Let’s Get It On! (42 page)

When people had questions about the sport’s regulations, Zuffa would usually call on me. Between UFC 43 and 44, I was asked to attend the 2003 Conference of the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) in St. Louis, Missouri, with Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White. Comprised of a majority of the athletic commissions and other combat sports’ regulatory bodies throughout North America, the ABC gathered all the people the UFC and the MMA needed to impress. MMA had been regulated in key states like New Jersey and Nevada, but quite a few more had either previously banned it or had no laws on the books to either allow or oversee it. Zuffa had gotten the UFC on the conference’s weekend agenda to ask the ABC if they’d consider regulating the sport. The ABC’s seal of approval could certainly open the door to more states.

Fertitta gave a PowerPoint presentation showing the economic advantages of allowing the UFC and MMA into the individual states. He also highlighted how most of the fighters were college educated and some were even Olympic-caliber athletes rather than the street thugs many thought them to be. The ABC members watched a tape of some recent UFC fights, and then the presentation was opened to a question-and-answer session, which I also participated in. The questions ranged from rules to how a state could get their officials trained if they decided to regulate an event.

Fertitta’s answer regarding training was always, “John will come and do it.”

A few ABC members were interested in the sport, but the majority turned their noses up at it. A lot of these commissioners were comfortable with boxing, but you could tell they felt MMA was too new and unproven. The commission elected to not even address the question of regulating MMA without more research, so Fertitta, White, and I left St. Louis not quite empty-handed but not with what we wanted.

Zuffa sent me back to the annual ABC conferences two or three more times, and each time a few members seemed slightly more interested.

I was Zuffa’s man for assignments like this, but my involvement with the promotion didn’t go much further than that, which was a change for me. I’d been a part of intricate facets of the UFC since Rorion Gracie had created it. When SEG and Bob Meyrowitz bought the show, he’d call me all the time from New York City to ask for advice about specific fighters and matches.

Zuffa was different, though. They’d call me from time to time for the ABC meetings or to ask about a new official they wanted to bring in, but Fertitta, White, and their employees handled everything else. I was gradually getting pushed out of that inner circle.

I stayed pretty rational about it. I always thought of what Fertitta and White had said to me in the beginning: “Business is business, and friendship is friendship. Don’t think the business doesn’t come before friendship, because business is business.” That’s the way I felt they looked at me, and that’s the way I figured they did things.

I understood the UFC was now owned by different people and that this was their show, not mine. I got paid for my job, so I didn’t have anything to say about it. If they needed me for something, I’d be there. If they didn’t, that was okay too.

With Zuffa at the helm, the UFC weathered the ship to a promotional milestone: its tenth anniversary. When I’d taken my place in the Octagon the first time, I wouldn’t have believed the UFC would be around a decade. But here we were, 50 shows and over 400 fights later at UFC 45 “Revolution,” on November 21, 2003, at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. This monumental achievement for MMA wasn’t recognized at all by the mainstream media, but I can tell you that many people in the arena had helped ensure the UFC’s survival and realized the night’s importance.

Zuffa added some nice touches to make the event special. The promotion introduced the UFC Hall of Fame and inducted its first members, the deserving Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock. Zuffa also created a viewers’ choice award for fans to vote for the UFC’s ten most popular fighters of all time. Randy Couture, high off his unlikely wins over Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, was voted number one and was joined by Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Tank Abbott, Mark Coleman, Pat Miletich, Marco Ruas, Dan Severn, Don Frye, and Oleg Taktarov.

It’s a shame that this honorable tone was fleeting.

In the fifth fight of the night, there was a miscommunication between fighter Phil Baroni and one of the other referees, Larry Landless. Baroni, a passionate middleweight from New York, had been beating the piss out of opponent Evan Tanner, until Baroni got too tired. Tanner came back and eventually mounted Baroni, where he started to unload punches and elbows on his trapped opponent.

In that tense moment, Landless asked Baroni if he wanted out.

Baroni thought the referee had asked if he was okay and answered, “Yes.”

Landless jumped in to halt the fight.

Baroni was so upset that he took two swings at Landless from his back.

Swinging at an official is unacceptable in any sport, and it can be especially dangerous in combat sports. Though Landless wasn’t injured, Baroni’s actions caused quite an uproar.

It also led to discussions between officials about when and how they should address fighters during a bout. I’d expressed only statements, not questions, to fighters. Honestly, I’d never considered why until that night. That’s when I realized you couldn’t expect a guy to fight and answer questions at the same time.

The night wasn’t over yet, though. In the next fight, one of the worst things that could happen to a fledgling sport happened: a riot broke out in the cage between the fighters and their camps.

Tank Abbott and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira had bad intentions from the start. They started swinging at one another in a frenzy, but as usual Abbott ran out of gas pretty fast. He’d also been cut over his eye in the first round by one of Correira’s knees, and blood was dripping down his face. Abbott was exhaling so hard that he was blowing blood into Correira’s face, affecting his vision as well.

I didn’t believe the doctor was going to stop the fight, so I stepped in, thinking I could bring Abbott over to the doctor for a quick cleanup so he’d have a chance to see the punches coming at him. When I walked him over, I said, “The cut’s not that bad. We’ll clean you up and get you back in the fight.”

