by Bruce Buffer
Besides, what if I invited these women up to my room, giving them the idea that I’m open to party, and then discover that they aren’t exactly my type and they don’t turn me on?
I was surprised that I was so cautious because, to tell the truth, there were times in the past that I wouldn’t have blinked an eye.
I’ve mellowed. Calmed down quite a bit, and instituted rules. There have been times when I’ve brought dates to the UFC weekends, but I’ve come to realize that it’s a bad idea unless I’ve been seeing the person awhile and know that she can occupy herself when I’m not with her. Otherwise, it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. In the first place, I’m working. My first obligation on this fight night is to my employer, to the fighters, and to the fans. Bringing a girl to the fight can potentially create problems, because they have to be willing to let me put my job before them. They have to be patient and understand that I am there to perform and do my job, which means interacting with fans. Whoever I’m with often has to stand on the sidelines as I pose for pictures and sign autographs, from the moment I leave my hotel room until I return to it at the end of the night.
Early on, when I wasn’t exclusive to the UFC, I went to a non-UFC event down south and brought along as a date a beautiful young ring girl I had met while announcing a previous MMA event weeks earlier. She flew down to meet me at the hotel the night before the fight.
I was getting ready for my performance, going through my pre-show routine, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, my lady friend started flipping out in the hotel room. Until then, it had been a comfortable situation. Now she was sobbing, upset that I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. This happened just as I was getting ready to go downstairs to announce.
What was the rest of the night going to be like? she demanded to know. Was I going to treat her like the queen she was?
I looked at her and said very calmly, “Look, we’ve had a great time together, but now I have to go to work. I’m sorry if you’re not feeling good about us right now, but I have to prepare for the fight. You’re supposed to be supporting me instead of making me a wreck. You have two choices: you can either fly home now or you can fly home in the morning. Either one is fine with me, but tell me now so I can make the call.”
Now, okay, she was emotional and weepy. And I’d be the first to say there’s nothing wrong with expressing your feelings. But it wasn’t right, considering that she knew very well what she was getting into. She knew that this weekend was a work opportunity for me. I’m going on in a few minutes, and yes, I can’t give you the attention you probably deserve. But you knew that before you flew down here. So let’s work through this and make some decisions.
She stopped crying and pulled herself together. She washed her face, cleaned up, and made her decision: she was sticking around. And I don’t blame her. If she had left, she was going to miss out on an otherwise fantastic evening and after-party. We had a great time hanging out with Frank Shamrock and going crazy.
But wouldn’t you know it, the next morning, she started up again. Why couldn’t she come back with me to L.A.? Why couldn’t we extend the romance for a full week?
This was another situation that definitely pushed me over the edge with respect to dating women in my UFC workplace. It forced me to set up some ground rules for the women, friends, and relations that I bring to these events. Family members and friends stay in a separate room. If I have a young lady staying with me, I orchestrate it so that her flight comes in after I’ve prepared for work. I always arrive at the arena an hour or so before the show to finish my data prep and mentally prepare for the event. So, before I leave the hotel, I make sure keys are left at the front desk. The tickets are waiting in the room. I make sure she has a seat close to where I’ll be on the floor. I say hi, we kiss hello, and then I’m in the zone until the job is done. After the show, we’ll have a nice night of parties, and possibly a great Sunday together in the event city, but beforehand I need to maintain my focus.
Luckily my family understands this. “You have to work?” they say. “Go to work. We can take care of ourselves.” Michael has never been to a show except for the three UFC events he announced (UFC 6, UFC 7, and “UFC The Ultimate Ultimate”), but my brother Brian and my VP, Kristen, have both attended, and we always have a blast, because they’re reasonable and don’t expect me to hold their hands everywhere we go.
In the early days, before I was an announcer, I’d watch Michael perform and I just fell in love with the job. He looked like a million bucks up there, and I thought, Man, he must be meeting a ton of beautiful women. It was one of the reasons I wanted to do what he did! But over the years, such occurrences have helped me formulate my rules:
I never lie or make false promises. And I don’t date Octagon girls in the UFC, although I dated some in the pre-Zuffa days, and I’ve dated some ring girls in the boxing world. It’s like dating someone in the office. In the past, when I dated women who worked for me in companies I owned or managed, when the relationships failed, someone ended up either leaving or losing their job. The person with the lesser amount of power—typically the woman—ends up leaving. This has happened a couple of times in my life, and believe me, it’s no fun for me or the woman. I don’t like hurting people’s work life or their ability to earn a living. It’s a very selfish and ultimately inconsiderate thing to do. I don’t want that mental duress on my conscience. I have too much respect for the female gender.
I like to tell people, “I’ve never been married, but I’ve almost been divorced twice.” There were, in my life, three women to whom I almost got engaged. One was a beautiful, intelligent girl who was a Miss America contestant from Virginia. After nine months of a lovely, growing relationship, I realized that although I loved her, I was not in love with her, and decided it was best to let her go. I didn’t want to waste her time or mine. If I couldn’t see pursuing a marriage with her, it was best for the both of us to move on with our lives.
