It's Time!

by Bruce Buffer

  Rampage sometimes also takes the yuks a little too far. Early in his career I noticed that every time he gave an interview with the press, he was dropping a few choice curse words, often seconds after announcing how religious he was.

  Now, I’m no angel when it comes to that stuff. If I get pissed, I swear a blue streak. But I do think I know when to zip it. The one time I didn’t, as you’ll recall, Pat Miletich offered to rewire my jaw for me.

  I never said anything to Rampage about this until the day in 2001 when we were both attending Bas Rutten’s wedding. At the time, Rampage had not yet begun fighting in the UFC; he was up-and-coming, having done King of the Cage fights and now embarking on his foray into Pride in Japan.

  As we were enjoying the reception at the couple’s recommitment ceremony, I turned to Rampage and said, “I have a lot of respect for you, brother. I’m not religious, but I do have to comment on something. I’m watching you, and you’re making a grand career for yourself. You watch: the sport is going to blow up. You gotta prepare for this, Quinton. You’ve got to stop the cursing. You don’t want to appear like you just came off the street. It’s cool up to a point, but you have to try to handle yourself with class outside the cage. Sooner or later, the Cokes, Pepsis, Nikes, Burger Kings, Budweisers, are all going to come into the sport. They’re gonna be looking for role models. You want that. You don’t want to be stuck with the short-money sponsors. Think about it, Rampage. Think about the future.”

  Funny thing: back then, the sport was so underground that fighters would actually be sponsored by businesses in their communities that coughed up a little cash for the fighter in return for wearing the store’s logo on their trunks. It was a far cry from Bud and Gatorade. One of the early fighter sponsors, which locked down real estate on Tito Ortiz’s trunks in his early fights, was a chain of stores that sold adult videos and sex toys.

  I didn’t know how Rampage was going to take what I was saying. In one of my favorite movies, The Shootist, John Wayne plays a dying gunslinger who is known for his foul language, among other things. One scene I love, between Wayne and Lauren Bacall, goes like this:

  WAYNE: Damn.

  BACALL: John Bernard, you swear too much.

  WAYNE: The hell I do.

  I pictured Rampage having a similar reaction. But he didn’t. He thanked me and said he’d think about it.

  I don’t like to play the part of insufferable Uncle Bruce, but I think I’m permitted to speak the truth with my blood brother. None of us is perfect. These guys are practitioners of an emotionally and physically demanding craft. When the fights are over and the relief washes over them, the first thing most of them want to do is cut loose.

  But the money guys are always watching. I don’t think a lot of people are thinking about this. The assumption is that the sport has arrived, but we still have a ways to go. And there are still critics who are looking for any reason to take MMA down a peg.

  Well, lo and behold, a month later Rampage told me that he had taken my words to heart and he wanted to thank me. He was working to clean up his act, and he has. I rarely see him curse on camera anymore.

  When he fought Ryan Bader in Japan—the fight that pushed a lot of his buttons—Rampage showed up five pounds overweight and with two injured knees. He didn’t back out, because he didn’t want to disappoint his fans, and he pushed the UFC to let him fight on this card. The fight didn’t go well for him; Bader finished him by unanimous decision. We went out afterward in Tokyo, and I stayed an extra two days to hang with Quinton. He was limping much of that time, but we had some fun together. Later he elected for knee surgery, and went public via Twitter about his disappointment with the UFC. And Dana was his classic self: “You have one fight left in your contract; do it and leave if you’re so unhappy.”

  He may be unhappy, he may not be ready to retire, but he has always shown gratitude toward me. In Denver the night he got submitted by Jon “Bones” Jones, Rampage came up to me at the after-party he was hosting and thanked me graciously for my opening words. “That introduction was wonderful. Thank you so much. That really got me going. You got me going, Bruce.”

  I had to smile, because this is the side of Rampage people rarely see. The sweet, humble side, the man who expresses thanks for the little things people do for him.