Abbott then uttered the words no fighter ever should if he wants to keep going: “I can’t see.”

I warned Abbott, “If you say that to the doctor, the fight will be stopped.”

But Abbott knew what he was doing. He was tired and wanted out, and going out this way allowed him to blame it on the doctor.

When the doctor recommended the fight be ended based on Abbott’s comment, Abbott erupted into his defiant act, cursing the stoppage in a tantrum and stomping around the cage.

From here, things developed quickly. Correira broke out into his cabbage patch victory dance, and John Marsh, another heavyweight fighter working Abbott’s corner, made a remark about it, which I didn’t hear. Correira flipped Marsh off, and then Marsh threw a water bottle in the Hawaiian’s direction and lunged at him. Before we all knew it, the Octagon resembled a pro wrestling battle royal.

A couple commission attendants and I grabbed Marsh and cornered him against the fence, while referee Larry Landless and others did the same with Correira. Cutman Jacob “Stitch” Duran moved to Abbott to work on the laceration, and in the chaos a disgruntled and possibly inebriated fan jumped the fence and nearly fell on Duran while trying to claw his way to Abbott. Chuck Liddell, who’d piled into the cage with a few others to break up the commotion, grabbed the overzealous Correira fan and pointed him to the Octagon door.

With the sport still struggling for acceptance with the general public in the United States, this display didn’t go a long way to show how much MMA had matured. But if there’s one thing that MMA is, it’s unpredictable, and you take the good and bad with that.

It was strange because I walked away from UFC 45 feeling it wasn’t as big a show as I’d wanted it to be. I’m not saying Zuffa did anything wrong. I think the Hall of Fame presentation was a nice gesture, but it came down to the fights, and they didn’t deliver on the level that some of the shows before, like UFC 40, had. And that’s not even taking into account the referee assault and riot that had erupted in the cage.

Despite its black eyes, though, UFC 45 was still a night of celebration, a time for many of us to come together to reflect on what had been accomplished during the last ten years. The show gave Elaine and me the opportunity to see some old acquaintances we hadn’t heard from in a while.

Fred Ettish, the unfortunate victim of the UFC 2 beating and ridicule that followed, attended the show. It was the first time I’d seen him since his fateful 1994 appearance, and I told him that I felt bad for the way fans had treated him. He told me he appreciated my words and was happy for me that I’d been able to stick with the sport as long as I had.

Former commentator Jeff Blatnick was also in the crowd, as well as the UFC’s previous owner, Bob Meyrowitz. Zuffa had given him tickets, and it was the first time he’d attended the show since he’d sold the promotion in 2001. Dana White seated Meyrowitz cageside and made sure he was treated well.

Afterward, Elaine and I had a late dinner with Jeff and Bob. It was weird for me because I was the only one still with the UFC, and I felt guilty. Blatnick was bitter that he wasn’t with the promotion anymore, and I didn’t blame him. He’d spent hours drafting the UFC’s rule changes with me around UFC 22 and made many other contributions to the sport.

Meyrowitz also loved the UFC and had spent a lot of money fighting to keep it afloat. He commented on what a wonderful job Zuffa was doing with the show, which was gracious of him, but I could tell he wished it was still his. He regretted selling it, even though when he’d done it, he’d really had no choice.

With the old owner’s stamp of approval, the new owners kept trying to push the sport into the mainstream. UFC 46 “Super Natural,” held eleven weeks later at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, was the first UFC to be held over the busy Super Bowl weekend. In the main event, there was another Octagon first when Vitor Belfort cut Randy Couture’s eyelid open with his glove in their main event rematch.

At the opening bell, Belfort, who was grief stricken because his sister had gone missing in Brazil a few weeks beforehand, moved across the cage and threw a blinding left hand. The punch barely grazed Couture, but I watched the wrestler clinch with Belfort and squint one eye. It was definitely a closed-fisted punch; none of Belfort’s fingers had been sticking out. Belfort pushed Couture against the cage, then eased up when he felt Couture’s grip loosen.

I thought Couture’s upper eyelid had been flipped inside out—just like kids do to themselves sometimes—and I wondered why he didn’t just reach up and flip it back the right way. The thought that he might be cut never entered my mind. There was no blood and no real indication that the punch had cut him.

Suddenly, a single trickle of blood rolled down from his eye. It was time to bring the doctor in.

Dr. Margaret Goodman needed only a few seconds to investigate. She said, “He’s been cut badly along the lash line. I can’t let him continue.”

It had been a legal punch, so an emotional Belfort was awarded the victory and the UFC light heavyweight championship. The entire sequence played out in front of an equally confused crowd, who’d come to see a fight and felt cheated by its disappointing conclusion.

After the event, Zuffa officials approached me and asked what had happened. I explained that the fingers of the gloves were pressed together with a stitch that pinched the two pieces of material together on each side, creating the bump that had cut Couture like a razor. There was no guarantee Couture would have won the fight, but the way he’d lost it hadn’t been fair. I said I’d go back to the glove manufacturer to correct the problem.