by Bruce Buffer
Although I’ve since seen fans in other nations do the same thing, I will always remember that visit as the time I learned that my catchphrase really meant something to people.
Another standout experience happened an ocean away. Back in 2002 I got invited to announce at the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye in Kobe, Japan. It’s a New Year’s Eve fight event organized and promoted by a much-revered Japanese wrestler named Antonio Inoki. He’s a steel-jawed master showman who is in his early seventies now. His claim to fame, among other things, is that he’s the only wrestler ever to have fought Muhammad Ali. The two men had tremendous respect for each other, and Inoki’s Bom-Ba-Ye is actually inspired by the chant “bumaye!” which crowds used to cheer Ali when he fought George Foreman in Zaire in 1974. The phrase means “Kill him!” “Do it!” “Beat him up!” or “Take him out!” depending on whom you ask for a translation.
At the same time the Bom-Ba-Ye was going on, there were two other massive MMA events taking place in Japan, all within 500 miles of each other, the K-1 Premium Dynamite and the Pride Shockwave event. All three were on TV, fixating more than half the population of Japan. All three events had about 40,000 people attending them. The stadium where I was announcing had 43,000 people, which was the largest crowd I’d ever faced prior to the 55,000 people who showed up for UFC 129 in Toronto. Shows you how much the Japanese love martial arts. Imagine half the U.S.A. tuning in to three MMA events on major TV networks on New Year’s Eve!
For me, it was a great event just because of the fighters on the card, such as Lyoto Machida, who was once managed by Inoki. Also there were Rich Franklin, Josh Barnett, and Aleksander and Fedor Emelianenko. But the transformative moment came at the end, when audience members left their seats and came streaming down the aisles straight for us.
What’s this now? I thought.
They were coming up into the ring so the great Inoki could slap them.
You heard me: they wanted this titan of Japanese wrestling to slap them across the face. Inoki is renowned for his Toukan slap. To receive it from him is considered a high honor in Japan. The story is that in the 1980s, Inoki visited some schools in Japan where students tested their strength by taking turns punching him. While a news crew watched, one kid punched him in the gut and Inoki slapped him. You can watch this now-famous video online. The kid falls, but then gets up and bows to Inoki. That scene captured the imagination of the Japanese; it epitomized so many things about that culture. Stoicism. Respect. Masculine strength. It just became a thing where people asked Inoki to slap them. The word Toukan comes from Inoki’s nickname, Moeru Toukan, which means “fighting spirit that burns.”
Well, let me tell you, it does burn. Inoki was about sixty years old when we met, but he was brutal. I watched him slap Josh Barnett, and I thought, Wow, the guy can slap. I’m always up for something new. So I went over and asked to receive the slap of respect. He whacked me loud and hard. I went with the slap, which spun my head to the right. I balanced myself, then smiled and bowed. Inoki did the same.
But Josh is a fighter and I’ve had years of martial arts training. We knew what to expect, sort of. I watched the mass of people coming down out of the stands. There were mothers, fathers, little kids, pregnant women. Since so many of these people weren’t fighters, I was sure Inoki would pull his punches, so to speak.
Well, if he did, he hid it well.
I watched as these Japanese fans stood up stoically to the slap of the great fighter. Some took photos as their loved ones took the hit. Others broke down in tears, more from the honor, I suspect, than the pain, though that must have accounted for some of it. It was a gut-wrenching emotional experience. I had never seen such a massive outpouring of affection for a fighter.
Naturally, given the size of the crowd, it quickly became unruly. People were coming from all sides and I thought we would be mobbed in a matter of seconds.
Look, I said to someone, we need to organize this or someone’s going to get hurt.
Inoki took the microphone from my hand and began to speak. I have no idea what he said. But a few words left his mouth and the crowd coalesced beautifully into a single line formation in a matter of seconds. I was blown away.
For the next forty-five minutes, people were silent as they accepted their slap of respect.
