Smith would end up defending his title against Couture at the next event, which would be held in Japan, while Pride Fighting Championships would become a significant feature on MMA’s horizon.
Before the UFC traveled halfway around the world for its next event, it had some housecleaning to do. Art Davie, who had been around since UFC 1 and served as the show’s matchmaker, was fired for going behind Meyrowitz’s back to start a new MMA promotion called Thunderdome, which never got off the ground. Davie was replaced by John Perretti, a martial artist and movie stunt coordinator who’d worked for Battlecade: Extreme Fighting.
Meyrowitz asked me to accompany him, Abbott, and Belfort on a trip to Japan to promote UFC “Ultimate Japan,” the promotion’s eighteenth event, scheduled to take place two months later on December 21, 1997, inside the Yokohama Arena. It made sense to travel to a country where judo, not baseball, was the national pastime. Variations of mixed martial arts had been alive and well in Japan since the 1980s with promotions like Shooto and later Pancrase.
UFC 16
“Battle in the Bayou”
March 3, 1998
Pontchartrain Center
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bouts I Reffed:
Pat Miletich vs. Townsend Saunders
Jerry Bohlander vs. Kevin Jackson
Pat Miletich vs. Chris Brennan
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs. Kimo Leopoldo
Frank Shamrock vs. Igor Zinoviev
Returning to Louisiana, the second state to sanction the UFC, SEG separated the fighters into three weight classes, including a lightweight division for competitors under 170 pounds. This is really when the lighter guys got off to a rip-roaring start. Mikey Burnett and Eugenio Tadeau had it out in their preliminary bout, but it was alternate Chris Brennan who would meet Pat Miletich in the finals after Burnett withdrew with a broken hand.
It was disheartening to see the athletic Russian fighter Igor Zinoviev get hurt as badly as he did by Frank Shamrock’s body slam. Zinoviev sustained a broken collarbone and a separated shoulder and was knocked out cold in one fateful drop. Zinoviev never fought professionally again.
When we got off the plane, a few photographers were waiting to meet us. I recognized Susumu Nagao, who’d photographed every event since UFC 2. Nagao’s pictures had appeared in the mainstream newspapers and magazines that covered the sport in Japan, so we were somewhat recognizable to the fans there.
Abbott made his presence known by shouting, “I am Godzillaaaaaa,” at the top of his lungs for the startled commuters. Then he chased the photographers around the airport.
SEG was copromoting the event with a Japanese organization, so we met a few of their executives for dinner. I remember only one of the gentlemen’s names: Mr. Koji. It took us about ten minutes to settle in while the Japanese businessmen contemplated and switched up our seating arrangement around the table, an important detail in their culture. Belfort introduced me to sushi that night.
On the second night, SEG’s foreign business partners wanted to take us out on the town and spared no expense. With a restaurant on the top floor of a high-rise practically all to ourselves, we sat around a large grill while the chef cooked teppanyaki-style. The Kobe beef melted in my mouth. When asked if we wanted more, we all said yes without hesitation.
Afterward, we learned that Belfort’s second helping cost about $1,500, while Abbott and I had ordered smaller servings for the reasonable price of $750 each. Abbott also liked eating the fat, which was cut up and grilled until it was crisp, not exactly the fuel for a top-caliber athlete. I watched him scarf it down and thought, Aw, dude, that’s nasty.
After dinner, Belfort excused himself because he had a massage scheduled, but the rest of us went to a lounge. It was a strange setup. Professionally dressed women waited on us, then sat next to us to have conversations. They weren’t prostitutes, and nothing physical was going on. This was just the way the culture worked. I later got a peek at the bill, which Meyrowitz paid—$8,000 for a bunch of drinks.
The night wasn’t over, though. Around 1:30 a.m., we went to a karaoke bar. Since karaoke was obviously important to our new friends, Meyrowitz asked me and Abbott if we’d get up and sing as a sign of goodwill.
Abbott, who was pretty liquored up by then, picked some freaking metalhead song and started banging around the room screaming and going nuts. He got a lot of laughs.
