Jon Anik's Story

Anik was born July 3, 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts, three minutes before his identical twin brother, Jason. Anik was raised in Wellesley, MA, where he spent the majority of his childhood playing sports. He is the oldest of four siblings. In this rabid sports city, Jon easily developed a passion not just for playing sports, but for watching sports. He was born into an extended family in which Boston sports was the true religion. Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox and Bruins.

Anik attended high school at The Rivers School in Weston, MA, where he would serve as editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper. Anik always enjoyed public speaking and was especially touched to be voted on by his classmates as the graduation speaker in 1997. Anik was also a member of the varsity tennis and basketball teams, serving as captain of the basketball team during his senior season.

When Jon realized he wasn’t going to be in the NBA, he quickly shifted his career focus to writing and talking about sports. 

In 1997 he enrolled at Gettysburg College, where he was a member of Theta Chi. He graduated with a degree in political journalism. Anik spent one semester at American University in Washington, D.C., working as an intern for the George Michael Sports Machine.

After graduating from Gettysburg, Anik landed a job at Sporting News Radio’s Boston affiliate, 1510 the Zone. Anik went from update announcer to afternoon drive host in 18 months, co-hosting ‘The Diehards’ with Ryen Russillo and Anthony Pepe. In 2005, Anik was promoted to program director of the station. He continued his on-air work as co-host of ‘The Mouthpiece Boxing Show’ from 2005-2008.

In 2007, Anik was recruited by ESPN Digital Media and began cutting his teeth on the TV side. In 2008, he was named the host of ESPN.com’s ‘MMA Live.’ The show was picked up by ESPN2 in 2010.

In 2011, after six years at ESPN, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) hired Anik as a commentator. Anik handled play-by-play duties for UFC FIGHT NIGHT, THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: LIVE on FX, and events on FOX and FS1. He also served as a studio desk host on FOX, FS1 and hosted UFC ULTIMATE INSIDER. In 2017, he was promoted to become the UFC’s lead play-by-play voice on pay-per-view.