By Scoop Malinowski

Larry Merchant’s voice and observations have been a valued part of boxing for over three decades. The magnificent ring achievements of Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones, Lennox Lewis, and Manny Pacquiao on HBO were fortified with added splendor from the dignified presence of Larry Merchant at his ringside perch.

“We have a great new heavyweight on the scene,” announced Merchant on the air from London in 1992 seconds after Lennox Lewis destroyed Razor Ruddock in just four minutes. “Lennox Lewis may turn out to be not only the greatest heavyweight in British history but the greatest fighter in European history.” To which his broadcast partner George Foreman concurred emphatically. “I agree, I agree! There’s nothing in the world that can stop this young man but himself…”

That’s just one sampling of the Merchant wisdom, there are countless other gems.

“Larry has never been a traditional television commentator,” says the prolific boxing author and journalist Thomas Hauser. “At his core, he’s an old-time, old-line, old-school journalist with ink in his veins. He has never promoted himself as a show business personality. His responsibility, as he sees it, is to commentate insightfully on HBO fights. He’s quiet and well-mannered, a voice of reason who tells it like it is when the emperor has no clothes. Most viewers like Merchant, some don’t. But everyone agrees that he speaks the truth as he sees it.”

Believe it or not, the origins of Merchant’s sporting background was on the gridiron. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and became a star running back in high school. As a 17-year-old college freshman, Larry was a spring practice walk-on for the 1948 Oklahoma Sooners, coached by the legendary Bud Wilkinson. A bulldog competitor despite his 5-ft, 8-in stature, Merchant made varsity as a sophomore. But a shoulder injury in practice ended his football career. The next year however, Larry was present at the Sugar Bowl where the Sooners battled Bear Bryant’s Kentucky Wildcats, not as a cheerleader or trainer, but as sports editor for the school newspaper.

After college, Merchant returned to Brooklyn and coached part-time for three years at his high school football alma mater. Eventually be became a reporter and then columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News before joining the New York Post. “No ten or twelve-year-old decides that they want to be a boxing announcer,” he said in an interview with Hauser at Secondsout.com. “It was nothing I ever planned, it just evolved in that direction.” Merchant joined HBO in 1978 and went on to call more than 600 fights over 29 years. Emanuel Steward is part of the HBO team and is a close, personal friend of Merchant for many years. “I love Larry, I love Larry Merchant,” says the Hall of Famer Steward. “What surprised me the most about working with Larry - I did not know what a student of the game he is. I didn’t know he studies fight films around the clock. Reads every magazine. Knows about everything. He studies for his broadcasts more than all of us. Larry goes out to this beach at his house, like a hippie or a beach bum with a little cap, his beard all scraggly and his old tennis shoes [smiles] - and he sits there on a bench. And all he’s doing is creating things for the show - maybe we should show footage of Floyd Mayweather’s father actually fighting, De La Hoya’s father actually fighting. He’ll call - Let’s put that on the show. See, while we have other things we do - I’m training other fighters, Jim is doing production - Larry eats and sleeps his HBO job. A lot of the creative scenes and things that come up is because of him. He loves that stuff and he loves that job. He thinks of a lot of the things.”

Former boxer Micky Ward respects Merchant as well. “Larry is unique. Larry is one of a kind. He knows boxing. I like Larry and his own style. He has a way with words. He gets to the point. He puts it across good. Sometimes people didn’t like it but everybody has his own opinions. I think he’s good at what he does.”

As good as he is though, earlier this year Merchant was almost TKO’ed from his commentating job. The World Boxing Hall of Fame inductee’s previous contract expired on June 1, 2007 and the plan was to replace the then 76-year-old with the 30-something Max Kellerman. It was reported that the HBO Sports boss wanted the boxing telecasts to appeal to a younger audience and demographic. As the rumors swirled over time, many insiders figured it was a foregone conclusion that Larry was finished at HBO. However, and totally unexpectedly, widespread public support of Merchant and national media criticism of the imminent firing actually pressured HBO to do a reversal.

Boxing people defended and supported Merchant, such as LeRoy Neiman: “I’m sorry to hear that about Larry. It’s a big loss. He’s an…essayist. The most sensible. He was great to turn to in there next to Jim Lampley and Emanuel Steward or Lennox Lewis. He’ll be missed.”

IBF Heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko: “If you see, hear Larry Merchant, you think of Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler, Larry Holmes and so on. Of course you will miss him, as you miss those great fighters and fights.”

Arturo Gatti was asked if he would miss Larry if he was indeed finished at HBO? “Oh yeah. I wouldn’t want to speak to nobody but Larry Merchant after a fight. (Why?) Because he’s been following me since I started. And I like his input after fights. Some people don’t like him - I like him. That’s what I like about him - his criticism about fights, because he’s real. He’s got balls to say it.” I suggested that Larry is one of a kind. “Yes he is,” Arturo quickly agreed.

