In Search Of Excellence - Jon Anik: How a $12,000 Bet on Himself Made Him the Voice of the UFC | E124

Starting point is 00:00:00 Can you hit a freestyle right now real quick? Just give us something off the top of your head. Oh man, this guy's really putting me on the spot. TJ Dillashaw, Killashaw, best band and weight of all time. Nah, y'all, that's Dominic Cruz, y'all. Have you seen the footwork? Sugar Sean O'Malley, former guest on this here podcast. But we got to stop it down there because we're ill-prepared.

Starting point is 00:00:19 And you know preparation is the key to everything I do. I'm nothing without my notes. You may get an agent after all that. We'll have to wait and see. Let's go. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives.

Starting point is 00:00:53 My guest today is John Anik. For the last 13 years, John has been the lead play-by-play announcer for the UFC, and according to his announcing partner, Joe Rogan, he is the best play-by-play commentator in the history of the sport. Along with former UFC fighter Kenny Florian, John is a co-host of the very popular Anik Florian podcast. John, thanks for being here. Randy, thank you. Welcome to Inferno of Excellence. Great to be here with you. Thank you for having me. Welcome to South Florida.

Starting point is 00:01:19 Welcome. Thanks for having me. So I would start our podcast with our family, which shapes our future. You've never talked about your parents before. So tell us about your parents, what they were like, how they influenced you, and what's it like to be the oldest of four siblings and three years older, three seconds older than your twin brother who's here today. Well, I know you're a father of twins, so you know just how special that whole twin thing can be. But you're right. I haven't sort of talked a lot in depth about my parents in the past. My mom, I think, is in large part the woman who made me the man that I am today. She has had a huge influence on my entire life and not just when it comes to my golf game, but just a huge motivational force.

Starting point is 00:02:00 And I remember when we were kids, we grew up in the Metro West Boston area. There wasn't like a public basketball league. So this woman started Wellesley Youth Basketball, which still exists to this day. You know, I think a lot of my work ethic was probably instilled by my dad. You know, he was a certified public accountant. He worked for Arthur Anderson. So that Enron situation back in 2001 was not kind to his bottom line necessarily. But he was just always working and then he would come home and he would hit the pavement and run. And so I had a lot of different, my parents were very different, but I think they both sort of resonated with me in different ways. And I really think though, in terms of my formative years, my siblings probably had even more of an impact on me than my parents did. Certainly I could speak for the entire hour today about my monozygotic identical twin brother, Jason, and how much he has impacted my life. But then my younger brother and my younger sister as well. I'm all about big families and I feel like I was sort of forged by one. So I don't know that anybody realizes any modicum of success or anything hard in life without having a good base. And I certainly had

Starting point is 00:03:05 that. So your grandfather had season tickets to the hapless New England Patriots. What was that like being a Boston sports fan? I mean, you're like the Detroit fans, right? We've got the Red Wings. We've got the Lions. We've got the Tigers. We got the Pistons. For so many years, they were horrible. But you grew up going to all the games through every play, and then you had to listen to the postgame. What was that like being with your grandfather? So we were always diehard Boston sports fans, but the New England Patriots was the team that we had the season tickets for. And they were the laughingstock of the NFL. As you know, the doormat for 15 years or so.

Starting point is 00:03:44 Right, Dan Marino would just go into Foxborough. They'd lose 41 to six. And to your point, great research. My grandfather would make me listen to the whole fucking post show on the ride home. And he would always have the heat just cranked. I just remember those losses. And I think that's why we waited to exhale and had the chance to exhale when all those Boston sports teams realized such great success. But I'm telling you, bro, my record as a fan in Foxborough, and I went to a lot of playoff wins and a lot of regular season wins. I'm probably 50 games under 500 as a fan. So it just speaks to just how lean those years were before the skies opened and Boston became title town there for a decade or so. And that was pre-Robert Kraft.

