Exclusive Interview with Al Bernstein by Geoffrey Ciani – With the start of the Super Six super middleweight tournament just around the corner, I was recently afforded the opportunity to have a nice chat with Showtime’s boxing analyst Al Bernstein. Here is what he had to say:
Audio:
Q: Al, what are your thoughts on the format of the Super Six super middleweight tournament?
A: You know, I think it’s pretty cool. It’s kind of modeled after the World Cup a little bit. It’s in three stages, initially, and then the four fighters that emerge from those three stages with the most points—with two points for a win, one extra point for a stoppage, and one point for a draw, and of course no points if you lose—whoever emerges, the four fighters with the most points will then fight in the semi-finals single elimination and then we’ll have the championship match. I think it’s a pretty good format. It’s never been done in boxing that way before and it’s rare that you get to participate in something that’s never been done in sports, and that’s got me kind of excited.
Nothing in this world is perfect, and I’m sure somewhere somebody probably is looking at this and saying, “Oh, I’d do it differently”, and I get that, but I think is a pretty good format and I think it will serve everybody well, and they’ve done a lot of things to try and ensure as much as they can that nobody has an advantage. And of course, the key element to that is the five promoters and six fighters are all agreeing to what’s happening, so to me that speaks volumes..
Q: So you don’t think that maybe this was set up a little too ambitious for its own good where, it seems to me that, one or two injuries suffered along the way might have a negative impact on this event?
A: Well, it could, but I think the way—I’m guessing, and I’m not the person that set it up, obviously Ken Hershman did for Showtime and all the other executives there and plus all the promoters and their people. They had to all give a meeting of the minds to this. I think part of the key to this is everybody wanted something that was ongoing enough to make it worth everyone’s while both financially and in terms of having a series of fights that were secured, that were there, that were going to be meaningful fights, and that’s why I think it’s done over an eighteen month period.
Of course, there is the possibility of injury, there is the possibility of a number of things. I think with those incidences, they’re hoping that common sense always prevails. If somebody gets cut, you can always postpone the second stage for that fighter a little bit. Or if it’s an ‘injury’ injury, that is just impossible, that won’t heal for a year or two years, then clearly, probably they’ll have to think about replacing that fighter. I know they all understand that’s a possibility, but you hope that that won’t happen. Another point is, they have to get through the first three stages, but once you get to that, you got the single elimination semi-finals. So yes, like with anything, there are potential pitfalls, but I think they needed to make it where enough people fought enough people to create a body of work that would make this seem like it makes sense.
Q: Would it be fair to say that you think that the format that they are using, that they were able to get this done which is a good thing for boxing fans, it might have been more difficult maybe to do, let’s say, an eight man single elimination tournament?
A: My guess is yes. I wasn’t involved in any of the negotiations, and I’m speculating, but I suspect maybe yes. The charm of this and the part that I think is fun for boxing fans is, the super middleweight is probably the deepest division in boxing or one of the two or three, and we have six fighters who if you tossed their names in a hat, any of the match-ups are really interesting and each would be a big main fight if you just decided to make it. So I think that that’s the charm of this, that we’re going to see these people in different configurations, and a single elimination would not have done that and I think that’s part of it. I’m suspecting that that was part of the allure for the boxers and their promoters and certainly for the network, and I think ultimately will be for the fans.
Q: Now speaking of the fighters, the six participants in the tournament, in your view are these the best six super middleweights in the world or do you think that other guys like maybe (Lucian) Bute and some others may have deserved inclusion?
A: I think it’s just like the NCAA tournament. You know, they keep expanding that tournament, pretty soon it will be 183 teams. No matter what, there’s always somebody that feels they can be in. Listen, you mentioned two people. Bute is a champion, Allan Green is very talented, so I am sure that they feel like they could be included in this, and there are many considerations I’m sure in making these matches. For instance, people could look at Andre Dirrell and say well he’s not as battle-tested as some of these other people who could have been included in the tournament, but he’s undefeated, he’s an Olympian, and he has cache to be in the tournament. Jermain Taylor, while he’s jumping up from middleweight has some losses, but he just had a fight in which he was eighteen seconds away from beating one of the super middleweight champions.
So you can make arguments back and forth about it.I think this six, whether you can make a case for somebody else being better than one of them, these six represent very interesting contrasting dynamics among fighters both in and out of the ring. Three Americans, a couple of Olympic champions, three international champions who each bring with them a certain fan base, and all six of these men bring with them different kinds of fighting styles.
