Larry Merchant
Larry Merchant is a sportswriter who became one of the defining voices of televised boxing, working HBO's World Championship Boxing, Boxing After Dark and its pay-per-view broadcasts for decades. He has been called the greatest television boxing analyst of all time, and the reputation rests on a willingness to say what he actually thought about a fight while the promoters were still in the building.
His screen credits are all versions of himself, which makes sense: a fight film buys credibility by borrowing the voice audiences already associate with real fights. He calls the action as an HBO commentator in Rocky Balboa, appears under his own name in Grudge Match, and turns up as a Las Vegas commentator in I Spy. He was born in 1929.
Movies (3)
Where to start with Larry Merchant
Rocky Balboa is the one that matters. Stallone brought in real broadcasters to sell an implausible comeback fight as a genuine television event, and Merchant's presence at ringside does more for that illusion than any of the dialogue does.
Grudge Match runs the same play for laughs, with him billed as himself in a film that is openly about ageing fighters cashing in. I Spy is the throwaway, a broad comedy that wanted a Las Vegas commentator's voice and hired someone who had actually done the job.