by Bruce Buffer
That night, Ortiz beat Shamrock by TKO. It was a tremendous fight, one that cemented the sport in the minds of fans. When the fighters walked out into the MGM Grand Arena, the fans displayed the most excitement I’ve ever felt at a UFC. A boom of voices rocked the house. I had to look down at my card for a second because I had forgotten Tito’s height. The card was trembling in my hand so much that I actually had to steady it. The energy was not to be believed. During the match I felt like yelling “Stop!” because Ken was taking such a beating to the face, but he fought like a warrior. That was a pivotal fight for the organization as well. It happened within two years of Zuffa taking over. They would still have to fight their financial battles for a number of years to come, but this event said, “Look and listen, folks. We can’t be missed.”
The rematch, UFC 61, was fun, too, watching as their personalities collided further. As I was announcing the fight, Tank Abbott was in the audience Octagon-side to my right, in the first few rows. Just as I was getting into the swing of things, Tank threw a small Ken Shamrock action figure into the Octagon, which landed near my feet. Uh, okay, Tank.
In contrast to his foster brother Frank Shamrock, Ken has a temperament that can go off at any time, if necessary. He’s intimidating when he wants to be, but otherwise can be a very cool cat. He has a grand ability to hype a fight, and only those who know him know what’s really simmering under his skin.
One night after Tito had won a fight, he was talking to the press in the Octagon when Ken, who was pissed at something Tito had said during his interview, bolted up the stairs suddenly to confront him. I was the first to body-block his rush.
There are two sides to Ken’s personality: the WWE promoter side and the serious, “let’s do this” side. That night, Ken was all business and a little more than serious. All I could think to say then was, “Ken, don’t fight for free!” He calmed down, all right, but his actions made the evening that much more memorable for the fans, and their next rematch more marketable.
What else makes a great fight?
Fighting styles.
If you have a fight between two strikers such as Chuck Liddell and Rampage Jackson, you just know they’re going to slug each other. You can guess that there’s probably going to be a pier-six brawl and somebody’s going to go down in dramatic fashion, which is just how Chuck went down in that UFC 71 rematch.
What makes a great fight?
Fighting styles—and their inevitable evolution. You can never predict this. It just happens in front of your eyes, and only then do you realize the sport has undergone a powerful shift. It’s another one of those subtle shifts in MMA that you can only talk about after it’s happened.
The monster known as Matt Hughes, a wrestler, meets Royce Gracie, a jiu-jitsu artist, on the field of battle and completely dominates and controls the man who practically birthed the sport. When that happens, a legendary fighter becomes an old-school fighter. Matt Hughes was not just Matt Hughes that night. He was a symbol of the new guard of mixed martial artist.
And then, lo and behold, Matt fought GSP, who put another style in play. GSP became the new school and Matt became the old school. GSP is a dedicated and gifted martial artist who excels at every style he trains in to become the supreme MMA fighter he is. He is so gifted athletically that if you gave him a basketball and a great coach, he’d probably be playing in the NBA in a year.
The same thing happened the night Jon Jones fought Rampage Jackson. We’d never seen Rampage be dominated in this way before. Wow—look, it can be done, and this is how you do it. Jon showed himself to be the standard-bearer of a new generation, a new school of fighter, the new supreme mixed martial artist.
What makes a great fight?
Well, I can tell you what doesn’t make a good fight: predictability. When James Toney stepped on the scales at the UFC 118 weigh-in, he looked like a guy who had not really trained for an MMA bout, especially one against Randy Couture. Toney had spent his whole career as a boxer, and had only recently decided to try his hand at MMA. I’m the first to say that a boxer will probably beat an MMA warrior in the boxing ring 99.9 percent of the time. I absolutely believe that. But I also believe that a boxer will have his ass handed to him 99.9 percent of the time in the Octagon unless he’s committed himself to learning a new way to fight. The fight started, and out came Randy. Toney didn’t land a single punch. Randy took him down and got him in an arm triangle in the first round. Toney looked like a turtle on his back. Absolutely no idea what to do. He tapped. End of story. It was painfully uneventful because we all knew it was going to happen.