Q: I would like to get your opinions on some of the individual match-ups coming, particularly in this first round. Since I recently had the chance to speak with Carl Froch on the On the Ropes Boxing Radio Program, I’d like to start with the bout between him and Andre Dirrell.
A: Yeah, you know, this is an intriguing match-up. Andre Dirrell is, I think he would even admit even though he’s a confident young man and I see where he just predicted that he and Mikkel Kessler will be in the finals of this tournament, although everyone thinks they can win this tournament. They really do. He might be one of the most athletically gifted fighters among the six, maybe the most. He’s also the most untested, and I think even he would admit that. At this juncture, we just don’t know how he’s going to perform against top level competition. Carl Froch who gets a home game in this first one, and everyone will fight on their home turf so ultimately everyone will get that benefit, but he is also supremely confident and as tough as they come. He has a tremendous chin, all kinds of defensive liabilities, but they get negated by his power and his chin and his aggressiveness.
This will be Andre Dirrell’s coming out party as a pro fighter. We’re going to find out volumes about Dirrelll. Can he box effectively over twelve rounds, which I think is what he’s going to need to do. He’s never done that yet. We’ve never seen him in a fight where he has boxed effectively over the entire fight. He’s been in with competition where he can afford to languish on the inside, try to throw power punches with them, he switches back and forth pretty effectively, but has often done that switching right in front of fighters. That’s the kind of stuff he cannot get away with against Carl Froch, but he has all the speed and he has deceptive power, so it’s his physical gifts against the experience and the power of Froch.
Q: Next up, we have also this weekend the fight I am actually most interested in seeing in these first round match-ups is Jermain Taylor versus Arthur Abraham. Your thoughts?
A: It’s an intriguing fight and they set up almost exactly like the Taylor-Froch fight did. Arthur Abraham does not get off to blazing starts for the most part. He has that shell-like defense that is almost impossible to penetrate. He will often give away rounds early in the fight before he comes out of that shell to throw very quick and powerful combinations. We know Jermain Taylor wins early rounds, shows power, but once we get to round eight, it’s the same old story with Jermain. He has difficulties. Now he’s been down in Houston, Texas, training hard, changing some of his training regiment and his diet and trying very hard to solve the problem that is his stamina. Arthur Abraham I’m sure believes that he will own this fight after round six, seven, or eight, and I’m sure that’s a big part of what he’s going for. Arthur Abraham is either almost unbeatable or he is a fighter that a really good boxer can completely control if they don’t get hit with those big bursts of counterpunching that he comes out with.
Q: The final first round match up happens next month and that one is between Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward. Your thoughts on that one?
A: You can look at it a couple of different ways. Andre Ward might have gotten the toughest draw in the first round, because I think most people believe that Mikkel Kessler—even though there’s really no way to tell who’s going to win this tournament because so many things can happen over an eighteen month period—but he’s probably going in the favorite and is probably universally considered the best super middleweight at this point, but by how much of a margin is obviously up for debate. So Andre Ward, the 2004 Olympic Champion drew a tough guy in his first match. Now he gets him at home, fighting in front of his home fans in Oakland and some would argue that it’s better to start out with the toughest opponent and he’s doing it on his home turf. He’s doing at a time, Andre Ward, when he is peaking as a fighter. People believe that his career has been a slow steady build over four years and he is now fighting the best he’s ever fought. Kessler, at age 30, has had nagging injuries but got in a very good performance as a tune-up just a month or so ago against Gusmyr Perdomo and looked very good. This fight, I think, pits the two fighters who are the most solid in terms of their technique in the boxing ring. They are both very sound fundamentally and I think it’s going to be a very good match.
Q: You’ve given your thoughts on the first round match-ups. I’m curious, which first round match-up do you think will be the most entertaining for the fans?
A: Boy, that’s an interesting question. You could make the case for Abraham-Taylor for a couple of different reasons. Jermain Taylor’s been involved in very exciting fights in recent time and you get the feeling that in that fight they will be engaging each other. Jermain Taylor’s a good boxer-puncher but he’s not the kind of guy that moves around the ring and runs around the ring so they will definitely engage. Now, Ward-Kessler you can make the case, and by the way all the rings will be 20×20 in this tournament which I think is a wonderful feature because it means everybody’s going to have the same size ring. So if you’re a boxer and you want to move, or if you’re a slugger then you want to get to the guy, it’s all the same, it’s kind of right in the middle of sizes of ring that we would have. So I think Kessler and Ward are also two fighters who, while we may see more movement potentially from Ward, I think those fighters are going to engage as well, so that one would be the second one. Then Froch and Dirrell I think will be a very interesting fight. The only thing that could make that third on the list is if Andre Dirrell is forced to turn it into the Andre Dirrell international track meet. If he’s forced to do that, and it’s the only way for him to win and survive, maybe he’ll do it. Other than that, that could also be a wildly exciting fight.
