Let’s Get It On! (43 page)

I’d been involved with the UFC’s glove development since Zuffa had bought the UFC three years earlier. Shortly after the purchase, Zuffa had asked me to look into finding the safest gloves I could. I spoke to Boxergenics, the company that was producing UFC gloves at the time. I also researched and sent out e-mails to companies like Harbinger and Century, asking if they’d like to make a glove specifically for the UFC. John Ouano, of the Ouano brand, was the only one to respond, so I started working with Ouano on the design. He kept sending me samples until I knew that what I was holding in my hands was what we wanted. After UFC 46, I went back to John Ouano, and we worked on the gloves until we had a better model ready. Later, the UFC would end its relationship with Ouano to sign a deal with Century, but John Ouano was a major contributor in the evolution of MMA gloves and making them safer for the fighters.
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As the sport evolved, the UFC continued to flounder. Around UFC 40, I’d known the promotion was struggling. By UFC 45, I knew they were having big problems. I’d hear the conversations. Everyone knew Zuffa wasn’t getting what it had expected out of its investment. The UFC was back on pay-per-view, but the numbers weren’t good. The company was spending a lot more money than it was making.

Remember Tito Ortiz’s entrance at UFC 30? Zuffa had paid something like $50,000 for the flame and fireworks display. Double that because they also had to test the display in front of the fire marshal during a rehearsal. That was $100,000 before the fighters even entered the cage. This was money Zuffa couldn’t afford anymore.

So the big ramp and the elaborate entrances were done away with, and the floor layout was reconfigured to fit in more seating. Zuffa said it was because the promotion was moving toward a more legitimate sport presentation, like that of boxing, but the real reason was to save some change.

At that time, someone at Zuffa told me the UFC was nearing $40 million in the hole and if it didn’t turn around, the Fertittas wouldn’t be able to put any more money into it.

The UFC was struggling, but it wouldn’t go down without a fight. Zuffa wasn’t afraid to make changes when things weren’t working, and I’m fairly sure this was one of the reasons it would survive this desperate time.

One change Zuffa made involved marketing the fighters and the UFC product as a whole. Zuffa had quickly realized it couldn’t control what happened with fighters. Lorenzo Fertitta had told me he wanted to build stars, and the promotion certainly had boosted a few, such as Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, and Randy Couture, early on. However, from the undercard up to the main event, athletes withdrew all the time due to injury. Or even worse, Zuffa could spend a lot of time and money building up a particular fighter, and at a moment’s notice, he could end up leaving the promotion.

Zuffa could control the rest of the product, however. A strong brand would carry the product as the stars came and went. This way of marketing was something both SEG and Zuffa were criticized for in the beginning because it wasn’t the way it was done in boxing, where fighters were the emphasis. Most of the time, the fans couldn’t tell you what company was promoting a boxing event, but they could tell you who the headliner was. Yet emphasizing the UFC brand over one or two star fighters proved a wise business decision for Zuffa.

Don’t get me wrong. Zuffa treated the fighters well, certainly better than I’d seen other promotions do till that point. The fighters and at least one cornerman were flown into the host towns a few days early, put up in nice hotels, and given daily stipends for food. What could anyone ask for that the promotion wasn’t already providing?

Some fighters, like Randy Couture, had issues with Zuffa. He looked at things the way he looked at them. I know he always felt like Zuffa was trying to get rid of him, but I never looked at it that way. If there was one thing most of the fighters could complain about, it was the amount of money they were making, especially when others were getting much bigger paydays from Pride in Japan.

But to be able to pay the fighters more, the UFC needed to begin turning a profit. Unfortunately, the product wasn’t clicking with the consumers. There was too much of a negative stigma, and the UFC wasn’t reaching far outside the core fan base that had been there when Zuffa had purchased the promotion in 2001. There had to be a way to get the message to a large audience faster.

