Rumbling Preparation. Part One.

I am a huge and knowledgeable boxing fan.
I have been one since I was a kid.
My access these days to good professional boxing is the almost weekly events they have on
HBO and Showtime.
When I was a kid, my main access was the Saturday Night Fights on ABC.
Then, when each network had a major "Sports Spectacular" type of show, good professional
boxing gravitated to them.
But that died out, and now, it's almost exclusively HBO and Showtime on Friday or Saturday nights, with an occasional Pay-Per-View which I never pay for.
During the Saturday Night Fights era, usually held in Madison Square Garden in New York,
the man who introduced the fights and the fighters was a quintessential New Yorker who never made an introduction without sounding like he was reading it.
His name was Johnnie Addie.
Even though his introductions weren't colorful, there was something about him that was.
Witnessing Johnnie Addie do his job raised a question in this young adolescent's mind.
Did Johnnie Addie make an actual living from doing this?
I never heard of him having any other kind of job.
I know he also had the same job working wrestling matches.
This was during the days when I actually watched them, and honestly had no idea that they
were fixed.
So I guess Johnnie cobbled together some sort of living.
Later on, the ring announcer at Madison Square Garden was a man named John Condon, who was also the Director of Sporting Events there, so ring announcing was just a sideline for John Condon.
The other major ring announcer contemporary of Johnnie Addie's was Jimmy Lennon.
But he was primarily a West Coast guy.
Whenever there was a fight from L.A., Jimmy Lennon was the announcer.
So I never got to see that much of him.
He brought an elegance and class to ring announcing that Johnnie Addie simply did not have.
I also wondered if Jimmy Lennon had a day job. or was ring announcing was enough to pay the bills.
Jimmy Lennon was perhaps best remembered as the ring announcer in the "Rocky" movies.
This brings us to today.
Jimmy Lennon has passed on, and on Showtime, his son, Jimmy Lennon Jr., usually billed
as "the classy Jimmy Lennon Jr." is the go-to ring announcer there.
And he certainly is classy.
Just like the old man.
And the same questions persist.
Does he make a living purely from this?
If so, he must be making a whole lot of money by the word.
Because none of these guys say all that much.
Jimmy Lennon Jr.'s catchphrase introducing the main event on Showtime is, appropriately enough, "I-i-i-it's Showtime!!!"

This brings us to Michael Buffer.
HBO's go-to guy.
Also very classy.
And he brings a sense of drama to the proceedings.
He's the one who always says, before the main event, "L-l-l-l-et's get ready to rumble!!!!"
And the crowd goes nuts
I did some research on this article, and learned something very interesting about Michael Buffer.
I'll share it with you next time.

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My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
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And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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