ODDS and EVENS | Compelling Boxing Stories are Featured in Jim Lampley's Memoir

Boxing pulsates through Jim Lampley's memory. And abundant stories about the sweet science enrich his 2025 memoir, It Happened!: A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television.

Setting the scene for his decades-long career as a sportscaster, which included working as the blow-by-blow announcer for the greatest upset in boxing history at Tokyo Dome in 1990, Lampley paints a vivid picture of his first recollections of a title fight.

It was December 1955. As a 6-year-old boy, he was instructed to pay attention to a pro boxing match for the first time. His widowed mother had taken him to a neighborhood party in North Carolina, but she had a special activity planned for her son that night.

Stepping away from the hubbub of the adults' party in the same house, there was a TV in one of the bedrooms, and that was where Lampley's mother took him.

Thus began his introduction to Sugar Ray Robinson. Lampley's mother explained why she wanted him to watch a live TV broadcast of Robinson's middleweight championship bout against Bobo Olson at Chicago Stadium. It was broadcast on the Gillette Friday Night Fights.

"Sit here, and you are doing this because if your father were still alive this is exactly what you would be doing with him," Lampley wrote, recalling his mother's words, in his memoir. "...In the next hour or so a man named Don Dunphy is going to tell you a lot of what you need to know about boxing. And, by the way, Sugar Ray Robinson is my favorite fighter. I like the way he moves. He's a dancer in the ring."

Robinson, widely considered the greatest boxer ever, beat Olson via a second-round knockout.

Childhood Boxing Memories

Lampley's introduction to Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the foundational pillars of chapter 2, helping establish his lifelong love of boxing.

In the next chapter, readers gain a sense of the future sportscaster's upbringing and also the role his mother played as a moral compass for him.

"She made me a dedicated fan of most sports, and she made me fiercely anti-racist," Lampley remembered. "It's the second part I will never understand."

He eloquently described how his baseball fandom was the polar opposite of his maternal grandfather, who rooted for the Washington Senators "because owner Calvin Griffith had staunchly declared he would never put a Negro player in a Senators uniform."

Even at a young age, Lampley rejected this mindset. He became a rabid supporter of the San Francisco Giants. During his boyhood, their roster included African American stars such as Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, as well as Latino standouts, including Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal.

During the 1960 Rome Olympics, Lampley became aware of Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali). And he instantly started rooting for the American boxer, whose "gift for brash gab was otherworldly," Lampley observed.

The future broadcaster became an obsessed fan. And after relocating to Miami, Florida, with his mother in the early 1960s, Lampley attempted to attend Clay's training sessions in Miami Beach. He recalled that he visited the famed 5th Street Gym on two occasions.

Lampley met trainer Angelo Dundee twice, but Clay wasn't there either time.

Attending the 1st Liston-Clay Fight

The disappointment of not meeting the Olympic boxing gold medalist was replaced by a thrilling experience. In February 1964, Lampley's mother bought him a ticket to attend the Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay heavyweight title fight in Miami Beach.

For the 14-year-old fan, this was a momentous occasion.

"Mom drove me to the convention center and dropped me off, saying she would track the fight via radio or maybe in a bar and come back to a designated spot near one side of the arena whenever it was over," Lampley wrote in his memoir. "Given Liston's history, it was understood that might be a matter of just a few minutes. Logic dictated that the longer the event lasted, the more it might favor the younger, taller, faster, more athletic Clay."

The fight also gave him a close-up view of the level of animosity directed at Clay.

"I was shocked at the preponderance of boos when Clay entered [the ring]," Lampley wrote. "How could all these people be so ardently opposed to someone whose ideas were so right, who had won an Olympic gold medal for America, who was fighting against a visibly sinister ex-con? It didn't make sense to me."

Sitting at Miami Beach Convention Center, Lampley witnessed the future global icon later known as Muhammad Ali earn a shocking seventh-round technical knockout.

Excitement in Miami Beach

For the future broadcaster, what was the experience like in the stands before Liston was vanquished?

"My heart was beating with a level of excitement I'm sure I had never felt," Lamply recalled.

