Bellator have announced that they have signed veteran play-by-play announcers Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo to multi-event deals as they look to take their broadcasting team to the next level.
Goldberg was of course the UFC’s play-by-play announcer for no less than 20 years, until the promotion decided they no longer required his services at the end of 2016 and has also called a number of other sporting events during his career, including over 900 NHL games.
Ranallo is also well known to MMA fans as the commentator for the legendary PRIDE organization, in addition to Strikeforce, Elite XC and most recently Rizin, while he’s also been on the mic for many big time boxing fights over the past few years on Showtime and was a lead commentator for WWE.
“Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo are two of the best in our business and I couldn’t be happier about them joining the Bellator family,” said Scott Coker. “In addition to June 24, we look forward to working together to make future Spike broadcasts even more exciting for our fans as we add further depth to an already-exceptional broadcast team.”
At this stage it’s not clear what roles the two will have on the Bellator broadcast given that they both are known as play-by-play announcers, but veteran journalist Josh Gross has claimed that Goldberg will call the fights alongside long-time Bellator color-commentator Jimmy Smith, while Ranallo will feature back in the studio desk.
Another addition to the Bellator team will be former UFC fighter Brendan Schaub, who announced last week that he’ll be co-hosting the Bellator: NYC pre-show live from Madison Square Garden.
Overall this seems like a smart move for Bellator and together with the addition of several major fighter signings in recent times and their second pay-per-view event on the horizon in NYC later this month, they are now in a stronger position than ever before.
