Lampley sounds off on the great fights he’s covered and his personal journey, ABC, HBO, ESPN, Max Kellerman and the ‘acid trip’ of being back in Las Vegas for PPV.com Published |Updated Arash Markazi LAS VEGAS – As Jim Lampley walked into the lobby of the MGM Grand for the first time in five years, with the hotel’s iconic gold lion statue sitting in the middle of a makeshift boxing ring, he took a moment to soak in his surroundings to make sure what he was experiencing was real.
“It was like a strange dream,” Lampley told The Messenger this week. “I am old enough and experienced enough to say it was like an acid trip. I was a little jarred and taken aback.”
Lampley, who was the voice of HBO boxing for 30 years, has spent the majority of the past five years living in a renovated farm house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was last in Las Vegas for a fight in 2018. That was when HBO decided to cut ties with the boxing business after 45 years. The decision came three months after HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia, was sold to AT&T, which did not view HBO as a sports network.
“I never thought I would be away for five years,” Lampley said. “How stupid am I? I thought it would be five minutes. I assumed somebody else would want me in their chair when I wasn’t in HBO’s chair but that never happened. All of the other outlets that were showing fights already had their staff. I was a little surprised and taken aback that nothing ever came along.”