He added, "My [older] seatmate was kind and considerate, and he urged me not to get my hopes up, and to understand that Clay was very young and had been rushed into this."

Despite his youthfulness, just weeks after turning 22nd, Clay was the better fighter on this night.

The sixth round catapulted Clay from title challenger to the brink of his first world title ― and defying overwhelming odds.

"Clay was circling elusively but stepping forward and landing sharp combinations," Lampley remembered. "Now Liston really DID look old, a message portrayed by a countenance of discouragement on his face. I was celebrating enough to visibly annoy some of the others sitting around me, but the 'elderly' stranger who had now become my friend was smiling and laughing as if to say, Go right ahead.

"When Cassius stepped out into the ring for round seven, Liston just stayed on his stool. It seemed unreal, and there were many around me who were expressing disbelief. But my seatmate said, 'Go ahead and celebrate, kid. You've got what you wanted. Your boy is now the heavyweight champion of the world. He did what almost none of us thought he could do. Go find your mother and have a big night. And tomorrow you can begin telling your neighbors you were right all along.' "

A Potpourri of Reporting Assignments

From the 1970s until 2008, Lampley worked for the major US TV networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). His on-camera work included college football, college basketball, the NFL, ABC's Wide World of Sports, golf, auto racing and 14 Olympic Games, among other major events.

A gifted play-by-play announcer, an informed studio host and a strong one-on-one interviewer, he made his mark in a rapidly changing industry. Boxing, for example, declined in relevance on network TV and saw its audience shift to HBO and Showtime to watch title fights.

Lampley joined HBO in 1988 and was the cable station's blow-by-blow announcer until 2018, when it ended its coverage of the sport.

That three-decade run began with the assignment of calling Mike Tyson vs Tony Tubbs for the undisputed heavyweight title in Tokyo in March 1988. (Tyson won via a second-round TKO.)

Reflecting on the transformational changes that have impacted broadcast coverage of the sport, Lampley pointed to the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight in March 1971 as the catalyst.

"Boxers don't 'play.' They bring their lives to the ring in whole cloth, and those lives are altered in front of the audience in real time," Lampley pointed out in the book. "And because the entire enterprise is inescapably subjective, sometimes the official result falls in contrast to an emotional result for the audience. So Joe Frazier won the Fight of the Century, and yet it was Muhammad Ali who got bigger.

"So going forward, the point had been made: The key to profit for boxing was not the breadth of the audience that wanted to see a fight, but rather the size of the audience that would pay a significant user fee."

Insights on Cable TV's Coverage of Boxing

As the years progressed during his tenure at HBO, Lampley gained a greater appreciation for the way the cable network and Showtime televised the sport. The lack of commercials was a blessing, in his view.

Why?

"On HBO (and Showtime) the between-rounds minute became a treasure trove of material: interplays between fighters and their trainers, the race against time to treat and inhibit bleeding and swelling, an occasional visit from the referee," Lampley explained. "All that was needed to tell those stories and let our cameras and microphones do their work."

He also learned to have a greater reliance on his ringside colleagues.

"Even during rounds, I was learning that less is always more," Lampley noted. "If the audience could hear the thoughts and observations of Sugar Ray Leonard and Larry Merchant, the better I was as the blow-by-blow voice."

Nowadays, Lampley works for PPV.com as a fight announcer, and also hosts live online chats on select fight nights for the streaming service. He had a six-year hiatus from play-by-play duties after the HBO era ended.

Recalling the Greatest Upset in Boxing History

Tyson, who became the youngest heavyweight world champion at age 20 in 1986, was not at the peak of his powers when he returned to Tokyo for a February 11, 1990, title defense against James "Buster" Douglas.

That said, Tyson (37-0 with 33 knockouts before the Douglas bout) was a seemingly invincible fighter, according to the experts. And he was listed as a 42-1 favorite for his second bout at Tokyo Dome.

Looking back on the run-up to the fight, Lampley recalled that the New York City native was "clearly depressed by difficulties in his marital life and focused more on a morbid documentary film titled Faces of Death than on the opponent. His camp underlings revealed he had watched it dozens of times."

