Let’s get ready to rumble! Inside the ropes with boxing’s ring announcers

I fully embrace how ridiculous my job is,” Kody Mommaerts smiles, his whitened grin stretching as wide as a face could allow. “I think you have to understand how ridiculous it is to be able to lean into it, and to be comfortable doing it on this level. I understand that I get into the ring, wear a tuxedo, and yell information into a microphone that you already know. But it works! And it’s badass!”

Better known by his moniker “Big Mo”, 27-year-old Denver native Mommaerts is the youngest ring announcer working at the top end of professional boxing. Ring announcers, also known as “MCs” (masters of ceremonies), are combat sports’ equivalent of the circus ringmaster. They are the men, sometimes women, who usher fighters into the ring, outline the boxers’ backgrounds and accolades, and rev up the crowd with distinctive voices, flamboyant gestures, and pure, distilled energy. Cartoonishly puffed up and preening, they present themselves as carnivalesque characters on nights of commodified violence.

If you’re a fan of combat sports, you’ll be familiar with the golden shimmer of Michael Buffer’s voice, and the iconic boxing moments it has declaimed over decades; or the razor rasp of his younger brother Bruce Buffer, inextricable from the UFC’s rapid rise over the last 30 years. Michael has even trademarked his catchphrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble,” while Bruce’s famous call to arms, “It’s time,” has bred startling success for him on Cameo. And you’ll be hearing much more of Mommaerts’s deep, warm tones in the UK, as the American takes up a prominent place on Sky Sports boxing shows.

From the earliest organised bouts in Harlem, Boston and Bermondsey in the 1800s, ring announcing has existed as a key part of shows and broadcasts. Later, through the 1940s and 1960s, Jimmy Lennon Sr became renowned among boxing’s dedicated fans, as did his son Jimmy Lennon Jr in the decades that followed – alongside the likes of Chuck Hull and Ed Derian. While this group and their peers crafted the art form and captivated the hardcore boxing audience, it was the elder Buffer brother who would take the role to previously unimaginable heights in the 1980s, capturing the imagination of viewers worldwide.

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In fact, Buffer’s grandeur would have been welcome at the momentous “Rumble In The Jungle” showdown between Ali and Foreman in 1974. The announcer on this night, a nameless local, carried sheets of paper – unlike the subtler cue cards of today – and had virtually zero stage presence. Engaging in polite tones with the Zaire audience, in their mother tongue of French, his voice was practically drowned out by Ali’s signature bark. One of the legacies of the “Rumble” was bequeathing the tagline that inspired Buffer’s now universally recognisable catchphrase. “I tried ‘Fasten your seatbelts,’ and ‘Man your battle stations,’ but everything fell flat,” Buffer revealed in 2017. Thus, “Leeeeeet’s get ready to ruuuuumbleeeeeeeee!!!” was born. Now, it is up to the likes of Mommaerts to carve a young edge around a beloved tradition, drawing inspiration from his predecessors but incising his individuality.

“There was never a moment where I realised I had a voice for it,” Mommaerts tells The Independent over Zoom, his blonde quiff tucked under a cap, and his 6ft 6in frame folded into a desk chair. “It was more that I started to become very comfortable with [public] speaking when I finished playing football in college. I was top of my class as a public speaker, always a presenter. When I was maybe 21, I hosted the end-of-year award show for our athletics department – did this whole monologue, wore a tux, cracked jokes about coaches. My friends said I should try sports commentary or punditry, and I liked combat sports.

“Next thing you know, I became a colour commentator for a small, local organisation. I saw the announcer in the ring and thought: ‘I can probably do that.’ I took it over and built and scaled, was the ‘youngest announcer in the world’ at 23, and that moniker helped me get to certain levels. I dedicated myself to growing this brand: ‘Big Mo’. I used to wear sunglasses in the ring. I wanted to stand out.”

Unsurprisingly, Mommaerts cites the Buffer brothers as inspirations, but his attempts to channel their grandiosity led Big Mo to be “way over the top, just too much” at first. “It sounded terrible. I still have clips on my phone, as motivation for me,” he says, and that helped him to tone down his approach. Not too much, though: “I always kind of knew how I wanted to present my voice, I like a little more energy.” Mommaerts also knew people in the business. “Lots of coaches and managers on the scene in Denver, they said, ‘You have something here.’ I just needed fine-tuning. Now I’m on Sky Sports, doing Chris Eubank Jr vs Liam Smith in front of about 20,000 people.”

