Jon Anik Recalls Starstruck Moment With Shaquille O'Neal That Led To One Of His Best Ever UFC Event Intros

UFC commentator Jon Anik recently recalled his interaction with legendary NBA center Shaquille O'Neal. 

The longtime UFC play-by-play commentator has met plenty of impressive, famous athletes over the years. While he's best known these days for commentating MMA, Anik is an avid viewer of both the NFL and the NBA in his own time. 

When it comes to the NBA, he actually got to meet one of his favorite players in a surprising moment. 

'I Will Never Forget It' - Anik On Meeting O'Neal

During a recent discussion with MMA Junkie, Anik was asked if he's ever been starstruck meeting someone. He revealed that prior to doing an event intro, he noticed someone reaching up to give him a fist bump. 

"I had one moment like that, and I will never forget it because he's one of my all-time favorite athletes," Anik said. "So I wasn't doing the standard pay-per-view open, but you may have noticed over the last two years or so, I'll have certain situations during the broadcast where I do like, a standup on camera where I'm sort of close to the ground and I'll memorize something, and then I'll deliver it and throw to a feature. So I'm getting ready in my standup position to do one of these, and I look down and there's a big hand reaching to, like, give me a fist bump."

It turned out it was none other "Shaq" reaching for the fist bump. While he admitted he couldn't quite remember how the intro went after that, he remembered being supremely confident going into it after that.

"It's Shaquille O'Neal," Anik revealed. "If that doesn't fire you up to fist-bump that dude and then deliver to camera, right? I'm not sure how I delivered, it was probably one of the greatest deliveries of my life, right? It gave me a lot of confidence... Only one real instance where a celebrity was, you know, in sort of my frame of mind as I was just about to deliver something and that would be the great Shaquille O'Neal."