Boxing on ABC

Boxing on ABC refers to a series of

The first incarnation of boxing telecasts on ABC was Tomorrow's Boxing Champions, which aired on Tuesday nights beginning in January 1949. Originating from Chicago, the program featured young, unranked fighters. Bob Elson did the blow-by-blow commentary. The series concluded in September 1950.

Meet the Champ (1952)

In January 1952, ABC premiered Meet the Champ, which was a collection of bouts involving members of the armed forces. The program aired on Thursday nights, with Wally Butterfield announcing.

Saturday Night Fights (1953–1955)

In 1953,

Bill Stern did blow-by-blow commentary when Saturday Night Fights premiered. Come the fall, Jack Gregson took over from Stern.

Boxing from Ridgewood Grove and Motor City Boxing (1953)

In February 1953, ABC premiered Boxing from Ridgewood Grove. It aired on Tuesdays nights, with Jason Owen as the announcer in the first month and Bob Finnegan taking over until its cancellation in August. In March 1953, ABC brought Motor City Boxing from Detroit. The program would air for three months of Thursdays, with Don Wattrick at the providing commentary.

Boxing from Eastern Parkway (1954)

In May 1954,

• Don Chevrier^[50]
• Dan Dierdorf - In April 1987, Dierdorf was hired by ABC to join Al Michaels and Frank Gifford on Monday Night Football broadcasts.^[51] He spent 12 seasons on Monday Night Football before resigning the post in early 1999.^[52] During his affiliation with ABC, Dierdorf also served as a blow-by-blow boxing commentator in 1989, beginning with Meldrick Taylor's first defense of his championship, served as a correspondent for the network's coverage of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and called play-by-play of some College Football on ABC games in the early 1990s.
• Wide World of Sports (WWOS), covering both popular sports and obscure events like wrist wrestling. He also handled WWOS' first coverage of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard at the North American Continental Boxing Championships on July 26, 1975, who Jackson called a young boxer to watch.^[54]
• Wide World of Sports
  .

• Olympic Games as well as the Olympic trials.^[61]
• Jerry Quarry^[62]
• ABC Sports hired Schenkel in 1965, and there he broadcast college football, Major League Baseball, NBA basketball, golf and tennis tournaments, boxing, auto racing, and the Summer and Winter Olympic Games
  .
• Al Trautwig
• Alex Wallau^[64][65][66] - He worked primarily on ABC's boxing coverage with announcer Howard Cosell. In 1986, after Cosell's retirement, Wallau became ABC's boxing analyst. He was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America as the top television boxing journalist in his first year.

Howard Cosell

Cosell rose to prominence in the early 1960s, covering boxer

Perhaps his most famous call took place in the fight between Joe Frazier and George Foreman for the World Heavyweight Championship in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973. When Foreman knocked Frazier to the mat the first of six times, roughly two minutes into the first round, Cosell yelled out:

Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier!

His call of Frazier's first trip to the mat became one of the most quoted phrases in American sports broadcasting history. Foreman beat Frazier by a TKO in the second round to win the

Cosell provided blow-by-blow commentary for ABC of some of boxing's biggest matches during the 1970s and the early 1980s, including

With typical headline generating drama, Cosell abruptly ended his broadcast association with the sport of boxing while providing coverage for ABC for the heavyweight championship bout between Larry Holmes and Randall "Tex" Cobb on November 26, 1982.^[68] Halfway through the bout and with Cobb absorbing a beating, Cosell stopped providing anything more than rudimentary comments about round number and the participants punctuated with occasional declarations of disgust during the 15 rounds. He declared shortly after the fight to a national television audience that he had broadcast his last professional boxing match.

In the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, and the 1984 games in Los Angeles, Cosell was the main voice for boxing. Sugar Ray Leonard won the gold medal in his light welterweight class at Montreal, beginning his meteoric rise to a world professional title a few years later, and Cosell became close to Leonard, during this period, announcing many of his fights.^[69]

Cancelled 2007 card

Seven years after ABC's last boxing card, they were scheduled to broadcast a card from

• ABC Wide World of Sports Boxing
• Boxing on the radio
• Olympics on ABC commentators#Summer Olympics
• Wide World of Sports in 1970, and another on CBS
  late night in 1977, with many more broadcasts alleged throughout.