There is good news for Larry Merchant following the 92-year-old’s recent trip to the emergency room.
TMZ, which first reported the boxing analyst’s hospitalization, says Merchant is recovering at home from a bout with vertigo, and the long-time staple of HBO’s fight coverage is now on the mend.
TMZ reported last month that Merchant was taken to the hospital at 6pm, although the exact cause of the emergency wasn’t available at the time.
Merchant is best known for his years with HBO, where he worked with Jim Lampley, George Foreman, Roy Jones Jr., and the late Harold Lederman, among others.
He’s also been repeatedly referred to as ‘the greatest television boxing analyst of all time’ by longtime ringside reporter, Dan Rafael.
Larry Merchant, the famed HBO boxing commentator and journalist, has reportedly been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital, where he remains in critical care
Larry Merchant of HBO and Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright are pictured in Las Vefas in 2004
Merchant was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York in 2009.
Promoter and former HBO executive Lou DiBella led an outpouring of concern on social media last month.
‘Prayers up for a great man, my dear friend Larry,’ DiBella wrote on X.
Merchant famously got into a post-fight argument with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2011 after the undefeated boxer knocked out Victor Ortiz.
‘They can put somebody else up here to give me an interview,’ the irate Mayweather told the unflappable Merchant. ‘HBO need to fire you. You don’t know s*** about boxing. You aint s***.’
Promoter and former HBO executive Lou DiBella led an outpouring of concern on social media
Merchant did not hesitate to respond.
‘I wish I was 50 years younger, I’d kick your a**,’ Merchant told Mayweather.
The two reconciled in 2012.
The Brooklyn-born reporter’s original last name was Kaufman, but fearing anti-Semitism in media companies, he changed it to it’s literal English translation: Merchant.