page_title: Howard Finkel
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Howard Finkel / Career
caption_attribution_description: Found this one of manager Freddie Blassie with one of his cohorts "The Iron Shiek" Picture was taken in Madison Sq. Garden in the early 80's
context_page_description: Howard Finkel was an American professional wrestling ring announcer, best known for his appearances in WWE. He began working for Vincent J. McMahon's World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1975, and was a Madison Square Garden ring announcer since 1977. WWE's longest-serving employee and widely regarded as the greatest ring announcer of all time, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.
context_section_description: Finkel, debuted as a ring announcer at Madison Square Garden on January 17, 1977. By 1979, he was the World Wide Wrestling Federation's lead ring announcer for its biggest events. He became the first WWE employee on April 1, 1980, and later its longest-serving. Throughout his career, his distinctive voice was sometimes used in the title sequence for the company's various television programs. His signature call was his announcement of a new champion following a title change, in which he would place extra emphasis on the word "new", in order to draw the greatest reaction from the crowd. He came up with the event name "WrestleMania", as well as Ricky Steamboat's "Dragon" nickname. In 1984, he became WWF's lead ring announcer for television tapings, replacing the retired Joe McHugh. During a 2011 interview, he said he and his knowledge of history had also played a part in the talent relations and creative departments during the early days of the WWF.
  On January 19, 1987, Finkel was presented a plaque by Gene Okerlund, commemorating ten years of announcing at Madison Square Garden. In 1993, at the "Roman"-themed WrestleMania IX, he was introduced in a toga as Finkus Maximus.
  In 1995, Finkel took a seven-month hiatus from ring announcing on pay-per-views and television broadcasts (but not at house shows) and was replaced by Manny Garcia. He returned to full-time ring announcing at Royal Rumble 1996.
caption: Finkel (center) built his reputation announcing matches at Madison Square Garden
exif: {"Image Make": "Nikon", "Image Model": "Nikon COOLSCAN IV ED", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "125", "Image YResolution": "125", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:12:11 09:13:45", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5472", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "811", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "539"}