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Podcast Review – The HBO Boxing Podcast

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by matthewjbailey in Podcast Reviews

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David Price, Eric Raskin, HBO, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Kieran Mulvaney, Orlando Salido, Sergey Kovalev, Tony Thompson, Vasyl Lomachenko

The stars of HBO’s new effort represent a sort of boxing podcast supergroup.  Kieran Mulvaney, long-time ESPN blogger, and recently added to the 24/7 lineup for Pacquiao-Bradley 2, was responsible for HBO’s previous attempt, Heavy Hitting.  His partner Eric Raskin, among the most talented and entertaining of active boxing writers, is also one half of the duo behind Ring Theory, which remains boxing’s best podcast by far.

The HBO Boxing Podcast is extremely professionally done.  Sound quality is excellent, even though the participants appear always to be in different cities.  Handovers are FM-radio-slick.  The content is well-prepared and focused: no lengthy discussions here of whether Skype is working, or whether one or another participant is going to be too hungover to dial in on time.  All this is worth mentioning because it is by no means a given, even from an organisation as professional as HBO: Mulvaney’s Beckettian Heavy Hitting sounded like a castaway talking to himself in a dustbin.

There is ample evidence of both intelligence and humour.  Raskin in particular has plenty to say that is useful and interesting, and usually finds entertaining ways to say it.  What is more, the product is tightly structured, albeit on occasion perhaps too much so: in a tic familiar to Ring Theory listeners, Raskin cannot help announcing when the podcast is about to move from one “segment” to the next, as if he cannot trust his listeners to figure it out for themselves (which is not to say he is wrong, only that there might be more elegant ways of achieving the same thing).

But the reason why the production values are so superior to those of other podcasts is that this isn’t really a podcast in the usual sense & spirit of the term, i.e., enthusiasts sharing their more-or-less independent views with their more-or-less peers.  Rather, it is a marketing vehicle for HBO’s upcoming big fights[1].  This often makes for unsatisfying listening even when the fights themselves are reasonable matches, as has been the case for most of those featured so far, including Chavez, Jr.-Vera 2 and Lomachenko-Salido as well as Pacquiao-Bradley 2 (sample dialogue: “are you as pumped for this fight as I am?”).  But when the fight clearly cannot live up to the excitement Raskin & Mulvaney are being paid to convey – as in the case of the recent Kovalev-Agnew mismatch – listening becomes painful. Mulvaney, a long-term boxing fan but a relative newcomer to the ranks of professional pundits, raving that Agnew might be able to do to Kovalev what Tony Thompson did to the cheese-chinned David Price, sounds like a man who has got the gig of a lifetime and can’t believe his luck.  Raskin, gently pointing out the differences between Price and the terrifying Kovalev, who is about as fragile as a Bond villain’s sidekick, sounds like he can’t believe Mulvaney’s luck either.

However, there is hope.  Following the Pacquiao-Bradley rematch Raskin and Mulvaney convene to discuss, for the first time on the podcast, a fight that has already happened.  Thus relieved of the pressure to sell something, their conversation assumes a more normal tone, and becomes far more entertaining and informative – making for an excellent listen, much more in the “spirit of podcasting”.  Perhaps this will be enough to make HBO realize that this forum, and Raskin in particular, could be used very effectively to extend and enhance its boxing coverage rather than simply shill for it.  We shall see.

 

[1] There is also a peculiar form of product placement in the form of the “Stat Chat Segment”, brought to the podcast by “our friends at Compubox”. It is hard to imagine Compubox’s products holding much interest for the average boxing fan (I picture a heavyset man of vaguely Mediterranean descent wearing a stained string vest and chewing the remains of a long-dead cigar).