In addition, the 193-cm Douglas (29-4-1 entering the fight) had a 30.4-cm reach advantage over his 178-cm foe.

That proved to be significant, and the underdog's boxing style fit a pattern seen in previous Tyson fights. Lampley referenced James "Quick" Tillis, James "Bonecrusher" Smith, Jose Ribalta and Tony Tucker as examples of boxers who were beaten by Tyson, but were "taller, could move and had a jab."

Douglas proved to be a more dangerous opponent for Tyson than the four men just mentioned. And he delivered that danger with his fists.

The Ohio native Tyson effectively landed punches with both hands, capitalizing on his bigger frame.

In retrospect, Lampley said that Douglas "could bring the right hand over the top where the shorter Tyson would have trouble seeing it coming."

'We Flew Home in a Daze'

At the cavernous Tokyo Dome, the Tyson-Douglas title fight was held in early afternoon on a Sunday to accommodate the live broadcast in prime time for the American audience. Although a crowd of about 34,000 was at the fight, there was nearly no noise.

It was a surreal setting for Lampley, Leonard and Merchant as they exchanged observations about the fight.

"We were talking softly, as though we were calling figure skating or golf, because the crowd was almost silent," Lampley shared in his memoir. "You could hear the leather soles of Buster and Mike's shoes slapping against the canvas — that's how quiet it was. So the three of us sat there whispering, adding understated captions to boxing's single most arresting moment of the pay-cable television era, and we flew home in a daze."

Foreman Recaptures World Title

Nearly 40 years after Jim Lampley watched Sugar Ray Robinson's victory over Bobo Olson as a little boy, his broadcast partner George Foreman was back in the spotlight in a title bout of his own.

For Foreman, facing titlist Michael Moorer for the IBF heavyweight championship belt at MGM Arena in Las Vegas on November 5, 1994, was, well, unlikely. After all, he was 45 years old at the time.

But Foreman had supreme confidence in his ability and a clever strategy to stun Moorer, who was 26.

In a way, Foreman's career had come full circle. Ali's former trainer, Angelo Dundee — yes, the same man who guided Ali 20 years earlier against Foreman during The Rumble in the Jungle — worked his corner that night in Las Vegas.

A few weeks before Moorer vs Foreman, while Big George maintained a presence on HBO's telecasts while training for the title fight, Lampley asked his broadcast colleague about the upcoming bout.

"George, how exactly do you plan to beat Moorer?" the play-by-play man inquired. "I mean, he's a southpaw, he's a mover, [Evander] Holyfield had trouble finding him, and Evander has quicker feet than you do. So what's the plan?"

"Jim, you watch," Foreman responded. "There will come a moment, late in the fight, he will come and stand in front of me and let me knock him out."

"Let you knock him out? What does that mean?"

"You heard me," the 1968 Olympic heavyweight champion said. "Just watch. When it happens, remember what I told you."

The Pivotal Moment of the Fight

Foreman's words were prophetic.

In reviewing Foreman's achievement, Lampley noticed how the fighter's switching tactics paid off in a big way.

Sharing what he saw on the fight tape, Lampley wrote that "in the first minute of the 10th round, George had thrown a series of wide-sweeping left hooks, a punch he hadn't featured in the fight up to that point."

Why was that significant?

"A few of the hooks landed, and in retrospect the purpose was to move Moorer over just a step or two in his stance, so Foreman could strike him with a right hand thrown straight from the shoulder for maximum power. A classic jab and solid right-hand combination put Moorer down midway through the round, and he was nowhere near beating the count."

Foreman's unlikely moment of glory was punctuated by Lampley's succinct summary of the historic triumph.

"It happened!" Lampley said, then repeated the phrase for emphasis.

Through the prism of his book, this column highlights the legendary sportscaster's career. In the prologue, he explained how luck played a part in his success.

"It's the story of how my life constantly and repeatedly rescued itself from self-destruction and left me with identities and encounters that are in some ways unique for an American sportscaster," Lampley wrote. "[And] it's a five-decade kaleidoscope of inexplicable good fortune, terrible misjudgment, and disasters averted on the fly."

Author: Ed Odeven

Follow Ed's [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and he can be found on X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.]