WEBVTT

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What I was. Good everybody,
this is Neo and you were checking out

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the Cruise Show podcast. Make sure
to subscribe, rate and share, peace

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00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.039
and love. Okay, welcome to
it. It is the Cruise Show.

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Jeff Garcia is here with the boxing
legend and announcer that deserves so many accolades.

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I don't think we could cover them
all in this interview, but Jim

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Lampley, thank you for joining us. I truly appreciate it is an honor,

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like it really is an honor.
Thank you very much. It's my

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privilege to be here with you,
you know, with a voice like yours.

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When you were younger and you finally
hit puberty and that voice kicked in,

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did you know that announcing was your
calling? This is the last thing

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in the world, I thought,
and seriously, and I think this probably

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happens to all of us. The
first time I heard my voice recorded or

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you know, in some form of
broadcast communications, my first thought was,

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wait a minute, you know,
is that actually what I sound like?

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Because that's so much less and so
much much more unimpressive than I thought would

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be these Literally, I was driving
a car right here in Chapel North,

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Chapel Hill North Carolina. It was
shortly after I had first begun doing things

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for WCHL Radio thirteen sixty am,
the central station the University of North Carolina

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Football and Basketball radio Networks. I
had done the postgame interview with Bill Dooley

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the first football game of the season. I heard a playback on the radio

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while I was driving the car,
and my first instinct was, who's that?

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Because I knew that the content was
mine, but I was so certain

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that that voice could not have been
mine at all. So the answers no.

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I was shocked ultimately to be successful, and I hope that that establishes

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that clarity and diction and being able
to say the words in the right way

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actually does have some meaning and impact
on our business. It does, and

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you're the best at it. And
that's a great story, because I think

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all of us. I've been doing
radio for almost thirty years already, and

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I think it took me five or
six seven years to get used to hearing

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myself too. You kind of it's
that shock at first, and you're,

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you know, you try to get
used to it, and then you develop

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yourself as a broadcaster. But man, you're just the best at it.

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We're here to talk about the Rumbland
read though, we got to make sure

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we talk about that. Anthony,
Joshua Francis and Ganu two beasts, two

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knockout artists from different sports. How
do you as a broadcaster prepare for that?

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Will you? Have you seen Francis's
fights before in the UFC? I

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know you've seen Anthony joshuas but how
do you kind of prepare for this?

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Well? I saw the Fury fight. Yeah, so that's my basic introduction.

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I had relatively lengthy interviews with both
of them within the past few days,

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and that's meaningful in terms of preparation. Obviously, you get as much

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reading material as you can get and
refresh your memory about all the things I've

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learned with regard to Joshua in the
past and in Ganu's amazing narrative, which

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is ultimately going to be a narrative
movie project. There's no way that it

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isn't. Of course sand minds.
Who ever heard of sand minds? So

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at the end of the day,
you take advantage of the opportunities that exist

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for me because PPV dot com is
now an established entity with business relationships.

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I after thirty one years of calling
fights on HBO am still at least moderately

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recognizable to the boxing establishment. So
I get the access to do the interviews,

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and that's really the central focus of
my research. You can read and

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read and read all you want,
but unless you speak to the two fighters

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face to face, you don't have
the real depth of knowledge and awareness that

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you need to go into this.
For instance, I asked Joshua, is

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it a fight which doesn't seem to
operate in his favor or is it a

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boxing match which would seem to operate
in his favor? And he said,

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there's no way that I can make
sure it's a boxing match all the way

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against this kind of guy. He's
just too big, too physical, too

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strong. I know he wants to
close the gap and fight. At some

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point, it's going to be a
fight, and I wish I could prevent

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that, but there's no way that
I can possibly do that. I'm going

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to have to be ready to fight, and I think that's the right insight

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for him to have and sets up
an interesting confrontation in the ring. Once

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again. Rumbell and read on PPV
dot com Anthony, Joshua Francis and Ganu.

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We had Francis on the show,
and his hands, Jim, are

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so huge, Like you know,
have you ever shaken somebody's hand and it

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just they swallow your hand, Like
I've had that experience. And I did

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not shake his hand, but I
certainly had the sense that he was that

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kind of big and he also seems
like a big person. In our interview,

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he was generous, and he was
warm and outgoing, and you know,

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he said the kind of thing to
me that broadcasters like you frequently say

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to me, complimentary, laudatory,
et cetera, et cetera, And of

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course that made me feel good about
him and made me want him to do

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well, both in the interview and
in the event. Yeah, yeah,

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great guy, gentle giant for sure. You know, these crossover fights,

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we're seeing him more and more and
more often. Do you enjoy seeing them

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just as a fan of sport in
general and boxing and fight, well,

