Missing Goldie: How respect and humility made Mike Goldberg the best we’ve ever seen
Mike Goldberg’s shadow loomed large Sunday night in Phoenix. I enjoy me some Jon Anik and it was fantastic to get Daniel Cormier in the booth doing color commentary but the UFC’s newest broadcast team member who came on board after Goldberg’s departure last month produced cringeworthy and callous comments.
No, BJ Penn isn’t a “bad” fighter, and his flippant aside that Cain Velasquez “didn’t keep up his end of the bargain,” when the UFC tried to promote him to Mexican fans was insulting and ignorant. I guess this is what happens when you take a pro wrestling announcer who hasn’t followed MMA before and rush him into the big leagues
So, I thought of Goldberg, and how I’d never heard him be so dismissive of athletes. And then, I missed him.
No sooner than I thought of “Goldie” then I saw his big smile in the stands, where he was sitting enjoying the UFC fights as a fan for the first time in two decades instead of as the promotion’s top play-by-play commentator. Later, I saw his son post on Twitter his disgust that his dad supposedly wasn’t offered complimentary tickets to the event.
Yeah, it all kind of stinks. So, it’s time for some positivity, and I’ve got plenty when I look back on Goldberg’s UFC career.
Goldberg always showed enthusiasm and humility while calling fights, whether he was poking fun at himself or, more importantly, deferring to his expert broadcast partners like Joe Rogan. Goldberg respects the fighters and always conveyed to the viewers what a brutally tough endeavor the athletes were taking part in.
That alone is enough to make Mike Goldberg the best play-by-play guy we’ve ever seen in big-time MMA.
As a viewer of the sport since UFC 1 I’ve gotten to see and hear a host of UFC and Pride and EliteXC and Strikeforce and Bellator play-by-play commentators. More often than not, it’s been a bit ugly.
We’ve heard others in Goldberg’s position do everything from call fighters cockroaches to discuss wanting to have sex with a fighter whose fight they were watching. Some of these guys, and they’ve mostly been guys, are still working in big-time boxing or professional wrestling.
Goldberg had a real interest in MMA. You could often find him hitting mitts and talking with coaches of top UFC fighters on fight weeks in the practice rooms of fighter hotels.
He put in the work.
Some other people in his position pretended to be MMA experts, “professors” if you will. Goldberg never did that, but he did set up the real experts well and sounded like he loved what he was watching.
Enthusiasm, humility, and respect are sadly rare in MMA play-by-play positions. Goldberg possessed all of those, as well as a real love for the sport.
We’re worse off without him. Hopefully he’ll be better off without us.
About the author:
Elias Cepeda has served as a writer and editor covering mixed martial arts and combat sports, as well as public and cultural affairs, since 2005. He began as a staff writer for InsideFighting, and not long thereafter became publisher and editor of the page. Cepeda then went to write for Yahoo! Sports’ boxing and MMA pages, and edited their Cagewriter blog. He was hired away by FOX Sports, but after several years departed over philosophical differences with the executive leadership around important issues of journalism ethics. A student of and sometime competitor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA since 1999, Elias brings a unique and vibrant presence to reporting, and enjoys trying to highlight shared humanity and connect common experiences from seemingly different worlds.
