I pointed to Lucarelli’s corner, but they didn’t respond.
“Watch your fighter,” I warned, but I didn’t get a reaction. My eyes darted nervously between Lucarelli’s corner and the beat down, and I knew I had to do something. I started yelling for the cornermen to throw in the towel, but they just stared at me.
With an elbow to the back of the head, Weit smacked Lucarelli’s mouthpiece out. Lucarelli crawled away like his life depended on it—no exaggeration—and his corner finally tossed in the towel as Weit landed another devastating elbow to the back of their injured fighter’s head.
It was a scary sequence that lasted no more than ten seconds, and it ripped the bloodthirsty crowd out of the seats. They were the most uncomfortable ten seconds I’ve ever squirmed through in the Octagon.
I walked a shell-shocked Lucarelli to his corner. “How much did you have to see?” I said. “How long was I telling you to throw the towel?”
“He told us if we threw in the towel, he was going to kill us,” one of them sheepishly answered.
Holy shit, I thought, this is a problem.
I didn’t want something like this to happen again, but there was nothing I could do. The next fight was under way before I could give it a second thought.
Remco Pardoel was a Dutch grappler specializing in jiu-jitsu, so I thought he must at least have a good understanding of base and where to position his body on the mat. I didn’t know anything about Alberto Cerro Leon’s style, called pencak silat, not even how to pronounce it. It was categorized as an exotics art along with the other obscure disciplines introduced during UFC 2.
They’d said Leon had broken bones, so I thought he would either strike hard or do submissions. At least Leon, who resembled a young Steven Seagal, looked the part in his black gi with matching grave demeanor.
Whatever his style, I can’t imagine things went the way Leon had planned. After an opening exchange and a scramble to the mat, Leon found himself on his back with a rather large Dutchman pinning him down from side control.
Leon’s discipline, which I would later learn was a culmination of Indonesian striking arts, didn’t seem to cover this position in their manuals. So Leon did the only thing he could: he tried to stick his fingers in or over Pardoel’s mouth whenever he could to slow him down.
Pardoel was in complete control, though. He mounted Leon and then shifted back to side control and isolated Leon’s arm. He didn’t have a standard armlock, but from his judo side control, Pardoel managed to get that arm into a straight lock, bending it backward between his legs at an uncomfortable-looking angle. After about ten minutes of getting smothered by Pardoel from multiple angles, Leon and his art of pencak silat tapped out.
Of the eight opening-round bouts, the seventh was a pretty good fight, mostly because both men had a little knowledge of jiu-jitsu. Jason DeLucia, the determined, athletic youngster who’d submitted Trent Jenkins during the UFC 1 alternates match, returned to face Scott Baker, a Wing Chun master who’d been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu with black belt Pedro Sauer in Salt Lake City, Utah. DeLucia had been choked out by Royce at UFC 1, and I knew he’d sought out some jiu-jitsu instruction afterward, so I was a lot more familiar with his capabilities.
DeLucia sprang out of the gate and landed a traditional sidekick to Baker’s body before he clinched with him. Though DeLucia was trying to initiate the takedown, he didn’t resist Baker’s instinct to push him to the ground. DeLucia now had guard from his back, but Baker was able to pass and get to full mount, where he was basically sitting on DeLucia’s chest. DeLucia did a good job of using his hips to buck Baker off balance and take top position. It was solid Jiu-Jitsu 101 technique.
DeLucia then fell back and nestled Baker’s foot into his armpit for a heelhook attempt. Amazingly, Baker countered the hold and escaped to his feet. Ladies and gentleman, we had a fight.
Another takedown and a reversal from each man later, DeLucia lined up a triangle choke, locking up Baker’s head and arm by creating a triangle with his legs around them. Again Baker fought his way out of the finishing move. DeLucia found the triangle choke again from his back, but this time he flipped to top position with it. DeLucia was in perfect position to start punching Baker, who’d faded under all the pressure.
