By Dan Ambrose: HBO analyst Larry Merchant wasn’t the least bothered with comments that UFC president Dana White recently made about him in which White took Merchant to task for his blunt questioning of Floyd Mayweather Jr. after his 4th round knockout win over Victor Ortiz the other night.
White didn’t like the way that Merchant interviewed Mayweather, and thought Merchant was out of line.
In an interview by the examiner.com, Merchant said “It’s a free country. I’m a commentator, and if I’m commenting and observing on other than how can I not be open to others observing and commenting on me?”
Merchant didn’t seem to care about what White said about him, still said he has respect for what White has accomplished in building up UFC to where it is now. However, Merchant isn’t impressed with the sport in the least, saying “I don’t get a so called sport in which you can have a 6-2 record and be called a world champion.”
Merchant, of course, is right. The MMA has too many fighters with dismal records winning titles and no one seems to last for any length of time, which causes problems in trying to market a fighter for long term. By the time a big push has been made to make a big star out of one of the UFC champions, they’ve been beaten and in some cases are passe.
I personally think Merchant was correct in asking Mayweather about why he chose to hit Ortiz when his hands were down by his sides. Anyone would have asked the same question and if they didn’t, they would probably be holding off out of fear instead of being courageous enough to ask the question. Merchant wouldn’t have been doing his job if he hadn’t asked Mayweather why he chose to hit Ortiz when he wasn’t ready, because the crowd were booing Mayweather at the top of their lungs at the time of the interview. How can Merchant have ignored that and why should he?
Comments are closed.