Real Talk, you might be too removed from that era of boxing to appreciate the cynical tough love gems that Merchant used to drop. He'd be the one to reel in Jim when he start going over board with the cheerleading and HBO agenda. Plus in his interviews, he'd ask the tough questions that the fans wanted to know even when the boxers would try to dismiss it. Kellerman does the same shyt now, but he never went in as hard as Merchant did. It may have come off rude sometimes, but you see now how sensitive these boxers are today. If you ain't press them, you wouldn't get any type of worthwhile interview out of them. Plus social media wasn't popping like that to just go to their twitter and see what they really felt about something.
His chemistry with Jim/George/Roy/Steward was pretty good to me. Now every now and then he'd say some stupid shyt that a non boxing ass nikka would say that would be lowkey disrespectful to fighters because he lacked that perspective, but just like clockwork Roy would check his ass. Foreman did too sometimes so he would stay in his lane for the most part.
Towards the end of his run, Merchant's delivery got slower and he became more jaded with the boxers and the industry. So if you never liked Merchant, then he was really bad towards the end. Its hard to pinpoint certain fights where his commentary was on point because he was on so many telecasts. He usually shined at the end of the event in the final thoughts segments. That's where he would put everything into perspective along with the many years he covered the sport newpaper and tv wise and give you that raw honest opinion.
He called out boxers when they only did enough to win and were boring, but he'd also praise those same boxers when they got into good fights and answered questions with their performances. You either gon like him or hate him. I personally loved his zingers and the way he would describe certain fights or boxers. Some of it came off like the type of shyt that would be said here. I was a fan and saw what he brought to the sport, but I can understand if he rubbed others the wrong way. It be like that sometimes.
If he was an ancient Roman, he would have been enjoying the fukk out coliseum games and pressed the emperor for the thumbs down smh. HBO broadcasts are almost unwatchable to me because of him. I'd rather suffer from Lennox dull commentary rather than Merchant's
..lennox was on some dry shyt.."thats the future right there" 
..the only time he legit put any feeling into his commentary is if it was somebody he absolutely hated..like when maskaev ko'ed rahman a second time for the HW belt..and he still managed to be 
