It was a big story in Detroit, and the press came out in droves to cover it. The battle over No Holds Barred dominated the headlines. At the first hearing, the district attorney’s expert witness on Ultimate Fighting was an old-time boxing writer who’d written a book on . . . guess what. Yes, boxing.
I read the book beforehand and gave SEG’s lawyer a slew of questions to ask the writer to show that he didn’t have any real experience with or knowledge of MMA.
When we reconvened with the courts at the follow-up hearing the week of the show, SEG brought in Emanuel Steward, a renowned boxing trainer who was helping promote this UFC event and spoke on its behalf.
However, the DA went ahead with filing a last-minute injunction, which meant it was another race against time to get the judge to throw it out before the show was advertised to start.
The judge listened to me, Steward, and a couple other prominent local figures willing to defend the promotion.
The judge then decided he saw two similarities between boxing and Ultimate Fighting, and they were closed-fisted punches and headbutts. I don’t know how he derived headbutts from boxing, but that’s what he came up with. He told SEG that if they outlawed closed-handed punches and headbutts, we wouldn’t be categorized as boxing and he didn’t see where the state would have any jurisdiction over what we were doing, because only boxing was in the books. He’d let the show move ahead.
Standing there in court, in front of a throng of media and onlookers, Meyrowitz said, “No problem.”
Outside the courthouse, I grabbed Meyrowitz. “How the fuck are we not going to have any punching in this?”
“I didn’t say there wasn’t going to be any punching,” Meyrowitz coolly answered. “I just said I’d make it illegal. When they punch, you’re going to tell them, ‘That’s illegal.’ And you’re going to have to fine them eventually. When they have to pay that fine, only God knows.”
I was almost sick over Meyrowitz’s decision, but the event was hours away. What could I do? I had to be there to protect the fighters, so I carefully explained the scenario to them all backstage and told them they wouldn’t have to pay any fines accrued that night. Because boxing used closed-fisted punches, open-handed strikes would be interpreted as legal.
I didn’t hear much fuss about it until I got to Ken Shamrock, who was scheduled to rematch Dan Severn in the superfight that night. I gave Ken the same speech I’d delivered to everyone else, but Ken had a totally different reaction.
“John, I can’t do that. My father has a boys’ home, and I can’t set that example for those boys. I’m not going to stand there and knowingly punch illegally just because I know I won’t have to pay the fine.”
“Ken, you do what you gotta do. It’s your choice. If you want to hit him with open hands, hit him with open hands. But I’m telling you, Dan is going to try and hit you with closed hands.”
The result of this whole mess was a subpar event. During the fights, I felt like an idiot instructing the fighters to open their fists when they punched and calling out fouls left and right. And when it got to the Shamrock-Severn fight, it was thirty minutes of a whole lot of nothing, as both circled but barely laid a hand on each other. Severn, who won by split decision, later claimed that the bout was a brilliant strategic display, but I can safely agree with the fans: it was the worst fight in UFC history.
UFC 10 happened six months later on July 12, 1996, at the Fair Park Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. It was christened “The Tournament” because SEG had abandoned the elimination format at UFC 9 for single bouts but brought the tournament style back by popular demand.
UFC 10 introduced Mark Coleman, who’d placed seventh in freestyle wrestling at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. Coleman was a standout from the moment he stepped onto the UFC canvas. He had the strength of a monster and could take anyone down, but nobody could do the same to him.
Determined and disciplined by years on the amateur wrestling circuit, Coleman met karate expert Moti Horenstein in a quarterfinal match, took him to the ground, and fed him a heavy serving of punches until I stopped it at two minutes, forty-three seconds.
Horenstein had been a favorite of Meyrowitz’s wife, Ellen, because she thought he was so good-looking. He probably wasn’t so much once Coleman got finished with him.