I thought this was very unselfish on my part, but this young lady went from loving me to loathing me. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to work toward marriage. The way she saw it, most men would kill for the opportunity to be with a woman like her. The fact that I was able to walk away incensed her.
She is one of the few ex-girlfriends to whom I have not spoken since we broke up. I’m still friends today with all my other serious girlfriends. We have what we started out with—friendship—and the only missing link is that we are no longer intimate.
How could I walk away from such a beautiful prize of a woman?
Simple: I was honest with myself, I was honest with her, and I knew in my heart that it would be best to wait for the true Ms. Right. And it was best for my ex to be free to find the right man, if it wasn’t going to be me.
It was at a party that I met another girl who changed my life. In the days right after the O.J. Simpson trial, my good friend Darby and I went to a birthday party in honor of Al Cowlings, the former football player. Al was the guy who drove the notorious white Ford Bronco that O.J. used in the famous low-speed car chase.
Darby is an amazingly hot, Nordic-looking girl. We’d dated a few times, and had settled into being just friends. Yes, we went to this party together, but we both knew that if we got lucky and met someone tonight, it was okay to give out or get a number and try to follow up. Darby was a great “wingman,” and I like to think I was the same for her.
10 WAYS TO BE A GOOD WINGMAN
1. Spot the girl making eye contact across the room and alert your buddy.
2. Be the “ice-breaker,” not the potential “date-breaker.”
3. Forget cheap pickup lines. Just start by saying “Hello.”
4. Bring your “A” game to the table when your friend doesn’t have it.
5. Don’t go home with the girl your buddy wanted to meet.
6. Pay for the first round of drinks, but say it is on your buddy.
7. If the girl your buddy has his eye on asks if
you’re single, say, “No.”
8. Keep fresh condoms in your wallet. They go bad.
9. Don’t drink apple martinis or any other frou-frou drinks.
10. Carry plenty of cash, plus credit cards that aren’t maxed out.
I was in the kitchen when in walked this vision of a girl who reminded me of Claudia Schiffer. And it was as if I suddenly went deaf, the music stopped, all sound died, and I was just entranced by this girl, whose name was Kristen. Her smile was so infectious and real and genuine that I fell in love with her at first sight. My instincts proved correct. I had just met the most amazing woman I would ever meet in my life, besides my mother.
On the way home that night, I told Darby that I’d spoken to Kristen and that I had gotten her number and that I had to meet with her. Darby was touched by the impression this Kristen had made on me. All the way home, she was saying, “So … when are you going to call her?” That kind of stuff, needling me, getting me to take action.
Shortly afterward, I started seeing Kristen. Long story short: I probably should have married her, but I didn’t. For whatever reason, we dated about six months and broke up.
Usually that’s the end of the story, but this time it was a little different. We lived a few blocks from each other, and we’d keep running into each other as we’d go about our day running errands. It was a little awkward at first, but we got over it and I found myself having a different set of feelings for her. Not lust or sexual attraction, but genuine friendship. We spoke frankly about the people we were dating, and about work and life and family. I saw her as my pal, my confidante, my equal, and grew to love her as another human being and someone whom I was honored to have in my inner circle.
A few years after I started my business with Michael and needed to hire an assistant, I could think of no one more qualified than Kristen, who at that time was working as an assistant to the media mogul Barry Diller, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and a founder of Fox Broadcasting. I lured Kristen away from Diller, and she came to work for me, first as my assistant and eventually as the VP of both Buffer Enterprises and the company I formed with Michael—the Buffer Partnership—which runs all of his affairs.
Kristen is my right arm. Without her, my personal life and the way I pursue business would definitely change. I can’t fathom being without her and working alongside anyone else. I consider her not only my business partner, but the sister I’ve never had. She’s been through everything I’ve experienced—the ups and downs—of my life, work, and family for more than fifteen years.
She married a great guy named Chris in 2002. They don’t realize it, but I’m the one who profited the most by their marriage. You see, Kristen has since become the mother of two great sons, Henry and Rupert, who are both under ten years old as I’m writing this. From the moment they were born, Henry, my godson, and Rupert have been sharing my workdays with Kristen and me at my home office at the beach. And that’s how the guy who never had a family of his own has been enriched by the love of two kids. In between phone calls and business deals, I changed diapers, dressed and fed them, and helped educate them. I’d lay them down for their naps and wake them up in the afternoon while their mother was dealing with our clients in the next room.
In fact, it’s a joke to say that I’ve educated these kids, because they have educated me. They’ve taught this old bachelor what it’s like to love two sons and to be loved in return. That’s been an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
I think back and wonder if I wasn’t too hasty in breaking up with Kristen. In a way, she’s the one I let get away. “Typical me,” I say in retrospect. “Stupid me. I didn’t want to settle down, because I thought I had so much ahead of me to accomplish.”
Well, guess what? Her love, and the love of her family, have changed me.
