Famed UFC octagon announcer Bruce Buffer shudders to think what his COVID-19 experience would’ve been like had he not been vaccinated.
As MMA Junkie first reported, Buffer will be replaced by Joe Martinez on Saturday at UFC 267 in Abu Dhabi, marking the first time Buffer will miss a numbered/pay-per-view UFC event since UFC 11 in September 1996. Although the reason initially was unclear, UFC president Dana White later revealed at the UFC 267 news conference that Buffer isn’t available because he tested positive for COVID-19.
Buffer went public for the first time Thursday on his “IT’S TIME!!!” podcast, crediting the vaccine for helping him recover and detailing the difficulties he experienced with the virus.
“I thank God I’m vaccinated,” Buffer said, adding he was in his 14th day of quarantine at home in Southern California. “I had the (Johnson & Johnson vaccine). I plan on getting the booster; now I don’t have to get that for two or three months, whatever is allowed because you’re antibodies build up with this. (The virus) knocked my feet in the dirt definitely for the first three or four days with the fever, the temperature, the body aches, the headaches. I did not lose my taste or smell thankfully. …
“Everybody’s different. Luckily no lung damage that I can tell. My lungs feel good. I’ve been doing videos and cameos and getting them out. Even when I was sick I was doing it because obviously I’m here at home.
“All I can tell you, folks, is I hope you’re vaccinated. I don’t want to start a conversation, ‘get vaxxed, not get vaxxed.’ But if I wasn’t vaccinated, who knows how this thing would’ve wound up? Bottom line.”
To Buffer’s point, clinical trials have shown that the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration significantly reduce severe illness and hospitalization in vaccinated people.
In an effort to recover, Buffer said he received REGN-COV, a monoclonal antibody made by the drug company Regeneron (he “paid through the roof for it”) the day after he tested positive, in addition to taking “IV, a bag of vitamins” and “all the Zinc.”
Buffer couldn’t pinpoint when he contracted COVID-19. He said he “basically came down with it three days after” he was in Las Vegas for a recent UFC event and Raiders home game.
Buffer described himself as being “very safe, very COVID protocol” in how he’s lived during the pandemic. The fact that he contracted the virus was an eye opener.
“I’m gonna tell you one thing: If I have it, if I got it, anybody can get it. Because I’m just really safe about it,” Buffer said. “They say you can be in an area breathing with the same person potentially for 15 minutes, you hear all these different scenarios. I just say that we’re all guinea pigs on a daily basis.”
Almost fully recovered, Buffer said fans can expect him at Madison Square Garden for UFC 268 on Nov. 6.
“I’ll be in New York for UFC 268, can’t wait for that, gonna be roaring like crazy,” Buffer said. “I’ll be like a caged animal out of the cage because it’s time for me to get back in the octagon.”
‘I thank God I’m vaccinated’: Bruce Buffer opens up on COVID-19 experience, recovery