I was a little startled when DeLucia started speaking to him. “Dude, I don’t want to hit you anymore. Just give it up.”
After eating a few more fists, Baker did.
The final opening-round match, which would lead off the live pay-per-view, matched Royce against five-feet-seven, 160-pound karate expert Minoki Ichihara. Again, Royce’s first opponent of the night had symbolic value. Karate had had a healthy run in the United States, thanks to films like The Karate Kid, and the Japanese Ichihara was viewed as mysterious and potentially dangerous. Of course, I didn’t think Ichihara had a chance. We were talking about a man who’d dedicated his life to a discipline that doesn’t allow strikes to the head.
If the other fighters had known I’d already studied jiu-jitsu under Royce for nearly a year, maybe they would have said something about me refereeing his fight. But I never thought I would have a problem with it, and I never did anything special for Royce.
In my mind, it was the same as being a police officer. When a child molester moved next to a school and the neighbors harassed him, I had to be impartial, protecting his rights just as I would any other citizen. I learned early on in refereeing that there would always be fighters whose personalities I liked more than others, but that didn’t mean I could treat one fighter better than his opponent once the bell rang. I couldn’t gamble with people’s lives like that. So when Royce entered the cage, it was simply my eighth bout of the night; that was all.
The bout played out predictably with Royce taking Ichihara down with his trusty double-leg and mounting him. Ichihara had zero knowledge of ground technique, so he held on to Royce’s body while Royce peppered him with the occasional punch. Royce finally pulled the lapel of Ichihara’s uniform across the Japanese fighter’s neck in a gi choke to coax out the tap.
The sixteen had been whittled down to eight.
In the first quarterfinal, my resolve was tested again. Patrick Smith was matched against ninjutsu expert Scott Morris. The two quickly clinched, but Morris lost his footing on his takedown attempt, allowing Smith to fall into full mount. Smith then proceeded to beat on Morris with fists and elbows.
Again I was pointing and screaming to Morris’ corner to throw in the towel for their fighter, who had essentially been punched unconscious. The cornerman looked at me, turned his back, and threw the towel into the audience.
Smith stopped only because he thought my yelling was directed at him. He jumped off Morris, ranted, and paced around the Octagon. I quickly moved Smith away from Morris just in case he got any ideas to resume his destruction.
The fight lasted thirty seconds from start to finish, and in that half a minute I realized this system wouldn’t work. Given the power, corners weren’t coming through when their fighters really needed them most.
Already UFC 2 was unfolding much differently than its predecessor, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. My view from the cage kept getting worse.
The next quarterfinal bout would become one of the most infamous of all the early fights because it included the show’s second alternate, Fred Ettish. A kenpo karate expert from Minnesota, Ettish had flown to Denver for the tournament with no guarantee that he’d get to fight. When Ken Shamrock had withdrawn with a broken hand, the first alternate had been moved into the tournament. When Freek Hamaker couldn’t continue with a hand injury, Ettish was called up.
Fred was like me. He believed in what the UFC stood for and wanted to support it any way he could. With twice as many fights to deal with that night, SEG and WOW were short-staffed and disorganized backstage, so they’d asked if Ettish would lend some manpower.
Fred was ferrying the fighters from the hotel to the staging area when Rorion found him to say he’d be going on
. Ettish had less than ten minutes to find his cornermen in the audience and wrangle them backstage, change into his gi, and warm up.
Ettish patty-caked early kicks with Johnny Rhodes, who’d battered his first opponent for nearly twelve minutes earlier that night. The 210-pound Rhodes swiftly stumbled Ettish with a counter right hand, then pushed him to his back with a few follow-up shots.
I knew right away that Ettish wouldn’t be able to win.
Ettish tried to fend off Rhodes from his back by flailing his legs, but the next punch opened Ettish’s forehead and sent him onto his stomach. He covered up, but Rhodes pummeled him with fists and knees. Propped on his left elbow, Ettish stretched his right arm to keep tabs on his standing stalker, shaking his head to get some of the blood out of his eyes.