Eventually the HBO decision-makers backtracked. Popular opinion prevailed and all parties agreed that Merchant and Kellerman would split World Championship Boxing and Pay-Per-View duties. Merchant is now signed through May 31, 2009 (HBO has an option to extend the deal two more years).

Steward disagrees with those critics who say Merchant isn’t really a qualified boxing voice since he was never a boxer himself. “You don’t have to have had fights to be a good boxing broadcaster. That’s something I have strong objection against with a lot of the guys. But you watch fights as long as this man has watched fights, you learn a lot. I’ve talked to him, it really amazed me the boxing knowledge that he has. And he was the guy that was telling me, Emanuel, I know you’re always trying to push Lennox to be more aggressive like Tommy Hearns, he says, but if you look at history, when oversized big guys become over-aggressive they usually get hit a lot easier. So maybe just let him stay technical and systematically fight and do things that way. And, you know, he was right about that. There’s just so many other things just from watching fights all these years. You don’t go through watching Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, and going back to Joe Frazier - he was part investor in Joe Frazier - so this man knows and loves boxing - he even saw Ray Robinson - without learning something.”

Steward will also defend Merchant - even if he asks his signature tough questions to one of his own fighters. “With Lennox, do you remember how horrible it was after Lennox had this rough fight with Vitali? (Larry) said to Lennox, to me and the public, It looked like you were lucky tonight. It looked like you didn’t come in focused or prepared, just fortunate this guy got a cut. Because really it looked like you were on your way to losing your title. But that was what the public felt in a way too. So a lot of things he says, we don’t say. But Larry lives for that job and a lot of the things that go on the show are his creativity.”

Yes, at 77 Larry Merchant is still going strong. In fact, he’s still in his prime as a boxing broadcaster. “Even though the man is older, his mind is sharp. His mind is sharp,” says Steward. “He’s in his prime right now. He was a journalist and there’s a lot of things he knows how to get a point over sometimes - but I just labor over one thing - he has enough facts that substantiate it. But I really like working with him myself.”

So what was Larry’s favorite highlight moment at HBO? “I would say it was the 20 or 30 seconds in the ring after the Tyson-Douglas fight. When Douglas started to choke up, thinking about his mother who had died a few weeks before. And how that tragedy helped to galvanize his spirit for that fight. Just standing there and waiting for him to pull himself together, because he wanted to be interviewed. I said to myself, Television is show and tell. People just watched a guy pull of an historic upset. He’s emotionally overcome. Let them watch that. When he’s ready, then I’ll talk with him. I would say that was an important moment.”

His worst moment? “I’m not sure…Maybe, having been a guy in my career as a print and television journalist who always championed the underdogs in society…being accused of bigotry for basically personal gain in the incident involving De La Hoya and the mariachis and all that (De La Hoya-Pernell Whitaker fight). I didn’t lose sleep over it. But it was getting caught in the crossfire that wasn’t merited. But I was very fortunate to work for people who ignored the crossfire.”

And who are some of his favorite boxers to watch? “We’re all dealt a hand and people are judged by how they play the hand. In boxing, I don’t think anyone has played his hand better than Evander Holyfield. The ability to train hard is as natural as the ability to punch. I don’t look at it as over-achieving. Some people have it and some don’t. Marvin Hagler is someone who had it. If he had an ordinary fight, he was 159 1/2. If he had a tough fight and respected the opponent, he was 158 1/2. People don’t know he fought real hurt and sick. Larry Holmes fought sick and hurt. He never had a fight postponed as champion. I admire the whole spectrum - Roy Jones, De La Hoya. The ones with average talent who make the most of it. They’re all putting themselves on the line. Handle it in different ways. I admire that. And I admire genius as well. Genius is thrilling. Buster Douglas galvanized all his forces for one fight. What is normal behavior is Buster Douglas. That’s a normal reaction. The long time champion is abnormal, almost like a freak”

Larry Merchant is one of the most recognizable figures in the sport of boxing. He is admired and respected by many. And he is even “loved” by at least one boxer. Yes, it is true that Kassim Ouma, the former IBF junior middleweight champion from Uganda once donned a homemade trucker cap following a victory on HBO in early 2006. The hat had an inscribed message which read, simply, “I Love Larry Merchant.”

“I have been very fortunate, being with one company and one show for 30 years,” Larry said recently. “I have seen a lot of good stuff, and some bad stuff. To me, boxing is not just fierce drama, but it is also a chance to observe human behavior in and out of the ring and that has been rewarding to me.”

Scoop’s first book “Heavyweight Armageddon! The Tyson-Lewis Championship Battle” is available now at www.amazon.com