First, he said, “You can stop the fight at certain times.”
However, it was all or nothing for me. “Either I can stop the fight as soon as a fighter can’t intelligently defend himself, or I’m out of here.”
Rorion thought for a moment, then said, “We’ll give it a try.” And “intelligently defending oneself” entered the MMA vernacular.
Another seed was planted about this time that would sprout deep roots and cause issues for the UFC later. The morning of UFC 2, WOW and SEG had managed to score an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America. They sent the promotion’s most familiar face, commentator and former NFL superstar Jim Brown, accompanied by SEG executive Campbell McLaren.
During the show, McLaren uttered one of the stupidest but most famous lines: “You can win by tapout, knockout, or even death.” That sure perked up a lot of ears. Little did anyone know that this controversial sound bite would launch the UFC down a path riddled with political land mines in the near future.
But first there was profit to be made.
With a moneymaker on its hands, WOW and SEG began preparations for UFC 3, and Royce was sent back into training. It didn’t go smoothly for him.
Jiu-jitsu may not be as well-known as basketball or baseball, but it’s just as exerting as any other sport out there. Anyone who’s tried it knows the strains it places on the body while you stretch and bend into different positions.
A few months before the show, Royce hurt his neck badly and stopped training for a good chunk of time. He rested and got back on the mat as fast as he could, but with a few weeks to go, we all wondered if enough time had passed for his body to completely heal.
The show went on, and two nights before UFC 3, in Charlotte, North Carolina—another state with no athletic commission to speak of—I found myself with Royce, Rorion, and their older cousin Carlson Gracie Sr., an accomplished jiu-jitsu black belt and former vale tudo fighter in his own right. The beds in the hotel room had been pushed against the walls, and Royce and I were rolling all over the carpet as Rorion and Carlson gave Royce some last-minute fine-tuning.
Carlson wasn’t pleased with the way Rorion had hoarded the Gracie name in the States, so Rorion would show Royce his way of doing a move, and Carlson, who ran an academy in Chicago, would demonstrate his own version. The two cousins went toe-to-toe here to gain the upper hand while instructing Royce.
While Rorion and Carlson tried to tell Royce what to do, I was stuck in the middle of it as Royce’s grappling dummy. It was a mess.
Things were about to get messier for me.
The next night, Elaine and I had dinner with Guy Mezger and Oleg Taktarov, two fighters being considered for future events. I ordered swordfish, not knowing I was allergic.
That night, I woke up and felt like I was having an asthma attack. I sat up, sucked in some Primatene Mist, and then sat in a chair, but I couldn’t get the feeling to go away.
After two hours, I finally had to wake Elaine.
When she saw the veins popping out of my face, neck, and chest as I strained to get air, she said, “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No, don’t do that,” I said, gasping.
Elaine knew Royce’s fiancée, Marianne, was some kind of a doctor, so she wanted to go find her. I didn’t have the breath or energy to tell her Marianne was a foot doctor.
When Marianne arrived and didn’t know what was wrong with me, she called the paramedics. I was rushed to the local hospital as my body started shutting down. It was now the morning of the event, and I was stuck in an emergency room.
About four hours later, hopped up on some allergy medication and ephedrine, I was released. I was buzzing, and it was awesome. I’d never taken drugs like this, and whatever they’d given me kept me up like a wired rock star. I wouldn’t sleep for two days, which wasn’t an issue—there were fights to get to.
The Grady Cole Center, site of UFC 3 “The American Dream” was supposed to seat 3,500 people, but that didn’t stop WOW and SEG from stuffing 1,500 extra fans into the stands and anywhere else they could fit them.
With North Carolina in its last days of summer, it had to be nearly 100 degrees inside the venue, and it was the humid kind of heat that makes everything stick to you. Under the scorching lights, it felt like 150 degrees. If there was a hell, this was it.
I don’t know how some of the fighters made it through the night. I know I was sweating profusely, and I wasn’t even exerting myself like they had to. “It was like trying to breathe in soup,” Royce would say afterward. I’d say it was more like chili.