All I wanted to do was get Ettish out of there.
Rhodes didn’t have a lick of ground fighting knowledge, but he finally climbed on top of Ettish to find a way to finish the bout. Rhodes grabbed Ettish’s neck with his right arm for an improvised choke and squeezed it with his bicep.
I followed Ettish’s body as it flopped around the mat like a helpless fish pulled from the water. Then I saw the tap and jumped in.
A dazed and bloodied Ettish managed to blurt out, “I didn’t tap.”
Crouched beside Ettish, with his white gi and black belt stained with blood, I said, “Okay.” What else could I say? I knew I’d seen him tap. I guess he didn’t remember it because he was going out from the choke.
His battle had just begun. Over the years, no other UFC fighter has been as ridiculed as Ettish. Fans denigrated him, called his style fetal fighting, and launched websites to crucify a man for those immortal three minutes and seven seconds. All because he had enough courage to go in there, do the best he could with what he knew at the time, and show an immense amount of heart. Since that day, I’ve had nothing but respect for Fred Ettish.
In the other pair of quarterfinal bouts, grappler Remco Pardoel knocked out Orlando Weit with elbows on the ground, and Royce armbarred Jason DeLucia. Both were over in under two minutes, but I performed poorly in the latter one.
During Royce and DeLucia’s fight, I stood on the wrong side and missed the whole setup to Royce’s armbar submission and the inevitable tapout. I think I’d overestimated what DeLucia would be able to do because he’d been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a few months. DeLucia tapped Royce’s leg nine times and tapped the mat seven times more when Royce fell to his side with the hold still in place.
Afterward, I told DeLucia, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you fast enough.”
“Well, I was tapping,” he answered, slightly perturbed. DeLucia received no lasting damage to his arm, but there’s a famous picture of the armbar, Royce’s tense body stacked and extended into the air with teeth clinched, that captures my mistake plain as day.
Needless to say, I learned that my own positioning was as important as the fighters’ and I wouldn’t be able to see everything from any one vantage point. I’d have to keep moving.
In the semifinals, Patrick Smith submitted Johnny Rhodes with a standing guillotine choke. I’m glad Rhodes had been paying attention at the rules meeting when I’d told the fighters they could tap out with their feet if they had to. Rhodes did just that at the forty-five-second mark.
As expected, Royce submitted Pardoel in the second semifinal match, which advanced him again to the finals to meet Smith. The much larger Pardoel put up a struggle when Royce tried to take him down, but the Dutch fighter was open season once Royce got him to the canvas. Mounting Pardoel’s back and getting his hooks in, or wrapping his heels around the Dutchman’s legs so he wouldn’t slip off, Royce used Pardoel’s own gi under his chin to submit him with a lapel choke.
After the bout when I presented the winner, Pardoel tried to raise his hand, but I pushed it down. I guess he was used to winning.
The fifteenth and final bout of the night was upon us with Royce meeting the strong, aggressive kickboxer Patrick Smith. We called this the classic striker versus grappler match. Again, I had no worries for Royce, and apparently he didn’t either.
“If you put the devil on the other side, I’m going to walk into the fight,” Royce told the cameras before the bout.
Smith, the local Denver favorite, was far from the devil. He didn’t even connect with a kick before Royce had him in his arms to initiate the takedown. Once he got it, Royce mounted Smith’s chest in seconds and threw six short, bare-knuckled punches straight at Smith’s face. Smith looked like he was on the verge of tapping out, but his corner threw in the towel as I intervened. Seventy-seven seconds had passed.
I was surprised Smith had tapped so fast because he’d built up some steam during the show. Smith’s UFC 1 introduction video kept running through my head. Pedaling on a stationary bike with his short dreadlocks swaying back and forth, Smith said, “Hi, my name is Patrick Smith. I’m impervious to pain. I don’t feel pain.”
