Boxing anchor branches out

     By Todd Dewey
     View staff writer
      Al Bernstein was one of the founding fathers of ESPN.
      Along with Chris Berman, Bob Ley, Tom Mees and Dick Vitale, Bernstein helped lay the foundation for the wildly successful national sports network more than 20 years ago.
      Bernstein, a 49-year-old native of Chicago who has lived in Las Vegas for the past 13 years, gained renown for his award-winning boxing analysis on ESPN. But the versatile sportscaster is also involved in several other endeavors.
      Bernstein, who recently signed a new three-year contract with ESPN, has worked as a sports anchor for local Fox affiliate KVVU-TV Channel 5 for the past year, and recently started hosting fight cards at the Hard Rock Hotel.
      Bernstein, who lives near Henderson with his wife and 1-year-old son, also performs live at ESPN boxing parties, where he sings tunes such as "ESPN Blues," presents boxing highlights and conducts sports trivia contests with the audience.
      "Doing ESPN and Fox and the live stage show has been a lot of fun," Bernstein said. "And I'm always looking for ways to branch out in other projects."
      Bernstein, who also has released a couple of albums and hosts a local infomercial (10:30 a.m. weekdays on Cox Cable, Channel 48), figures to be a prominent member of the Las Vegas media for at least a few more years. He recently signed a new three-year contract with KVVU.
      Bernstein decided to take on the role of local sports anchor after his long stint working on "Friday Night Fights" on ESPN ended.
      "When I stopped doing the 'Friday Night Fights' (which moved to ESPN2), my schedule changed a little and I was here more," he said. "I kind of wanted to be a bigger part of the community and (Fox) liked the idea of having a national guy, to get more attention and (publicity), and it's worked out well."
      Bernstein said Las Vegas appears on its way to becoming a big-league sports town.
      "The interesting thing now is the city is growing so much it is seeking an identity, and one of the ways to do that is sports," he said. "A perfect example is bringing in John Robinson (as UNLV's football coach) and Lionel Hollins (as coach of the Las Vegas Bandits basketball team). It shows you people want to make a real effort and make it a big-league environment."
      Bernstein said gambling will always be a stumbling block in bringing a major professional sports franchise to town.
      "Gambling's an issue they'll have to get around," he said. "But if they could get around it, one sport that could make it here would be basketball. This is a basketball town."
      While Bernstein now covers a wide range of sports, boxing remains his primary passion. He fought as an amateur boxer and wrote a book on boxing -- "Boxing for Beginners," with Ken Norton -- in the late 1970s.
      Bernstein called more than 700 "Friday Night Fights" on ESPN and still announces around 20 fight cards a year around the world.
      Bernstein writes and hosts "Inside the Ropes" boxing segments on ESPN SportsCenter and reports from the sites of several major fights. He also writes and hosts the "Big Fights Boxing Hour" on ESPN Classic.
      Bernstein has completed 26 of the shows thus far and looks forward to hosting many more.
      "Absolutely, the most enjoyable thing to me is doing the 'Big Fights Boxing Hour.' I researched it and wrote it," he said. "I've always been interested in (boxing history) and I think from a historical standpoint, that's a part of boxing people are enamored with."
      While boxing has a smaller place in the pantheon of sports today than it did in the past, Bernstein said the sport is still strong. His top fighters of today are "Sugar" Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Roy Jones Jr.
      When asked to list the best five boxers of all time, Bernstein said Sugar Ray Robinson is the best pound-for-pound fighter ever to step into the ring.
      "In ability, Sugar Ray Robinson, I think, is the best," he said. "You would have to put Muhammad Ali up there because he was almost unbeatable in his prime as a heavyweight. Henry Armstrong won in three weight categories when there were (only) three weight categories and Archie Moore was probably the greatest light heavyweight of all time. And, probably, Joe Louis."
      Bernstein studied speech and communications at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he also served as sports editor of the school newspaper.
      He then worked as managing editor of Lerner Newspapers, a chain of community papers, before hooking up with ESPN and its "Friday Night Fights."
      "When ESPN came on board, I clawed my way in. One of their stops was in Chicago and I convinced them I knew Midwest fighters and told them I wrote a book," Bernstein said. "And it clicked. I felt real comfortable doing the fights."
      When Bernstein decided to move out of the Windy City, a friend suggested Las Vegas.
      "I did want to go somewhere in the West and, of course, there was obviously a lot of boxing going on here," Bernstein said. "I was getting involved in entertainment and it just seemed like the perfect place."