Oh, and I should probably tell you about my brush with death. Later that night, the organizers threw a swanky New Year’s Eve after-party. Free port and champagne. Lobster. Shrimp. All-you-can-eat Kobe beef. At the party I was hanging out with Rico Chiapperelli, Rich Franklin, Jorge Gurgel, Matt Hume, Josh Barnett, and the other fighters. I spotted two Russian women I couldn’t keep my eyes off. They were identical twin redheaded ring girls who were working the fights that night. I saw these girls and sauntered over, intending to strike up a conversation.
BUFFERISM NO. 9
“STAY SINGLE AND YOUR POCKETS WILL JINGLE!”
When I hit age forty-five, I realized that more than 80 percent of my friends who had married were now divorced and paying alimony and child support. Enough said.
I didn’t get too far, because Aleksander and Fedor Emelianenko came over.
The brothers smiled and each of them took one of my arms and locked it into an armbar, without applying the pressure. It’s as if they were saying, “Here. Your arms are straight. We can break them at any time.”
“Bruce,” Fedor said in his accent. “Do we have a problem?”
My brain’s going, Uh-oh. He’s serious.
I smiled. The last thing I needed was a “problem” with these two bonebreakers. The last thing I wanted was to get the signals crossed because of the language barrier. I didn’t crack a joke. I was completely deadpan. “Hey, guys, no problem here. Happy New Year!”
“Good,” he said. “I like you.”
He then said something in Russian to his brother, who grunted, released my arm, and walked away like it was just another day at the office. Fedor and I shook hands, wished each other Happy New Year, and went our friendly ways.
I wandered back over to Barnett and the guys, who were just laughing.
“What’s so funny, guys?” I said.
“Do you realize how close you came to being a double arm cripple?” they said.
I said, “Where were you guys?”
They were like, “Over here. Not over there.”
And who knows if Fedor wasn’t kidding the whole time? But I didn’t want to find out. If I was right, it would have been a bad start to the New Year.
WHEN we were in Sweden for the Gustafsson vs. Silva fight in April 2012, I had this moment when I was looking around during the prefight party and marveling at what an accomplishment the UFC was. We were all being treated to multiple magnums of Cristal, and I just had to think back …
As I’m writing this, I’ve missed only two UFC fights in sixteen years: one in December 2012 where I would’ve had to be in two time zones at once, and a Japan event in the early days because the UFC didn’t have the budget to fly me over.
The fact that these are the only blank spots on my UFC record is pretty amazing. As yet another cork popped on a bottle of Cristal, I thought, How far we’ve come.
And I thought it again in spring 2012. I’d been studying the UFC 2012 schedule at home and had spotted what I thought was a potential snafu. UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida was scheduled for June 22 in Atlantic City. And the very next day we were scheduled to do UFC 148 in Rio de Janeiro. Well, that was a problem, as far as I could see. Philly to Rio was easily a fourteen-hour flight if I flew direct on a commercial flight. In some cases it’s taken me as many as seventeen hours! But if there were any flight delays or stops along the way, there was a chance I’d miss the show. I could not let that happen. I couldn’t risk ruining my stellar record.
I mentioned this to Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta at one of the shows, making them an offer. “Is there any way I can fly down with you on your jet? I’m willing to give up a paycheck. Take it and put it toward the fuel or whatever, because I don�
�t want to miss that show.”
Lorenzo smiled at me. “Bruce, we’ll get you there, don’t worry.”
A few weeks later, after the third Fox network show in East Rutherford, New Jersey, I was told that the travel issue had been resolved: management would fly me from one show to the next via private jet. That weekend I needed to pack two tuxes, because within two hours of landing in Brazil, I was on my way back into the Octagon—a hemisphere away from where I was less than twenty-four hours before.
How far we’ve come.
14
THE NATURAL
On another visit to Japan, I stood on the outside looking in, watching as a series of men fell to the power of the monster on the mat. One by one, each of these guys tried to take him on. And one by one, he shrugged them off.
