mayweather
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz, billed as Star Power, was a championship fight for Ortiz's WBC Welterweight title. The bout was held on September 17, 2011, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and televised via HBO PPV. As a part of a split-site doubleheader, the broadcast also featured...
WBC
World Boxing Council
The World Boxing Council was initially established by 11 countries: the United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Philippines, Panama, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil plus Puerto Rico, met in Mexico City on February 14, 1963, upon invitation of the then President of Mexico, Adolfo...
Welterweight
Welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class division in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like kickboxing, taekwondo and mixed martial arts also began to use it for their own weight division system...
championship fight, Mayweather called for Merchant to be fired due to Merchant saying that Mayweather cheated. Merchant responded in saying "I wish I was 50 years younger so I could kick your ass!"
Mayweather grew irritated by Merchant's questioning and interrupted Merchant by saying "You never give me a fair shake...They can put somebody else up here to give me an interview. HBO need to fire you. You don't know shit about boxing. You ain't shit...All of these boxing experts - how can you be a boxing expert if you never had a fight before?" Floyd Mayweather, Jr.'s outburst led to Merchant responding: "I wish I was 50 years younger and I would kick your ass." Later Mayweather defended his outburst by saying that "Everybody is tired of Larry Merchant."