BERKELEY, CA — A boxing fan is appreciative of the foundation that has been laid over the years by the cumulative contributors to the sport. Compared with following other sports, being an aficionado of the ?Sweet Science? often requires looking through a historian?s lens.
With that said, I was fortunate to recently run into someone who?s seen it all. Announcer Barry Tompkins is one of the best to ever do it. Over a 42-year career in broadcast television, the versatile Tompkins has earned six CableACE awards, four Emmys, a Press Club Award, and the Sam Taub Award for boxing commentator of the year. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2006 for his trendsetting work on HBO, ESPN, and Fox Sports Net, among other channels.
It?s Christmas here at Maxboxing as the resident of nearby Marin County imparted a few insightful comments and shared some of the secrets that have kept him a standard-bearer in the broadcasting industry for the last four decades.
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Ryan Maqui?ana: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us, Barry. I?ll start right away. You actually started in the advertising business, a la Don Draper in ?Mad Men.? How did you make the transition from that to broadcasting?
Barry Tompkins: Don Draper, no. The ?Mad Men? part, yes. I actually started as a writer. I didn?t go to college. I sang in a rock-and-roll group and I thought I was going to make a million dollars. We traveled for a couple years but I used to write a lot of parodies and shtick comedy. I got the job with an advertising agency. I was doing jingles and mostly radio commercials. I really got to hating it because I?m a creative guy and your best ideas would never get done.
KCBS [Radio] was my client and they offered me a job as a promotions director, so it kind of evolved from there. Don Klein was the sports director at KCBS and he used to do three commentaries every day. So I just started talking to Don and he started letting me write some of his commentaries, then all of his commentaries, and then he gave me my own show on the weekend. It was a complete fluke, really. I always hesitate to tell this story because you can?t do it this way anymore.
I was having lunch with Hank Greenwald, who used to do the [San Francisco] Giants games and Franklin Mieuli, then the owner of the [Golden State] Warriors. And Hank said to me, ?I just turned down a job at [CBS local TV affiliate] KPIX, so you might want to call them. So I went back to my office and called KPIX and they told me to come over. So that day they put me in the studio. I just happened to have a commentary from Don Klein. It was the first time I had ever been in a studio. I didn?t even know which camera I was supposed to look to. So I read the commentary. Back then there were no prompters. I was told to play to the camera, so I did. So the next day, I get a call. ?OK, three shows a day, 18,000 [dollars] a year.? Sign me up! And from there, I moved on to boxing and other sports.
RM: When I spoke to ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. a couple months ago, it was clear that his father had a lot of influence on his career path and classy style. Who did you look to for examples in great broadcasting when you first began?
BT: I never really tried to emulate anybody. I was so young. I was 25 and most of the people in this market were older people. The network guys like [NBC and Boston Red Sox sportscaster] Curt Gowdy and [ABC sportscaster] Chris Schenkel were in their prime. I came up in the same era as Dick Stockton and Brent Musberger and they were doing local news just like I was, so we used to talk a lot.
Dick Enberg was a really big help to me and I guess, as far as play-by-play, I would try to emulate him, not so much from a style point of view but how you prepare. He would do all those little things that I think a lot of people don?t see. He would tee up a color commentator so well that the color commentator really looked good and smart. And his ego was never in his way, unlike a lot of people in this business today.
Early on, it was Don Klein because he mentored me. He did Stanford football and the [San Francisco] 49ers and [NFL Hall of Famer] Dan Fouts? dad, Bob Fouts, helped me out a lot when I was younger, too. I worked at KPIX for seven years and then I went to New York.
Dick Schaap was a big help to me there too. We shared the writing background. He was a great writer and just in terms of how you deal with people or the crews, Dick made a point of going to the truck and making sure he knew everybody?s name. When the show was over, he would go to the truck and say, ?Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.? And Dick would tell me you need to know what everybody?s job is, so I made a point of doing that, so I know what the switcher does and what the video guys do and what the producer, and director, and graphics people do. The reason is so when I see something good, I can tell them after they did something great.
RM: With that said, can you draw any similarities to calling a fight with recent Sam Taub Award winner Rich Marotta and calling a football game with Petros Papadakis, or even a basketball game with Marques Johnson?
BT: The three people you mentioned are completely different in every aspect. I?ve been really lucky. People ask me, ?Did you ever work with anybody who was a bad guy or someone you really didn?t like?? There are people who I have a greater respect for than others and I can honestly tell you that I never have.
