Mauro Ranallo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mauro Ranallo | |
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| Born | December 21, 1969 |
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| Occupation | Announcer |
Mauro Ranallo (born December 21, 1969) is a Canadian sports announcer, with experience in football, hockey, professional wrestling, and mixed martial arts events. He is best known for his work as a play-by-play announcer for PRIDE FC and, more recently, Showtime for Elite XC broadcasts. He began announcing when he was 16 years old. Since September 2006, he has been the lead news anchor and play-by-play announcer for the Canadian combat sports channel The Fight Network.
[edit] Career
Ranallo began his career as an announcer and manager at the age of 16, when he was offered a job with All-Star Wrestling (in Vancouver), a nationally televised wrestling show throughout Canada. After that program ended production and the promotion folded in 1989, Ranallo became a disc jockey for Abbotsford, British Columbia radio station CFVR (now CKQC-FM).
Later, he provided play-by-play announcing duties for Muay Thai/Kickboxing events and King of the Cage mixed martial arts shows on Canada's TSN.[1] From 1999 to 2000, he served as the play-by-play announcer for the legendary Stampede Wrestling TV show in Calgary. His color-commentator was the late Bad News Allen.
He is most prominently known among MMA fans as the voice of PRIDE Fighting Championships PPV broadcasts in North America from 2003 until October 2006. He was initially paired with friend and longtime-PRIDE commentator Bas Rutten. After Rutten departed the broadcast, Bas was replaced by Frank Trigg. Mauro was also the play-by-play announcer for KVOS-TV's Top Ranked Wrestling for most of that program's run in 2005-06. He is perhaps best known for his over the top dramatic style, which involves heavy use of metaphor and a boundless vocabulary.
Mauro can also be seen and heard calling the MMA action on Hardcore Championship Fighting, broadcast across Canada on the Score network.
He is also a member of the rankings committee for the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (WAMMA).