Then there are fights that you never expected to be that interesting. When that happens, you want to kick yourself. When GSP fought Matt Serra in UFC 69, people were wondering, “Gee, will Matt survive an encounter with GSP?” There was a size difference between the two men. Matt’s a tremendous fighter and jiu-jitsu artist, but there was this expectation of defeat in the air. What happens? Matt whacks Georges on the temple much the same as Dos Santos did to Velasquez. Boom. It’s all over. A complete shutdown, and GSP loses his welterweight championship in a minute. The classic puncher’s chance reared its head. And when those two faced off again at UFC 83 in Montreal, Georges completely dominated Matt, no question. C’est la vie.
What kind of fights do I love?
The perfect storm, in terms of buildup, high emotion, and keenly matched ability are the Silva/Sonnen fights. Chael Sonnen is the most cerebral and humorous trash-talker on the planet. For better or worse, he knows just how to build a fight and he always goes too far. Look at his long-standing rivalry with Anderson Silva, the Brazilian fighter. At a weigh-in Q&A, someone asked Chael how many languages he spoke. “Three,” he said, “maybe four, if you want to count Portuguese as a language.” Another time he told a variant of the old guy-walks-in-a-bar joke: “Anderson Silva and his friends walked into a bar. They turned the stools upside down and they sat down.”
They love Anderson Silva in Brazil, and this is the second-most-watched sport in that beautiful country. When a man starts bad-mouthing an entire nation, think of the hate that creates. Emotion enters the Octagon, and fans become personally invested. At one point I told Chael, “You should never set foot in Brazil again. You won’t be able to walk down the street. Someone’s going to take you out.” He agreed with me. You’d think he would simply have trained and shut up, but he kept bad-mouthing Silva relentlessly.
Their first fight was five rounds of war, all on Anderson. He was getting the crap kicked out of him. We were worried that he might have a cracked rib, but, great fighter that he is, in the last two minutes he slapped a triangle on Sonnen and practically put him to sleep. Silva turned the course of the night and retained his championship. The drama in that fight was unbelievable.
But later, Chael was already sowing the seeds of hate for the rematch. On my radio show he said he was looking forward to defending his championship. “Wait a second, Chael,” I said. “What championship are we talking about? You lost your championship fight to Anderson Silva.”
“Welllllllll,” he said. “I don’t know if you can call that losing when you hit a man three hundred times and he hits you eleven times and he lies down and puts his legs around your head and pulls you in and chokes you out. I would never lie on my back and let a man go between my legs.”
Okay, Chael.
Their fight awed me, but like everybody, as much as I love the grandeur of a perfectly executed submission, I love to watch someone stand up and punch. One of the greatest fights of them all was the first Bonnar/Griffin fight. It rocked because it was a mix of fighting styles coupled with great striking. These guys kicked and punched and hit the ground and got up, going three rounds in a seemingly endless tumult. Our jaws were on the floor. Expectations were insanely high. Those guys delivered, but what if they hadn’t? What if it had ended quickly? Would it still be one of the greatest of all time?
People constantly ask me, “What is your favorite fight of all time?”
Usually, it’s reporters or fans who ask me this, and I always try to give them an answer, but damn, it is hard to say. It’s like picking your favorite movie, your favorite food, your favorite beer, your favorite book. There’s so much out there, how can you ever choose just one? Whenever I feel I have seen the greatest fight ever in the Octagon, another one comes along within months.
The sport is just that good.
20
BONES
The night of UFC 126, I was leaving the after-party at XS, a Vegas nightclub, at 3:00 a.m. As I was walking through the lobby of the Encore Hotel, I saw the fighter Jon “Bones” Jones trot in at a full clip, frantically looking around.
“Hey, Jon,” I said. “What’s wrong? Did you lose something?”
He explained that he needed to pay his cabdriver. “I don’t have any cash,” he said. “I’m looking for an ATM.”
“Come with me, Jon,” I said, throwing my arm around him.
We walked out into the cool night. The cab was parked in front, engine idling, the driver looking annoyed and impatient. I rapped on the window and peeled off a few bills. Sent the guy on his way. I turned to Jon and slipped a hundred-dollar bill in his front shirt pocket.