Dan Belluomini [and I have] been doing basketball games together for over 30 years. Rich just made the Southern California Broadcasters? Hall of Fame and has been with me for 15 years. Prior to that in boxing, I had Sugar Ray Leonard and Larry Merchant at HBO and for eight years, I had Al Bernstein at ESPN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILYDl5kA2m0). So I?ve had some of the best guys in the business. Al is one of my best friends and so is Rich, and I still talk to Ray, so I?ve been blessed in that regard. With football, it?s my eighth year with Petros and I think the world of him.
I?ve had 62 different color commentators. When I was at ESPN for college basketball, I had Clark Kellogg who I really respect a lot, and I had Billy Raftery, who I really love a lot. I?ve never had any issues with them. A number of them have become friends I socialize with, so maybe I haven?t had the same experience as other guys.
And yeah, you have to adjust. Every sport has its own tempo and rhythm and the one thing I?ve always felt is that I don?t have to be an expert. I?ve done enough basketball and football and boxing, especially boxing, where I feel I could sit in the analyst?s seat and do the same job. The reason is because I?ve seen so much of it but I have an expert sitting next to me. This allows me to do all the other sports. I?ve probably done 50 different sports. All I have to know is the language of the sport, like for example, don?t say ?six-to-nothing? in a tennis match.
RM: Speaking of broadcasting chemistry, for the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito pay-per-view, you called the international feed with ?Colonel? Bob Sheridan, which is a bit unique when considering that you?re both known for the providing the blow-by-blow. Tell us about how your preparation leading into the fight changes for such a pairing and how you adjust during the telecast.
BT: We have such different styles. The ?Colonel? is bombastic and he does a lot of play-by-play like ?a left to the body, right to the head,? you know? He gets very excited. My style is not like that. And I?m not suggesting that my style is better than his or his is better than mine but I just think we have different styles, so it was a difficult adjustment. But he?s a pro. We talked about it and he said, ?You take the lead, and I?ll just follow.? We did six hours of live TV and not once did we talk over each other. And Mario Lopez was also with us and he did a good job, so it ended up being a good broadcast.
Now Al and Rich could probably sit in my seat too. Boxing is unique in the sense that there really isn?t a play-by-play and an analyst role because it?s not like football, where the play is over and the analyst explains it. Boxing is ongoing. So if something happens, he needs to be able to talk without me jumping in and talking over him. Rich and Al are really capable if something happens to take on the play-by-play role. So boxing is really unique in that regard.
RM: You?ve done over 200 world title fights, including massive events like Aaron Pryor vs. Alexis Arguello, Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns, and George Foreman vs. Gerry Cooney. If you were to close your eyes and relive the one fight that stands out the most vividly, which would it be?
BT: At HBO, we did one fight a month over ten years and almost every one was a title fight. That?s just at HBO. Without question, though, that would be Hagler and Leonard as far as it being a spectacle and being the huge event it was. I don?t know if the fight lived up to the hype. People still talk about it, so in that regard, maybe it did, just for all the wrong reasons. But I remember that when the fighters made their ring walks, I?ve never heard a crowd like that. It was palpable. You could feel it.
The other one that was big in a different kind of way was Cooney-Holmes. That was really intense in that it turned out to be racial and really ugly. The two fighters are really great guys. It was all the people around them that made it that way. And so, it was very volatile. That was also true of Pryor-Arguello. It was very, very volatile.
RM: You?re well-known for your catch phrase, ?How do you like it?? Fight fans will forever associate that sound bite with Sugar Ray Leonard?s controversial win over Marvin Hagler. Was that impromptu or had you been planning to use it beforehand?
BT: Now I didn?t plan it. I don?t really remember these lines. I guess there?s two or three things I?ve said, that over the years at HBO Boxing, that people ask me about. And yet, if you were to ask me what my trademark line was, I couldn?t give you an answer. You can?t plan those things. You just hope you just say the right thing and the right time, like Al Michaels with the [Miracle on Ice] hockey game. I?m sure he didn?t plan that and now it?s the most memorable line in sports television. You can?t. You can?t think, ?If this happens, I?m going to say this.?
RM: Back to Leonard-Hagler for a second. As you?ve told me before, one source of inspiration for Leonard came from an unlikely source in Roberto Duran. Can you go into detail on that?
BT: [The Hagler-Duran] Fight was over and I was sitting ringside with Ray. Duran came over put his head between the ropes, leaned down to Ray and said, ?You can beat this guy.? And I have no doubt that?s when Ray decided he was going to come back.
