Jimmy Lennon Jr. (born August 5, 1958)[1] is an American boxing ring announcer who is employed primarily by Showtime and Fox Sports as ring announcer for their Showtime Championship Boxing and Premier Boxing Champions, also by Bob Arum's Top Rank on ESPN events. Lennon was also employed by Fox Sports when it previously had rights to professional boxing and was the ring announcer for Don King Promotions' fights that aired on various networks. He is best known for his catchphrase, "It's showtime!"[2] but the catchphrase is not spoken during Fox's fight coverage.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Lennon has been a ring announcer for over 25 years, during which he has been at the microphone for some historic fights, including Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield, Winky Wright vs. Félix Trinidad and Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao.[2] He followed in the footsteps of his father Jimmy Lennon who was a ring announcer as well. He also announced MMA fight cards for Strikeforce, both the regular MMA shows which aired on CBS and Showtime and Strikeforce's SHO XC shows which aired on Showtime. He formerly announced fights for the now-defunct Elite XC mixed martial arts promotion, and also for the K-1 promotion in Japan.
Lennon began doing ring introductions with PBC promotions in January 2019. [3]
Lennon, much like his father, speaks Spanish and makes an effort to pronounce all fighters' names correctly. [4]
Lennon has also done work for EA Sports, having been the ring announcer for its Knockout Kings series of boxing video games and its EA Sports MMA game within Strikeforce rules.
He has appeared as himself in several movies, most notably Hot Shots!, I Spy and Creed III.[5]
Lennon has been inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame. He was also selected as an inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013.[1][6]