A recent legal problem brought Jim Lampley plenty of unwanted attention.  The case has been settled and a boxing site is no place to dwell on it.  It did however bring a surprising variety of opinions on Lampley to the forefront.  Many wanted Lampley to be dropped from HBO for his actions, but that is between Lampley and Time Warner. 

I was under the impression that most viewers enjoyed Lampley's HBO work.  Not necessarily true it seems.  I'm going to examine what I perceive as his strengths and weaknesses in the context of the comments I have heard and read.  Let's start with the pluses. 

Lampley is a polished broadcaster who is a master of timing and delivery.  Notice how much better Lennox Lewis or Max Kellerman sound sitting with Lampley than when they are working with the rather tepid Fran Charles.  Lampley knows how to set them up with the right questions.  You will never hear Lampley and Merchant start talking at the same time.  Even a knowledgeable but completely unpolished commentator like George Foreman sounded as good as possible when working with him.  Add to that the fact that Lampley brings a lot of enthusiasm to the telecast, even when HBO Boxing is delivering another turkey fight which has happened far too many times recently.  To me, Lampley gives the show the polish that makes it sound like an important event as well as a first rate telecast. 

There are always two sides of a coin however, and Lampley is far from perfect.  The most common complaint is that he is a "cheerleader" for HBO house fighters like Oscar De La Hoya and Jermain Taylor, for example.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit that was true.  Even worse, it not only indicates his bias, it also affects his call of the action in the ring; which brings me to my next Lampley gripe.  He really doesn't have a sharp eye for blow by blow analysis.  Over the years I have often shaken my head on how he misses some things, while he calls others that don't exist.  Sometimes he'll get the wrong fighter landing the big punch, or even get the wrong hand that landed.  After calling boxing all these years you would hope that he would improve, but I'm not convinced that he has.  Next time you watch an HBO fight on tape or TiVo check this out.  You might be surprised at the flaws. 

Lately Lampley has taken up another bad trait.  He imposes his issues and manipulates situations to prove his point.  In the Cotto-Urkal fight he was grudging against open scoring the entire fight.  Now, I detest open scoring and hope it goes away forever, but the post fight interview with the German speaking trainer was manipulated to suggest that the main reason he stopped the fight was because of open scoring.  If you re-examine it, the main reason he stopped the fight was because he felt the refereeing was biased toward the hometown fighter (Cotto).  The trainer couldn't have possibly been stupid enough to think he had a chance, even without open scoring, to win a decision over Cotto in a one sided fight in Puerto Rico.  Yet Lampley afterwards offered this as proof of the evils of open scoring.  Sounds like something you would get from the Fox News Channel to me. 

All that being considered, I believe HBO is better off with Jim Lampley as its voice of boxing.  But having grown up hearing the great Don Dunphy, I always appreciated not only his enthusiasm, but that you could never, ever tell who he wanted to see win.  That to me is the consummate professional.