RM: On the surface, Leonard and Hagler seemed to share a mutual disdain for each other, both before and after their fight. But do you see it differently?
BT: Yeah. I remember Ray had a restaurant in Baltimore. And at the opening of the restaurant, Hagler showed up to give him support. And you?ve been around boxing, Ryan. You know, boxers are good guys and with few exceptions. They don?t carry that animosity. I think fighters really respect each other because they know what you have go through to be good. I think most of that stuff comes from the guys around them. The one thing I do think is that Marvin Hagler will never get his just due because of the great champion he was. And he was one of the greatest middleweights, if not the greatest middleweight ever. I really do. But because of that fight, that?s the lasting impression people have of him and that?s a shame.
RM: Could you foresee any parallels with the way fans will view Roy Jones because of the way he has ended his career?
BT: My problem with Roy Jones is that he never took the one fight he should?ve fought.
RM: Are you referring to a fight with Dariusz Michalczewski?
BT: Yeah. He was the best guy out there. I realize that he wasn?t a marquee name and I don?t know what the fight would?ve done but at least Jones could?ve said, ?I fought everybody there was.? And he didn?t. And he was more about the sizzle than the steak. And I fear that?s the case with Mayweather also. But you know there?s that old saying?it?s a clich? now?but great fights make great fighters. Look at Muhammad Ali and his fights. The Hagler fight made Leonard, as well as Hearns for Hagler. And that legacy will continue. But Roy Jones? No.
RM: With that said, what?s your take on Pacquiao and the catchweight controversy? [Writer?s note: As this article goes to press, there are rumors that Pacquiao might defend his junior middleweight belt against Shane Mosley at 148 pounds, six pounds below the limit. If those terms come to fruition, it will be his third catchweight bout in four fights.]
BT: I think he?s a guy who?s fighting everyone there is, so he should be able to dictate the terms. If you want him, fight him on his terms. Now as far as Mayweather is concerned, they?ve got to make that fight. I know Pacquiao wants that fight. And I would suspect that Mayweather might be the favorite. So whatever they decide, they have to do it. What weight that happens at is incidental. Somewhere along the line, Mayweather is going to have to decide what he wants his legacy to be, whether he wants to retire with an undefeated record or if he wants to be the best fighter of his era.
RM: While it?s always premature to talk about fighters and their place in history before they retire, if Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather ended their careers today, where would they stand, both head-to-head and then among the all-time greats of the sport?
BT: I think what Pacquiao has done is incredible as far as how far he?s been coming up in weight. And he hasn?t just been beating guys; he?s been beating guys up. He?s got to be right there with the Sugar Ray Robinsons and the Henry Armstrongs and Alis, you know, the fighters who?ve been named the greatest ever. Maybe there aren?t the great fights available that there might have been in the past when guys fought 200 to 300 fights but I think he?s done everything that could be asked of him. So I think his legacy is assured no matter if he fights Mayweather.
Now Mayweather, on the other hand, with him there?s always going to be that question mark. Yeah, he was really good but?? I can make that parallel to Roy Jones. I think people are going to forget about Roy Jones. I don?t think anybody?s going to hold him up there as what he probably was in his prime, which was certainly best in his division. There?s no telling how good he could?ve been.
RM: Sergio Martinez showed us last month about the abrupt brilliance of the one-punch knockout. A walk-off homerun or sudden-death goal has the same effect. It?s the perfect moment. Has there ever been a fight where as soon as you signed off, you had the sense that you nailed the telecast from start to finish?
BT: I?m really harsh on myself, so I can find something I?d like to have over again. But I felt, like with Arguello-Pryor, we told the story and told our audience what a brutal fight it was. With Hagler-Leonard, I don?t have any apologies for it. Once the bell rang, it was a real strategic kind of fight, so there?s not a lot you can do with it. When Mike Tyson won the title against Trevor Berbick, I think we hit that one pretty much straight on.
RM: Has there been one where you came out of it dreading the replay because you weren?t satisfied with your performance?
BT: I hated our broadcast of Leonard-Hearns. Randy Shields was my color commentator. He hadn?t done it before. And I think HBO would be the first to admit they had made a mistake in hiring him because the reason why they hired him was that he beat Ray in the amateurs and he fought Hearns. The problem was that anytime anything happened, he was like a fan. ?Whoa! Look at that! Whoa!? It wasn?t his fault. He just shouldn?t have been hired in the first place.