Starting point is 00:04:27 Was it the shaver guy, Victor? I forget his name on the team. Yeah, so in 1993, Bob Kraft bought the team and essentially, I don't know if there was a poison pill in the contract that he presented my grandfather, but we had a box on the 50-yard line. It was pretty high up, but he wanted his father at that time to have that suite and basically put something in the contract that made it. So my grandfather couldn't afford

Starting point is 00:04:50 it. And that's at least as I understood it at the time, and we were no longer season ticket holders. So I think my grandfather had some bitterness towards Bob craft for a point in time. But, uh, when you went through what we did as fans, certainly there was a celebration and, uh, very happy to, uh, you know, have watched all those championships. And my brother and I went to that last Belichick Brady Super Bowl in a great season. It was really fun. My wife and I went to the game up in San Fran. It looked good going to Super Bowl until it didn't look good, but love our coach. It's so important to have a great coach to lead your team and he really turned things around. We talk a lot about leadership versus bosses, right? Bosses and leaders are two different types of things. And even though maybe people would scoff at Jared Goff, your quarterback, getting this big contract, he's a leader of men.

Starting point is 00:05:48 He has proven as much and his teammates want him to get that money. They put him over every chance they get. And I do think in life I have come across a lot of people that are pretty good bosses. A select few are actually good leaders. And I think Goff's worth the money. I don't know how you feel. I think when Goff came in, and again, this is what I think people thought. He was a throw-in for the Stafford trade. And Stafford, I think, is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. And he

Starting point is 00:06:12 never gets that due. He played on the worst team. Interesting. And Detroit had the worst record of any league in any sport for so many periods of time. When he went to Los Angeles, I was pumped for him. As a guy who played injured, played on the worst team, never complained once. And when Goff came in, I said, oh my God, he's got this $36 million contract. He's going to be terrible. When Stafford came back to Detroit, as you know, people were yelling, Jared Goff, Jared Goff, Jared Goff. I don't know if you saw the draft, but that's when the fans were yelling out, Jared Goff, Jared Goff, when he came on stage. But it's been great to see him get the contract

Starting point is 00:06:51 he deserved. Most people don't know he was in the top three of all categories last year in Detroit, which is a very blue collar town, as you know. They don't like CEOs getting paid $20 million, $30 million, but no one's complaining about his $53 million a year contract. I think it's great. And I'm not going to sit here and suggest that the Detroit Lions have superseded the Dallas Cowboys as America's team, but let me just submit to you as a New England Patriots fan and as a fan of the NFL, and I'm not telling you anything you probably don't know, but I can't tell you how many of us were rooting so hard for the Detroit Lions to run the table. And Dan Campbell, yeah, another great leader, a guy who you'd want to run through a brick wall for. Reminds me of

Starting point is 00:07:28 Dana White. So we're rooting for you guys. I think they'll break through. But to your point, last year, that was a window and an opportunity. And even though I think their window might now be three years, last year was a pretty good opportunity. Let's move on to high school. You were a leader, captain of your basketball team. You played basketball, tennis, I believe is a second sport. You were a great public speaker. And I think public speaking is a skill that most of us, most people don't realize it's critical to our success in life. When did you realize you became a, you were a very good public speaker? Did you work at it? Did it come naturally? And what's your advice to people who are just terrified of public speaking and say, gosh,

Starting point is 00:08:08 I just can't do that? Well, we all have our fears. And I'm not too good with heights. I'm not too good with large insects. But when it comes to public speaking, I think a lot of it was just natural. And I feel like it took me well into my 40s to ever admit that I had any natural ability as an orator or otherwise in life. And I think for a lot of people who are listening, lean into that.

Starting point is 00:08:29 Like, what are my natural abilities and what are things that I'm not particularly good at? I was not the valedictorian, but I got the chance to give the speech for my high school class because my classmates thought that I would be the best man for the job. I think for me, though, it really crystallized when I was working as a newspaper writer and my copy was always clean. You know, I wasn't submitting copy that needed a bunch of editing, but I was always running into more creative writers out there who would write better leads. And yet when we would have arguments in the sports room, in the newsroom, I felt like humbly I could talk circles around these guys, you know, and when it came to articulating a sports argument that I had that ability to put words together. So that started my wheels churning that maybe broadcast