When all of them were licking their wounds, Big John McCarthy looked around to see if anyone else was left standing. His eyes lit on me. He smiled. “Come on, Bruce,” he said. “It’s your turn.”
“Who, me?”
“Yeah, you,” John said, nodding toward the mat. “Get in there.”
It was December 1997. I was hanging out in a gym in Yokohama, Japan. The next day I was going to announce UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan 1. This afternoon, though, a bunch of us were just blowing off steam, visiting various locales, and had ended up at a local dojo where one of the UFC fighters was training for his main-event fight.
And now Big John had issued a challenge. He wanted me to get on the mat and do takedown attempts with the guy who had just beaten six or seven men in a row. Okay, I thought. I can do this. After all, he’s just taken on everyone in the gym. He must be tired.
The monster on the mat was Randy Couture.
I got up and walked onto the mat to do my part, which was to keep him pumped up for his big fight like everyone else. And like everyone else, I got completely manhandled in seconds. Later that night, as I introduced him to 14,000 fans, my voice cracked as I said one word: COUTURE.
It was terrible. That rarely happens, and when it does, it’s embarrassing.
Hmm, I thought, I wonder if it’s because he just kicked the crap out of me on the mat.
UFC 13 was our baptism by fire. My first official UFC and Randy’s debut. I was there when he took on Tony Halme, the so-called Finnish Viking. Randy stormed him like a bull and knocked the Viking to his back. Halme hung on for dear life, but Randy twisted his head free, slipped around to Halme’s back, and sank into a rear naked choke. Remember: this was old-school UFC. The Finnish giant had a hundred pounds on Randy that night, but fell to Captain America in a minute’s time. Randy’s second fight, UFC 15, was one of the most memorable wars I’d ever seen. He was the underdog, going up against Vitor Belfort, whose hands seemed to deal nothing but knockouts in those days. He was coming off four wins, two against men he’d fought in the same night. But Randy just wore him down and finished him off. Eight minutes. Boom. Done.
Success as a fighter does not consist of getting into the Octagon, punching and grappling and hoping for the best. At least it shouldn’t. Smart fighters come in with a strategy. If it works when they face their opponent, they stick with it; if it doesn’t, they must be nimble enough to try something else. Couture is the most thoughtful, strategic fighter I’ve ever known, and I think younger fighters would do well to learn from his attention to detail. He tailors his prefight training to his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. If the opponent is a famed puncher, Couture trains himself so hard that he could shrug off a locomotive if it hit him in the face. He calculates how to get that guy to the mat as quickly as possible, because his own strength is in wrestling. If he can get the man down, he’ll succeed, and he usually does.
Couture was a great wrestler who’d evolved over time to become a phenomenal MMA artist. He knew just how to strike and move his body in an unorthodox manner that confused his opponents. He could break down and defuse strikers. He could defuse wrestlers. The third round was occasionally tough for him, but he always came back and won. I’m not privy to his thought process, but from the outside it seems as though he has every fight planned out, as every fighter should, but he’s nimble enough to shift and adapt as the fight progresses. The great Muhammad Ali used to be able to predict the round he’d win in. If Randy were as cocky as Ali was, he could probably do the same thing. In sizing up opponents, he was a very experienced general, mapping out strategy on the battlefield. I’ll lose a thousand men, a general might say, but I know I’ll take that fort.
I used to know a Russian fighter who didn’t like to get hit. You can always tell when fighters are like that. It’s their tell. They turn their heads away from the punch if they see it coming, and they lose focus and control. You can’t do that. Randy doesn’t. He seems to relish it. You have to keep watching your opponent. I mean, if you cook bacon, you’re gonna get stung by grease.
Once upon a time he got a lot of flak for retiring, then coming back. And there was controversy another time, because the UFC wouldn’t let him out of his contract. Anyone on the inside understood what was going on. Randy was hugely popular with fans, and his agent had lined up a number of Hollywood projects and commentating gigs for him. He had a chance to make big money, and why shouldn’t he? Who could fault Randy for leaving under those circumstances?
