- — Plutor
Bob Raffles
From The Great Outdoor Fight
An announcer known for his sometimes excessively flowery phrasing and occasional mixed metaphors, Bob Raffles has hosted a radio show featuring interviews with champions and competitors beginning in 1964.
Growing up, had been a fan of the Ronald Reagan no-nonsense Fight commentaries from the 1940's. However, a great deal of the influence on his particular style of announcing and commentary comes from the Professional Wrestling TV broadcasts of the 1950's.
Bob Raffles' most famous contribution to Fight history is his coinage of the term Soubriquet Rouge on his third broadcast in 1966 when describing contestant "Fresh" Freddy Fiero. Despite initial confusion, this term stuck due to his flowery prose hearkening back to the early days of the Fight, of gentlemanly brutality enshrined by tradition. For better or for worse, Bob Raffles is an icon of Fight history, and is as much a part of it as turkey and brandy.
Two of his more famous interviews were with THE Rodney Leonard Stubbs, The Man with the Blood on His Hands, and with Young Jude Surrency.
[edit] Special Shows
- 1985: A Tribute to Jynik Gowno (with Young Jude Surrency).
- 1987: Fugue or Not Fugue (with Young Jude Surrency).
- 1995: Forever "Young": A Loving Tribute To Jude Surrency (with Wilton Rowley and more).
- 1999: Shirley Randolph: Pioneering Heroine? (with Jennie Sheehy)
- 2001: Sesquicentennial Celebration (with Wilton Rowley, Jennie Sheehy, Wilfredo Dyck, and Cy White).
- 2003: Thirty Years, 3000 men. A Look Back In Wonder (with Wilton Rowley).
[edit] Famous Interview Quotes
Stubbs: Ain't give no sucker your meal, it adds to nothin' and he is an animal all the while, no receipt on file, no loyalty no style.
Surrency: GOD, I can't wait 'til I die! Least then I won't have to listen to you talk anymore, ya dumb sonuvabitch!
RUFUS: *Sounds of microphone being slowly masticated.*
Gowno: I once beat Stalin himself into the ground and took his beautiful mistress Rita Hayworth into my bed. So will it be with your American women.
[edit] Famous Personal Quotes
1966 of Stanley "Grip" Brown: "Not since the days of Arthur and the round table has such a noble paladin of honor taken the field and won the day."
1966 of "Fresh" Freddy Fiero: "And here, we have this man, this titan, entering the American colosseum; his name writ in blood for the past six years. Surely this twentieth century chevalier, fighting under the Soubriquet Rouge Légendaire of 'Fresh' Freddy Fiero, can finally snatch victory from the crushing maw of Stanley 'Grip' Brown."
