You’re not off base at all. Gus has been driving me nuts.

I guess I’m in the minority here. I agree he isn’t very good at boxing commentary, but at least he can string sentences to gether as opposed to Lennox Lewis who is truly incompetent and awful. I suppose it’s because All Bernstein is so good that I don’t notice Johnson all that much. I must just tune him out.

There are the other guys already on Showtime, which is great if they go to one of them (I agree that Johnson is the worst of that bunch). Charlie Steiner has his long-term gig with the Dodgers. Col. Bob Sheridan isn’t really any better than Johnson. Tessitore and Kenny are tied to ESPN. Whoever GBP has been using for their smaller cards has been horrible, and the guys Top Rank is using for their FSN cards aren’t great either. The guys who work the Integrated PPVs are way the heck worse than Johnson. The guy who worked the Main Events card last night was actually really good and about as descriptive as I’ve heard a blow by blow announcer get in a while, but I didn’t even catch his name.

He is the worse boxing announcer in history. Can you feel me on this? Well, can you?

Gus is alright. I agree Boxing doesn’t come naturally to him. But he tries. I noticed he starting to give a little more back ground on the fighters. Something he didn’t do in the beginning. Which means he must be researching them a bit. Which is a good thing. Yes he tends to get over excited. But so do Lampley and Tessitore. I got no problem with that. The problem with Gus, I think is his knowledge of the sport. He doesn’t know it as much as someone in his position should know it. And it’s noticeable. So everything he says sounds second hand. Like he’s being told what to say. When he’s unsure he goes back to what he’s comfortable with. Which is his college basketball style. Which is why you get a lot of “oohs”. He learning the sport will benefit him a lot.

I agree Lennox is terrible and either just repeats what someone else has already said or uses 30 words when 4 would have done and states the obvious.
I always give credit to the mostly knowledgable US commentary teams but i must admit they have fallen off a bit in recent years.
My favourite time was when Lampley,Merchant(at his best) and Steward were all on HBO PPV together in the 90’s-early 00’s.
Showtime was good with Steve Albert,Steve Farhood,Al Bernstein and Nick Charles.
I also like Teddy Atlas (especially for his unintentionally funny analogies) and Colonel Bob Sheridan has impressed me at times with his insight.

nobody “screams” better than lampley. i enjoyed gus’ enthusiasm (since i don’t watch march madness the taylor-froch fight was the first time i’ve heard of him), but like you said it was a bit forced. at least when lampley “screams” or goes insane he still manages to deliver some great lines while johnson is just doing a normal play-by-play but in a screaming voice

Where is the love here for “The Champ”, Sean O’Grady? “You got to make your opponent want to get hit, to get used to being hit”.

Somebody needs to give Kevin Kelly a job. The man can talk

Meh. I’ve hardly noticed him. He neither bothers me nor excites me. I voted “C.”

I think SC nailed the problem late in the column, saying that boxing is really a niche sport. Therefore there are a lot of announcers that get brought in from other sports and they are just terrible (Why is Joe Buck announcing football?). A number of times last night my friends and I got really annoyed by Gus, which I am guessing is the impetus for this column (Gus was terrible last night, absolutely awful kinds of bad).

The solution to this problem is actually just having more boxing on TV, which is already happening. The announcers on FSN aren’t all that good but its at least a start. There needs to be a career path available to move up in the boxing announcing ranks, and unfortunately that really only exists in Europe.

We have some pretty bad commentators/pundits over here in England too,imo:-
Steve Holdsworth (Eurosport)
Steve Bunce (Formerly Setanta,BBC Radio 5)
Jim Watt (Sky)
John Rawling (ITV)
Richie Woodhall (BBC)
are all either very annoying or just make bad calls (or both) as far as i am concerned.
I know some like Bunce and Rawling but i think Bunce is just an annoying Union Jack waver and Rawling doesn’t always do his homework and just seems like he is there for the payday at times.
We also have some good ones though in:-
Barry McGuigan (ITV)
Ian Darke (Sky)
Glenn McCrory (Sky)
Duke Mckenzie (ITV)
Whether you like or dislike these guys the fact is that most of them did at least come from a boxing background,apart from Rawling and Darke (as far as i know).
I mention this in relation to waldo commenting on the fact that a lot of these new American guys aren’t really boxing guys.
McCrory,Holdsworth,Watt,Woodhall,McGuigan,McKenzie all boxed pro and Bunce boxed as an amateur.

Just another reason why Lampley is a roman god when it comes to announcing.

I will say… I just don’t like Gus because he is talking out of his ass and goes over the top when it isn’t needed esp in dull fights.

You want someone who is a great announcer… Al Michaels. You know… the Miracle on Ice guy… the guy who called the War between Hearns and Hagler.

It is a shame that he doesn’t do boxing anymore.

i voted F … it maybe alittle harsh but i just think he is just terrible as a boxing comm. i hope sho execs come to their senses sooner rather then later about this … like sc said it just aint working …

Also really bugged me last night: Gus weighing in on the Pacquiao-Mayweather P4P debate. Normally I don’t care what people say, but I think the absolute sole basis of his reasoning is that Mayweather is undefeated, and that’s dumb.

Even the worst major broadcasters are pretty good at their jobs, except maybe Thom Brennaman, who gives me gas every time he calls a game I watch.

Hilarious. I’m in Cincinnati and am a Reds nut. I get the displeasure of (as we call him) tHom on a regular basis. What’s funny is that he’s not even the biggest jackass in his own family. His dad used to be a great PBP man, but now he’s unraveled into a bitter, sniping old man. At the very least, tHom becomes immediately more tolerable when he’s not doing a game with Tim Tebow involved.

Why does Gus have this thing for Andre Dirrell?

It’s helping me purge myself of Gus Johnson whose summary dismissal I have been urging for several months.

I don’t know if I think Johnson is quite as bad as you all say. But by that, I only mean that I’d grade him as a D announcer, not as an F announcer.

I imagine the conversation at the Showtime board meeting where they decided to replace Albert with Johnson was similar to that meeting where they decided to add Poochy to The Itchy and Scratchy Show.

Lady: We at the network want a dog with attitude. He’s edgy, he’s “in your face.” You’ve heard the expression “let’s get busy”? Well, this is a dog who gets “biz-zay!” Consistently and thoroughly.
Krusty: So he’s proactive, huh?
Lady: Oh, God, yes. We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
Meyer: Excuse me, but “proactive” and “paradigm”? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? [backpedaling] Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that. [pause] I’m fired, aren’t I?
Myers: Oh, yes.

And Gus in my opinion does just as bad a job when he calls MMA for Strike Force on CBS. I will never forget when Kimbo got beat buy Seth Petruzelli all Gus did was he keep scraming in the mic you have just witnessed the biggest upset in MMA History over and over again.