Photo: Ed Mulholland
Ridgewood’s Joe Antonacci inducted into New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame
Joe Antonacci: It’s All About the Fighters, and the Show
May 4, 2011 at 7:32 am by Michael Rivest
We’ll forgive you if you don’t recognize the name, but if the face on top of the trademark tuxedo doesn’t make you say, “Oh sure, you mean HIM!” then you haven’t paid attention to boxing in a very long time.
It’s been almost ten years since ring announcer Joe Antonacci first stood under the bright lights and, with microphone in hand, silenced crowd chatter with his authoritative voice. And where was that first time, you ask, on ESPN2 Friday Night Fights? You must be kidding. A first time ring announcer on ESPN? Oh no, he did that his second time, and I’m not kidding. Joe wasted no time getting to the top of his profession.
He talks about his beginnings like somebody who loves to tell the story. “I was at a Ring 8 meeting and met promoter Bob Duffy who said he had a show coming up. [Ring 8 supports people in the boxing community who have fallen on hard times.]
“He asked if I had any announcing experience. I said yes, some amateur experience in New Jersey. He probably thought I meant Golden Gloves or something, but I was a ring announcer in a play at an elementary school,” Joe said, laughing.
The next thing he knows, he’s on his way from his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, to Manhattan’s Park Central Hotel. “I was thinking of everything that could go wrong and praying for an easy first fight,” he said. “I hadn’t been to the weigh-in, so I didn’t even know the fighters’ names and was wanting simple ones to pronounce, like maybe ‘John Jones vs. James Smith.’” But you can guess what happened. “In the first fight was KEMAL KOLENOVIC.”
https://blog.timesunion.com/boxing/joe-antonacci-its-all-about-the-fighters-and-the-show/7248/
Why didn’t he pose with his family…?
It’s all about Joe. Seems like a nice guy but very absorbed in himself. Congrats anyway.
Even though this story is a year and a half old, I’ve got to comment and you should really read the story before you take shots at the guy. “Why didn’t he pose with his family?” Let’s see, the story ran in the Times-Union which is in Albany, NY. Does Joe take his family to Albany every time he works a match? I doubt it. So the writer used a file photo of him with some ring girls. Remember they are trying to sell papers. Most telling and a 180 from your assertion that he is very absorbed in himself is the fact that he donates all of his fees to help boxers that have fallen on hard times. I find that very admirable. I also am not surprised at his generousity at all knowing what a great person, great teacher and great role model his Dad was, and is. Joe grew up with a father who knew what was right and those that were fortunate enough to have had his Dad as a teacher were just as fortunate.