I think that all boxing commentators suffer from that sort of bias though unfortunately, RWAEB. The American pre-fight predictions and buildup for the Joe Calzaghe v Jeff Lacy fight were hilarious, for example. The European ones weren't much better though, to be fair.
PNP, and Webb of deceit (remember them) . Two usernames that tell us everything about the joke refereeing the PL and Spurs has been subjected to.
There's some truth to that in general, but more to the fact that Americans including me were utterly oblivious to how good Calzaghe was. I never bothered to watch footage of him fighting, saw that he hadn't fought anyone of great note, and assumed, very wrongly, he wasn't top level. My thing is that I'm kind of allergic to cheerleading. The worst American offender I can think of for that is Dick Vitale, a college basketball announcer, who seemed to have some kind of imaginary romantic relationship with the Duke college basketball team. There are of course a lot of awful American announcers, but they aren't as inclined to cheerlead as football announcers. There are scantily clad young women for that. There are also more and more good announcers, who'll actually tell you something you don''t know. The first game of the World Series was a blowout, but I was pleasantly surprised to see an in-depth analysis of why the winning pitcher was so good: pitches, grips, speeds, release points. I'd love to see something like that for football, and more announcers like Gary Neville. The good football announcers (in English) from this hemisphere all seem to have Mexican backgrounds, for some reason.
American golf commentators and English cricket commentators all send me to sleep. Does that add anything to this debate, I wonder?
Golf in the US sucks up far too often to golf in the US. They're playing an intriguing but rather inactive game, not ending world poverty. The sad thing is I kind of enjoy watching. It's a triumph of videography in general and good cutting in particular.
I love Joe Rogan's commentating of UFC fights, not only is it (occasionally) informative but his outbursts when someone's been rocked or the fight's been finished is great.