I did the [1982 Stanford vs.] Cal football game with the seven laterals (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fZCCAqoSwY) and that?s a call I?d like to have back. Joe Starkey had the great call. It?s one of the great calls in history. What happened for me is I saw the penalty flag go down and I?ve always been taught that if there?s a penalty flag, to not go crazy. Instead, you should wait and see what the flag is all about. I honestly thought the guy?s knee touched, so I held back. So when he went into the end zone, I held back. In retrospect, even though I did what I?d always been taught, I wish I had that one back.
RM: What is the most ridiculous decision you?ve ever had to call and how hard was it for you to quell any outrage you had?
BT: I can?t remember a specific one off the top of my head but it?s happened often. I haven?t seen it as much in the really big fights, except in maybe [Pernell] Whitaker vs. [Julio Cesar] Chavez and a few others. But it has happened when you sit back and say, ?Really?? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izuwXikqXl8)
RM: I thought the Jesus Soto-Karass vs. Mike Jones decision would fall under that category.
BT: You know the ?Colonel? and I had two extremely opposite scorecards to what happened. It was horrible. I see it a lot with Rich when he?s worked places like Mexico. To give it a bigger picture, I?ve always had a great respect for Howard Cosell but Howard prepared for a fight, thinking, ?This is the way the fight is going to go.? And if it didn?t go that way, he was outraged. Even though you could see it coming, he could never see it coming. And that?s not a rap on Howard Cosell but he often saw himself as omnipotent. I think that happens to boxing officials as well. And you kind of go into a fight thinking a fight will go this way and you?re really watching one guy. And they don?t see the other guy beating them.
RM: I actually had this conversation with a couple of up-and-coming trainers and they?re often hesitant to take on a journeyman because if he comes in as an opponent, the judges will already have it in for the fighter on the cards. Even worse, once they start associating these opponents to these trainers, the judges will start looking at these trainers with prejudicial eyes when they bring in other fighters. They don?t want to build a reputation in this business as the trainers of boxing?s version of the Washington Generals.
BT: I think it?s pretty valid. I?ll give it to you in two words: Jimmy Montoya. He was a guy who supposedly brought the opponent. And every now and then, one of Jimmy Montoya?s fighters would actually win and no one was more surprised than Jimmy Montoya. Again, I?m not suggesting that the judges are corrupt but that if they think a fight?s going to go some way, that?s how they?re going to see it.
RM: There have been several times when you?ve called a lopsided fight that has gone on for far too long, much to the detriment of a fighter?s long-term health. Have you ever been criticized or sought out by a promoter, trainer, or fighter for calling it as such?
BT: You saw one in Dallas [with Pacquiao-Margarito]. I thought that fight should?ve been stopped in the eighth or ninth round. I?ve had it happen a couple times. I didn?t hear back from him but Arthur Mercante?s son completely mishandled that fight with [Miguel] Cotto and [Yuri] Foreman.
One referee was Jimmy Santa and I got on him pretty good one time. He didn?t talk to me for a couple years. If you know me, I?m not to bash on anybody but if I see something I think is wrong, I won?t do it to kids. I?ll rarely call out a kid. But a coach, referee, or trainer? Sure. I?m not going out of my way to find it but if it?s there, I?ll do it.
RM: How about Panama Lewis and the magic bottle fiasco in Pryor-Arguello?
BT: We didn?t know it happened at the time. That audio was so far down. Remember, at that time, we would replay the fight and so when it went to editing and they heard it, they cleared out all the other audio that was around it. But I don?t remember it being a big controversy the night of the fight. It became one later. That?s not the first time Panama Lewis did something like that.
RM: In what ways has the sport changed since you called your first fight? I would imagine one of the things would be the lack of pro boxing on network television.
BT: My first fight for HBO was Hagler and Fulgencio Obelmejias. The first fight I did was in the Olympics in 1976. I think HBO helped rewrite what boxing is and I happened to really luck out during one of the golden eras of boxing. It happened at a time when every weight division had two or three guys that were legitimate. I used to be able to name almost all the champions. But now you have like 59 champions. I bet I can?t name 15 of them. So there were better fights to be made.
HBO was on the rise and they had more money than you could imagine. And there weren?t as many pay-per-view fights. It was either in the theater or you had to subscribe to HBO. So at that time, good fighters fought good fighters. Remember, the networks, CBS and ABC, were doing fights too, so they?d take that sort of lesser-championship-type fights. These are the kind of fights that HBO has now. And when we were at ESPN, they liked the up-and-coming guys.