Prior to the first fight, I went backstage to meet with all the fighters. I’d been too stupid to think of doing it at UFC 2, but after observing firsthand what had happened with the fighters and their corners, I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page.
I also wanted everyone to be comfortable with what would happen. This was why I started the ritual of talking to the fighters I’d be officiating beforehand, something I still do to this day. Giving them the chance to ask questions before they pressed into the unknown seemed to ease some of the anxiety.
This wasn’t something Rorion or SEG asked me to do. Maybe part of it was that I was trying to keep myself busy, but mostly it just made sense to me.
UFC 3 showcased a handful of debut fighters along with returnees Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock. The sixteen-man tournament had been a gruesome marathon with too many characters for WOW to handle and for the crowd to follow, so it was back to the eight-man scheme.
I performed my first referee stoppage when Harold Howard bludgeoned Roland Payne with his fist in one of the quarterfinal matches. Payne started to roll for cover before he went out, so I stepped in to make sure he didn’t receive further damage.
“Intelligent defense” was a good term because it put the decision-making responsibility on me, and I had some leeway in my judgment. It was also a hell of a lot better than leaving it up to the corners.
In another quarterfinal, Keith Hackney whaled on Emanuel Yarbrough, a onetime world amateur sumo champion who outweighed Hackney by more than 400 pounds. This was one of the saddest fights I’ve ever had to referee because Yarbrough was a nice man but could hardly move his 618-pound body. Once listed in Guinness World Records as the heaviest athlete, Yarbrough is to this day the stoutest man ever to enter the Octagon.
Elaine posing with the promotion’s largest fighter, Emanuel Yarbrough, at UFC
Hackney, a last-minute addition who’d trained in kenpo karate, had come to fight. After circling Yarbrough for a few seconds, Hackney knocked him down with an open-handed slap to the head. Yarbrough toppled, and Hackney rushed in. Yarbrough rose to his knees and pulled his tiny opponent into his refrigerator-sized chest and started assaulting the back of Hackney’s head.
Hackney whipped himself around fast, but Yarbrough wouldn’t let him go that easily. He grabbed and ripped Hackney’s black tank top right off his body. Yarbrough then used his gaining momentum to push Hackney back against the Octagon’s gate, which had the same flip-latch you would see on any backyard fencing. The latch unhinged under the pressure, and Yarbrough pushed Hackney right out of the cage.
We had to stop the bout momentarily, bend the latch’s metal back into place, and restart the pair center cage.
The unexpected restart, the first one I’d ever performed in the Octagon, proved to be a tide turner. Hackney realized quickly he’d fare much better staying out of his opponent’s reach, so Yarbrough plodded around the cage chasing him, chewing on his mouthpiece.
Hackney threw a kick, and Yarbrough caught it, again trying to suck his opponent back into his hippo hug. Hackney threw another haymaker, and Yarbrough went down again, rolling onto his stomach to find refuge from Hackney’s punches. Hackney ended up beating down on the stationary Yarbrough like a kid who’d gotten a drum for Christmas. It was hard to watch a guy who couldn’t get himself back up to a starting position because he was carrying too much weight.
“Tell me if y
ou want out, and I’ll stop it,” I told Yarbrough over and over, but he didn’t say a word.
Finally, he said, “That’s enough,” and I put an end to the punishment.
In Royce’s quarterfinal bout, he met the dynamic fighter Kimo Leopoldo. The soft-spoken Hawaiian, whose discipline was listed as freestyle, had a foreboding look and a flair for the dramatic. Wide-shouldered, muscled, and heavily tattooed, with a trimmed goatee and hair slicked back into a thin braid that thinned to the bottom like a rat’s tail, Leopoldo trudged through the crowd to the cage dragging a six-foot wooden cross on his back.
6
Leopoldo’s use of a prop in his entrance wasn’t the only unique thing he introduced to the UFC. Like a professional wrestler, he also had his manager in his corner. Joe Son, a portly Asian man with a drooping mustache, would later tell reporters that by stepping into the Octagon, Kimo, who was also identified as a minister, had “answered the Lord’s call.”