Starting point is 00:09:10 journalism would be a better fit for me than print journalism. But I guess my advice to people would be repetitions for anything. And even if you're starting a podcast and your mother is the only one who's listening, right, that's going to make you a more confident, more comfortable speaker. And I look into a camera lens on a Conor McGregor pay-per-view and I'm speaking to tens of millions of people potentially around the world, yet I'm looking at a little black circle, right? And yet the consequence of me fucking that up is pretty large. One of the things that you've talked about before is knowing your strengths and weaknesses. And you knew at some point you were a good public speaker. What's your advice to all the people out there from teenagers listening to the show, college kids listening to the show, young professionals, even mid-career professionals who are saying, gosh, I really don't

Starting point is 00:09:59 know what I'm good at. How do I figure out what I'm good at? You knew early you were a good speaker, but a lot of people don't. How should people go about figuring that out? Well, trial and error is part of it, but I also feel like you need to be okay with it not happening for you at a young age. For me, Randy, I knew when I was 16 years old, I'm thankful to my home city and my family, but I knew that I wanted to work in sports. I didn't necessarily know that I was going to be a talker for a living. I thought I was going to be a columnist in the Boston Globe, and then I just kept running into better print writers. So I think you have to just throw things at the wall, see what sticks. Crystallize what you don't want to do. Because I got to ESPN,

Starting point is 00:10:38 I thought I wanted to be a sports center anchor. I broke down the door that I was trying to break down for years. And then it's like, all right, A's and Royals top of the fifth inning. And it's fucking three o'clock in the morning in Bristol, Connecticut. And then I'm eating McDonald's at 4 a.m. What's left on the late night menu. And I was just not in a good place in my life, you know, and realized that I wanted to do live events. So I think it's a constant evolution. I'm still finding myself at 45 years of age, but I do think that learning what my weaknesses were. And even if there are things that you are weak at being willing to improve those things, one of my daughters doesn't like ordering for herself at a restaurant. So you can be sure I

Starting point is 00:11:15 make her do it all the goddamn time. You know, that's a speaking thing. And even though she isn't necessarily where I thought she'd be after a year of ordering for herself. Uh, she knows now when we walk into a restaurant, daddy's not going to bail you out if you can't pronounce Rigatoni Bolognese. So at some point you're interested in being a rapper. So you got Marky Mark, who's in Boston. He's from Boston. Mark Wahlberg, we're talking about. What was the whole rapping thing? And can you give us a little rap right now for something that you can do on that track? Oh man, I got to kick something that means something right here for Randy. I don't know if I could do a freestyle rap right now. I have written some lyrics within the past year. We're

Starting point is 00:11:51 working on a one more sleep track. Leona Lewis hopes she doesn't get upset. She does have a Christmas song called one more sleep, but yeah, no, I think for a lot of my formative years, I wanted to be black. You know, I was picking my head and wearing a bandana and wearing big Carhartt jackets. And, you know, I just wanted to be a gangster. And, you know, I think maybe part of it was that I would talk a lot or lean into the or rating part of myself. But yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of our time in high school, we were either playing basketball late at night or we were sitting in Volkswagen Jettas trying to churn out a good freestyle rap. And you've probably heard me say of the 400 times I tried

Starting point is 00:12:32 to execute a clean freestyle rap, maybe got two or three of them out there cleanly. So that was not for me, but one day in some way, we will have a track. I'll only have one verse, Randy. I'm not the star. I'm never the star, but we're going to have a one more sleep track. It's going to be UFC centric and we'll find a rapper who can be the lead. Can you hit a freestyle right now? Real quick. Just give us something off the top of your head. Oh man,

Starting point is 00:12:54 this guy's really putting me on the spot. TJ Dillashaw, kill a Shaw, best band and weight of all time. Nah, y'all that's Dominic Cruz. Y'all have you seen the footwork? Sugar Sean O'Malley,

Starting point is 00:13:04 former guest on this year podcast, but we got to stop it down there because we're ill-prepared. And you know preparation is the key to everything I do. I'm nothing without my notes. Check out One More Sleep. It'll be on Apple Music in the not too distant future. Love it. Appreciate you. You may get an agent after all that. We'll have to wait and see. Let's go. So let's talk about college. You went to Gettysburg College. You majored in political journalism. And then you went to another kind of a graduate school, for lack of a better word, so you could become a better sportscaster. I want to talk about your internships and how important those are. And we'll start with the zone and how