 

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Podcast Review – Boxing News’ “The Opening Bell”

29 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by matthewjbailey in Podcast Reviews

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There are two ways in which a podcast like this one can be made to work: either the participants talk normally and naturally, which should only be attempted by those who are either unusually knowledgeable or innately entertaining, or they prepare properly and present professionally (or, of course, both).  The speakers here do neither, instead stiltedly working their way through their undiverting opinions on a list of recent and forthcoming fights, as if agreeing to do so were part of the terms of their day release.  In an apparent attempt to sound like proper sports commentators they pile cliché upon weary cliché – we are reminded repeatedly that “styles make fights”; one bout is described as a “bruising encounter” – and sometimes don’t even get that right – two well-built fighters are described as “body beautifuls”.  Offering neither education nor entertainment, this podcast is so utterly without merit that is hard to understand why it exists.

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Podcast Review – Buncey’s Boxing Podcast

20 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by matthewjbailey in Podcast Reviews

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BoxNation, ESPN, John H. Stracey, Steve Bunce

Anyone who doesn’t get enough of Steve Bunce from what appears to be his 24-hour-a-day gig with BoxNation, not to mention his torrential writings in such different places as ESPN.co.uk and The Independent, can now download and enjoy him in podcast form.  Always operating on the excitable side of energetic, for the purposes of his podcast Bunce adopts the persona of “Hysterical DJ”, talking a mile a minute and repeatedly singing the praises of his own product.  However, the podcast is put together with considerable professionalism – well-structured and mostly tightly edited, not always a given even from such a commercially minded organisation as ESPN – and while the material is fairly heavily weighted towards the UK fan, it includes an appealing mix of reviews of fights from all over the globe, both recent and forthcoming.  Most importantly, “Buncey” has been around boxing for ever, knows its people, history and audience, and regularly pulls off excellent interviews not only with modern headliners but also with such obscure but fascinating figures as former British light-heavyweight champion Bunny Johnson, Hackney-born surprise WBO middleweight champion Jason Matthews, and John H. Stracey, who (amazingly) won the welterweight title from José Nápoles in Mexico City in 1975.  The only real complaint is that Bunce and his usually overwhelmed sidekick Barry Jones (a former WBO titleholder, we are repeatedly reminded) have a bad habit of running competitions based on rather meaningless questions (such as “who is the best heavyweight with less than ten fights?”) then reading out the answers and names of what appear to be literally all the entrants.  All around an enjoyable listen for half an hour once a week, but probably best enjoyed in small doses.

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Podcast Review – The Queensberry Rules

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by matthewjbailey in Podcast Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Like most other podcasts based on the “two-guys-bullshitting-in-a-bar” model, the podcast of popular blog TQBR betrays little sign of structure or preparation.  And like every other podcast hosted on BlogTalkRadio, production values are on the low side of charmingly amateurish.  For example: the trumpet-heavy opening music is far louder than the participants’ voices, so that if the unwary listener allows his iPod to take him from one episode to another without adjusting the volume control he risks having his eardrums funkily perforated.   Further, significant chunks of the show are devoted to discussions of whether or not Skype is going to work, and whether one or other participant is going to be able to join. 

The hosts – Patrick Connor from the http://www.queensberry-rules.com blog itself and James Foley from fellow-traveller blog http://www.badlefthook.com – make an initially callow, almost teenage impression: Connor in particular suffers from a heavy self-consciousness, and both seem afraid of appearing to be anything other than deeply serious.  On the other hand, their analyses of fights historic and forthcoming are sensible and detailed, and once they loosen up they display impressive knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for their subject.  Just don’t expect many laughs.

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Podcast Review – Ring Theory

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by matthewjbailey in Podcast Reviews

≈ 3 Comments

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Bill Dettloff, Eric Raskin

A couple of overarticulate, white smartalecs reflect at length on the efforts of a bunch of barely literate blacks and Latinos as they try to turn each others’ brains into blancmange.  Endlessly mocking colleagues in boxing journalism – one is memorably described as “a pig’s head on a stick, smothered in cheese” – they are as likely to analyse a writer’s mangled grammar or a commentator’s mispronunciation of a name as a fighter’s jab or weak chin.  It is, in other words, immensely entertaining and thoroughly recommended.

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