Let’s Get It On! (47 page)

Zuffa used its big break to its best possible advantage. When the second season of
The Ultimate Fighter
debuted on Spike TV that August, UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes and middleweight titleholder Rich Franklin were cast as the new coaches. What better way to familiarize fans with their champions than to have them broadcasted into millions of homes each week?

I returned to referee some of the fights on the show, and when it concluded in November to steady ratings, both Hughes and Franklin had already been assigned to headline UFC 56 against their respective challengers two weeks later. Zuffa had momentum, and it wasn’t stopping now.

At UFC 57 “Liddell vs. Couture 3” on February 4, 2006, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, I got to referee the third and final bout between the two stars and
TUF
season one coaches. Their exposure on the show had made Liddell and Couture Zuffa’s most recognizable fighters, and they each had a win over the other, so the rubber match made perfect sense.

At the top of the bout, I thought Couture was fighting really smart. He got hit with a big shot that busted up his nose, which was bleeding a lot, but after much effort he took Liddell down in the last thirty seconds.

It went into the second round, but Liddell caught Couture again in the first two minutes. Couture went down and tried to flail his arms and legs to keep Liddell off him, but Liddell connected again.

I watched Couture’s arms fall and his head bounce against the canvas. He came to from the impact as I was coming in. Liddell could have caused more damage if I hadn’t stepped in.

I was pleased with this stoppage, even after Couture told the press he hadn’t felt out of it at any point. Fighters who’ve been knocked out often claim they weren’t, so I don’t ever take it personally. They don’t know what’s happened because they’ve lost that little piece of time. The two most popular lines for fighters during these times are “What happened?” and “Why is my opponent putting on his shirt?”

Throughout 2005, the UFC’s future seemed to get steadily brighter. In August, Spike TV debuted
Ultimate Fight Night,
later re-branded
UFC Fight Night,
a two-hour live fight show featuring the previous
TUF
season’s fighters, which would serve as the lead-in to the reality show’s next season debut.

I don’t think the pay-per-view numbers took off that year. Zuffa never released the buy numbers, though Lorenzo Fertitta or Dana White would sometimes share them with me.

However, the live crowds were consistently growing, and it would take me a bit longer to leave the arena, as I’d be asked for a few more autographs and pictures each time.

UFC 59 “Reality Check,” held on April 15, 2006, at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim was a bittersweet moment for me. On the bright side, it was the first UFC ever held in my home state. After fifteen years of traveling across the country and the globe to referee fights, I had to get in my car and drive only one hour south this time.

I’d spoken before the California State Athletic Commission at its public meetings in the months prior as it locked down its own set of regulations to oversee the sport in the Golden State. I defended the Unified Rules already widely utilized stateside, much to the chagrin of Pride Fighting Championships’ executives from Japan, who were also in attendance to try to get some of their own rules recognized in the key state.

I never had a problem with Pride or their rules, but it had taken California five years to finally approve MMA’s legalization with a four-to-one vote. Pride’s requests would hold up the regulation process for another six months to a year. To me, that was crap. I figured they should let the legalization go through entirely, then attempt to put in an addendum that allowed for what they were asking. I have heard some people say that I fought to keep Pride out of the United States, but that’s not true. I was just fighting to get MMA going here as fast as possible.

Ironically, UFC 59 marked the first UFC when I wasn’t assigned to the main event fight. This wasn’t a really big deal for me, but it upset Elaine because she knew why the commission had decided not to assign me.

About a month prior, I’d been offered the main event bout in a Strikeforce show, which would be the first regulated MMA event in the state. The commission was kind about it. Executive Officer Armando Garcia said I’d earned the honor of officiating the fight for all I’d done in the sport.

However, I felt I needed to turn down the assignment.