Starting point is 00:13:43 you got that one. And we can take it from there. So I never necessarily led the league in ambition. And as such, I ended up at Gettysburg College by early decision, right? I knew I could get into that school. I had a buddy that had gone there the year before, but I knew pretty early on that I had gone to the wrong college, at least as far as my professional desires were concerned. I should have gone to Syracuse University. I was sitting down with the application, Syracuse, Newhouse Public School of Journalism, or go to Gettysburg College. And I went the more social route. So I had to end up at the American University. I did a journalism semester there. And that sort of helped me get on

Starting point is 00:14:20 a journalism path. I had to create a special major in political journalism, but I had to go to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in order to get course credit to get an internship at 1510 The Zone. And I knew that if I could get this internship at 1510 The Zone, sporting news radio affiliate in my native Boston, Massachusetts, that I could get on the air and potentially push this thing down the line. But it was going to be unpaid and I needed course credit. So I needed to go to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. My father thought that was systematically insane. I had just gone to Gettysburg College. I had a four-year degree. I had a degree in journalism and yet I'm trying to take out a loan for $12,000 to get this career

Starting point is 00:14:57 training. Now, some of the training was valuable. I read a teleprompter for the first time at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in 2003, but I spent that 12 grand to get that internship. And eventually I was able to work my way onto the air 15, 10, the zone. And, uh, and that's what allowed me to get to ESPN radio and push it down the line. But I definitely had some familial resistance when I made that decision to take out that loan. So I do a lot of coaching and I talk about people spending money on their own research and development efforts. So you just said lot of coaching and I talk about people spending money on their own research and development efforts. So you just said something interesting that I think people are going to think is crazy, but you said you wouldn't be where you are without it. You spent $12,000

Starting point is 00:15:33 because you knew you had to get that to get an internship. What's your advice to all those people out there who say, all right, I've graduated college and now I'm either going to work for free or I got to actually spend more money on something that may never happen in order to increase my probability of a successful result. And there's no guarantee for that. So I can't believe I had the wherewithal in 2003 at 25 years old to think that that was the right decision because two years later at 27, I was a fucking idiot making a lot of bad decisions, right? But I guess at that point in time, it was like betting on myself and just thinking that, oh, if I could just crack a microphone, I think that maybe

Starting point is 00:16:17 I'm good enough. And I didn't necessarily know if I was good enough. But even when I launched a podcast in 2015, I wasn't the lead voice of the UFC, but I felt like I could build something even if it was a net loss for my podcast co-host and myself and our families for five or so years before there was that light at the end of the tunnel. So we made even an investment at that stage of our careers, right? Kenny Florian, former three-time UFC title challenger, doing a podcast for free for half a decade. Now we don't scream that from the rooftops

Starting point is 00:16:50 that he wasn't making any money, but that is something that I'm still doing at 45 years of age, right? One more sleep, this brand, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a cool brand, but you know, we're spending money on this. We're not making money. It's constant.

Starting point is 00:17:04 And, you know, thankfully we're in position, you know, guys like you and on this. We're not making money. It's, it's constant. And, uh, you know, thankfully we're in position, you know, guys like you and me at this stage of our career to actually invest in ourselves. Um, but look what you're doing affecting change, you know, and not doing it for your own bottom line. I'm doing it to motivate and inspire. My goal in life is to make a material difference in the lives of a hundred million people. And that's the purpose of my show. And got a book a book coming out called Extreme Preparation. We're going to talk about preparation a little bit. It's one of my favorite topics. It is my favorite topic as well. So you went from intern to program director. Huge string of promotions. How did it happen? And what's your advice to people who start as an intern who say, gosh, it's such a long road to be somewhere senior

Starting point is 00:17:46 where I am. You had to have done something incredibly good all those years. Well, thank you. I think I'm willing to take on responsibility. And I went from being an intern to making, I think, $18,000 as the business manager. And I was doing everybody's expenses. I was answering phones. And then later in the afternoon, I might actually do a sports update. And then I'd come back to my cubicle and there would be missed sales calls. But I was willing to take on that responsibility and prove that I could be a secretary answering emails and still crank out the 4.20 PM Eastern update. So I think that was a big impetus for my success at that particular radio station, small staff being willing to do a lot of different things. And by the end of my time there, not only was I on the air, but I was doing

Starting point is 00:18:31 the schedule for all of the different producers. And again, at that point, crystallizing that maybe I didn't want to be a boss, right. But taking on a lot of boss type layers to my job at that point in time, but yeah, willingness to take on a responsibility. And again, just leaning into things that you're good at and leaning away from things that you're not good at. You can work on your weaknesses all you want, but I know there are things I'm never going to be good at and you need to be willing to punt on those things as well. I'm 55 years old. I've been in the workforce. Look at this guy. I mean, how good does this guy look, 55 years old? Thank you. I appreciate that. I've been in the working world now a little over 30 years and times have changed throughout those years.

