Mike Goldberg opens up about UFC release

For 15 years, Mike Goldberg was the voice of the UFC. The longtime announcer teamed with Joe Rogan to call UFC fight cards, but that ended during the transition as the new ownership took over the MMA company.

During an interview on “The MMA Hour” on Monday with Ariel Helwani, Goldberg finally talked about his release.

“It was a shock. It was a shock,” Goldberg said of his reaction to the bad news. “I was speechless. I didn’t know what type of emotion to have because I was just in a state of shock and disbelief.”

Goldberg expressed his appreciation of the fans for their support and for making him a trending story topic during UFC 207, which was his final card. He says he was informed around Dec. 1 that his contract would not be renewed, which was crushing. He did not receive an explanation for it.

“No, not at all. Not at all,” Goldberg said when asked by Helwani if he got an explanation for his release. “There may be more to come throughout the UFC family. This is not uncommon with an ownership change in anything. It might just be corporate America, it might be on Wall Street. In this instance, it’s a sports property.”

“I watched everything around me be shattered,” Goldberg said. “It took 15 years to build this wonderful family, and it felt like it was taking 15 minutes to destroy it. And it just was a really tough time, and it may still be tough.”

Goldberg recognizes that he lost his job because of the ownership change and that it wouldn’t have happened had Zuffa remained in charge. Zuffa sold the company to a group of investors led by WME-IMG in July for over $4 billion.