  What the fans see is the performer, the guy who marches into the arena with the thick chains around his neck and howls at the moon. Fans are in awe of the masterful staredown technician who seems to shoot daggers from his eyes at his opponent.

  Standing in the Octagon with my mic under Big John’s or Herb Dean’s arm, and watching as Rampage glares at the man he’s about to battle, is one of the biggest thrills of my life. There’s nothing like being in the Octagon at that moment, when both men begin to smell each other’s blood.

  Once, after I concluded Rampage’s intro, I started to turn to the other corner. Rampage didn’t want to break character, but for a second our eyes met and he managed to give me a little wink.

  I’ve never told anyone about that.

  But I guess I just did.

  19

  GREAT FIGHTS

  I love driving to work, but I don’t get to do it that often. On November 11, 2011, I got my chance. The weigh-ins for the long-heralded UFC on Fox1 were being held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, just down the road from where I live. The place was packed, standing room only. I was delighted to see that L.A.’s Latino population had come out to watch the event and later storm the trucks hawking UFC merchandise out front. Junior Dos Santos and the heavyweight champ, Cain Velasquez, had no doubt been a huge draw. The next day at the Honda Center in Anaheim, the two were slated to go at each other like a couple of elk locking horns in a National Geographic special. It was going to be a great fight. Dana said that it would either be over in thirty seconds, or we would be treated to five rounds of an intense battle.

  Everyone who had anything to do with the UFC was champing at the bit, with good reason. The fight marked the beginning of what everyone knew would be a game-changing relationship with Fox Sports. The deal had been simmering on the back burner for a while before being announced early that year. The organization had had offers in the past, but whatever popped up just wasn’t working for them. HBO wanted the UFC, but reportedly also wanted production control. No way were Dana and the Fertittas going to relinquish control.

  But Fox was another thing entirely. It’s like the world’s biggest funnel for potential viewers. TV’s weird: you can receive 300 channels, but people still stick close to the top of the dial. The big four networks are your most-watched channels. If the UFC wanted to win converts, they had to get in that range. But Fox had a whole lot more under the hood. They could use that front-and-center real estate to direct eyeballs effortlessly to their multiple cable channels.

  For me, making that switch from deep cable to the top of the dial felt like kismet. In 2001, when I arranged for my brother Michael to appear on The Best Damn Sports Show Period, my contacts later led to getting Tito and me on the show as well in January 2002.

  Before Tito and I went on that day, we were back in the green room and I was talking to BDSSP’s producer, George Greenberg, who asked me when the UFC was coming to L.A., because they would like to cover it. At the time, the sport was not sanctioned in California.

  “But hey,” I said, “why not do one better and really make TV history by showing a live UFC fight on Fox for the first time in free TV history?”

  “How do we do that?”

  I set up a conference call with Dana and Lorenzo Fertitta to see if it could be done. After that one call, Dana, the Fertittas, and George followed through to create UFC 37.5, which was held at a ballroom in the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas, approximately two months later, during sweeps week. Fox and BDSSP realized its largest viewing audience ever, as a result of airing the Liddell/Belfort main event. (The decision was ridiculously close, but the judges scored for Liddell.)

  Now, as I sit back realizing the cu
rrent seven-year deal, worth an estimated $100 million a year for the UFC, it is obvious to me that Fox is the best and only network for the UFC to grow with. In a roundabout way, that relationship all started that day in the green room with George Greenberg, who is now a top dog with Fox.

  Fox had had the UFC swimming in its bloodstream for nine years. It was only a matter of time before they owned up to it and let it bubble to the surface.

  The first UFC show on Fox heralded such great things. We all knew it. We all felt it. It was a game-changer. Earlier that week, the New York Times had run a front-page article about how UFC “dips toe into the mainstream”—their words. In talking to the press, Dana was a complete mensch, pointing out that it would be a stellar night for fight fans. After the UFC bout was over, fans would easily be able to catch the Manny Pacquiao/Juan Manuel Marquez boxing match.

  Backstage before the show, we could all feel something big, seminal, and life-altering was about to happen. The eyes of the world were watching us.

