A SLICE OF BOXING Michael Buffer’s Extraordinary Journey By Thomas Hauser
his first fight card as a ring announcer for
at ringside, but I left my notes back at the hotel and I don’t know who’s fighting that night. Now, if it wakes me up, I can laugh it off. The first few times, it wasn’t funny.” • Buffer owns 25 tuxedos, three dozen suits, a dozen sport jackets and roughly 50 dress shirts. “I’m fussy about my shirts,” he acknowledged. “I usually wash and iron them myself. If I do send them to the cleaner, I touch them up when they come back. Sometimes, when I buy a new shirt, the collar button doesn’t line up perfectly. I’ll take it off and sew it back on myself so it fits just right. And people who are right- handed tie their knot so that the bottom of the knot goes to the right. If you’re left-handed, it’s the reverse. But a left-handed knot has a better fit because it’s snug against the top button, so you get a cleaner look. I’m right-handed, but I reverse my hands and tie my knot left- handed. It takes forever, but it looks better when I’m done.” Buffer will celebrate his 82nd birthday on November 2. Last year, he worked 13 fight cards – most of them in the Middle East or United Kingdom – logging several hundred thousand miles. He’ll come close to those numbers this year. That’s a grueling schedule. Considering his age, will he continue ring announcing? “Frank Sinatra sang into his eighties,” Buffer answers. “Why can’t I keep going?” Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – is available at Amazon.com and other platforms. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Alessi Promotions at The Playboy Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. “I was very scared,” he later recalled. “Even though I’d gone over what I was going to say a hundred times, I was atrocious, absolutely horrible.” Despite that poor showing, Frank Gelb, who worked with Bob Arum on East Coast fights, hired Buffer to work a March 1983 Top Rank event. Buffer was soon a fixture on Top Rank Boxing on ESPN, which gave him national exposure. He caught the eye of Bob Halloran, who was the point person on boxing for Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and the roller-coaster ride began. Buffer first used his signature “Let’s get ready to rumble” phrase in 1984. “I wanted something comparable to ‘Gentlemen, start your engines’ at the Indy 500,” he later explained. “A hook that would excite people and put some energy into the arena. I tried ‘man your battle stations’ and ‘batten down the hatches’ and ‘fasten your seat belts.’ But none of them worked. Then I remembered Muhammad Ali saying, ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee; rumble, young man, rumble.’ And when Sal Marchiano was the blow-by- blow commentator for ESPN, he’d say, ‘We’re ready to rumble.’ So I took those ideas and fine-tuned them.”
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Buffer worked the World Cup soccer final between Spain and Argentina.
his resume. He has appeared at playoff games for the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB and has worked his magic at hundreds of trade shows. One of his less conventional boxing gigs took place in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2014, when he was the ring announcer for a four-round bout between adult glamour model Jordan Carver and adult film star Melanie Muller. A video of that event is available on YouTube. Buffer is not as calm, cool and collected as he seems to be. “I have this recurring anxiety dream,” he revealed. “I’ve had it for years. There are variations on the theme but it’s basically the same dream. I have a show to do and I can’t find my tuxedo; or I can’t get out of my hotel room; or the car breaks down on the way to the arena; or I’m up in the top seats looking down and everyone at ringside is looking for me, but I can’t find my way down; or I’m
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“Now, for the thousands in attendance and the millions watching on television around the world … LET’S GET R-R-R-READY TO RUMBL-L-L-L-E … ”
“the worst car salesman in the world.” In 1976, a friend suggested that he try modeling. “And I haven’t had a real job since,” he says. In 1982, Buffer was working as a model and decided he’d like to try his hand at ring announcing. But his initial foray into the sweet science was less than ideal. Don Elbaum was promoting fight cards at The Tropicana in Atlantic City and asked Buffer if he’d like to work a publicity event free of charge to promote an upcoming show. The event took place in a parking lot outside a mall in Pleasantville, New Jersey. It was a hot, sticky, muggy summer afternoon. By Buffer’s count, about 15 people showed up to watch it.
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If you’re reading The Ring, you know who that is. Michael Buffer is boxing royalty. He has been at the heart of boxing’s pageantry for four decades and is the gold standard by which ring announcers are judged. There’s no parallel in any other sport to what he has accomplished. But did you know that …
parents. “I was 11 months old at the time,” he recounted. “So, growing up, my foster parents were the only parents I knew. And they were a great mom and dad. My foster father, who I think of as my father, was a bus driver. Their name was Huber. My name was Michael Huber. Then, at age 20, I enlisted in the Army. But because I’d never been formally adopted, my legal name was still Michael Buffer, and that’s what the Army used.” Buffer was discharged from the military in 1967 and went to work as what he calls
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Buffer’s natural father was 19 years old and in the Navy in 1944 when Michael was born. He married Michael’s mother; the war ended; father and mother went separate ways; and Michael was placed with foster
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Buffer has plied his trade in North America, South
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America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Antarctica is the only continent missing from
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Later that year, Buffer worked
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