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I enjoy seeing them just because at
this point they are helping to sustain and

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continue broadening the audience for boxing,
and and that's a challenge given that boxing

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long ago, within the economics surrounding
the sport, made the choice that a

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smaller, more discerning audience, which
will pay a fee to see the fight

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is a better way to sustain the
business over the long haul than to continue

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the broad audience approach of day to
day network television. For my youth,

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when I was growing up, I
watched Jillette Friday night fights standard commercial television

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broadcast, seeking to get the largest
possible audience for the event. And then

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within my lifetime, within my youth, really we began to go in the

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opposite direction. And I remember sort
of being discomfited by Ali Fraser one by

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the recognition that now this is going
to be a different economic model going forward

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and it's not about the biggest audience
possible. What will that ultimately do to

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the sport? Well, as Larry
Merchant said, boxing can't fix it,

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can't kill it. The sport is
still around. I still have to talk

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about. But you know, will
we see Ali Fraser one again with the

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global audience that deeply engaged? No? Probably not. The closest we get

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to that is things like this where
the MNA audience gets to marry with the

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boxing audience to get together in a
larger audience for one big event. No,

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that's so true, and we're seeing
it as well with the announcement this

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morning of Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. You know, that's the social media

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world with the boxing legend and all
of a sudden, you know that audience

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can tap, you know, can
be as big as some of those fights

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that you mentioned earlier worldwide. Your
thoughts on that real quick. I know,

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I know we're talking about Rumblin reed, but I have to ask you

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about your thoughts. You know,
it's showbiz, and and the key word

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in showbiz is biz. And you
know, Mike is fifty years old.

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I imagine that he can still get
himself into serviceable shape. I don't imagine

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that there's any particular danger in it
for him. Maybe there's more danger for

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Jake, given how hard Mike can
hit and how limited Jake's range of experience

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is. But at the end of
the day, it's not a real competitive

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sports event in my view. It
showbiz and again, money talks, that's

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the way they yeah, for sure, Rumboland read Anthony, Joshua Francis and

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Ganu payperview dot com, PPV dot
com. It is tomorrow our time,

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ten am here on the West Coast, so it's a perfect opportunity. You

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know, sit back, on Friday, maybe take the day off, enjoy

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a few beverages and watch a great, great, great fight. Jim,

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as a boxing fan, is there
a fight you'd love to see made?

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A fight I would love to see
made in in the boxing world? Well,

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yeah, I think I think there
are several of them, and generally

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speaking, they involve skilled fighters in
the middle level wake classes. But obviously

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I think it would be best for
the global boxing audience and the heavyweight audience

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if Joshua can make some kind of
effective statement against Dinganu helped to put the

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specter of his two losses to Usik
out of people's minds. Fury gets past

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Usik and re establishes his brand to
the degree that it's been in any way

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Diminister tarnished by his experience against Dinganu, and we finally see Anthony Joshua versus

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Tice and Fury. I'm not British, but my heritage is British, and

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I understand why that fight has for
a long time been a holy grail and

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great Britain Britain, and they are
two very meaningful heavyweight champion identity fighters.

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So I'm hoping that I'm going to
see Joshua Fury sometime in the next few

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years before they're both old news because
they're getting there. Yeah, that's true.

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You know one thing I really when
I was preparing for the interview,

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I love that you went back to
UNC and you know, taught broadcasting and

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communications. Why was that important to
you? Well, because my whole career

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is an accident. Everything about my
career is accidental in nature. My career

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began when I was a graduate school
student here in nineteen seventy four finishing a

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master's degree program in radio, television
and Motion pictures, and I was chosen

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out of a four hundred and thirty
two person field in a talent hunt to

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become one of the first two people
ever to stand on the sidelines of college

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football with a camera and a microphone. You know, that was like it

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was like having lightning strike you,
and I realized eventually, this is the

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beginning of something that could really become
a legitimate, long term sports broadcasting career.

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And it happened. To use my
call of George Forman over my Horror,

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which is the title of my autobiography
now being written for or a New

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York publisher, it happened, and
because it happened, and because it would

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never have happened if I had not
had the experiences I had here as both

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an undergraduate and a graduate school teacher
or a student, I wanted to come

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back and teach. And the chancellor
was born on my birthday. The chancellor

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and I are born on April eight. He invited me to come back,

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and he said, you know,
Jim, if you want to come stand

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in a classroom and talk about your
amazing life and your experiences, we'll call

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that a course. And I said, no, not good enough. Want

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I want to create and invent something
that will stay in the academic catalog and

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somebody else will teach it after I'm
finished. So that happened too. I

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created a course called Evolution of Storytelling
and American Electronic News Media. I was

