Jim Lampley, along with the iconic Larry Merchant, became the voice of modern boxing in the post-Howard Cosell era. After all, Lampley’s “it happened…. it happened!” after a resurgent 45-year-old George Foreman won the heavyweight title in 1994 is as iconic as Cosell’s “down goes Frazier” (and coincidentally featured Foreman, twenty years apart). Lampley and Co.’s show on HBO Boxing was to American boxing what ‘Inside the NBA’ is to the NBA! Simply the sport’s most prestigious product.
But like Cosell, the UNC alum abruptly ended his boxing broadcasting career. In 2018, he called his last fight for HBO Boxing, and some feared it was his last fight ever. But you may know, he returned to the sport doing what he does best in May 2025. But that was after a seven-year-long hiatus. So what happened? What is the full story behind his retirement and his long lay-off from doing what he loved most? Well, in this article, we try to answer these very questions.
HBO’s departure from boxing
The main reason Jim Lampley abruptly stopped being a boxing commentator was due to HBO closing its storied boxing division, HBO World Championship Boxing (colloquially called HBO Boxing), in 2018 after 45 years of being the best in the business in the United States. The company, of course, had broadcast its first fight in the golden age of boxing with one of the most iconic fights in the history of the sport: Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman’s Rumble in the Jungle in 1974.
But in September 2018, HBO announced it would no longer cover boxing, claiming the sport was not a priority for its subscribers. The network was an integral part of the boxing culture in America and had broadcast the fights of recent boxing superstars like Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, and Manny Pacquiao, among others. And the network closing its boxing came as a huge blow to the iconic commentator.
Lampley’s emotional exit from the broadcast booth
Following the shutdown of HBO Boxing, Jim Lampley retired from the sport. After thirty years of covering his sport for the premium network and calling some of the most iconic moments in the sport (Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson? Also Lampley), the broadcaster was too emotionally and well, spiritually attached to the network to even consider another network. Lampley wasn’t just a boxing commentator; he saw himself as an HBO boxing commentator.
“HBO was a culture and a group of people who worked with each other and influenced each other’s attitudes about artistry over a long period of time, and then eventually the company was bought by, as I like to say, a bunch of cell phone salesmen from Dallas. It was a far different ethos and a far different group of people,” Lampley told ‘Mens Journal’ in an interview.
HBO, as part of Time Warner, was bought by AT&T in 2018, after which the boxing division was closed. And it is this change in the HBO brass that Lampley blames for the end of HBO boxing, as you can tell from his comments above. But surely some other network would rush in and scoop him up, right? Well no.
No invitations, no Incentive to continue
Shockingly, no other network approached Lampley to offer him a seat on their commentating team to call boxing matches, despite his iconic status. Already hesitant to go anywhere else other than HBO, where he felt at home and had built up a rapport with not only his fellow broadcasters but also the production team and HBO Boxing’s inimitable production style.
To be sure, if Lampley had looked around and made some calls, he could have found a role on another network. Perhaps not in boxing, which was not as popular in 2018, when HBO Boxing ended as it had in the previous decades, but still, Lampley could have found a broadcasting job. But more important to Lampley was preserving his thirty plus year legacy, which is why he chose to take a sharp left turn and change careers entirely.
Teaching, writing, and life beyond the ring
Those who can’t do, teach, as the old (somewhat insulting to teachers) saying goes. And Lampley, one of the most iconic voices in the sporting world, chose to take his decades of experience and understanding of the broadcasting world to the classroom and joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he taught communications after the demise of HBO Boxing.
Along with teaching, Lampley got busy writing his memoir in the University town of Chapel Hill, away from the glitz, glamour, and bright lights of the boxing world. But he loved boxing to give it up entirely and did continue to work with PPV.com, albeit not as a commentator.
Final reflections on retirement
“I wanted to stop talking when HBO stopped boxing,” Lamley would say of the end of HBO Boxing. His retirement was more than a career decision, it was a tribute to a bygone golden era of boxing coverage. And with the unceremonious end of that era, Lampley decided that was the end for him. At least for the time being. But fate had different plans. Like a phoenix, Lampley rose again.
He was brought in from broadcasting exile by boxing’s most powerful man! Saudi Arabia’s General Authority Chairman, Turki Alalshikh, who personally sent out a message on social media inviting Lampley to call the May 2, 2025, Times Square Garden card featuring Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez.
While he was a bit unsure if he still had it after the long lay-off from commentating duties, Lampley was as good as everyone remembered, and has called numerous cards for Ring Magazine and DAZN since then. Excellence makes its own way, as they say, and nowhere is that saying more applicable than in the case of Jim Lampley. What do you think about Jim Lampley’s rise, fall, and rise again from the ashes?
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