Starting point is 00:19:07 So I think the workforce today is very different than what it was. I think a lot of these kids coming out of college and even a lot of young professionals, more entitled, less willing to do what I call the shit work. And they want everything exciting. They want the promotion. They want the promotion. They want the titles. Is there any substitute today for that hard work, even though times have changed, it's touchy-feely, people want to go home at six o'clock? To be at the best of what you do, don't you have to go back to work ethic and everything else old school?

Starting point is 00:19:41 A hundred percent. Now, you and I don't exist in a world where it's four days for the work week and then three days off, right? There are essentially no real days off, right? You're either working on yourself, you're working on your children, you're working on your profession. There really are not any days off. Like how many days off do you have in a calendar year where you're not doing anything professional? Less than seven. Right. So every message to my children is rooted in hard work for which there truly is no substitute. And sometimes I wonder why other broadcasters in a similar position don't lean into it the way I do. And perhaps they're more skilled, right? Perhaps I'm closing some sort of gap with my hard work and my preparation, but largely my pre-fight process while it's evolved, hasn't really

Starting point is 00:20:24 experienced wholesale change since I called my first MMA fight in 2009 because the system isn't broken. But the reggae artists say it all the time, nothing that is good in life ever comes easy. And for whatever reason, I haven't been able to get that to hammer home to my children yet. Hopefully we'll get there, but we're not there. What's interesting is you tell your children certain things. I got five kids, three in college. I have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old, so we'll be four next week. Often as the parents, the dad or mom tells your kids something, they don't want to listen to you. Dad, mom, you don't know anything. But when someone close to them or a coach tells them something, it rings true. Yeah. Which is just a phenomenon in life. My son, my son now 20 years old, going into his junior year at Menlo College, he gets what his

Starting point is 00:21:13 dad does. He gets all the hard work. He's a student now of business, studying hard work. And it's, it's amazing. He went from a 14 dad, you don't know what you're talking about, to dad, teach me certain things, which has been just phenomenal for me as a dad and as having him as my son. It's just been so rewarding. Well, you deserve a lot of credit for that. And I also think that is some of his wiring, right? Certainly when you procreate five times, or in my case, three times, you get to see nature versus nurture. And you see how you can have two daughters as I do who are 16, 17 months apart, and they are so different, right? And I hope they don't ingest this podcast, right? But I have one who's extremely gifted academically, but doesn't necessarily apply herself. The other is the hardest worker in the

Starting point is 00:22:00 room, but is going to have to work really fucking hard, right? To realize academic success. I don't know which recipe you'd rather have. In our careers and usually in life, we usually have one or two big breaks. You've had two. Let's talk about the first one, ESPN. How'd you get that job? And when you got the job, did you go into a room by yourselves? Fuck yeah, ESPN, I can't believe. What were you thinking that exact moment? So I haven't had a lot of stop and smell the roses type moments, but that was definitely one of them.

Starting point is 00:22:31 Just that I proved that I could do it at the highest level. But all hail Dave Jagler, the voice of the Major League Baseball Washington Nationals, because he was working as a sports center anchor on ESPN radio doing the updates. And we were working together at 1510 The Zone anchor on ESPN radio doing the updates. And we were working together at 1510 The Zone, that sporting news radio stick in Boston. And he felt like I could realize success on the national level. So he gave me the name of the news editor, Pete Saccone. And I must've sent out a hundred demo tapes to all over your state of Wisconsin, where I know

Starting point is 00:23:00 one of your kids went to college, all over the place. Michigan's where I'm from. She went to, yeah, she went to Wisconsin. So Michigan, yeah, better be careful. Go blue. Important distinction. Yeah, so, but I sent, you know, I couldn't get a bite back in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but I got a bite in Bristol, Connecticut. And when I went down for what I thought was an interview,