But watch what happens. Randy is in retirement, and he’s in the commentator’s booth and says he wants to come out of retirement to fight Tim Sylvia, who was the reigning heavyweight champ. Why? To me it’s obvious. Watching Tim fight, Randy saw a chink in Tim’s armor that Randy knew he could get through. What does that tell you? He’s watching fights as a layman now, but he’s analyzing them far more perceptively than anyone else can—commentators and fighters alike. He perceives the man’s weakness, his curiosity gets the better of him, and at the age of forty-three, he proceeds to go in and take the guy apart!
He put Tim on his butt with one punch in the first few seconds of the fight. He was an 8-to-1 underdog. At UFC 15 in 1997, he beat Vitor Belfort as a 6-to-1 underdog. In UFC 44, he had Tito Ortiz upside down, with his butt in the air, and spanked Tito on the butt on camera before taking the man’s title. Imagine having the composure in one of your most important bouts to lighten up and say, “Okay, this is one for the camera, guys.”
The first time I ever saw him on the fence was at the hands of the Brazilian fighter Pedro Rizzo, in UFC 31. It was the first UFC under Zuffa, and one of the most brutal fights I’ve ever seen in the Octagon. Five five-minute rounds. Hugely intense. The two fighters inflicted serious damage on each other, and in the end Couture was chosen by unanimous decision. That was controversial at the time, and the controversy triggered an immediate rematch: UFC 34. Randy won again, this time by TKO in the third round. It was incredible. Pedro was eleven years younger than Randy, and a ferocious kicker. I remember, back in the late nineties, hanging out with Tank Abbott in Brazil. The poor guy limped so badly after a fight with Pedro that I thought I was walking around with a wounded King Kong on a leash. And Randy took Rizzo on at the age of thirty-eight, and won?
Back in the early days, Randy and I never really hung out together. But that changed the more we saw each other at fights and a couple of poker events. A boxing promoter once invited a bunch of us to come to Australia for one of the first MMA events ever held there. We were there for five days with free time before and after the show, during which we also went to an Australian football game where Randy addressed the players before they hit the field. Later we visited them in the locker room for celebration, laughs, and beer. Let me tell you, Australian footballers are some tough mofos!
Randy had a few beers and he was having a blast. He’s not one to have too many, but he does have his moments. I’d never even heard him curse until that night. We were walking back to the car, and for some reason, something had pissed him off and he went off on this witty, foulmouthed rant in the parking lot. “F—this, and f—that!” I whipped out my camera and started videotaping him and he was hamming it up now for the c
amera because he realized how hilarious he sounded. So believe it or not, I actually have a video of Randy Couture cursing his head off in an Australian parking lot. No one’s ever seen it but me, and I’d be a fool to release it, because I certainly don’t need Mr. Couture to come knocking on my door.
Sometime in 2011, I ran into him and we were talking. He said, “You know, Bruce, I don’t know how many more wars I have left in me.” Shortly afterward, he left the UFC for good. He left in style. Every fighter wants to leave on his own terms. Randy did.
And unlike other fighters, he took the time to prepare for his after-fight life. Other fighters think the money will last and it doesn’t. Randy took acting lessons and lined up work in commercials, TV, and film. He’ll never be Laurence Olivier, but he’s got a commanding presence that’s great for many roles. He did two of The Expendables movies, he launched a bunch of products in his clothing line, and best of all, he’s got his own gym. What wrestler wouldn’t give his right nut to have a personal training session with Randy Couture? Who would turn that down? Is there a better teacher? It’s like taking a basketball class with Michael Jordan. Guys like Randy and Tito can really teach, too, because they have the head for it. Plenty of great fighters just don’t know how to get the knowledge out of themselves and put it into words in order to teach it.
I kid Randy a bit because he’s been married a couple of times, but he’s always been a good role model, probably the best the sport has ever seen. His example says to younger fighters, hey, you don’t have to give it up too soon. If you have the edge, you can extend this into your fourth decade.