I sang a song by The Rolling Stones. Mick himself would have fucking cringed.
The next morning, we told Belfort over breakfast what had happened, and he was kicking himself. He thought for sure he’d missed out on something with the businesswomen at the lounge and couldn’t quite grasp that it wasn’t like that at all.
During the entire trip, Belfort kept trying to convince Meyrowtiz to let him, instead of Randy Couture, fight Maurice Smith for the title next. Meyrowitz wouldn’t have any of it. It was quite funny to watch.
When we left Japan three days later, Abbott dumped out of his suitcase all the new “Tank” shirts he’d brought to give away and replaced them with towels and robes from the hotel. “Did you feel these things, John?” he said. “They’re the softest damn things I’ve ever felt.”
The first and last time I ever karaoked in my life: on a press tour with SEG Vice President David Isaacs and Tank Abbott in Japan
We all later returned to Yokohama, Japan, and began the week-long ritual leading up to the event. At the press conference, SEG asked me to sit at the dais in the middle between the fighters, which was something I normally wouldn’t do and made me feel stupid as hell. Compared to the press reaction in the United States, the UFC seemed to be a bit of a bigger deal here in Japan. Maurice Smith and Frank Shamrock, both with a wealth of experience fighting in Japan, knew what the crowd wanted, so they played up the charisma and trash-talking for the cameras and did a good job with it.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing in the Land of the Rising Sun, though. At about 2:30 a.m. on the day of the show, I got a call in my hotel room from Meyrowitz, who was downstairs in the lobby. “John, I need you. Come down to the lobby quick.”
Being a heavy sleeper, I said, “Okay,” hung up, thought I must be dreaming, rolled over, and fell asleep.
Five minutes later, the phone rang again.
“Where the hell are you?” Meyrowitz asked, with a little more desperation in his voice.
I hadn’t dreamt it after all.
In the lobby, Meyrowitz was standing with four Japanese men, three in suits and another in a sweat suit. I recognized the beefiest gentleman as Kazuo Takahashi, who’d fought at UFC 12 and regularly competed for the Pancrase organization. One of the other men was Mr. Ozaki, an organizer for Pancrase. When I walked up behind him, Takahashi was startled by my presence. He moved away like I was ugly, which I am, so he had every right to. But when he recognized me, he shook my hand.
At first, I had no idea what was going on, but Meyrowitz was trying to subtly get me up to speed during the conversation. I was able to piece together that Mr. Ozaki wanted Meyrowitz to sign some kind of agreement to copromote the UFC in Japan from there on out. Mr. Ozaki didn’t look like he was going to take no for an answer, and it was obvious Takahashi had been brought along to “encourage” a smooth process.
UFC 17
“Redemption”
May 15, 1998
Mobile Civic Center
Mobile, Alabama
Bouts I Reffed:
Mike Van Arsdale vs. Joe Pardo
David “Tank” Abbott vs. Hugo Duarte
Dan Henderson vs. Carlos Newton
Pete Williams vs. Mark Coleman
Frank Shamrock vs. Jeremy Horn
A silent, mohawked assassin named Chuck Liddell debuted against Noe Hernandez, and they beat the piss out of each other.
Williams’ come-from-behind knockout of Coleman with a kick to his face is a highlight-reel staple to this day.
I hated taking Horn out of mount on top of Shamrock, but Horn had based out and stalled. “Do
something with it. You have to move. Don’t just sit there,” I said, but he stayed frozen. I finally stood them, and Shamrock later won by kneebar. Asked later why he didn’t try anything, he said, “John, I was mounted on top of Frank Shamrock and didn’t want to give him a chance to do anything to me.” I just shook my head in disbelief.
SEG asked me to sit at the dais between main event fighters Randy Couture and Maurice Smith at UFC “Ultimate Japan.” I felt like an idiot. (December 1997)
“This is not the way we do business,” Meyrowitz said cordially and then suggested that Ozaki’s lawyer draft and send a proposal to SEG for a future show.
I’d never seen anything like this, but I would come to learn that these types of strong-arm negotiations were common on the Japanese MMA scene.