I was hopeful when Dana White told me Zuffa was working on landing a reality show on one of the TV networks. He wasn’t thrilled about it; he’d dreamed that, like boxing, the UFC would get its own live weekly fight night show. White told me Fertitta was the one who wanted to do the reality show because he’d allowed a producer to shoot a series called
American Casino
at one of his Las Vegas properties and had seen firsthand what the exposure could do for business.

It wouldn’t be cheap. Zuffa would have to pay for all of the show’s production costs to get the show on Spike TV, an up-and-coming cable network that catered to men and the only one that would agree to allow MMA on the airwaves. This would be a big opportunity for the UFC and the sport. White asked me to be a part of the show.

“I want you to come in and talk to the fighters about being a part of the UFC,” White said.

I told him that wouldn’t be a problem. That part of my involvement on the show never materialized, but I didn’t mind. I thought anything that could bring attention to the fighters and the sport was worth trying, so I was content supporting the show in any way they needed me to.

The way White explained it to me, they were going to bring a bunch of fighters together and have them compete for a UFC contract. I didn’t know how they were going to do it, and I wasn’t privy to any of the development talks, but it quickly became obvious to me that the reality show was Zuffa’s Hail Mary. If it didn’t work, this would be it for the UFC.

About a year and a handful of events later, filming for
The Ultimate Fighter
began. Zuffa flew me to Las Vegas, and I reported to the set, which was a warehouse a few blocks off the Strip converted into the UFC Training Center.

The gym always appeared much bigger on the show than it was in person, but they did a nice job with it. There was a heavy bag area, a small ring, and, of course, an Octagon identical to the ones used at UFC events. Photographs of fighters in every stage of their banged-up glory hung throughout the hallways. The gym had production offices for Spike TV and Pilgrim Productions, which had produced
American Casino
and pitched
The Ultimate Fighter (TUF)
to the cable network with Zuffa.

I usually got changed in a spare office, then reported to the set. I was concerned about the fights and nothing else. Spike TV would usually shoot a single fight in one day. The Nevada commission, led by Executive Director Marc Ratner, was present to oversee the bouts.

Prior to entering the competition, the fighters signed UFC contracts as thick as phone books and were cut off from the rest of the world for the shoot’s duration in a house miles off the Strip.

Some of the fighters I knew, and some I’d never seen before. The fight I really remember from that first season was between Kenny Florian and Chris Leben. Florian, a lightweight fighting up at middleweight to participate on the show, was getting tossed and pushed around until he managed to cut Leben’s forehead open with a standing elbow. I let the fight go for a bit until I had no choice but to bring the doctor in to check the cut, and he promptly stopped the fight. I felt bad for Leben because he was winning before one elbow took him out of advancing into the finals. Florian, a huge underdog, met Sanchez in the middleweight final, but lost.

For the next eight weeks, I made many one-day trips to Las Vegas, and each week the fighters in the gym were whittled down. The atmosphere of the fights was always strange because there wasn’t an audience to cheer them on. You had the judges, the inspectors, the EMT workers, White, sometimes Lorenzo Fertitta, sometimes his brother Frank and maybe a few guests here and there sitting around the cage, but that was it. During that first season, the fighters who lost would leave the house immediately afterward and be taken to a separate location. By the end, there’d be two guys fighting and maybe twenty people, including the production team, watching them.

Nobody really asked me for the fight results when I’d get home because the show wasn’t on anyone’s radar yet. I wouldn’t have been able to tell them anyway. The entire cast and crew signed confidentiality agreements.

The Ultimate Fighter
reality show debuted on January 17, 2005, airing at 11:00 p.m. following one of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programs, as Spike TV was trying to get a strong lead-in.

I remember watching it alone at home and thinking,
Holy Christ, they have a guy pissing on another guy’s bed.
My dad called me afterward and asked why the UFC was letting that happen on TV. But I knew young guys were going to eat it up. I knew the show’s bad boy Chris Leben was one of the toughest kids in there, and I’d originally picked him to make it to the finals.

We were told that the show needed to get a 1.0 rating to get off to a good start and keep its spot on the cable network. The first show drew a 1.2 and seemed to gain a little more of an audience each week. By the end of the season, the show was being called a success.