So you had that effect where you would show yourself on television, then if you did well in that lesser championship level, you?d move up. So I think it?s really gotten watered down. You have champions who have no right being champions and all the organizations are corrupt. It?s like a given. It?s like voting in Chicago. It?s all about selling a fight for television now.
RM: Name three things you?d fix about the sport in general, pro or amateur.
BT: I?d like to see a single governing body in the United States. Of course, they would just have fights outside the United States if that happened. There?s nothing you can do about it because if someone else puts up a store on the corner, they can say, ?We?re the IBZ and you can win our championship. Pay us.? So I don?t know what can be done to fix it. But at the same time, it needs to be fixed. And MMA, for all its faults, they know how to promote themselves and they?re all on the same page for that.
RM: There?s no doubt that mixed martial arts is rising in popularity. Is it here to stay, and if so, how long will take for MMA guys to start earning the kind of big purses they have in boxing?
BT: Well, right now, it?s like the roller derby. The organization owns the fighters but, at some point, that will change and you?ll have championships among them. People are getting rich on MMA and it?s not the fighters because it does do great numbers. It draws a younger audience. It?s the MTV audience. They know how to promote the event and what I think is happening is that the bigger promoters are starting to eat the smaller promoters. And that?s when the next change will take place.
But if boxing isn?t careful, it?s going to get swallowed up because television is going to take that up long before they take a boxing match right now. And you saw recently what happened with [Julio Cesar] Chavez [Jr. pulling out of a recent fight] and people aren?t going to stand still for that. That?s why track-and-field fails on television because they can?t promote a particular guy, since you can?t guarantee he?s going to show up. Same thing with boxing. They?ve got to do something or else they?re going to lose their audience completely.
RM: I would say the current pay-per-view landscape is telling. Aside from Pacquiao doing big numbers, Mayweather is mired in legal problems and hasn?t fought in awhile. If both were to hang up their gloves tomorrow, I wonder if there would be a viable pay-per-view superstar to inject some life into the sport.
BT: Pacquiao?s the lynchpin right now. He?s keeping boxing afloat all by himself and it?s not Mayweather because Mayweather?s not fighting. Pacquiao?s becoming bigger than life and he?s not just a boxing guy. He?s the guy that?s keeping the sport alive and everybody?s kind of suckling off him but he?s a smart enough guy to say he?s out of here when it?s time.
RM: Staying on that theme, I can?t help but think about how the Olympics have dwindled in popularity. While Top Rank was able to turn Oscar De La Hoya into a crossover superstar, with the adjustments to the scoring in the amateurs, the appeal in building a fighter?s star power by using the Olympics as a springboard has become almost nonexistent in America today.
BT: It?s a shame. For anyone who?s a banger, why would you fight amateur? And the guys who are stylists, how are you going to win? Counterpunchers never win. The amateurs is not a good judge of who can box.
I worked a long time with the punch stats in the pros. And they would have one guy do each fighter. And now you?re asking a 90-year-old guy to watch both fighters and score every punch? It?s not going to happen. It?s just really wrong. And as bad as the judging was back when they used to go, ?I think this guy won this round,? I?d still rather have it that way. That was bad but I think this is worse.
RM: Last question, Barry. What would be your dream fight to call and who would be your dream interview?
BT: Probably ?The Thrilla in Manila? between Ali and [Joe] Frazier because that wasn?t just about the fight but the whole buildup of the fight. So that would be the fight I would want to call.
About interviewing someone, I worked for years with [tennis great] Arthur Ashe and he would always ask the same question to people he was meeting for the first time. He would ask, ?You can invite ten people to dinner throughout history. Who would you have for dinner??
Arthur was into [Carl] Jung and [Sigmund] Freud and [Ren?] Descartes and all these philosophers. He always felt it was an insight to people?s character. And the truth is, if I could really sit someone down and talk to somebody, it probably wouldn?t be a sports person.
Today, it would probably be [President] Obama because I think he?s the smartest guy in the room and he has no chance. I?d like to ask him, ?You really wanted this. Now what do you think of it?? I like being around smart people because I don?t know if I am one, so I learn stuff from being around them.
Ryan can be reached at [email protected], on Facebook at facebook.com/rmaq28, or on Twitter at twitter.com/rmaq28.
