Let’s Get It On!
Page 23
Elaine left the promotion, and I stayed. Many of the fighters, managers, and cornermen had become like family to Elaine. She cared about them, and she went through a period of depression over it.
Two years later, Elaine was contacted to coordinate a new event called “Battleship,” which was supposed to be held on a military carrier. It never got going, though, and Elaine wouldn’t return to behind-the-scenes work in the sport for nearly ten years.
Aside from not being around the people she adored, Elaine didn’t like the idea of being apart when I went to shows, especially when female fans were fairly open with their adoration. For the sake of our marriage and commitment to one another, we agreed that she would travel with me to every show. Elaine has sat cageside at most of the shows I’ve refereed since.
With the staff disappearing in the UFC’s darkest hours, the fighters stepped up to the plate. Their enthusiasm and passion to evolve into better fighters really kept the sport going. When the UFC lost most of its pay-per-view audience, the athletes kept the die-hard fans interested with their improvement and ingenuity in the cage.
Newspapers or TV programs wouldn’t even mention MMA, but websites like Martial Arts Worldwide Network, The Combat List, Sherdog, and The Underground began to pop up to cover the sport and its fighters. It was this interest that kept the UFC alive through those lean times.
UFC 22 “Only One Can Be Champion,” held on September 24, 1999, at the Lake Charles Civic Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana, promoted the most anticipated fight of its time: a middleweight championship bout between Frank Shamrock and Tito Ortiz.
Shamrock hadn’t fought in the UFC for eleven months following his neck crank submission victory over John Lober at Ultimate Brazil. In that time, Ortiz had been on a tear in the UFC, taking out Lion’s Den members Jerry Bohlander and Guy Mezger in their rematch. Shamrock-Ortiz, which featured the seasoned veteran versus the young rising threat, seemed to be the obvious matchup now.
Fights rarely live up to their hype, but this one delivered on so many levels. Both fighters had magnetic personalities, were in their physical primes, and were more well-rounded compared to the rest of the field. It was just the right combination for a blockbuster bout.
I had to stay on my toes because both fighters were so active. A diligent Ortiz had the edge on the champion in the first round, taking Shamrock down and pinning him against the cage to ground-and-pound him. Shamrock had an active guard, though, and responded with punches from his back.
In the second round, Shamrock kept his distance and fended off Ortiz with kicks until the wrestler slammed Shamrock to the mat.
Ortiz took Shamrock down again in the third round, but both fighters had great stamina and stayed busy. Shamrock managed to get to his feet and landed a kick and an uppercut before Ortiz took him down again. The time flew in the Octagon.
Shamrock’s game plan implementation was especially impressive. