They Call Him Bruce

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By Mike Russell

If you were to tune in to a UFC broadcast for the first time, one of the first things to likely grab your attention would be the manic ringmaster in the impeccably tailored suit whose feverish gesticulations and frenzied articulations of the pending event’s participants’ names and vital statistics has the crowd hanging on his every syllable.

“Who is this guy?” you might ask yourself as the MC feigns as though he is going to motion to one of the athletes in the cage and instead, seeming like he might risk whiplash, snaps his head and torso to point to the opposite corner to introduce the fighter he now faces, spiking his discarded cue card on the canvas behind him like it has just scorched his hand.

Although his driver’s license lists Bruce Anthony Buffer as his given name, he is known by many monikers. UFC color commentator Mike Goldberg christened him The Veteran Voice of the Octagon. Fans refer to him by several variations of his last name including The Buff, The Buffer or Buffer, while others as those who know him do, simply call him Bruce.

What endears Buffer to fans, besides his obvious passion for his job is the fact that he makes time for those who request it from him and is approachable – a fact that he takes great pride in.

“UFC fans are some of the best fans of any sport out there, so I make a point of making time to connect with them. I am so passionate about the sport and am so lucky to do what I do and I take my role as an ambassador of the organization very seriously. My role has always been to promote the fighters and the UFC. I take my job very seriously and I will never do anything to harm the name or the image of the UFC,” Buffer says. “Do I enjoy the paycheck that comes with my job? Absolutely. Is that the reason I do it? Absolutely not. When people ask me about my job I tell them, ‘I get the best seats to watch every event of my favorite sport and I get paid quite well to do it. I also get to be the center of attention at an event watched by millions of people and I get to meet a large number of them as I travel around the world. What more could you ask for in a job?’”

The excitement and passion he now has for his job was something that was lacking in the two businesses Buffer owned in 1992. Taking a gamble as the avid poker player would do many more times in his life, Bruce sold the businesses and went “all in”, taking the helm of half-brother Michael Buffer’s rising career as one of the world’s preeminent boxing ring announcers.

“I told Michael I would make him more money than he had ever dreamed he would make and hopefully myself in the process. I indicated at the time that I would like to announce one day and we agreed that I would never do boxing unless something came up with him that took him to another sport,” Buffer says. “I said ‘I know something will come along and I’ll know what it is when it comes along’. I’m sure you can guess what that was.”

A full-time Octagon fixture since UFC 10, Bruce got his break announcing for the organization after Michael was forced to bow out of UFC 8 due to contractual obligations to WCW wrestling after working the previous two events. Having worked the undercard at UFC 8, five months later Buffer made his official UFC announcing debut taking over the microphone duties from Rich Goins. In spite of landing the plumb role, he was unsure whether or not he would be invited back given the organization’s revolving door of broadcast team members at the time. He credits television’s top sitcom of the time for helping to bolster his case to then-UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz that he should be hired by the organization full time.

“I was managing a fighter named Scott “The Pitbull” Ferrozzo at the time. I got him into the UFC 8 tournament but in reality I had an ulterior motive for contacting the owners. I called Bob and I suggested he let me announce the prelims so I could show him what I could do. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer and I told him my tuxedo was already packed. I did the prelims on that card and then I announced the whole show at UFC 10. I then starred in an episode of Friends in which I played myself as the UFC announcer,” he recalls. “I called Bob while I was on the set and I told him we needed to talk and I explained that if people see me on Friends, which was the number one show on TV at the time, they are going to think I was the official UFC announcer, so I suggested he hire me. He did and the rest is history.”

Including the promotion’s upcoming landmark UFC 100 event, Buffer, who describes his unique style as being “equal parts Frank Sinatra, PT Barnum and the world’s best cheerleader” will have announced 123 events in the Octagon. An equally impressive statistic is the fact that he has worked for the organization longer than any other employee. Having turned 52 in May, he says he has no plans of retirement any time soon regardless of how physically trying his performances - which he maintains are much more than reading out names and statistics - can be. He says the fighter fake-out move he has dubbed “The Buffer 180” might be eclipsed by a newer, flashier move at the event July 11 that may blow the roof off the Mandalay Events Center in Las Vegas.

“I turned 52 in May and as far as I’m concerned, the way I work in the Octagon – whether it’s a Buffer 180 or 360, which could very well happen at UFC 100 – I can do this well into my sixties. I’ll be doing this as long as they’ll have me,” says Buffer. “No matter what I do in life, I always give one hundred and fifty percent. Some of my moves are a little pushy on the knees or the hips but like I always say, the show must go on.”