“What’s this?” he said. “Thanks, Bruce, but I can’t take your money—”
I turned and looked at the six-foot-four-inch man who, just tonight, had won the $75,000 Submission of the Night bonus after taking out Ryan Bader in the second round with a choke that resulted in a tap-out. It was Bader’s first loss, and Jon was a rising star; in six weeks he would be challenging Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the light-heavyweight championship. If he won, he’d be the youngest light-heavyweight champ in UFC history, only twenty-three years old. (News flash: He did.)
10 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY AT A UFC AFTER-PARTY
1. I could have taken that guy.
2. Quit hogging the fucking dip, Liddell.
3. Dana, can I rub your head for luck?
4. Is Michael Buffer here?
5. Can you autograph my martini glass, eyeglasses, shoes, swizzle stick, etc.?
6. I’ve got a great marketing idea for you: the dodecagon. Run with it.
7. I was a high-school wrestling champ—bring it.
8. Want to take it outside, Silva?
9. I’m thinking you need a better nickname.
10. Do you work out?
“Look, Jon,” I said, “you just won a main card event. It’s a fight night, and there are fans all over the city. You are not to go walking around Vegas alone by yourself, without cash, without your crew, you hear me?”
He nodded. “Yes, Bruce.”
I love Vegas. Know it like the back of my hand. But I’ll be the first to say that you need to stay alert there, the way you would in any big city. Especially if you’re highly recognizable.
I know fighters well enough to know that they are often so exhilarated on a fight night that they can’t sleep. On that night, Jon’s victory over Bader was still so fresh he could taste it. It was 3:00 a.m., but Jon could probably have stayed up till noon the next day. All he wanted to do was have some fun until he worked off that high.
Some people were coming up out of the lobby now. Some of them were my friends. “We’re heading out to another party,” I told Jon, waving over his shoulder to our limo driver. The sleek black ride pulled up. “Come out with us.”
As the limo pulled away from the curb, I made a mental note to talk to Jon’s manager about this. But for now, the night was still young.
I’VE been telling people for a while that my young friend Jon “Bones” Jones is a new breed of fighter. He’s a whirling dervish in the Octagon, a spinning tornado of elbows, knees, and feet. He’s got the longest reach of anyone in the organization. A well-proportioned, wonderful freak of nature, as so many great athletes are.
At UFC 135, he devastated Rampage Jackson to the point where Rampage couldn’t do a thing. Jones is similar to Chuck Liddell in the sense that his long arms and legs are a huge asset for him over his opponents. He had ten inches on Rampage, who, being a striker, found it hard to land some damaging blows. Rampage did a great job early in the fight, but he just could not connect. Then, later in the fight, when Rampage finally hit stride, Jon changed the game up and submitted him with a rear naked choke—the first time an opponent had ever pulled that on Rampage. After the fight, a panting Rampage said he lost the fight fair and square, and that he had tremendous respect for Bones. He then proceeded to pay the victor a high compliment, saying, “I don’t know who is going to be able to beat this man.”
As I write this, the Bonesman is as yet undefeated, though he did lose one fight by disqualification, to Matt Hamill, for throwing an illegal elbow strike. Jon and Rashad Evans were friends and training partners who once said that they wouldn’t voluntarily fight anyone they trained with. I respect that, but if you’re a fighter, you have to fight whoever stands in your path. Taking on a teammate is tough because you know all of the guy’s moves. When Jon’s title came up between them, a match was inevitable. It was scheduled twice, but both matches were postponed due to hand injuries. In spring 2012, Jon beat Rashad by decision at UFC 145. A chilly rivalry sprang up between the two men building up to that battle. Bones could barely make eye contact with Rashad at a prefight press conference. And when Joe Rogan asked if the two had anything to say to each other, Jon said, in effect, “I’m just going to say very little.” And then he walked off.
