Best inside the ring announcers....

Buffer back in the days:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rd7PIwite4g

 

How about Ray Leonard... when he did the ring announcing for Holyfield-Douglas? That was just hilarious!

 

Leonard was always a comical fellow

 

The announcer that's the most nostalgic for me is Harry Balough, who replaced Joe Humphreys at Madison Square Garden in '33.

It still brings chills thinking of Balough, with his shellacked hair and shiny tuxedo, grabbing the overheard mic at center ring in the old Garden, pronouncing like a Shakespearean bootlegger, "...and may the victor emerge triumphant!", or his melodramatic equivilant of an aurator in the Roman Senate trying to be heard over 17,000 rabid fans, "IN THIS CORNER . . . S-U-G-A-R . . . R-A-Y . . . R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N!"

 

john i envy you having experienced a time and age in boxing like that.

 

Joe Humphreys was great in his day, the only thing I heard of him is the Dempsey Tunney II call. Outside of that, nothing in regards to voice. Would loved to hear his call of Dempsey Firpo with out the mic.

 

Jimmy Lennon snr. Very distinctive sounding voice.

 

.............The venerable Chuck Hull gets my vote.

It always bothers me when I watch an older fight how the announcers have no sense of the drama of the reading of a decision. They'd say, "judge so and so scores it 144-141 for fighter A; jusge so and so also judges it for fighter A," giving away the punchline. Pisses me off every time.

 

Don Dumphey, the first. That nasal, weathered voice, you can hear and almost feel the history of boxing in its timber.

 

Ck,

Who's the boxer in your avatar?

 

John Garfield, that's my dad, who fought in the 40's and 50's, first under the name of Charley Young Zivic, then his birth name Charley Affif. He fought guys like Dauthuille, Rossano, Sonny Horne, Freddie Archer, Herbie Kronowitz at the Garden in '47, was in line to fight LaMotta for the title till he got ko'd in the 9th by Dauthuille in Pittsburgh. He did pretty well considering he was fighting with a plate in his right arm that that took his right cross away.

 

I really liked the late Chuck Hull. He had a great voice, and didn't make a spectacle of himself, like Michael Buffer does, who is just an egomaniac and self promoter who forgets that people are attending or tuning in for a fight, not him.

 

I still get chills thinkin' of ring announcer Harry Balough, with his shellacked hair and shiny tuxedo, grabbing the mic center ring in the old Garden, trying to raise his voice over the 17000 fans straining on the edge of their seats to hear him say:

"IN THIS CORNER...SUGAR...RAY...ROBINSONNNNN!!"

 

Sorry to have posted the same thing twice. Didn't know it was an old thread, and didn't know how to erase it.

 

Just tuned in to Holyfield-Douglas, and that wasn't Sugar Ray Leonard as the ring announcer. Whoever that guy was, he was terrible though, which probably explains why I haven't seen him again.