  10 WAYS TO BRING CLASS BACK TO FIGHTING

  1. All commentators and announcers must dress with style.

  2. Jeans are okay on camera; just make sure they’re neat.

  3. No cursing during the interviews … especially any word beginning with an “F.”

  4. Avoid licking an opponent’s blood off your gloves when on camera.

  5. Don’t forget to thank your mom during the victory speech.

  6. No biting!

  7. Never hit the ring announcer—unless he hits you first.

  8. Sign every fan autograph and take every picture requested, except in the bathroom.

  9. Send a thank-you note after every staredown—not.

  10. Potted plants in the corners of the Octagon.

  Everyone I saw that night was stepping it up a notch. I went backstage to the green room to grab a bite, and in walked Joe Rogan. Normally he’s very casual in jeans and an untucked shirt. Tonight he was dressed beautifully in black slacks, black shirt, and a Dolce & Gabbana belt. His shirt was tucked in. He looked great. He was dressed to impress.

  “Oh,” he said when I asked why he skipped the jacket. “I look like a monkey in a jacket.”

  “I bet your wife bought the belt.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I went shopping. Got it myself.”

  I looked around outside, and there was Chuck Liddell in a designer suit and tie. I’d never seen him in a suit and tie. Multimillionaire that he is, he doesn’t really flaunt the style. I turn around and there are Carlos Condit and Dominick Cruz and GSP. All in suits. Rashad Evans and Jon “Bones” Jones were dressed to the nines as well, but they always are when they’re not fighting. They can be bigger fashion plates than I am.

  “Geez,” I said, “if you guys stopped fighting, you could be models.” They all chuckled. “Seriously,” I said. “You ought to tell your managers to get your images out there.”

  It was as if the sport had suddenly grown up, from shorts, sweats, and hoodies to the full-out style of champions.

  Outside, at the top of the show, they ran a clip of my voice saying, “This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for!”

  Next, Fox segued into a kind of Monday Night Football–sounding intro. That moment said it all. It told the world that the UFC had arrived. We were no longer an underground sport. We were no longer a cable TV sport. We belonged in the pantheon of all great sports. We had earned the right to be in the world’s living rooms, free and live. Get set: it was just the beginning.

  SOME things had changed in the world of sports to get us here. One was that MMA had simply grown to the point that it couldn’t be ignored. The other was a more subtle shift in the way Americans viewed the fighting sports.

  In 2012, Lorenzo Fertitta paid $1.1 million for the gloves Ali wore when he defeated Floyd Patterson in 1965. The truth is, a lot of us in UFC love boxing. When I was a kid, boxing was king. You trained in boxing first, then moved to wrestling and the martial arts if you had the interest.

  But MMA rarely gets props in return from people in the boxing world. Instead we get Bob Arum calling our fighters and fans skinheads or saying UFC fights consist of “rolling around like homosexuals.” We get sportscaster Jim Lampley denigrating the skill level of our fighters. It’s embarrassing. It’s like a badminton player putting down tennis.

  I ran into the champion boxer Floyd Mayweather in the high-roller room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel a few years back. I’ve known him for years, and he’s a phenomenal athlete who has always been nice to me. He came up to me, tailed by several bodyguards, to say hi and some other nice things. He said he’d been watching me from afar and was proud of my success. Flattering stuff, and very nice to hear, coming from a five-division world champ.

  “So were you at the fights?” I said, referring to the UFC event I’d just announced.

  “No,” he said, “I’ll never go to a UFC fight. I have no interest.”

  “I understand,” I said, “but thanks for the compliment, Champ.”

  I think he’s missing out on some great fights, but I’ve come to understand that kind of response. WWE’s John Cena once told me the same thing, which surprised me. Clearly, a lot of people feel threatened by the sport of MMA and its skyrocketing popularity. I see their reaction as comparing apples and oranges; boxing and pro wrestling are not MMA. But a lot of people simply don’t know how to respond to the rise of MMA other than to take potshots at the sport.

