Boxing announcer Michael Buffer's voice rumbles again

The veteran ring announcer stepped into the hot Las Vegas spotlights in March, knowing something the crowd didn't: that these precious seconds at the center of attention could be his last. The man whose voice had made a few simple words so famous was facing throat surgery. He had cancer.

So, he prefaced those trademarked words.

"And now, for the most famous phrase in boxing," Buffer said, then paused. "Let's get ready to ru-m-m-m-b-l-l-l-l-e!"

The crowd that filled Mandalay Bay Events Center for a super-featherweight title bout between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez cheered, even if a few wondered if Buffer's ego had gone wild.

"It may be the most famous phrase in boxing, but who in the hell are you to say so?" an HBO producer text-messaged Buffer.

HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant said he sat there wondering how Joe Louis' legendary, "You can run, but you can't hide," and Muhammad Ali's, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," had dropped to second and third place, but understood the announcer "was suffering through a lot of stress at the time."

Buffer's preface came a few days ahead of the surgery, in which doctors removed a cancerous lymph node attached to his tonsils. He had told only a few people about the medical plight that threatened to silence prize-fighting's prized voice, including his fiancee, family members and Merchant's HBO partners Jim Lampley and Emanuel Steward.

"When I got the diagnosis, not knowing if I'd ever work again, I asked to delay the surgery a week so I could do the Pacquiao fight," Buffer, 63, said. "They were going to be cutting into my neck, and even if I got through that, I knew the radiation can mess with your salivary gland. I don't think it'd look good announcing with a microphone in one hand and a water bottle in the other."

Looking into the mirror one day in February, he had been concerned about the shadow of a lump that emerged on the left side of his Adam's apple. He underwent an MRI exam and biopsy at USC Medical Center to investigate. Buffer answered the telephone in a Manhattan hotel room across from Madison Square Garden.

"There comes a time when you know what's what," Buffer said. "You still hate to hear the word. . . . "