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qualified to do that because for several
years in Los Angeles, I was a

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nightly news anchor and I had news
contracts with both of the major television networks

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I mostly worked for, so I
had the credentials to talk about how evolution

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changes in electronics, business personnel,
et cetera. Have altered the way news

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stories are told. And I had
seniors and graduate students in my class,

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and I taught it for five semesters
and it was an amazing but frustrating experience,

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and eventually I stopped doing that to
go back to the well taking care

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of other businesses, such as writing
the autobiography. So that was what brought

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me back to Chapel Hill. Tickets
to the basketball games will keep me here

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for quite a long time. And
I think everybody you know who's ever been

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to college at any level understands the
thrill of coming back to be a teacher

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in the same place absolutely, and
giving back is very admirable. When is

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the book going to be out?
Well, the deadline that the publisher has

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established for me to complete the writing
is September twenty four, So if I

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get the book done on time by
September twenty four, in theory, it

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would enter the marketplace sometime in April
of twenty five. So by sometime by

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the middle of next year you will
probably have the chance to walk into a

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bookstore somewhere and by it happened the
story of Jim Lamplck. I love the

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title Rumboland Read Anthony, Joshua Francis
and gano PPV dot Com tomorrow ten am.

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Right here on the West Coast.
Safe to say that college basketball's your

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favorite support outside of boxing. It's
my pastime outside of boxing. Yes,

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and I the Dean Smith radio Show
was one of the first things I ever

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did, beginning back in nineteen seventy
two and seventy three, So that was

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the beginning platform when ABC Sports went
out to look for somebody to stand on

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the sidelines of college football with the
camera and a microphone. They told the

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public that they would find somebody who
had zero broadcasting experience. It was a

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totally fresh face who was the face
and voice of the American college student.

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At the end of the day,
they lie and they wound up. They

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wound up choosing me, partially because
I had been in front of a microphone

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and a camera before, and they
understood that they weren't just taking a complete

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blind chance on somebody who hadn't done
it. So yes, I'm full circle,

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totally full circle. I don't do
anything in broadcasting relative to the basketball

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team, but I'm a guest on
some of the shows. You know,

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people are still interested in my opinion. And tomorrow is beat Duke Day again

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for the medium sign. Yes,
yes, a big day for you guys.

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Man, Anthony Joshua, Francisin ghanu
PPV dot com, March eighth,

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ten am here on the West Coast, rumble and read Jim, let's make

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clear to the audience, won't hear
my voice? I participate along with Kevin

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i Oli in live chat, which
means that we are delivering our views of

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the fight via text into the computer, into your computer, and you can

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kick back at us. The audience
gets to participate in the chat stream.

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So this is just as I taught
about in my graduate school course, a

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new form of communication, a new
medium which is emerging in the boxing world,

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and it's a I mean, as
a boxing fan, the treat to

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be able to chat with you is
amazing. I think that's, you know,

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to pick your brain on the fight
as you kind of comment. That's

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you're right. I mean, that's
the greatest thing. I mean people can

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sider to see it at all sports. I mean, what the Manning brothers

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do is a version of exactly what
I'll be doing during boxing match tomorrow.

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And a lot of people frown on
that. Oh, I like the old

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way. I like this that.
But technology is creating so many new opportunities

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to interact directly with people that we
admired, people we've watched our whole lives,

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like you're good, You're bad.
It's a blessing, you know good

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and for bad. Am I a
supporter of social media, it doesn't matter.

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They're here and they're going to stay
around regardless of whether I like the

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effect. So I have to learn
how to live in that world. All

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right, I'm gonna leave with this. Leave you with this your goat unc

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tar heel basketball player of all time, the greatest of all time to you

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your personal opinion. So Michael Jordan
clearly ultimately became the greatest Carolina player ever

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and did stay for three years and
had a huge impact on the program.

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My personal favorite who gave me the
most thrills and kickback because of his presence

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as a person and his modesty and
his accomplishments. That would be James Worthy.

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James Worthy is a great lifelong friend. I will always appreciate his modest

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demeanor and the friendly way he has
always interacted with fans and media. And

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no slap against Michael. His greatness
is incomparable. But if you're asking me,

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Jim Lampley, who was my personal
favorite, my friendship with James prompts

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me to have to say him great
answer. He's my favorite as well as

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a Laker fan out here in La
as well. Rumbell, Henriad, Anthony,

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Joshua Francis Ganu again tomorrow March eighth, ten am, right here on

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the West COASTPPV dot com. Jim, truly an honored Thank you so much,

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and I really just appreciate your time
this morning. Thank you so much.

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I appreciate you're a CRUSO on Real
ninety two to three h