FanShot

Jim Lampley interview with Toro Magazine

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There is some fantastic stuff in this interview with Jim Lampley. A couple notables: "I think [MMA is] here to stay. I think it’s here to keep existing. I think in a hundred years from now it will be interesting to see how variegated their experience is. But I believe there’s room for both, and that both are going to continue to exist and both are going to produce stars. And you know, I used to think of this in terms of "I like boxing because it’s better." But now I think of it in terms of "I like boxing because it’s boxing" – and some people like MMA because it’s MMA. It’s no better and no worse, it is what it is. And I think there’s room in the cultural marketplace for both." "I love football. But the commentary on football – unless I were hosting the NFL studio [show] as I did at NBC back in the early 1990s – play-by-play on games is to me a real chore. I’m not saying it isn’t fun to do the game. But the preparation can be mind-numbing. I don’t call football games unless I draw up my own spotting chart, which is a matter of using your hands and doing something sort of artistic, and I was never good even in the third-grade science projects, so it’s a challenge to go through all of that. And there’s such tedium in a whole football season that doesn’t exist for me in calling fights."