Let’s Get It On! (29 page)

It didn’t take long for certain scenarios to repeat themselves, especially if they were effective. At UFC 11, Jerry Bohlander bent the fence in his bare hands as he held on to avoid being swept by Fabio Gurgel. Then at UFC 13, Wallid Ismail took Kazuo Takahashi airborne, and Takahashi grabbed the fence the entire time so he wouldn’t get dumped on the mat.

Once Meyrowitz saw this, he finally agreed to add the rule.

At Ultimate Ultimate 96, Tank Abbott scooped up Cal Worsham and tried to throw him over the top lip of the cage. That was cause for an obvious rule addition.

Some changes were much subtler. I was in the cage with the fighters up close and personal, so I was seeing details others didn’t have a vantage point to notice. Once I’d get a new regulation approved by Meyrowitz, I’d pass it on to the fighters at the rule meetings, but I’d never been asked to write them all down.

Losing its pay-per-view platform had been a slow process for the UFC. Since around UFC 10, Meyrowitz had told me there was a chance of it happening and I’d wondered if that was the beginning of the end.

Just before UFC 14, Meyrowitz called. “We’ve got to come up with rules, John. We have to have rules. It’s the only way they’re going to put us back on cable. Come up with rules that look like something on paper but don’t change the sport in your mind that much.”

With the rules we’d already instituted, I rounded out a list of seventeen dos and don’ts for the UFC.

I didn’t mind adding “no groin attacks,” a tactic that didn’t look good for the sport anyway. I didn’t mind “no hair pulling,” either, because the practice didn’t derive from any legitimate combat sport.

I thought about headbutts and knew getting rid of them would be a game changer for a few of the fighters, like Mark Coleman, who dominated his fights due in no small part to his headbutts. Nixing headbutts was going to change the sport a little, but how in the world could we get away with saying they were legal when boxing had already established them as a major foul?

I added “no small joint manipulations” to the list. It wasn’t a highly practiced technique, but it became a rule nonetheless.

I also added “no pressure point attacks.” To me, that was a bullshit fluff rule, but it made it sound like the UFC was contemplating even the most intricate of techniques.

With the completed list, I flew with Meyrowitz to Denver to meet with Leo Hindery, the president of Time Warner Cable.

Hindery, who’d probably never seen an MMA fight in his life, was a tough customer from the start. “There’s no sport you can show me where you can hit somebody in the balls,” he said.

Meyrowitz and I nodded and pointed to where we’d banned groin strikes.

We could counter all of Hindery’s objections but one. Hindery’s real problem was one man punching another man on the ground. In boxing, you’d never hit a man while he was down. There would always be a ten count and a referee would step in, and the fallen fighter would be given time to recover. Even in the movies, a man would punch another man and pick him up before he took another swing.

Taking a fight to the ground was a big component of MMA, and sitting there I realized society was not conditioned to accept that. I couldn’t draw from a single existing sport where a competitor could do it.

We were wasting our breath with Hindery, which meant we were officially off the air.

Posing in a catalog for Body Alive, a fitness clothing company owned by my friend Bob Donnelly

When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.

—Jacques Cousteau

I have never considered myself a celebrity, and I don’t think I ever will. I didn’t become a referee to get famous. I did it because I loved the sport I saw emerging out of those early shows and wanted to be a part of it. I never imagined it would take me on the wonderful adventure it has, and I know how lucky I was to be in the right place at the right time. Still, the added attention has been something I’ve struggled with from day one.

The first time I was asked for an autograph was at UFC 2. I thought the fan was stupid for asking for it, and I felt stupid giving it to him. I was the referee, not a fighter. I wasn’t a big deal. The fighters who got in the cage were the ones who deserved all the attention. I was just the third man, the third wheel. I thought a good referee did his job without bringing attention to himself. Period.

But at each show, fans would continue to hand me their event programs to sign or ask me to pose for photographs. After a couple shows, it dawned on me that the people coming to see the UFCs were spending their hard-earned money not just to watch some good fights but to take in the whole experience. If they approached me and wanted to take a picture or get an autograph, it was little skin off my ass. I owed it to them and the sport. If it made them feel good, who was I to deny them?

The one request I don’t usually fulfill is saying, “Let’s get it on,” outside the cage. I’ve said it at the end of radio spots or for video games and for other marketing purposes I feel help propel the sport forward. I even said it when Zuffa allowed a die-hard couple to get married in the Octagon in Las Vegas the day before UFC 36. But most of the time, I politely decline. I don’t like to throw around the phrase. When I say it, two fighters are about to put their lives in my hands and I’m letting them know I’m on the job, I’m paying attention, and I’ve got their backs.

The first wedding ever held in the Octagon: I told the couple to “Get it on.”

Over the years, being an MMA referee has afforded me some interesting opportunities outside the cage. I’m continually surprised when people notice me at the airport or in the gym or on the street. I’m told I have one of those faces. I can’t explain what it feels like to have people stare at you when you enter a restaurant or the movie theater before they finally ask, “Are you that referee in that fighting thing?” Most of the time, people make me laugh because they are so genuinely enthused.