I had a personal issue with the fight because it paired former UFC champion Frank Shamrock against Cesar Gracie, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who’d never entered an MMA fight in his life. I told the commission if this were a boxing match, they never would have approved it. The commission and Gracie went to great lengths to prove Gracie had a record of fourteen wins and zero losses back in Brazil. However, I knew he was just a grappler, a good grappler, but not a person who’d been under the pressure of performing in an MMA match in front of thousands of people the way Shamrock had. When a grappler who’s never been hit in a real fight gets struck in the face and he’s not used to it, things can go bad for him quickly.

The proof was in the pudding. Shamrock needed one punch to crumble Gracie for a twenty-second finish. I’m glad it didn’t go longer, because I didn’t want to see Gracie get seriously hurt.

But since I didn’t support the fight that the CSAC’s executive officer had approved, I sat out a UFC main event for the first time.

Honestly, I preferred the bouts I was assigned to at UFC 59 because they were evenly matched. Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin went to a split decision. It was also great to have my family with me for part of fight week. My dad and children sat together in the audience, something we couldn’t swing often at the out-of-state shows.

MMA’s passage in California was a coup for many more in the sport as well. A number of fighters and their camps lived in the Golden State, so it was a hotbed market that the UFC didn’t hesitate to tap into. Following the success of UFC 59 in Anaheim, which drew 13,000 paying customers, UFC 60 “Hughes vs. Gracie” was scheduled for the 20,000-seat STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.

In the main event, UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes faced a returning Royce Gracie in a special nontitle bout. Royce had taken a few fights overseas but hadn’t competed in the Octagon since UFC 5 in April of 1995.

I had mixed feelings about it. I knew why the UFC was making the bout: to illustrate the difference between the UFC now and the UFC then and to pump Hughes up as this unbeatable star who wrecks past champions. Businesswise, it was a smart move. The name Royce Gracie still drew a lot of interest from the casual fan who didn’t buy all of the pay-per-views. Royce had done so much in helping to create the sport and had carried himself in such a respectful and noble manner, and people were interested in seeing him return to the house he’d built.

There was no doubt in my mind that Royce absolutely felt he could win, but I just didn’t see it. Obviously Royce had his jiu-jitsu, but Hughes wasn’t one of the befuddled fighters Royce had met at the early shows. Like any other fighter of this time, Hughes knew jiu-jitsu and was damn good at it.

On top of that, they were completely different guys physically. Hughes was powerful and could grind his opponents down, while Royce’s wiry figure required that he achieve positional leverage to overtake his opponent.

I felt Royce couldn’t hurt Hughes standing up, and if Hughes wanted to keep it on its feet, he could. Royce wouldn’t be able to take the former collegiate wrestler down unless he hurt him standing, and that wasn’t likely to happen. In other words, Hughes could take the fight wherever he wanted to.

It broke my heart when Hughes flattened out Royce hard and crushed his face into the canvas. It wasn’t that I cared who won or lost. I simply felt bad that in the end, just as with 99 percent of fighters who compete till the age of forty or beyond, Royce was on the receiving end and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Royce dragged himself back up to his knees, but Hughes muscled him flat onto his stomach and started hitting the sides of his head. Royce had nothing for Hughes. I told Royce the same thing I tell all fighters: “Move. Get out.” All I was looking for was for Royce to try and move himself out of the horrible position he was in.

But Royce just lay there taking shots, each one denting his pride a little bit more than the last. I knew Royce’s wife and kids were sitting in the front row, so when it was obvious Royce couldn’t come back, I promptly jumped in.

As I stood center cage with Hughes on my one side and Royce on the other, I spoke to my former teacher. “You’re a warrior. You did good, and you should be proud.”

I could see one of Royce’s kids crying cageside, and that resonated with me on a raw level. I felt terrible inside.

One of the only good things to come out of Royce’s UFC return was that I’d gotten to see Royce’s father, Helio Gracie, another time when I’d given my prefight talk to the fighters. I’d always had a special place in my heart for Helio, the father of the sport. The relationship Helio had with his sons reminded me of the great respect I have for my own father.

“All of this is because of you,” I told him, “and I want you to know how much I appreciate you and everything you did to make this possible.”