Q: Do you think it’s likely that the winner of this tournament will survive throughout without suffering a loss on his record?
A: That’s a really good question. I got to be honest with you I haven’t thought much about that. Could somebody win five matches, straight? I’m thinking no. I think that would be a monumental feat and if it happens, and it’s interesting you bringing this up, if somebody was to go through and win five matches in this competition I think it would be one of the more remarkable achievements in boxing maybe ever. That would be a staggering achievement. It would be hard for me to imagine somebody doing it, but if they could, that would be miraculous.
Q: Who do you think is the man to beat that would make the biggest statement in this tournament?
A: Well, you can look at it two different ways. The man to beat, I think, is Mikkel Kessler. I really believe that only because he has fought at the highest level of competition, he has every skill, he is both a boxer and a puncher, and he’s of an age where he’s not shopworn so I think you probably have to say he’s the man to beat. As far as who would make the biggest statement, the biggest statement to win this would be made, probably, by Andre Dirrell, because he’s coming in as the most untested. And if Andre Dirrell were to win this tournament, he and Andre Ward would probably be making the biggest statement because they are the youngest. But then you can make the case for Jermain Taylor, too, because a lot of people don’t expect him to win and he’s probably the biggest underdog in this tournament. I think you can pick amongst the Americans as to who would make the biggest statement, only because I think it’s fair to say they are probably not considered the favorites in this.
Q: Now changing things up a little bit here Al, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how you first became interested in boxing?
A: Oh boy! When I was young, I just thought it was a fascinating sport and I used to sit, when I was eight or nine years old and we had transistor radios—which is dating myself—I would lay in bed without my parents knowing and have the transistor radio on and listen to the radio call of the Ingemar Johansson-Floyd Patterson fights. And I became a huge Floyd Patterson fan. I read his book and that lured me to boxing, and I would sit with my dad then and watch the Friday night fights that were announced by Don Dunphy, and the biggest thrill—the biggest thrill that I’ve had as a boxing announcer—was when Don Dunphy asked for me to be the one to present him with the award that Ring Magazine gave out at their seventy-fifth anniversary when he was selected as the greatest boxing announcer of all time. Don and I, after I interviewed him, in 1985 on the Top Rank boxing series he became a mentor to me. So that was a brilliant, a big thrill. I got involved then, and that was a time in boxing where there were so many larger than life personalities and so many great matches and I fell in love with Floyd Patterson, and then my favorite boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson and so it was just a time when I became enthralled with the sport.
Q: Now as I understand it, you have recently been inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame, and if I’m not mistaken, you received more votes than any non-boxing inductee. How does it make you feel to be awarded with such an honor?
A: That was wonderful. The induction is October 24 out in Los Angeles, and that was very pleasing to me that vote total because it kind of demonstrated to me that, for the most part, all those people were happy to have me in felt like it was appropriate. That was very, very gratifying. I’m really thrilled about it. Next year will be my thirtieth year as a broadcaster of boxing, which is amazing to me. It just seems like it’s flown by. I’m really honored by this and it’s great. You hope that people in any industry that you’re in, and I consider myself a broadcaster first and then a boxing person second, and I’ve done other sports as well, of course, but boxing is the sport that has put me on the map and it’s the one that I’m most closely identified with. For a boxing body like the Hall of Fame to recognize my contribution is just great.
Q: Now you mentioned Sugar Ray Robinson before as one of your favorite fighters and if I’m not mistaken, you were also awarded with another honor—The Sugar Ray Robinson Award. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
A: Yeah, they haven’t given this award, I guess, since they gave it to Ray Robinson’s widow many years ago. So that blew me away because Sugar Ray Robinson is boxing to me. He’s the greatest boxer that ever lived. If you could construct a boxer from the ground up, he’s exactly the person you’d end up with. His style and finesse were amazing and so for any award with his name on it to be given to me, is just, it’s going to be a great weekend and I’m so excited about it. I’m just at the point where when you’ve been in this for a long time and you reach a certain point at a certain age, you can kind or appreciate these things a little bit better and put them in perspective. It’s just very, very nice.
