Brendan Fitzgerald called most of UFC Vegas 124 on Saturday night with a voice that was clearly falling apart, and by the time Johnny Walker and Waldo Cortes-Acosta walked out for the main event, he was gone from the desk. John Schriffen, who calls Dana White’s Contender Series, took over play-by-play for the headliner.
Fitzgerald addressed it Sunday on his Instagram story, as Bloody Elbow reported. “Shout out to our whole crew for all the support,” he wrote. “Drank my weight in tea today! Thanks to Dominick Cruz , Michael Bisping , McKenzie Pavacich for picking up the slack. Great job John Schriffen out of the bullpen! See y’all in NYC Can’t wait.”
He also took a shot at himself, comparing his night to being the silent half of Penn & Teller. That’s a fair self-assessment from a play-by-play man who spent the back half of a card sounding like a gravel truck.
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How the swap happened
Alan Jouban, who was at the event, laid out the sequence on X. Fitzgerald pushed through as long as he could, producers got on the phone and told Schriffen to head over, and Cruz and Bisping carried the booth in the meantime. Jouban wrote that Schriffen showed up “just in time for the M.E.” and added, “Feel horrible for Fitz. Well done everyone.”
Bloody Elbow’s account differs a bit on the timing. It reported that Schriffen had been sitting behind the commentary team for some time before he actually stepped in. Either way, he was in the chair when the headliner started.
Nolan King summed up the night on X in six words: “The Brendan Fitzgerald flu game #UFCVegas124.”
Fans noticed long before the change. One wrote “Hope that he gets better soon,” another called the voice “my sleep paralysis demon,” and a third tipped his cap to Fitzgerald for gutting it out like a pro. The bluntest one: “I’m surprised they didn’t take him out sooner. He seriously sounded terrible. Hope he’s alright and not sick.”
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Schriffen has worked with the UFC since 2024, mostly on the Contender Series. His first emergency assignment ended up being a short-notice main event between Walker and Cortes-Acosta, which Bloody Elbow described as entertaining. There are worse ways to get thrown into the deep end.
Fitzgerald’s sign-off points to New York as his next stop.
Sal’s take
I respect a guy who plays hurt. I also spent two hours wincing every time he tried to hit a high note on a takedown. The fan who said they should have pulled him sooner has a point, and so does Bloody Elbow, which made the same argument. If you’ve got a qualified play-by-play voice in the building or one phone call away, you don’t wait until the main event to use him. Cruz and Bisping covered fine, Schriffen did the job, and Fitzgerald gets a week of tea and silence before NYC. If a book had offered a prop on Fitzgerald calling the full card, I’d have hammered the no and been right for once.
