I wrote a post last July arguing that Mark Kriegel was an annoying boxing announcer, and shortly after ESPN thankfully booted him from ringside. Kriegel now gives his thoughts in a brief snippet once or twice a fight and also does those heart pieces before the fights that I fast forward right through (I have small children, so I go to sleep early, and watch almost all of my sports the day after.) Kriegel doesn't add anything in these snippets, but I can deal with them.
Mark Kriegel is a gift from the boxing gods compared to Chris Myers. Kriegel at least follows boxing and seems to enjoy the sport. The same cannot be said for Chris Myers.
I've known of Chris Myers since his days on SportsCenter, and I have nothing against him as a broadcaster. He's a solid NFL play-by-play announcer and sideline reporter. But he is way out of his element when it comes to boxing.
Myers seems to have done virtually no research on boxing beyond finding some rudimentary information. He is a complete novice when it comes to the sport. Sometimes that can add a fresh perspective. A neophyte can challenge assumptions that more seasoned followers and participants may have. Myers, however, doesn't add anything to a broadcast.
Myers doesn't know the terminology. Sometimes it comes out in funny and even cute ways like when he probably looked up a boxer on BoxRec, saw MD, and figured it stood for "Mixed Decision" as opposed to "Majority Decision." In boxing lingo, a majority decision is when two judges saw the fight for one guy and the third judge saw the bout as a draw.
Mostly, Myers doesn't know a left hook from a jab. He doesn't really understand how the scoring works in boxing. He doesn't know what the judges are looking for when scoring. He doesn't know that judges don't determine if a knockdown occurred, the referee does and the judges have to score based on the referee's decision. Myers treats "effective punches" as if it's a real category in boxing like "power punches." Power punches are a category that includes any punch that isn't a jab. Effective punches aren't a category akin to power punches. It's just a subjective description of blows.
He only references fights he has called. When he mentions other fights, it's usually incomplete results. Often he doesn't put those results in any context. That a fighter is coming off of a loss doesn't tell you much. Was that loss to Gennady Golovkin or a journeyman? Has that journeyman faced a bunch of prospects from Philadelphia at a heavier weight or is he from Mississippi and has a built up record? There's a strain of boxing announcer that loved boxing as a kid when Muhammad Ali was active, separated from the sport 40 years, and now references Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard in every current fight. Myers doesn't even do that. I don't think he likes boxing at all.
In the most recent fight on Fox, Myers declared that Jarrett Hurd is a great defensive fighter because he hadn't been knocked down since becoming "champ" until last Saturday's fight against Julian Williams. The absence of getting knocked down doesn't speak much to fighter's defensive abilities. Incidentally, Hurd isn't a good defensive fighter. He wins because he has a good chin and heavy hands.
My biggest issue with Myers is that he has no problem arguing with his analysts, who, for all their faults as broadcasters, actually know boxing. He's not arguing with them about the weather or football; he argues about the tenor of the fight they are witnessing even though Myers has no idea what he's talking about. Kenny Albert isn't an expert on boxing, but he knows that. He calls it as he sees it and lets his analysts take care of the analysis.
Albert should be he lead blow-by-blow guy on Fox until a suitable replacement is found, preferably a boxing guy, not a tv guy new to boxing.
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