Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Getting Over and we start today's show on a somber tone announcing, unfortunately, that Howard Finkel, the legendary WWE announcer who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009, is dead at age 69.

For anyone who is a longtime fan of professional wrestling, really, even if you just started watching this century since 2000, you know who Howard Finkel is. He's the most legendary ring announcer in professional wrestling history and arguably one of the most, if not the most legendary ring announcers in combat sports history, at least in

the United States. He joined WWE, then WWF, under Vincent Kennedy McMahon Sr. in 1975. He began

ring announcing for the WWWF in 1977. He was actually WWE's longest tenured employee. They date that back to

1980 when Vince McMahon Jr. took the company over from his father and the think, the think,

I should say, has been with WWE ever since. For me, he was the voice of wrestling for my childhood. You know, certainly you had Vince

on commentary and, you know, a range of people there with him. There was guerilla monsoon

occasionally that I had heard and certainly Jim Ross eventually took over the chair. You had Randy Savage and Jesse Ventura, all those guys on commentary.

But the constant, the voice that you always heard announcing the result of every match and his signature championship result and new World Wrestling Federation heavyweight champion, intercontinental champion.

It was always Howard Finkel doing it.

This is someone who came up with the name WrestleMania and appeared at every

WrestleMania from its inception until 2016.

He showed up at WrestleMania 9 wearing a toga famously.

He helped Mr. Perfect win the intercontinental title at one point. He feuded

with Harvey Wimpleman at WrestleMania 10, which I remember, as you guys know, long-time listeners

of the show, that's my favorite pay-per-view. It's at least the one that started me off in this

wrestling journey. Then he beat Wimpleman in a tuxedo match on a raw in 1995.

They paid it back, you know, over a decade later, about a decade later when he feuded with

William Garcia and lost an evening gown tuxedo match.

The think, you know, he's made a couple of appearances in WWE over the last decade.

But for me, the most memorable was when he came back to be the personal ring announcer of

CM Punk in 2011.

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