HBO scores a knockout with boxing’s greatest hits

It’s been said that there’s nothing more ridiculous than someone else’s love affair, and boxing aficionados have always had a tough time explaining their passion for the sport to outsiders.

For the converted, it’s “the sweet science”; for the unconvinced, it’s a brutal throwback to the Stone Age.

But leave it to HBO Sports to come up with a documentary series that works as hard on the story outside the ring as the one in it, and because of the attention to detail, the 30-minute profiles carry a dramatic weight that will draw in just about anyone.

“Legendary Nights,” with the network’s superb boxing analyst Jim Lampley as host, culls a dozen of the most memorable fights in HBO’s vast library, interspersing the action with fresh interviews involving trainers, family members and, of course, the combatants.

The documentaries air Wednesdays at 10 p.m., with HBO and HBO2 repeating the shows throughout the week.

Kicking off the series tonight is “The Tale of Leonard-Hearns,” the 1981 classic of shifting momentum that matched golden boy Sugar Ray Leonard against the notorious slugger known as “the Hit Man,” Tommy Hearns.

Next week’s entry chronicles the 1982 heavyweight title fight between champ Larry Holmes and Gerry “the Great White Hope” Cooney.

The racial implications of the bitter battle of unbeatens led to Jesse Jackson being called to the training camps to ease tensions that for once were not merely the trumped-up efforts of anything-for-a-buck promoters.

Boxing purists may be a bit frustrated by the constraints of a half-hour time slot reducing the action to greatest-hit snippets, robbing viewers of some of the rich ebb and flow that can lift a bout into greatness.

But every picture tells a story, and more often than not, that’s compensation enough.