Jeremiah Gallegos sat in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport earlier in the week, mask on and waiting for his flight. Not a soul behind him.
“It’s almost haunting if you ask me,” Gallegos told DAZN. “There’s not as many people as there were before the pandemic started.
“But it is what it is,” he continues, “and it’s a sign of the times.”
The ring announcer will be back in action Saturday night, when Cecilia Brækhus puts her undisputed welterweight crown on the line against Jessica McCaskill in the heart of downtown Tulsa, Okla., and live on DAZN.
There won’t be any fans in the streets blocked off from 4th Street and 6th Street at the intersection of S. Boston Ave., and while Gallegos wishes that wasn’t the case, he's thankful to be getting back to the job he loves.
“Here I am, behind the microphone this Saturday,” he said. “It feels like a rebirth.
“I’m very, very lucky,” he continues, “and I’m so blessed.”
While the coronavirus pandemic has made 2020 a doozy for many, it presented Gallegos with his fair share of unexpected challenges, too.
Gallegos was looking forward to be the ring announcer for the Sergey Kovalev vs. Sullivan Barrera light heavyweight fight, slated to be on DAZN on April 25, before the COVID-19 pandemic dashed those plans and wiped out boxing for months thereafter.
His other gig, announcing for the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer, was halted due to the pandemic as well, cutting off his revenue streams.
“I was really lost and getting really stressed out,” he said, “and went straight into survival mode.”
Gallegos started working at a local supermarket in Austin, Texas, bagging and delivering groceries in early April just to get by.
The stress from losing his announcing gigs that he’s so passionate about was compounded by an argument he says he had with his then-girlfriend on the night of April 21.
The next morning, Gallegos was hit with an even bigger scare.
“I went to brush my teeth and I noticed water streaming down the right side of his face,” he recalled. “I couldn’t smile and my body felt really, really tingly on the right side. I freaked out like ‘What’s going on here?’ My face was getting droopy.”
The 38-year-old Houston native, who calls Austin his current home, thought he was having a stroke and rushed to ER. Gallegos had a battery of tests ran, and the diagnosis wasn’t a stroke.
“It was Bell’s palsy on the right side,” Gallegos revealed. “It was the seventh cranial nerve that was affected. That just paralyzed the right side of my face.
“I was very scared,” he added. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to ring announce again.”
WebMD lists Bell’s palsy as an “acute facial palsy of unknown cause” and a “condition in which the muscles on one side of your face become weak or paralyzed,” affecting “one side of the face at a time, causing it to droop or become stiff on that side.”
Gallegos says he later learned that stress could be a critical factor in triggering Bell’s palsy and admits he was definitely stressed at the time. Gallegos adds 2020 marks three years of him being sober from a tough bout of alcoholism, so he knew what pressing stress felt like even prior to the pandemic.
Still, the pandemic causing him to lose his announcing jobs and then the argument he had with his girlfriend triggered a wave of trauma that took its toll and that he believes caused his Bell’s palsy.
Gallegos underwent therapy and performed special exercises to combat the condition and they worked.
“I got to smiling again,” he said, adding that he hasn’t had to battle Bell’s palsy since early June.
Through the trying time, Gallegos also learned a valuable lesson.
“I urge others out there to not take your smile for granted because you never know when you’ll lose it because this could happen to anybody," said Gallegos, who counts 19 total years of announcing experience, including being the man under the spotlight for Golden Boy Promotions cards.
“It hasn’t affected me in quite some time,” he added. “The only thing, which is getting a whole lot better, is when I blink, my eye is not in sync with my other eye. But you could barely notice it. Sometimes I have a little pain in my face, but it’s very tolerable.”
While he was battling it in April, DAZN’s Todd Grisham linked Gallegos up with Jim Ross. Both Grisham and Ross formerly worked together at WWE. Ross, a legendary pro wrestling commentator who also suffers from Bell’s palsy, gave Gallegos instant inspiration.
“Jim gave me some information and words of inspiration as well to keep fighting and that this is not a death sentence, which I needed to hear at the time,” Gallegos said.
Having endured that challenging episode, Gallegos will especially savor his return to the ring Saturday night. The fact that history could be made makes it sweeter for him.
“I’ve had a chance to sit down and reflect ‘What if Cecilia does break Joe Louis’s record?’” he said, referring to Louis’ consecutive title defense streak. “And then you flip the coin and think of Jessica. ‘What if she becomes the new undisputed champion?’ To be a part of that history, either way on both ends of the scope, is really special and humbling.”
But even if history wasn't on the line, Gallegos is simply happy to bring his “patient, classy” announcing style back.
In addition to Saturday night's boxing, Gallegos expects to resume his announcing for the Dynamo, when they resume their season Aug. 21.
“I have to pinch myself,” he said. “It could be anybody in this position — anybody who worked hard. I love what I do and I never take it for granted.”