Alex Wallau, a longtime boxing commentator, Emmy Award-winning producer and director at ABC Sports and former president, died at 80 two days ago, according to a social media post Sunday from Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler.

Wallau was a boxing staple in the late 1970s and '80s, working in commentary along with Jim Lampley before he later became a fixture on HBO Boxing telecasts for three decades.

Wrote Trampler: "Boxing lost a courageous man with passing of former commentator Alex Wallau, dear friend of many in the business. Alex faced death threats after exposing crooked Don King tournament, was the brain behind Howard Cosell and later president of ABC TV for Bob Iger. Should be HOF."

Wallau began his career in 1976 as a temp at ABC as head of on-air promotion for the sports division. He also would serve as vice president, executive vice president, president of network operations and administration at ABC.

A year later, in 1977, Wallau was reassigned to be special adviser and associate producer on the U.S. Boxing Championships promoted by King. He researched the qualifications of the 56 boxers selected for the tournament and concluded 31 were unqualified.

Wallau told a House Subcommittee on Communications that he was offered bribes to vouch for the validity of the tournament. He brought his concerns to to ABC executives, who were initially skeptical as key voices such as the legendary Howard Cosell disagreed with Wallau's characterization of the tournament's participants.

Wallau was ultimately proven correct. The tournament was a scam and ABC disassociated itself with it.

Wallau reluctantly became an on-air commentator for boxing in 1986, because the network wasn't happy with its replacements for Cosell. But while washing his face he felt a lump on his neck. He was hit with a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

He lost 45 pounds, came back to call fights again and lasted almost another 40 years before passing away Oct. 10.

After his initial diagnosis, Wallau told The Chicago Tribune:

”After three months, 25 percent of the people who have this are dead already. I'm doing well. It's like a 15-round fight. You don't know if you can do it until you try. I'm ready to give it a shot.

”I've always felt that things even up in life. I've had an unbelievably lucky life, a tremendous family, friends, wife. So I figure this is my tough time, but a lot of people have tough times their whole life. I remember telling my wife once, 'I can't always be this lucky.' So, in a way, I was prepared for it.

"How many people would do anything for a network TV job? And I had one handed to me. I've never had to struggle. I've had a lot of lucky breaks. So I've had a bad break. It's logical to expect that will happen."

In a statement, released by boxing publicist Fred Sternburg, Lampley wrote about Wallau:

"As much as any boxer I covered via the vast foundation of knowledge with which he and he alone first blessed me, Alex Wallau was a FIGHTER. His survival in a gruesome battle with throat cancer in the early 1990s was beyond courageous. The simple fact he endured for another thirty years is an example of epic courage. He taught me how to see and call boxing matches, and through that the eventual emblem of my entire fifty-year career was a gift from him. I'm devastated that he is gone, but eternally grateful he was here. All his friends and familial survivors have my deepest and most heartfelt sympathy. Thank you forever, Alex."