Starting point is 00:23:15 they have you do a national sports update. So I thought I was going down there to just interview, you know, thankfully I wasn't stoned, right? No, I'm just kidding. But I went in there and I did the 420 update and you can either hang or you can't. And I used to say this to my broadcasting students, right? You never know what an opportunity is going to present itself. You better be as ready as humanly possible. That's why I do the podcast, even if your mom's the only one listening, because I didn't go down there expectant that they were going to put me on the radio. They did. And I got that job and that opened the door to ESPN allowed me to eventually

Starting point is 00:23:48 transition from ESPN radio to ESPN television. But that was a huge break and it wouldn't have happened without a colleague who didn't see me as competition. So I would also inject that into the conversation that Dave Jagler didn't see me as any sort of appreciable threat and put himself out there for me. And I'm forever grateful. You didn't want to do boxing, but you had to do boxing. Sometimes we have to do something that we don't like to do. And that's also another common misperception and where I think a lot of young people get the judgment wrong. How important is it in our careers to do things we don't want to do, to learn new things because you never know where that opportunity is going to end up. Yeah. I mean, there have been times in my career where I've thought, man, they got the wrong guy. Like, you sure you want me to be the guy to do this?

Starting point is 00:24:32 And when I started doing updates on the New England ringside boxing radio show, I felt like maybe they had the wrong guy because I didn't grow up a combat sports fan. My dad didn't have boxing on in the house necessarily, maybe a few times a year. So I was wondering where this was going to get me, you know, but I developed a passion for boxing and eventually became the host of the mouthpiece boxing show. And there actually was a time in my career where I saw this mixed martial arts avalanche coming and I was defending boxing until I was blue in the face. but I just didn't necessarily see that covering boxing and a niche sport like that was going to get me where I wanted to be either as a play-by-play

Starting point is 00:25:11 announcer or as a radio guy. But again, I think it speaks to a willingness to just do whatever is presented. And, uh, the next thing you knew, I was ordering every pay-per-view. I was later covering all of those HBO pay-per-views. And even though my boxing fandom has waned considerably because they hold too much, there was a time in my life where it became a foremost passion. And if you would have told me that when I did my first update on that show, I would have said, you're absolutely insane. So when was the first time you became a mixed martial arts fan? What was the first fight you went to in person?

Starting point is 00:25:42 Great question. 2007, Tunica, Mississippi. I guess they call it South Haven, Mississippi, but it was Elite XC1, the main event. Your son probably knows this. Henzo Gracie and Frank Shamrock. And there were a lot of big names on this fight card. I was going there as a boxing radio journalist. Gary Shaw, longtime boxing promoter, launched Elite XC, wanted to get some traction, invited

Starting point is 00:26:02 the boxing media to come. I went in there not as a naysayer per se, but I didn't go in there as a total optimist. And even though when I watched the live event play out, I didn't necessarily love the dragons breathing fire and some of the things that comprise this live event. I thought mixed martial arts as a sport had a ton to offer. And I just remember going back to the hotel thinking, man, this sport might have more of a shelf life than boxing. And we started covering MMA increasingly so on our boxing show. And then a couple of years later, I got some opportunities at ESPN. So you're at the network for six years. Yeah. And then you got your biggest break of your career. Tell us about having to do still a bunch of shit work before that big break came in. 20 shows in Brazil, no air conditioning. And tell us about that exact moment when you're behind a truck and you get the news that you're getting the job. Take yourself mentally to that moment and said, what'd you do at that exact moment in time? What were you thinking? Well, I never would have left ESPN for the UFC if I didn't think that I could eventually ascend

Starting point is 00:27:09 to the number one job. I didn't necessarily think that it would happen as quickly as it did, but there were a lot of people in my life who said, hey man, you finally got to ESPN. Why are you leaving? But I wasn't getting a lot of play-by-play repetitions. I would get one college football game per season. You're not going to get any better doing that. So in March of 2011, I was covering Shogun Hua versus John Jones in New Jersey for ESPN. And Craig Borsari, my now boss,