Finally, Meyrowitz scribbled down something general about being willing to do business with the organization in the future and signed it.
Mr. Ozaki talked for a couple more minutes and finally left with his crew.
Meyrowitz looked at me, relieved that I’d come to his rescue.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“I told him I was calling our lawyer when I was really calling you. I didn’t need legal advice. I needed protection!”
I was a multipurpose employee. I’m just lucky I wasn’t asked to wax the floors at the SEG office, because I probably would’ve done that too.
The Yokohama Arena filled to capacity that night with 17,000 spectators, which was one of the promotion’s better-attended efforts since UFC 7 in Buffalo. I wouldn’t say the production was bigger or bolder in any way. There were a lot of Japanese employees running around busy as ants, but things weren’t getting done any differently. One change that did take shape was an elevated and larger ramp for the fighters’ entrances.
What was noticeably distinctive was the audience’s behavior. Japanese crowds were unlike their United States counterparts. They were so into the matches but were as quiet as church mice. It was weird because I could hear the corners instructing their fighters, and they could hear whatever I said. I remember Mr. Koji getting upset because Joe Hamilton, the other referee, started the first bout of the night with the word “Hajime,” which is the way you’d start a judo match.
“We don’t want Hajime,” Koji told me. “We want American.”
I was sent to tell Joe he had to change his starting call.
Ultimate Japan was far from my crowning achievement as a referee. It’s where I made my first major blunder as an official in the cage, something I’ve never quite gotten over because my actions affected the immediate futures of two fighters.
It all started a week before the show when dynamic collegiate wrestler Mark Kerr was scratched from the four-man heavyweight tournament. Tra Telligman was tapped to take his place against Marcus “Conan” Silveira, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and pretty aggressive striker. But two days before the show, Meyrowitz and David Isaacs approached me with yet another roster change. The Japanese promoters working with SEG had requested that a Japanese fighter named Kazushi Sakuraba be included in the heavyweight tournament. He was actually a pro wrestler who’d been in only one MMA fight—a worked match he’d lost to Kimo Leopoldo. Sakuraba wasn’t even really a heavyweight.
I knew nothing about Sakuraba, but I knew Silveira was a bruiser. I protested, but Meyrowtiz and Isaacs weren’t going to budge.
The last thing I remember Meyrowitz telling me was, “As soon as he’s in trouble, just get him out of there. Don’t let him get hurt.”
That was my mentality when I walked into the fight.
In the Octagon, Silveira outweighed Sakuraba by a good forty pounds at least, but the Japanese fighter was fast and had some working knowledge of being on the ground. Silveira was out for the kill, though, and landed hard punches until he cornered Sakuraba on the fence and began to unload uppercuts and hooks. Silveira hit Sakuraba with a good right hand.
I saw the Japanese fighter fall to his knees, and thinking he’d been hurt, I jumped in to stop the fight. It was over in less than two minutes.
Sakuraba, who spoke no English, immediately protested what I’d done, as his camp gathered on the cage lip to decipher what had just happened. As I raised Silveira’s hand, Sakuraba tugged at my other arm until I told him to stop.
I left the cage and jumped down to the commentators’ table. “I need to see a replay,” I said.
Meanwhile, Sakuraba refused to leave the cage and tried to wrestle the microphone away from Bruce Buffer to address the audience, but nobody gets Buffer’s mic unless he wants them to.
In the replay, plain as day, Sakuraba took the punch and then dropped levels for a single-leg takedown. There was no debate at all. I turned to commentator Jeff Blatnick and said, “I screwed up.”
Not only had I messed up Sakuraba’s chance to advance in the tournament, but I’d given Silveira a victory he truly hadn’t earned. I felt awful about it.
But things have a way of working out. Abbott hurt his hand in his preliminary qualifier, and Telligman, who won his heavyweight alternate bout, had broken his foot in the process. Nobody was left standing to face Silveira in the tournament finals. Meyrowitz, Isaacs, and I conferred cageside and decided the fairest thing to do would be to let Sakuraba fight Silveira again.