7
Coleman took out Gary Goodridge in the semis en route to the finals to face Don Frye, the durable wrestler who’d won the UFC 8 tournament back in Puerto Rico. In their quarterfinal bout earlier that evening Frye, who was not a pushover, had pulverized Mark Hall’s body like a side of beef till it was purple, and then in the semifinals he’d beaten an ever-improving Brian Johnston.
Frye-Coleman was one of the first bouts when I could clearly see that the fighters’ skill levels were starting to improve. It was a war. Coleman dominated the bout with his wrestling ability, but Frye, puffy-eyed and staggering at times from exhaustion, was the epitome of toughness.
After nearly twelve minutes of scrapping that culminated with Coleman hammering down punches into Frye’s guard, I intervened. Frye was bleeding, and his right eye was swollen shut. I knew he couldn’t see. Coleman’s family and friends, including his soon-to-be wife, Kelly, flooded the cage and flanked him.
Coleman would have so much success taking his opponents down and punching them into submission, as he had with Frye, that he’d become known as the godfather of ground-and-pound, the term given to his technique. It’s a popular strategy still used today, especially by the wrestlers.
UFC 10 was one of those shows I walked away from and felt it had delivered. It was also the start of a period when wrestling took center stage in the UFC.
That December, SEG hosted its second Ultimate Ultimate event, inviting back the cream of the crop from that year, including its champions and runners-up. We returned to the Fair Park Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, the site of UFC 10.
Tank Abbott fought Cal Worsham in a quarterfinal bout, where Worsham tapped out to his punches on the ground. Worsham became incensed that Abbott had gotten in an extra lick after I’d stepped in to stop it, and I had to physically restrain him against the cage, grabbing the chain link on either side of him. As Worsham pleaded that I disqualify Abbott, I kept telling him to knock it off, giving Worsham the few extra seconds he needed to come back down to Earth. When Worsham’s adrenaline dump subsided, I walked to Abbott, told him what he’d done was bullshit, and raised his hand in victory.
The show’s other highlights included Tank Abbott’s ruthless knockout of Steve Nelmark, who bent backward on the cage like a crash test dummy, and Don Frye’s come-from-behind gut-check victory over Abbott in the finals.
Unfortunately, this night was the second time I felt I was refereeing a fixed bout. In the semifinals, Don Frye and Mark Hall met in a rematch of their UFC 10 bout. In their first encounter Frye had beaten the piss out of Hall, who’d refused to give up. Here, though, Frye ankle-locked Hall to advance to the finals without breaking a sweat.
The fight struck me as odd. Frye, a bread-and-butter wrestler and swing-for-the-fences puncher, had never won a fight by leg lock, and Hall practically fell into the submission. I also knew both fighters were managed by the same guy.
I told Meyrowitz afterward that the fight had been fake, but Meyrowitz asked me how I could think that.
UFC 11
“The Proving Ground”
September 20, 1996
Augusta-Richmond County
Civic Center
Augusta, Georgia
Bouts I Reffed:
Mark Coleman vs. Julian Sanchez
Brian Johnston vs. Reza Nasri
David “Tank” Abbott vs. Sam Adkins
Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio Gurgel
Mark Coleman vs. Brian Johnston
Scott Ferrozzo vs. David “Tank” Abbott
I hit my forearm against Brian Johnston’s nose while leaping in to stop his bout against Reza Nasri, and everyone thought I broke it, but that isn’t tr
ue. “John, you hit my nose,” Johnston said, and burst out yelling at the grounded Nasri because they’d exchanged words before the fight. An ill-timed camera cutaway on the pay-per-view made everyone think Johnston was having it out with me.
The main event never happened after Ferrozzo was too gassed from his first fight with Abbott to enter the finals against Coleman. With no alternates left standing, 5,000 fans were treated to Coleman suplexing protégé Kevin Randleman onto his head in an unaired wrestling exhibition. It wasn’t fighting, however, and the hotheaded Randleman cursed the hostile crowd quietly, daring them to get in the cage themselves.