It’s only recently that I’ve changed my tune. I don’t even think that I was in the right frame of mind to get married until I was forty-five years old. With all that was going on in my life, I just wasn’t willing to commit fully to another person. Before that, I was dealing with a whole bunch of other issues that sucked the time out of my life and sapped my energies. My parents got older and needed attention. My responsibilities changed.
Life is interesting that way. In your twenties, you’re out every night trying to conquer everything that moves. In your work life, you’re beginning to have a glimmer of ambition. You want the chance to make a name for yourself in the work that you do. Your thirties hit, and you hardly notice because you feel just the same physically. You’re still going out, still trying to conquer every woman you’re attracted to, but your male and female friends are dropping like flies. Everywhere you look, people are getting married, if they haven’t already. You’re hot for women, hot for love, hot for success. The ambition hard-on is raging.
Then you hit your forties and people who have been in your life forever start dying. The friends you thought were so happily married announce they’re splitting, and no, there’s no chance of a reconciliation. Their perfect love has turned to perfect contempt. The children are traumatized.
All of this—it’s a fact of life. Every decade of life brings its own challenges. The big, life-altering ones take you by surprise. If you want to be happy, you have to set your priorities.
I can’t say I haven’t been frustrated from time to time with my singleness. I fly all over the world and see amazing places. I look out at the harbor in Sydney and see that opera house and those great ships, and the waiter brings me some of the world’s most spectacular wine. Don’t you think I reflect on how nice it would be to share those moments with someone special? Don’t you think I wonder what it would be like to take my wife to Vegas and share with her all those memories I have of growing up in that wild, unusual, fascinating place?
You bet I would.
Would I get married today? Absolutely. In a second, if I met the right woman. If that woman looked at me with love and said she wanted to have a child with me, I’d be more presold on the idea than any other single guy on the street. Why? Because I already know what it’s like to hold a sick baby in my arms. I know what it’s like to change that child’s diapers, to nurture him, teach him, love him. I would think about all the ways Henry and Rupert have enriched my life. If it’s going to happen with Miss Right, I’d say sure.
But I have to be realistic. The life of a UFC man is hard because of the travel involved. In the early days we were on the road six weeks a year. Then it grew to twenty-four weeks. After the Fox deal in 2012, the schedule increased to thirty-one shows in a year, not counting my other appearances. Now I’m even turning down various other appearances because they fall on UFC weekends and my loyalty is to the UFC, first and foremost. So I am here today, gone tomorrow, in Europe two weeks from now. I’m running my businesses. There’s poker playing, side gigs, interviews, podcasts, and managing Michael and the Ready to Rumble brand. And on and on.
That’s why I recently confided in Kristen that with this kind of schedule, I didn’t think I’d ever have time to meet someone and have a normal relationship. It’s great to meet some wonderful girls and have a few laughs, but it’s hard to build a trusting relationship if they’re always wondering where I am on a Saturday night.
As I tell people all the time: Don’t cry for me, Argentina. This is what I signed up for, and I’m having the time of my life. But maturity and being handed the privilege of watching Kristen’s children grow up have taught me that notches on the bedpost are not the way to take the true measure of a man. The mark of a man is how well he makes his relationships and his marriage work.
Trust me: I would be the most wonderful, loyal husband in the world if I had a wife. How do I know that? Because I had a great example. My parents were together fifty-seven years and loved and nurtured each other until the day fate parted them.
I’m a romantic. I hold out hope that it could happen to me someday. If and when I do get married, it’ll be for the rest of my life. I’m old-fa
shioned that way.
But it’s okay. I’ll take love if it comes, but if not, I already have the world’s greatest lifestyle. Every day I have a chance to go out to provide for myself and my family, which is everyone, including my brothers, my mother, Kristen, and my godson and his brother.
I give them everything I can, because they’ve given me everything. And what’s more, they gave it to me when I didn’t know I needed it.
24
INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
In 1999 I negotiated a tremendous deal for my brother Michael and our company. Warner Bros. had approached us about using the name Ready to Rumble as a movie title. It was a hard negotiation, because I was insisting on more money and a share of the movie profits. Think about it: How many times could we possibly license Michael’s catchphrase as a movie title? Exactly once. It didn’t make sense to accept a flat fee and never see another dime from a potential moneymaker. We had to receive a handsome fee, but we also had to get points, or the deal just wasn’t worth doing. The producers could have just dropped it and walked away, but the director—a genius, in my eyes—kept insisting that he had to have the title. Finally the producers capitulated.
I was delighted. I had just checked something off my bucket list: a movie bearing Michael’s trademark; a big juicy cameo in the film’s climax, for which he was paid a huge fee; and profits to boot!
I called my dad, excited to tell him about the deal and get his approval.
“My first movie deal, Dad!” I told him.
He was initially very excited for me. But he used the opportunity to bring up one of his pet subjects: how I should manage the career of a young friend of his, a popular heavyweight boxing contender who was on the rise and who wanted new management.
“Look,” I said, “how many times are we going to go through this?”