Sakuraba and the crowd were thrilled for a second chance, though Silveira wasn’t. I think he’d gotten a good look at Sakuraba earlier and realized he was fighting a much sharper opponent than he or anyone else had anticipated. It took his head out of the game, allowing the swift Japanese pro wrestler to snag the armbar finish three minutes and forty-five seconds into their rematch.
As for the other bouts, after two overtime rounds, Randy Couture earned a hard-fought majority decision, meaning two of the judges gave him the victory and one scored it a tie, over Maurice Smith. This would be his first of many UFC heavyweight titles during his career.
In the first ever under-200-pound title bout, Frank Shamrock, the adopted younger brother of Ken Shamrock, tapped out 1992 Olympic wrestling gold medalist Kevin Jackson with an armbar in sixteen seconds. Shamrock had gotten a shot at the title out of the gate because he’d beaten Enson Inoue in a Vale Tudo Japan bout nearly three weeks prior. Shamrock had made a name for himself with almost twenty appearances in Pancrase, which had slightly different rules from the UFC’s and required knee-to-ankle shin protectors and wrestling shoes.
A story floated around that Frank, who’d recently left his brother’s famous Lion’s Den squad to form his own team called The Alliance with Maurice Smith, had somehow intercepted the UFC contract meant for teammate Jerry Bohlander to fight Jackson. I don’t know if that story holds any water, but I was there when SEG discussed the winner of Shamrock-Inoue getting the title shot, with the reasoning that the winner would attract more Japanese viewers.
Between stops in Louisiana and Alabama for UFC 17 and 18, SEG took the show to São Paulo, Brazil, home to a number of fighters on the card.
I trained and helped with the starts of two new referees, brothers Mario and Fernando Yamasaki. Both spoke English and Portuguese, a definite plus given our surroundings. Mario and I would end up being good friends, and he stayed with the promotion, later to be added to the regular referee rotation.
UFC 18
“Road to the Heavyweight Title”
January 8, 1999
Pontchartrain Center
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bouts I Reffed:
LaVerne Clark vs. Frank Caracci
Evan Tanner vs. Darrel Gholar
Mikey Burnett vs. Townsend Saunders
Tito Ortiz vs. Jerry Bohlander
Pedro Rizzo vs. Mark Coleman
Pat Miletich vs. Jorge Patino
Bas Rutten vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka
Future stars Evan Tanner and Bas Rutten made their debuts, while Tito Ortiz returned to the UFC after a brief stint as a college student at California State University Bakersfield. Fans claimed I tried to help Rutten win agai
nst Kohsaka with too many stand-ups, but it never happened. As an interesting footnote, I went back to Rutten’s corner to check on him before going into overtime and heard him tell his cornermen, “Tell me when there’s a minute left,” because he was going to knock out Kohsaka. I laughed at the thought because it wouldn’t be that easy. But with sixty seconds left, Rutten did just that. Babe Ruth couldn’t have done it better.
The highlights of Ultimate Brazil, which took place nearly five months to the day following UFC 17, included Belfort’s steam-rolling of striker Wanderlei Silva in forty-four harsh seconds. Another unforgettable moment was Pedro Rizzo’s rousing knockout of Tank Abbott at the eight-minute mark of their heavyweight tug-of-war. Rizzo, a quiet, likable guy, was the protégé of UFC 7 winner Marco Ruas, who’d tutored his pupil in the art of muay Thai. His potential seemed endless.
SEG added another rule to the list following UFC lightweight champion Pat Miletich’s first title defense against Lion’s Den scrapper Mikey Burnett. Burnett had been scheduled to meet Miletich in the finals of the lightweight tournament seven months before at UFC 16, so SEG was really anxious to make the match happen here. But Miletich grabbed Burnett’s shorts to control his hips to prevent himself from being taken down. I told Meyrowitz afterward that this wasn’t a jiu-jitsu match; fighters shouldn’t be able to use their opponents’ uniforms to control or to create advantageous positioning. Soon SEG added the rule.
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