Most of the details of the much anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao fight have been released, minus press tour information, pay-per-view prices, ticket prices, and closed circuit ticket prices. When it came to negotiations on who would call the fight, Jim Lampley ultimately got the call for HBO alongside Al Bernstein for Showtime.
Lampley has long been the voice of HBO Boxing and has called several Mayweather fights in the past. However, once Mayweather jumped ship from HBO to Showtime, Lampley’s criticism towards Mayweather grew, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Mayweather.
Mayweather was always critical of HBO saying they didn’t give him a fair shake as we know in the post-fight interview with Larry Merchant after his controversial knockout of Victor Ortiz in 2011.
In a report by Chris Mannix of SI.com, Mannix reports that Mayweather wanted no part of Lampley calling this fight.
In the report Mannix writes:
‘According to sources, the broadcast team for the fight will be Jim Lampley, Al Bernstein and Roy Jones, with Max Kellerman and Jim Gray reporting from the locker rooms. Lampley, the face of HBO Boxing, who has been critical of Mayweather in recent years, was a point of contention for Mayweather’s team during the negotiations.
Ultimately, HBO prevailed and Lampley, the best boxing play by play man of this generation, was assigned the blow-by-blow duties.’
It would have been interesting to note if this had been one of the reasons the deal took so long to make. It’ll be three years since Lampley has called a Mayweather fight but on May 2nd, he gets his crack at calling the biggest money fight in the history of boxing.