The fact that he has yet to miss a show proves that Buffer practices what he preaches. Though he says there were times that his impressive consecutive event streak was in jeopardy, much like fighters who rarely go into an event one hundred percent healthy often do, Buffer says he kept his maladies and injuries on the down low until after the shows were over.

“I have done many shows when I was sick with things like Strep throat. On the day of one event, I came down with a temperature of one hundred and three [degrees]. Big John McCarthy came up to me before the show and asked me what was wrong because I looked so sick. I made him promise me he wouldn’t tell anyone. At the request of the paramedics who were on hand, I went to the hospital to get an I.V. because I was so dehydrated. I finished the show despite feeling like my legs were going to give out and I even made a brief appearance at the after party before going back to my hotel room and literally passing out from exhaustion.”

There have been many changes in the thirteen years since Buffer began working for the UFC, the most significant of which he says was the change in ownership when Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta purchased the struggling promotion and named Dana White as president.

“I think the real seed that would eventually become the massive thing the UFC has become was planted when Dana and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta took control of the company,” Buffer says. “If they had not, we wouldn’t be talking right now and I hate to say it but I doubt that MMA events, let alone UFC events, would still be happening anywhere in the U.S. or Canada. They would likely all be underground events like they were back in the early days of the sport.”

Equally as important in turning around the company’s deficit and helping build the foundation of the empire that Zuffa has built, Buffer says, was the decision that was made to take their product to television audiences via an upstart fringe television network.

“As a poker player, I look at that the decision to become involved with The Ultimate Fighter series as a ten-million-dollar roll of the dice by Dana and the Fertittas,” says Buffer. “They basically said ‘this is all or nothing’ and made a very risky move that paid off more than anyone could ever have imagined. Who knows where we would be without that show. I’m glad we’ll never know the answer to that.”

Looking back at Buffer’s early work in the cage, it becomes clear that he too has evolved in proportion to the immeasurable growth of the UFC. His secret he says is not to treat every show as it’s his last the way that other entertainers approach their performances.

“When I am announcing a fight, I treat it like it is my first fight. That way I know it is my best performance and I know I am going to put everything I have into it. When I introduce a fighter, I do it like I would want to be introduced. When a fighter is in the Octagon and their adrenaline is pumping and they are all warmed up and ready to go, I’m there to motivate them even further,” Buffer explains. “My background is in motivational speaking and I think I integrate that well into what I do. Dan Hardy is a great example of a guy who feeds off of his introduction to take his motivation to the next level. You can see the excitement in his eyes and in how captivated he is with how I announce his name. That just pushes me even more to perform.”

Buffer, who is currently entertaining multiple book offers, is featured prominently in the new UFC 2009 Undisputed video game, and despite his success, he is humbled by the praise heaped on him by fans. But managing his brother’s career and learning how to market him properly gave him a template of what worked to increase exposure and gave him an idea of how popular he had the potential to become, he says. He admits he was skeptical whether or not the fledgling sport would become half as popular as its pugilistic predecessor, but says he knew the potential was there.

“Managing my brother’s career for so many years, I was used to fielding a variety of offers for him to appear outside of the boxing ring and I saw how popular he had become. He was already so established in the ring so it was a natural progression of the evolutionary process of his career,” he says. That gave me a lot of notes to refer to that I had taken as I watched my own career evolve even though our styles are distinctly different.”

With his immense popularity come some far-out requests by fans and potential employers who want their names or products immortalized in the famous Buffer baritone. What kind of requests you might ask?

“I’ve gotten requests for birthday appearances and I’ve gotten and fulfilled requests to announce the married couples-to-be for weddings. I recently did the World Series of Beer Pong, which cracked me up. I didn’t even know what it was before doing it. I get many requests for voice messages on answering machine and answering service messages,” Buffer explains. “I think the strangest requests I get in the UK when I’m there. Fans will come up to me and ask if I’ll kiss their wives. I tell them ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen’. As long as it isn’t something ultra weird, I’ll do it. I got a request from a popular exotic dance club in Vegas to announce the feature dancers at the bar one night. It was kind of hard to turn that one down. This job does have its perks.”

But when he’s not bellowing his trademark phrases We are live!, It’s time! or Ladies and gentlemen, this is your main event of the evening! Buffer relishes the opportunity to just be a fan at Octagonside enjoying the fights. Like he said, he's got the best seat in the house.

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