Rumors that Hall had thrown the fight circulated for months, until he came out and openly admitted it. Hall said Frye had offered to pay him, with the mutual manager’s consent, to ensure that Frye made it to the finals as strong as he could be. Hall said he came forward only after Frye didn’t settle up, though Frye denied it ever happened.
I don’t know what kind of deal was struck, and I don’t care what anybody says. I know what I saw.
8
Between Ultimate Ultimate 96 and UFC 12, I finally convinced Meyrowitz and the rest of SEG to add weight divisions. Over the last few shows, I’d told them there were many great 170- to 185-pound fighters who could shine for the promotion, but no matter how talented they were they just wouldn’t be able to overcome the bigger fighters.
I suggested they take a first step by splitting the UFC into two tournament divisions: heavyweight for fighters 200 pounds and over, and lightweight for those under 200. To keep the number of fights down, a preliminary round would decide the two finalists in the four-man tournament, which meant the fighters would compete in two bouts that night instead of three.
SEG decided to give it a try, though the UFC almost didn’t get the chance to test out weight classes.
UFC 12 “Judgment Day” was scheduled to take place on February 7, 1997, in Niagara Falls, New York, but a day before the promotion was forced to move the entire event—fighters, cage, and all—to the Dothan Civic Center in Dothan, Alabama.
The UFC’s New York story had actually begun a few months earlier, when Meyrowitz had hired a lobbyist named James D. Featherstonhaugh shortly after UFC 8 to get mixed martial arts legalized in the state. SEG’s offices were located in New York, and being the center of the universe as well as the haven for boxing for many years, it seemed like a smart progression.
In less than a year, Featherstonhaugh had managed to get a bill introduced and eventually signed by Governor George Pataki that made Ultimate Fighting legal in New York for a short time. However, Meyrowitz had to make an agreement with the politicians involved with the bill to not bring the UFC to New York City and especially not to the famous Madison Square Garden, until there had been multiple events held in the state and everyone felt comfortable with it. SEG booked the upstate arena and got to work promoting the event.
In the meantime, Battlecade: Extreme Fighting, another promotion owned by New York—based movie producer Donald Zuckerman, decided it would swoop in on Madison Square Garden first. Zuckerman hadn’t been part of the UFC’s lobbyist movement and hadn’t made any agreement to keep his show away from New York City, but when Zuckerman announced his show, it affected us all. The news attracted the attention of the press, which welcomed the scandalous headlines, as well as New York State Senator Roy Goodman, who was dead set against Ultimate Fighting.
Goodman described Ultimate Fighting as a “disgraceful, animalistic, and disgusting contest which can result in severe injuries to contestants and sets an abominable example for our youth.” The press, including the influential New York Times, ate it up and ran story after story condemning both Battlecade and the UFC.
The uproar caused Governor Pataki to put a stay on the bill he’d signed, and a new bill was drafted to replace it that made a complete about-face on Ultimate Fighting. While the new bill began its route through the state senate and back to the governor, SEG continued to plan UFC 12 in Niagara Falls, knowing the bill wouldn’t get passed in time to shut down the show.
New York wasn’t done yet, though. Floyd Patterson, a former heavyweight boxing champion and the head of the New York State Athletic Commission, had his staff draft and present a 114-page rule book to Meyrowitz that would essentially kill UFC 12 in Buffalo. The rules included mandatory use of boxing gloves and protective headgear and also banned fighters from taking their opponents down or using any ground work. It basically melded the UFC into amateur boxing.
The week of the show, Meyrowitz took his complaints to court and argued that the state had gone back on what the two parties had previously agreed upon. Then we all headed back to Niagara Falls and waited for the judge’s decision, which was handed down at 2:30 p.m. the day before the show.
Since UFC 8 and 9 had survived the court’s scrutiny, Meyrowitz was confident the judge would rule in the UFC’s favor. However, unlike in the previous court battles, the NYSAC now had jurisdiction over Ultimate Fighting because of the first bill that Governor Pataki had signed. The judge ruled that the UFC had to follow whatever regulations the NYSAC presented to them, saying, “If you don’t want to follow the rules, then don’t put on a show here.”