  I believe MMA has surpassed boxing in the eyes of young fight fans here in the U.S.A. Boxers, their fans, and the boxing press will deny this, of course. And in Europe at least, boxing is still huge. An event there will fill a 40,000-seat stadium. I’m booking Michael in places like that all the time overseas. But I daresay that when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao retire, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old in the U.S.A. who will be able to name a champion in boxing. Today’s young people are entranced with MMA. Maybe it’s because so many of the hot new sports must be extreme to catch their attention: extreme skating, extreme snow-boarding, extreme motocross. But that does not bode well for the future of boxing.

  The best example I’ve seen of a boxer changing his tune came from Bernard Hopkins. I saw him ringside at an Octagon bout in Philly in 2011. I was shocked to see him there, because he’d knocked MMA in the past, comparing it to gay porn.

  “I’m glad to see you here, Bernard,” I said, “but I thought you didn’t like MMA.”

  He said, “Bruce, I’ve trained with these guys. Once I trained with them, I realized how highly skilled and trained they are. I have nothing but respect for them.”

  That impressed me. At least Bernard took the time to get to know the fighters and their work, and his feelings had evolved as a result. And he is not alone; clearly the world has changed. But those who had to be persuaded didn’t change their minds overnight. Great fights helped them get over their prejudices.

  IT’S hard to talk about what makes a fight great. There are lots of nuances, lots of little factors that need to be considered. The night of the big Fox event was hugely historic, a major turning point for the sport—but it wasn’t a great fight. Dos Santos hit Velasquez on the temple, one of the worst places to get hit, and we had a new world champ in a little over a minute.

  Outside the stadium, Fox had erected a massive white tent with full-on security, luxurious couches, and a bountiful spread of all-you-could-eat beef, Mexican food, and sushi. Free drinks everywhere you looked. DJ Samantha Ronson was spinning. Massive TVs in every corner allowed the VIPs to watch replays, the main coverage, and, later, the boxing match. They spent seriously big coin on this thing, and people were having a blast. I was watching the Manny Pacquiao fight with Chuck Liddell and actor Mickey Rourke when someone told me that both I and my brother Michael were trending on Twitter. Both of us at once? That was a first.

  It was a glittering night. Fox had done wonders for our ratings. Nearly 9 million people watched at the height of the fight. We broke a
record for the highest-rated MMA fight ever on TV. Everyone was stoked.

  But despite the huge buildup, the main event turned out to be a quick, decisive fight that disappointed a lot of the fans. “Don’t blink when you watch the UFC,” a fan Tweeted me afterward. And yeah, I barely had a chance to get back to my seat. It was over that fast. In one sense, the fight was cool: it showed people the power of the mastodons in the heavyweight division. All it takes is just one punch to put your lights out.

  When Joe Silva, UFC matchmaker, puts together fights, he’s thinking very carefully about the skill factor. How can I pick fighters who are evenly matched? Who’s got to fight whom for the sake of the record books? And who deserves the right to have a shot at the title?

  But if that were all there was to it, we’d set up a camera to record the fights for posterity and leave them to duke it out in an empty stadium.

  Great fights have drama, drama, drama.

  Either the fans bring it in the door, or the fighters deliver it by surprise.

  Human beings love emotion. They crave stories. What’s the story between these two fighters? What’s the excitement all about? Why should I care?

  Sometimes the drama is built into the fight’s DNA from the beginning. The two warriors have met on the field of battle before, and they hold a grudge. Going into UFC 40, that incredible Tito Ortiz/Ken Shamrock fight, we had two guys who were fan favorites. Tito was in his prime, and Ken was on the tail end of his. It was a fight so hot you could smell blood in the air. Ken had his wrestling prowess and his penchant for getting pissed and going nuts on the mat. Leading up to that match, you knew supreme dislike was brewing between these two guys.

  Dislike, anger, hate—audiences love grudge matches. I get that: we’re all emotional beings. But when fighters feel the hate, the fight’s about to become hugely unpredictable. Will these guys lose themselves or stay in control? Are they too mad to fight?