Starting point is 00:27:34 pulled me aside and he said, next year, 2012, we're expanding our live event portfolio from 20 live events to 40. We'd like you to be a play-by-play announcer, have your agent call me on Monday. I don't know if I've ever admitted this publicly. I didn't have an agent. I hired one on Sunday. He called Craig on Monday and here we are 13 years later. But in December of 2016, after I had really cut my teeth with the UFC for six or seven years,

Starting point is 00:28:03 they pulled me aside at the TV trucks in advance of like the last live event of the year. And, you know, I'll never forget one of my bosses now, Zach Candido saying, you know, the company's moving on from, from Mike Goldberg and we're going to give you a shot to call the play by plays. And I put my hands on my knees and that was the moment of all moments for me in my career, not Dana White, flying me out to Vegas and introducing me at a press conference in 2011. But that I finally, I guess, felt like maybe I had earned something. You know, I've never won any award for broadcasting, but coming in as the number two guy and beating out, so to speak, the number one guy or giving

Starting point is 00:28:42 them enough confidence that they could move along from the guy who had been their longtime voice for 15 or 20 years. That was, you know, the moment for me. I think you dream, a lot of kids dream about being the starting quarterback, right? Walking into the stadium, walking into the tunnel, I see 80,000 people out there. Then they got the nerve, right? For the first hike, you know, first snap, but this is the dream. So UFC 155 was your first fight. What was it like and what were the emotions driving to the stadium? And then you sitting in that chair for the first time, looking around the octagon and 20,000 fans and saying, oh my gosh, we're about to go right now. So January 20th of 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee, I did my first UFC fight night and I'll never forget Dana White coming into the dressing room and just giving

Starting point is 00:29:32 us a pep talk, you know, saying, take off your neckties. I think now we wear neckties or at least some of us forcibly do, but I remember having a lot of nerves, but not nearly as many as I had for Bellator one in 2009 when I was thinking maybe they got the wrong guy because that was the first time I had ever called live MMA. And I had only attended an MMA show like a year and a half prior. So 2009 height of nerves, but you referenced UFC 155. And that was my first pay-per-view. And it came like 11 months on the job on three or four days notice when Goldie couldn't make the walk so to speak I was freaking out driving to I guess T-Mobile arena or MGM Grand Arena T-Mobile wasn't even erected at that point in time yeah dude I was freaking out I had worked

Starting point is 00:30:17 with Joe Rogan maybe on a desk but never in that setting before and he hadn't called fights with anyone other than Goldie in probably 15 years at that point in time. So I was freaking out. But at that point in time, I had had 10 months on the job. So I certainly had more confidence going into that setting than I had back in 2009 or earlier that year. But as I've said so many times, Randy, and I'm sure you echo these sentiments, you just lean into your skills and self-belief and what got you to the dance. And as soon as you have that first utterance, you just let that stuff take over. And any nerves I think that you have at that point in time dissipate and you're just focusing on the skills and the job at hand.

Starting point is 00:31:00 A lot of people listening and watching are not fight fans. A lot of people listening and watching are not fight fans. A lot of people listening and watching are not fight fans. Why is the UFC the greatest our live events. And I'd imagine you and your son have had the opportunity to do that at this point in time. So the first time, by the way, and I was not a fight fan. Yeah. Interview Dana White at the scale conference hosted by Kelly O'Connor. Shout out to her. And Dana and I became friends there. He invited my son and I to a show. We went for the first time and didn't really tell Dana this because he's a huge fan and he did it for my son. But I went there and I was instantly a massive fan. And like you said, you got to go and see what it's all about. It's incredible. So if you are fearful

Starting point is 00:31:55 that you're going to become instantly hooked, I would say caution, flammable, don't go because that is really the jumping off point for a lot of UFC fans. They attend a live event and then they're completely hooked thereafter. So I can't suggest that part of it enough, even though I do believe that as a television product, our live event stands up with every professional sport out there. But I think in terms of the UFC and mixed martial arts being unpredictable theater, I'm not sure that any other sport compares. For me, growing up in this country, like the NFL will always be king. I never thought another sport would be able to close that distance. And the UFC has effectively done that. Now, in terms of the violence,

Starting point is 00:32:34 I don't know how much time you have to get into a debate about American football and ice hockey and just the relative violence in those sports, right? I covered a boxing death in 2005, right? You can get three concussions in a boxing match. It's very hard to get more than one concussion in a mixed martial arts contest because they stop the fucking fight. But our sport is superficially violent. And my kids aren't put off by the blood. My mother can't deal with the blood, right? So the blood is something that I can't necessarily help you with. The face bleeds a lot, as you well know, right? But some of the visuals in our sport, right?

