The official UFC ring announcer Bruce Buffer has carved out a name for himself in the MMA world with an adrenaline-inducing signature growl ‘It’s Time’, that has been thrilling fans for almost three decades.
However, when Buffer began his career as an announcer in the promotion in 1997, he wasn’t that big. The UFC was facing criticism as a barbaric human cockfighting organization, and mixed martial arts was struggling to get recognition as a sport.
But gradually as UFC gained popularity in the 21st century, Buffer’s stocks ballooned, establishing him as ‘the voice of the Octagon’. Along with the MMA promotion, the 67-year-old successfully ventured into the entrepreneurial journey building a million-dollar empire.
Despite succeeding on the professional front of life, Buffer has some regrets about the personal life that he recently discussed in an interview with Mark Bouris.
“The one regret when it comes to family is that I've never been married. I always kid—I've never been married, I've almost been divorced twice, but I've never been married. Just kidding. Is that I didn't get married and have a child of my own, you know, or children of my own for my mom and my dad. Or my mom and I do have one great thing, which she was with me, is that my partner—I have an amazing partner. The BPM partner I have in my company, her name is Christon, and we run this business together. We do more work out of my office than most mid-sized corporations, just the two of us, and we've worked together side by side for 27 years.”
Though Buffer never tied the knot in his life, he shared a very special bond with his business partner and her kids.
“I've known her for 30, and she got married like 23 years ago, and because we're such good friends, she honored me by allowing me to be Godfather to her son. Oh wow. And I'm like an uncle to her other son, Rert, and I helped raise these two boys because when I was traveling on the weekends, her husband's working during the week, and she's got the kids. When they were one to three years old, they were in the office, and I'm teaching them, feeding them, you know, changing diapers here and there, and going through the little thing. And it's one of the greatest experiences I ever had in my life, so at least I had that.”