That is about 19,950 more than were there for Mommaerts’s earliest shows, at the start of a career that has taken in not only boxing but mixed martial arts, bare-knuckle boxing, Muay Thai and kickboxing. He is not yet too grand to turn down more unusual venues, either; he recalls announcing a local bout in a Wyoming parking lot during the pandemic, with around 200 spectators present. Then, in 2022, Mommaerts worked a crossover boxing match between strongmen Eddie Hall and Hafthor “Thor” Bjornsson in Dubai. All the while, he had been calling almost “every promotion in the world”, but it was promotional company Boxxer who contacted Mommaerts after Hall vs Thor. “They saw me standing between Hall and Thor at the weigh-in, trying to hold them back!” Mommaerts laughs.

Ben Shalom, founder and CEO of Boxxer, tells The Independent: “Boxing is dramatic by its very nature, and the essence of a good ring announcer is someone who can heighten that drama. A good announcer is like an orchestra conductor; he’s channelling his energy and excitement to the crowd for them to channel it back in their thousands. The announcer plays a central role in creating the atmosphere of a big fight.”

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With Boxxer, Mommaerts has not only announced for Eubank Jr’s two fights with Smith in 2023 but also the seismic women’s clash between Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall in 2022, as well as cruiserweight Chris Billam-Smith’s recent trio of successes in Bournemouth. Some events bring intrinsic electricity, which Mommaerts can harness; on other occasions, Mommaerts must provide the spark.

“When it comes to a show that’s a little smaller or quieter, there are subtle adjustments I make,” he says. “I don’t go Eubank vs Smith level if there are 4,000-5,000 people, but I’m still the same person and try to bring the same energy. I want to reach out, bring the audience with me and get them comfortable to engage. I don’t think boxing should have golf claps, I want cheering. I try to just incrementally get the crowd into it. The one thing I think I do a little differently to other announcers is that... a lot of announcers start [with less energy] and crescendo up to the main event. I like to start [high], then regress, then build back up.

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“I have a unique position, where I have my finger on the pulse of the audience. I can see and hear with my own eyes, is the audience into it? Are they chatting? Are they on their phone? Are they at the bar? I can react and freshen it up a bit. I really value entertainment as a means of escape for people. I think it actually plays a really important role in society, as a way for people to relax and disconnect.”

There are very few moments for Mommaerts himself to relax, however, on a fight night. “My social battery is drained at the end of the night,” he says, “because I care about putting on a show. If we’re expecting people to take four to five hours out of their life to come to a show and pay a lot of money for a ticket, or watch at home on pay-per-view, I want to give people their money’s worth.”

It’s not all about the fans, though. Unbeaten British heavyweight Frazer Clarke, a medal winner at the Tokyo Olympics, tells The Independent: “It’s like the final battle call. Sometimes you don’t really hear the ring music; you just hear the announcer, your name and your record. Big Mo does it amazingly. He sends shivers down you and makes your hairs stand up.”

Meanwhile, Billam-Smith recalls the moment before his world title win against Lawrence Okolie in May: “Standing in my dream venue for my dream fight, at the Vitality Stadium, Big Mo starts announcing me... that’s the moment you really switch on – the last moment before you go into battle. It gets you into that laser-focused zone, and it’s a big part of it because if you were just announced in a generic tone, it wouldn’t have the same feel. It’s a special moment having your name read out, one you really look forward to as a fighter, and obviously, Big Mo does an incredible job.”

Results like Mommaerts’s can come at a cost, though, so the toll on his voice must be managed. “I’ve seen doctors and people who specialise in ear, nose and throat [treatment],” he says. “I actually don’t believe the voice is the most important thing, but it is crucial to my job, so I have to take care of it. Hydration is a big one, drinking a lot of water. Tea is always great to soothe the throat. I do vocal warm-ups before the show, listen to music in my headphones. I probably sound like an idiot from outside my hotel room, ’cause I can’t sing.”

Mommaerts may not be able to sing, but he knows his way around a battle call.