Well-known former boxing commentator Larry Merchant, 92, has been hospitalized in Los Angeles in critical condition, TMZ is reporting.
Merchant was rushed to a hospital from his home Thursday evening after suffering an unspecified health emergency, the entertainment website reported.
A longtime sportswriter, Merchant became familiar to television audiences as a color man on HBO’s boxing coverage in the 1980s. He was a mainstay on most of the sports’ big fights over the next three decades, where he often sparred with play-by-play man Jim Lampley and fellow color commentator George Foreman.
Merchant’s cantankerous style also occasionally drew of the boxers he covered, notably Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Bernard Hopkins, who both engaged in testy post-fight interviews with the broadcaster on HBO.
Merchant retired from television at the end of 2012.