I understood that. I had taken some time to get to know Jon, and I know that he feels uncomfortable speaking ill of anyone. The first couple of dinners we had together, he struck me as a congenial, nice human being, a gentleman whose million-dollar smile lights up the room. He’s capable of subtle, self-deprecating jokes, but he will not say anything negative about anyone. He always seems to be in a good mood. Not only is he a tremendous fighter, but his character virtually guarantees he will someday be an ambassador of the sport.
I started telling people that Jon would someday be the Muhammad Ali of the UFC, and critics knocked me for it, but I’ll stand by it. Ali in his prime had a devastating wit and was a master of psychological warfare, but he also charmed millions of people because he had what Jon has: charisma. Jon’s a gentleman outside of the Octagon, and a cyclone inside it. His technique is indescribable, graceful, yet stylized. He pulls off moves that you only see in the movies. Actually, they’re better than the movies because he’s accomplishing real damage.
Jon and I have spoken many times about his career and his future. While in Rio de Janeiro for UFC 142, we hit the beach together for a couple of hours of body surfing. I told him that the world was his oyster. The only adversary that could ever hurt him was himself. Moving forward, I told him, he would be a role model for the UFC. The eyes of the fans would always be on him, and some would even be watching for him to fail. I urged him to watch himself, to be careful, to think about cultivating his image.
That’s why I was bummed when he wrecked his Bentley and was charged with DUI in the spring of 2012. I was relieved that he wasn’t hurt. It was a foolish incident that could have easily been avoided. I believed then that the fans would support him, and ultimately forgive the mishap. But his perfect role-model record is tarnished. I hope that his trainers and handlers coach him well and keep moving him to the next level. Being in his early twenties, he’s still got some maturing to do, as both a man and a fighter.
But he’s luckier than a lot of the fighters who came up in the UFC only a decade ago. First, he practices the sport in a whole new way. Second, he’s in the right place at the right time. The 2011 Fox deal propelled the sport to new heights and exposed it to millions of new fans. The UFC’s gone mainstream, and Jon’s in the perfect position to reap some of those benefits. He’s already locked in seven-figure deals for himself with soft-drink and apparel companies, like the multiyear deal he inked with Nike to release his own signature line of clothing. Sneer if you want, but those deals go a long way toward ensuring th
e futures of fighters and their families. They also give fighters the luxury of training well and safely. When I look at the older fighters I knew, like Frank Shamrock, I lament that the sport was so underground at the time that they couldn’t earn some big money this way when they were in their prime.
Another thing Jon has in his corner is a loving family. His dad is a Pentecostal minister in upstate New York; Jon was a church choirboy while growing up in this deeply religious family. He was the middle child, and though he wasn’t exactly a shrimp, his older and younger brother were also tremendous athletes. Both played football at Syracuse. Arthur’s now a defensive end for the Baltimore Ravens; Chandler was selected in the first round of the 2012 NFL draft by the New England Patriots. Jon tells me that when they were boys, Arthur and Chandler used to beat him up, and he’d always lose. He didn’t have what it took to be a football player like them, but he did excel at wrestling. But it was only later, when he left college to support his girlfriend Jessie and their first child, that he discovered MMA and started training hard. When he took the belt from Shogun in March 2011, he’d only been practicing the sport four years. That’s an amazing accomplishment, and I’ll bet his brothers think twice before they pick on him now.
Like me, Jon’s a big believer in meditation. In fact, he and his trainer Greg Jackson were heading out to find a peaceful place to meditate the morning of his pivotal UFC 128 bout, when they came upon that thief that Jon famously took down. The guy had just smash-and-grabbed a GPS device from an elderly couple’s vehicle in New Jersey. Jon grabbed the guy, submitted him, and held him until the cops arrived. The luck of that crook, huh? What a terrible day to choose to loot a car. Hours later, Jon got himself together and took the belt as if he hadn’t already had an eventful day.
So I don’t really see any weaknesses in Jon’s armor, save a hint of innocence. That’s why the night I saw him alone in Vegas rubbed me the wrong way. People think I make too big a deal about fighters needing protection. Obviously, Jon can handle himself against anything life hurls his way, and his management team can’t be there to protect him all the time, but a champion has bigger things to do than look for an ATM machine or guard himself against drunk idiots.