Not long into Royce and Leopoldo’s battle, they bounced into the door, which swung open. The fighters didn’t separate, so I felt I should let them stay in that position and moved them to another panel as stagehands fidgeted with the latch to get the Octagon gate shut again. Leopoldo and Royce remained on the fence wrestling for control for the next ninety seconds, which told me Leopoldo was strong.
I had more trouble keeping the cornermen in line during this fight than I had reffing Royce and Leopoldo. We allowed a single coach to stand on the apron to instruct his fighter, and they were situated at two opposite panels.
When the gate swung open in front of Royce’s corner, Joe Son decided to leave his designated area and perched himself next to Leopoldo, now backed against the cage, to give his instructions from there.
I barked at Joe Son repeatedly to get off the fence and back to his corner, but he kept sneaking back to the fighters.
Seeing what Joe Son was doing, the elderly Helio decided to inch closer to the men as well. At one point, Royce’s brother Relson was even leaning over the cage screaming directions at Royce.
Disorder was taking over, and all I could do in that moment was contain it as much as I could.
Leopoldo did a good job competing with Royce, far better than the seven other opponents who had come before him at UFC 1 and 2. Leopoldo nearly tugged Royce’s gi off his torso and refused to be taken down. In fact, when Royce finally managed a throw, Leopoldo took Royce’s back as they hit the mat. Leopoldo lost his hook, and Royce shook himself free and reversed to top position. Leopoldo swept Royce and was on top again just as fast.
Royce wasn’t as well-conditioned because of his injury. The lights, his sagging gi, and Leopoldo blanketing him got to him. Though Royce used Leopoldo’s ponytail to control his head effectively, this was the first time I’d seen Royce struggle with anybody. I thought if Leopoldo hadn’t had that ponytail, it might have ended differently, but Royce found an armbar and submitted Leopoldo after four minutes and forty seconds.
It was the most competitive bout I’d seen Royce in, and it set the crowd on fire. I struggled to keep order in the cage, chasing Joe Son away as he began instigating a confrontation with the Gracie corner. I wrangled both men back to the center to raise Royce’s hand, but neither fighter was leaving the Octagon unscathed. Leopoldo was bleeding from a cut on his left eyebrow, while Royce, drained and in a daze, had to be propped up by his brother Relson and carried out of the arena like a lifeless marionette.
Backstage, the Gracie family gathered around Royce like a protective cocoon. Since I was refereeing all of the night’s matches again, I didn’t have the time to check on him, but he later told me his family kept him on his feet and he took a shower and even sucked in some oxygen offered by one of the paramedics on standby.
When Royce reappeared two fights later for his semifinal match against Canadian Harold Howard, he wasn’t the same. He was pasty and listless, though he wasn’t sweating at all. I walked over to his corner and asked if he was okay.
“I can’t see. I see white,” he said weakly.
I called Rorion over and told him, “Your brother’s not right. He shouldn’t fight.”
“Well, what’s wrong with him?” Rorion peered through the chain link at his sibling. “He’s fine. He’s fine.”
“No, he’s not, and you need to go over and take a look at him.”
Royce was exhausted, dehydrated, and certainly in no condition to fight.
Through the cage, Rorion spoke with Royce, who told his brother the same thing he’d told me. Rorion turned back to me and said, “I’m getting the alternate.”
“You can’t do that,” I said.
Royce had already been announced after he’d entered the cage. His corner would have to throw in the towel and forfeit the fight.
Rorion and I debated this for a moment, but I was steadfast. The rules were the rules, and they couldn’t be bent for anyone, including the promoter’s brother. I don’t think Rorion was pleased with me taking a stand like this, but he signed off on it and Royce was taken out and helped backstage, while Howard’s corner flooded the cage to congratulate him.
Eliminating Royce Gracie, the winner of UFC 1 and 2, was a big deal. Leopoldo and Joe Son reentered the Octagon a few minutes later to do their victory lap, goading the audience for support.
I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last I’d see of either of them.