In an ironic display of respect, Royce and Smith embraced and exchanged words.
“You’re a tough man,” Royce said.
“You’re the best,” Smith replied.
Again, Royce was hoisted onto the shoulders of his ecstatic family, Rorion and Helio included, as he held an oversized show check of $60,000 over his head for the world to see. The memo line said, “For: Being the Best!”
Nobody was there to tell me, but I was aware I couldn’t congratulate Royce or celebrate with the rest of the team right then. I had to remain impartial.
Afterward, I met up with Elaine, and we went to the after party in a small ballroom inside the hotel.
“Mr. McCarthy, you’re fantastic,” Bob Meyrowitz said, handing me an envelope.
“There’s something extra in there for you.”
I’d been told I’d be paid $500, but they’d added an extra $250. They must have been happy with what I’d done.
I wasn’t sure I was, though. I believed in the UFC’s goal—to find the best fighting style—but I wasn’t thrilled about the methods used or the role I’d played to get us there.
Keith Hackney, Kimo Leopoldo, Harold Howard, Roland Payne, and Royce meet the press at UFC 3 (September 1994)
Royce’s future wife, Marianne, placing names on the board after the fighters are paired by number with the bingo machine for UFC 3 (September 1994)
I was mic’d at every UFC event and hated it.
THIS THING’S GOING
If a man does his best, what else is there?
—General George S. Patton
When I was sworn in as a Los Angeles police officer, I took an oath to protect and serve my community. For me that boiled down to one thing: I protected good people. Fighters were good people too. However, the rules laid out by the UFC didn’t allow me to protect them. And if I couldn’t do that, what was the point of being a referee?
When I saw Rorion at the gym again shortly afterward, I’d already made up my mind. “I’m never going to referee another UFC event again,” I said.
“Why?” Rorion asked.
The answer was simple: “You’re going to get somebody killed.”
I could see the surprise on Rorion’s face, but I didn’t think I was overreacting at all. I’d already seen a lot in my life. I knew what real fights were and how far they could go. I’d gotten jumped by a group of people while trying to defend a friend, and I understood what it was like to reach a point when your mind says, You can’t win this; you’re done. The human body can take a lot of punishment, but the brain eventually shuts off.
As an officer, I’d seen people get stomped to death, and if you’ve ever seen this yourself, you don’t forget it. The head crushes and deforms, and the scary thing is that it doesn’t take a ton of pressure for it to happen. I didn’t want to stand there in the cage dreading that if I let it go just one more blow, that might happen. I couldn’t stand by as a fighter reached his breaking point and his corner refused to throw the towel. I wouldn’t stand there and let that happen.
Rorion wasn’t convinced. He was so concerned about making sure early stoppages never happened that he was overlooking the obvious dangers.
“I’m not saying stop the fight because of a cut or the first sign of damage, but I am saying there will be situations when we need to step in.” I said, “A fighter should be able to intelligently defend himself, and when he can’t the fight should be over.”
Rorion said he would mull it over.
I left Rorion’s office knowing I could be replaced easily. Rorion could make a quick phone call and get someone else who’d follow his guidelines to a tee. But as much as I wanted to stay involved with the UFC, going along with what had happened at UFC 2 went against what I believed. Walking away was a decision I could live with.
One thing I had on my side was the public’s immediate reaction to the UFC. While UFC 1 had 86,000 pay-per-view buys, UFC 2 jumped past that with 124,000 purchases. With virtually no marketing, this was just short of a broadcasting miracle. Apparently Rorion was so anxious to put on another show in September that finding another referee wasn’t his highest priority.
When we talked about it again a week later, Rorion proposed that I could stop a fight only if someone either was too hurt to tap out or was already knocked out. In one of the biggest sport-influencing negotiations to ever happen outside the cage, Rorion and I debated terms that we would be comfortable with.
Let’s Get It On! Page 14