Listen, I’ll be the first to say, the style of broadcasting I adopted which was the right style for me and serves me and my audience the best. And they way I comported myself on the air and what I’ve been about, it’s not always the most attention way of going about it. I don’t want it to be the most attention getting way. I don’t want to blend in and have no one ever remember I was on a broadcast, that’s for sure, but I never, ever, ever want to be bigger than the broadcast I’m on, and if it’s not a broadcast of an event I don’t ever want to have people think that I dominated the subject so much that they didn’t get information or get anything else out of it. My style of doing it, especially when you juxtapose it to the style of broadcasting that’s become in vogue in the last fifteen to twenty years is a little different. I came at this as a newspaper man from the beginning, so because of all that, I’m not always the guy gets the awards first or gets the attention first, so I appreciate it when these things happen.
Q: Now I’m just curious, who are some of the other commentators past or present that have had a profound influence on you or that you have the greatest respect for?
A: Well, you know, I’ve been one of those people that has done both analysis and play-by-play, so for me, everybody’s in play. I started out as an analyst, but in the mid-80s at ESPN I also started to do play-by-play I’ve alternated back, I’ve done both, mostly analysis, but I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of shows as a host, so I’ve learned from both sides. In the play-by-play department the early men I worked with, Sal Marchiano and Sam Rosen at ESPN were tremendous influences on me and if you listen to my style as a play-by-play man, it is kind of an amalgam of what those two men did. And the third influence on me, for the most part, was Barry Tompkins who was my partner for many years at ESPN. Those three men, I just gravitated to the different things that they did and they’re big influences on me. I’ve worked with other great play-by-play men like Bob Papa who has great technical skills and Steve Albert, who I worked with for the beginning part here at Showtime who is just wonderful, and my current partner Gus Johnson who I think brings several dimensions to the sport that people are going to really appreciate as he continues to do it. But those first three men I probably took my style a little bit more from them.
In terms of analysis, I don’t know that I emulated anybody because I think when I got into it there wasn’t a person who was coming at it, even though I boxed some as an amateur, that’s clearly not the reason I was on the air. I was on the air because of covering the sport and so I had to mix in being half journalist and half analyst and try and make that style work for everybody where I was certainly doing analysis of the strategy but was also throwing in anecdotal material that was important, and I believe that’s the way to do it, anyway. But the analysts that I’ve admired and I’ve loved were Gil Clancy who was a great mentor of mine, loved his work. He and Angelo Dundee were a wonderful team along with Tim Ryan.
The current analysts that I enjoy the most, to be perfectly candid, are Steve Farhood who’s on our network as well and Dave Bontempo and I think part of the reason is they approach this a lot of the way I do. And the name I left out, God help me, was Don Dunphy even though I talked about him before. His pristine way of doing boxing, and he often easily did it alone in the early days. And his brevity and his punctuation of action was just remarkable. So those were the men that I think that in a lot of ways, and I probably left a few names out and I’ll hate myself in the morning, but those are the names that I think of.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to say to all the fans out at East Side Boxing?
A: Well, I’ll tell you, as a general comment you mentioned the fans. I really appreciate the way I’ve been treated by just about everybody. I’ve done a lot of things over the years, a lot of appearances, a lot of speeches, even some musical performing and I’ve been out there with boxing fans I think much more than most of the television announcers who, for the most part, just stay to their TVs. I’ve done many, many, many things in public and I’ve been out there with boxing fans and the treatment I’ve received from them has been really, really excellent. And this gives me the chance to just thank them. And your site, which does a great service for boxing like so many of the other sites that helps promote the sport, and now the sport is talked about mostly on the internet. And the other final comment I’d make is, it’s all about respect for the boxer. I’ve guided my career and everything I’ve done in boxing based upon always give the boxer as much respect as you can. You may be forced to say that something he’s doing isn’t working in the ring or even comment negatively about somebody’s behavior if you absolutely have to, but the bottom line is you never want to disrespect a boxer because it’s the toughest job in the world and they as athletes are people to be admired.
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I would like to thank Al Bernstein for his time and insight, congratulate him on his recent honors, and wish him the very best of luck in his broadcasting career. Click here to watch the Al Bernstein Boxing Channel
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To contact Ciani:
ciani@boxing247.com
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