With Royce out of the finals for the first time ever, it was anyone’s game. Truer words were never spoken. Steve Jennum, a Nebraskan police officer who entered the tournament as the second alternate after Ken Shamrock dropped out with an injury, fought Harold Howard fresh in the finals and won the $60,000 prize. Jennum took Howard down and pounded on him until he submitted less than ninety seconds into the fight, an anticlimactic finish to another night of bizarre firsts.
Ironically, I’d been introduced to Jennum a couple days before. I’d taken one look at him and thought, Dude, what are you doing? Please don’t let this guy get a fight. Then Jennum won it all. It goes to show you what an idiot I was for judging a book by its cover. Was he the best fighter? No, but he came in and won under the rules put in front of him, so you had to applaud him for his victory.
But wasn’t the UFC all about trying to find the best fighter in the world?
After watching Jennum sail into the finals full steam and injury free, Rorion decided alternates would have to fight like the rest to earn their way into the tournament without an unfair advantage.
I’d also made a mental note that night during Royce and Leopoldo’s match. We couldn’t let the corners have carte blanche around the Octagon ever again. Especially with moving cameramen sharing the apron’s space, I had enough to concentrate on right in front of me. At the next show, we would tape off a red box on each side of the apron and the coach wouldn’t be allowed to leave it for any reason during the fight.
At UFC 4 “Revenge of the Warriors,” held on December 16, 1994, at the Expo Square Pavilion in Tulsa, Oklahoma, three alternate bouts yielded a trio of potential replacements that night should anyone not be able to continue. The Pavilion, which regularly held rodeo events, was packed to the gills with nearly 6,000 fans, another sellout.
UFC 4 had a few familiar faces. Kevin Rosier, the UFC 1 pizza eater, returned to fight newcomer Joe Charles. Two days before the fight, I was with him in the hotel banquet room demonstrating armbars on a bodybuilder friend he’d brought with him. Rosier had asked me for help. However, a handful of minutes does not a jiu-jitsu practitioner make. Charles tapped Rosier out with, of all things, an armbar fourteen seconds into the fight.
In the quarterfinals, Joe Son, Kimo Leopoldo’s unruly manager, squeezed into the tiniest pair of red Speedo briefs he could find and entered the cage himself. I know SEG had hoped the rivalry created between Royce and Leopoldo would play out in a rematch here, but they had to settle for Leopoldo’s bulbous manager. Leopoldo had been enticed by K-1, a Japanese kickboxing promotion, with the promise of more money.
Joe
Son, a master of Joe Son Do, of course, was more show than substance. Returnee Keith Hackney eventually got him to the ground and introduced his fist to Joe Son’s groin a few times in full view of the TV cameras. It wasn’t something I would have done, but it wasn’t an illegal move and certainly made for a provocative visual. Joe Son did tap out but not because the groin shots hurt him, as his cup had done a good job protecting his prized jewels; he’d just petered out when Hackney started pushing his Adam’s apple through his neck shortly after the groin attack. Like all who dared enter the Octagon in those early days, maybe Joe Son had balls of steel as well.
In Royce’s quarterfinal match, he choked out debut fighter Ron Van Clief with a rear-naked choke less than four minutes in. At fifty-one years old, Van Clief, a tenth dan in Chinese goju and a five-time world karate champion, was and is to this day the oldest UFC competitor to enter the Octagon.
Arizona State University Hall of Famer and three-time Olympic freestyle wrestling alternate Dan Severn also advanced to the semifinals after a thrilling display in his first bout against muay Thai striker Anthony Macias. The forty-year-old mustached, all-business Severn, the first fighter to wear wrestling shoes in the cage, caught Macias early with a perfectly executed double-leg takedown.
The display delighted commentator Jeff Blatnick, a 1984 Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist who’d been brought in with future NBC sportscaster Bruce Beck to fill the broadcast booth with returning Jim Brown.
Severn had his way with Macias, hurling him over his head two times in the fight with violent-looking belly-to-back suplexes, before he took Macias’ back and fumbled around his neck with a makeshift choke until Macias submitted.
Let’s Get It On! Page 15