Meyrowitz was flabbergasted, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t had any doubts. There was an exit plan. SEG had booked a small arena in Dothan, Alabama, about ninety miles outside Montgomery earlier that week, just for this situation.
However, no other arrangements had been put in place. Elaine had to scramble to find a way to transport nearly 200 people, including 20 fighters, their corners and entourages, some media, and all of SEG’s employees nearly 1,100 miles south within the next 12 hours.
Elaine rented a Boeing 757 to fly out of Buffalo and land in Montgomery, which was about a two-hour drive from the hotels and venue. She then reserved every room she could find in the area, including ones at the local Super 8 and Motel 6. The fighters would later be dispersed among the hotels, which made for a logistical nightmare when transporting them to and from the arena. In the end, I don’t know how much all of this cost SEG, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.
While Elaine made these preparations, I was sent around to the fighters’ rooms to tell them they wouldn’t be able to bring all of their cornermen, family members, and other guests on the plane. If people wanted to be at the show, they’d better get a car and take off now so they could make it.
At the airport, the crew added up the poundage for the Octagon, all the cameras and technical equipment necessary to produce the show, as well as the passengers and their luggage, and told SEG they were running dangerously close to the plane’s limit.
9
Hearing this, Elaine told the fighters they could now bring one guest. The rest were asked to find a way down to Alabama on their own.
Before we left, the UFC hastily held its first ever weigh-ins in Niagara Falls. Each of the lightweight competitors stood on an ordinary household scale in view of his opponents. There was no crowd and no fanfare. It was decided that the heavyweights wouldn’t have to step on the scales because you could just tell by looking that they were all over 200 pounds.
That night, with everything packed, stowed, and accounted for, we lifted off from Buffalo International Airport around 11:00. I doubt anyone got much sleep on the flight. I know I didn’t. The fighters seemed surprisingly upbeat even with their opponents sitting only a few aisles away. Everyone was pulling together for a common goal: we wanted the show to happen.
We landed about four and a half hours later, and SEG’s crew scattered to set up the Octagon, hang the lights, and in a few hours tend to details they usually had a few days to accomplish.
Not only would SEG have to refund the money from the tickets sold in Niagara Falls, which was substantial because it was a sell-out, but they would also have to give away all of the Dothan tickets.
I was sent to a local Dothan radio station that had been alerted to our arrival in their fair city. I invited fans to come pick up free tickets
, and the station was even kind enough to whip up some T-shirts for the fans that said, “Why is the UFC in Dothan, Alabama? Because New York only allows street gangs to whip your ass.”
That night, 6,000 Dothan fans were treated to a decent free show. Mark Coleman continued his reign by neck-cranking Dan Severn into submission in the night’s superfight.
10 In the UFC’s first lightweight tournament, Jerry Bohlander, a protégé of Ken Shamrock’s Lion’s Den team, defeated alternate Nick Sanzo with a crucifix neck crank. However, the night really belonged to a nineteen-year-old Brazilian named Vitor Belfort, who stunned Tra Telligman, also a Lion’s Den fighter, in their heavyweight preliminary bout with the fastest hands I’d seen in the Octagon.
The UFC went to Dothan, Alabama, and all I got was this damn T-shirt. Still, it’s one of my favorites.
In the finals, Belfort faced Scott Ferrozzo, who outweighed him by more than 100 pounds. Belfort stopped the flabby Ferrozzo in his tracks with his incredibly accurate fists to win the heavyweight tournament. In total, Belfort had spent two minutes, ten seconds in the cage that night. I took one look at this young, muscular athlete and knew he’d be a star.
Shaken by the drama that was UFC 12, SEG returned to safer territory at the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center in Augusta, Georgia, for UFC 13 “The Ultimate Force” on May 30, 1997, one of the few places left where the promotion wouldn’t be hassled.
Let’s Get It On! Page 18