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Taken from Tony boxingbb.comHBO Boxing Voice Larry Merchant Out After 29 Years, Mad Max Promoted!!
Michael Marley
4/11/2007
I hope this Michael Marley’s Boxing Confidential – News, Analysis, and Commentary scoop turns out to be as wrong
as The Chicago Tribune when it headlined that DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN in
1948. But I don't think my story is wrong. It's not what will happen
that is in question...it's when it wil occur.
Having given almost 30 years of meritorious service to HBO Sports as
its most critical commentator and having been, for most of that time
the cable TV conscience of the sport, I don't think Larry Merchant was
expecting a gold watch or anything else at the finish line.
And it looks like the HBO has decided that the Merchant of Venom is at
the finsh line. What started as faint drumbeats the past few months
has gone from a discernable whisper to a ear-spliting scream. Word
around boxing is that HBO is negotiating out a buyout of Merchnt's
contract and that he will be replaced by young Mad Max Kellerman who
will be promoted from the HBO "Boxing After Dark" series to full-time
service on HBO Championship Boxing and on the network's PPV shows.
A source familiar with the negotiations told me that Merchant has
accepted his professional fate like the consummate professional he is
and that he is working out an amicable "divorce" from the broadcast giant.
"You will see Larry alongside Jim Lampley for the May 5 Las Vegas
Super Fight between Mayweather and De La Hoya and the May 19 Jermain
Taylor-Cory Spinks middleweight title bout in Memphis. Merchant may
also work the Bernard Hopkins-Winkly Wright fight July 21 in Vegas.
But HBO wants to return to the airwaves in September with Mad Max
Kellerman sitting alongside Lampley in Merchant's 29-year role," the
source said.
I've had my differences with Merchant over the years. Once, while
scribbling for The New York Post, I wrote something about HBO bossman
Seth Abraham not needing a family pet when he had an in-house parrot
namded Merchant. But, despite disagreements, I've always respected
Merchant for his style, his candor and his courage to march to his own
drummer on many boxing issues and stories. I believe that people
generally talk the way they write and vice versa and Merchant was one
helluva sportswriter back in the day.
Name another boxing broadcaster who shows more general respect for the
fighters. Can you because I can't.
If it's over, Sir Larry, it's been one helluva run. I hope it's not,
that HBO would carve out another role for you on their broadcasts, but
if that is not the case then know this: you have given your employer
more than you've got.
You may not be the HBO Number One boxing commentator much longer but
you could always return to being the Write Man.
HBO had better give you a proper on the air sendoff. That's all I am
saying right now. We can talk about demographics, ageism and all the
rest later.
All I will say is that I will miss him terribly. His crazy comments and HILLARIOUS metaphors will be most-missed by myself.
Five years ago I began writing down my favorite metaphors of his and have well over 50. Long live Larry Merchant
