NEW YORK – The first major pay-per-view fight I ever covered in my new role as boxing beat writer at the Los Angeles Times was the massive Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jnr showdown that became the richest pay-per-view of all time.

It was like walking into a Hollywood film scene. The A-list star power taking their ringside seats. The buildup to weeks of hype. The consequences of the outcome.

Just then, I glanced a few rows ahead of me to see the broadcast legend, HBO’s Jim Lampley, taking his seat alongside Larry Merchant. He looked back at us writers, we locked eyes, and even though we didn’t know each other beyond me following his glorious work, he nodded and smiled, as if welcoming me to the club.

A few years later, Lampley was speaking at the annual Boxing Writers Association of America awards dinner, and he was referencing his deep affinity for quality boxing writing and his willingness to pore over the selected dispatches from writers from coast to coast.

“From the time Dan Rafael files his notebook from the East Coast in the morning until Lance Pugmire delivers his breaking news from California at night, America’s boxing writers are dedicated to informing the public about everything happening in this sport in magnificent prose,” Lampley said on the dais.

It stopped me in my tracks. Not only did Lampley know me, he showed what has made him a broadcast legend.

He notices everything. And if he doesn’t know something, he learns.

After nearly eight years away from the play-by-play microphone, Lampley, 75, returns Friday night on DAZN, calling the Times Square tripleheader of fights that feature Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez, with the assistance of former world champion Antonio Tarver and my former colleague at The Athletic, Mike Coppinger.

I unabashedly could not be happier for Jim, as he moves on from our two years together participating in the live chats with viewers on PPV.com.

That union began innocently when Lampley, feeling distanced by the sport, picked up the phone during the 2023 Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jnr fight week and asked me how it was going, among my media peers and in my new side career as a real estate agent.

He told a riveting story of how one purchase of a New York apartment years ago set up several other housing transactions, including his new home in North Carolina.

Fascinated by the tale, I made it the lead story of my real estate newsletter, prompting a call a few days later from my PPV.com boss, Dale Hopkins.

“You know Jim Lampley?” Hopkins asked. “Do you think he’ll come work for us?”

“I can ask him,” I replied.

The opportunity to speak live with readers during big fights is something I love, and Lampley said he’d be up for it, too, both heightening the credibility and the intelligence of what we were doing.

While many in the chat wanted to hear Lampley’s play-by-play voice on the action, his ability to interact directly and entertain us all with unforgettable stories of fight weeks’ past made for a pleasing experience.

Lampley enhanced the chats by engaging in revealing sit-down interviews with fighters he’d either never or barely covered while with HBO, including Gervonta “Tank” Davis, Terence Crawford, David Benavidez, Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, Ryan Garcia and Israil Madrimov, whom Lampley got to confirm the pronunciation of his last name as “Ma-Dream-ov,” something many of us failed to take notice of.

The respect those fighters showed was immense, Benavidez saying he longed for Lampley to call one of his fights.

Typing wasn’t Lampley’s forte. Even though we retained an assistant to dictate his verbalized thoughts on the chat for a while, a few lost meanings convinced the perfectionist of English language to input the words himself, which would include pre-fight written breakdowns and responses to those in the chat wondering what he thought of the fight and the sport.

There were times, however, particularly in our most recent March 1 coverage of the Davis-Lamont Roach Jnr lightweight title bout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, when Lampley couldn’t help himself.

He’d completely set aside the chat duties and revert to being the award-winning play-by-play man, conversing with our former boxing world champion colleague Chris Algieri (who also deserves a high-profile broadcasting role) over the events of the stunning draw with spectacular insight and descriptions that I fervently sought to pass on to those in the chat.

The live chat wasn’t what Lampley was born for. Speaking directly to the fans, taking the pictures and painting them beautifully by expressing his remarkable mastery of the English language is what he was made for.

“I’m 75,” Lampley told me when I assured him his broadcast skills were undiminished.

At our February 1 chat of the Benavidez-David Morrell light-heavyweight fight, I noticed on “X” that Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh posted that Lampley should be back calling fights. I showed Lampley the post and he elicited a smile.

One month later, at the Davis-Roach fight in Brooklyn, an Alalshikh underling texted Lampley that Alalshikh wanted to meet him after the fight.

A couple days later, Lampley confirmed to me he was back where he belongs, calling fights, determined to notice everything relevant to the action.

How long it will last is uncertain, but as you’ll find in reading Lampley’s new book, “It Happened!”, his recall of the sport’s legacy, his awareness of defining moments and his ability to eloquently capture what it all means are purely golden skills.

So I think I say this both from me and all of you: Welcome back, my dear friend.