Starting point is 00:33:06 One human being mounting another, unanswered punches while I am mounting another man, those visuals can be difficult for people. And it is fight sport at the end of the day. But it's not nearly as violent as American football nor ice hockey. And there's never been a significant injury nor death in the UFC.

Starting point is 00:33:24 And if I sound like Dana White, we're both speaking truth. A lot of people want to get into the sports business. It doesn't matter what they want to do. They want to work for a professional team. They want to maybe be a play-by-play guy like you. It's very, very difficult to do. There's only a handful of people. There's three to 10 in your sport, depending on who's covering what. Football, there's a handful of people. There's three to 10 in your sport, depending on who's covering what. Football, there's a bunch of people, but there's really a couple, two or three main teams. That's it, if you want to be the best of the best. What's your advice to all the people who want to get into the sports world?

Starting point is 00:33:55 What do they have to do, not only in sports, but even to get a job at Citadel, for example, run by Ken Griffin, which had 29,000 applications for a summer internship. What should people be doing? Well, can you imagine how many people reach out to me looking to get an internship with the UFC? Certainly not on that level, but the competition, even I would think right now to get a job with the UFC would be greater than ever. It's hard when you're pursuing something that not only you're passionate about, but is in the recreation space as well. You know, I used to maybe affect more lives when I was a vocational coordinator for special needs children, but I didn't have a special education degree. There was a ceiling as to how much money I could makeuant of a career in sports, but you have to recognize just how competitive it is. You got to start getting your repetitions right now. And your every action has to be in some way, shape or form towards that end goal.

Starting point is 00:35:08 And you also have to know, like my twin brother in the back did, when to punt on a fucking business when it's not working out. And I was pretty close to punting on this dream. You know, my twin brother punted on his acting dream and I thought he punted maybe a few years before he should have. You got to know when to punt on it, but the younger you can start. And for me, I mean, I was writing, not getting paid. I was writing a column for 1510thezone.com for $0 so that when I would apply to the Metro West Daily News, I could show them writing samples. So you got to be

Starting point is 00:35:40 willing to just work and grind and have hard work lead the dance. And if you can do it when you're 16, it's better than 26, but 36 isn't too late either. Do you have interns now? So I have an intern on my podcast, but we try to pay everybody and we try to elevate those titles. So I think we actually call them a production assistant now. But no, I mean, I guess I could have a personal intern and a mentorship program or something I've thought a lot about. Probably should talk to you about that off the air. So what would it take for the tens of thousands of people listening, a lot of fighters, a lot of

Starting point is 00:36:14 sports guys listening to this and saying, could I get an internship with John? Everybody can get a job with anybody, even if a company just laid out 40,000 people. I've been preaching this and teaching this. There's always a spot for that person. What would it take for someone listening today to get an internship with you? What would they have to do? Well, you can certainly find me on social media. I don't post and ghost, so words are very powerful to me. I would recommend maybe commenting as opposed to a private message because those oftentimes come in in droves and are hard to sort of sift through. But, you know, I've had the chance to change a lot of lives, I've never been a great delegator. And I have a human being in the back room right now. That's my monozygotic identical twin who has the same fucking DNA as me and who works as my manager. And I'm even reluctant to delegate things to him.

Starting point is 00:37:15 And perhaps that's to my own detriment at times, but I would think the long-winded answer as to why I don't have an intern right now is because I have a hard time sort of delegating out responsibility. But at John underscore Anik, we'll see what we can do. Love it. You're listening to part one of my amazing interview with John Anik, the best UFC play-by-play announcer in history, and one of the greatest announcers in the history of professional sports. Be sure to tune in next week to my amazing interview with John.

In Search Of Excellence - Jon Anik: How a $12,000 Bet on Himself Made Him the Voice of the UFC | E124

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