Comments Thread For: Ex-HBO Czar Taffet Eyes IBHOF: 'I Don't Know If I'm Up To Those Emotions'

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Mark Taffet has a wall full of college degrees. Not to mention a resume that's surely the envy of reunion classmates from his days at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. But to hear him tell it, the former head of HBO PPV began scaling a professional mountain that yielded roles in some of boxing's biggest fights as just a kindergartener tagging along with his old man.
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[rudy]

Why did you bother to interview him, he is the reason HBO got out of the Boxing business

[markusmod]

Why did you bother to interview him, he is the reason HBO got out of the Boxing business

I thought Peter Nelson was the reason? The suitman.

[Nightfall]

HBO kept Larry Merchant to long. Hope they return to boxing without Lampley as well

[crisantonio917]

Glorifying this scum that ruined boxing, the PPV business buried boxing and lost it's huge fan base, to this day it hasn't recovered, Hall of Shame is more deserving....

[Cyborg Fangerloo]

I have such fond memories of the HBO days. I remember when their long-term lighting guy died and they did a piece on him and it really did show you just how much every little detail made a difference in a telecast. We lost Jim Lampley and then we have to listen to Andre Ward, Mora, and Tim Bradley. Such a drastic decline!

[manfrommars]

Why are some of you attacking this guy?

He wasn't the reason HBO abandoned boxing. He specifically says he left because HBO's interest in boxing started to wane, but his passion remained and he had to channel that passion elsewhere.

Also, while HBO's production was meticulously crafted and top class, I don't miss Lampley or Merchant one bit. They were extremely biased and unfair to many fighters. It was so blatant, too. It was nothing short of pure unadulterated hate at times. They could barely contain themselves whenever Mayweather was slightly hurt during fights and disparaged him when he was still a young up and comer for being "too defensive", yet called out Tyson as, "the bully gets bullied" - a phrase that really never made sense considering he's a fighter.

Or, the worst one, ridiculing Naseem Hamed's religion during the Barrera fight - this was so unprofessional HBO had to cut out the audio in which Foreman calls Lampley out, "You ought to be ashamed, you should be removed". It's probably still up on YouTube.

Not only that, Merchant would kill the vibe of fights before they even began, "We all know he stands no chance", "No one is really betting on him to win".

There's nothing wrong with critiquing a fighter with analysis or clueing in the viewer to what he's doing wrong. See Al Bernstein, Roy Jones or the late Jim Watts for good, critical yet neutral commentators.

The fact is is that HBO boxing would have been a brilliantly produced show regardless of who the commentator team were. In fact, Lampley and Merchant were a detriment. I'm surprised any of them had their contracts renewed after they pissed off Tyson and Mayweather so much with their skewed analysis they left for ShowTime.

[Liondw]

I know some criticise HBO for the pay-per-view model, but really, no network has ever produced the biggest fights as consistently as them.

HBO's production value was incredible, and I haven't seen that from any network today. I always thought they were better than Showtime.

Don't blame them for boxing being a niche sport. How else were the fighters ever going to get those big multimillion dollar paydays without the HBO business model?

Today the biggest fights are still ppv, and you don't regularly see the best fight the best,.

[budfr]

So thanks to this smart man, the fans had to pay more to watch the fights, so boxers, media and promoters got richer. Very smart.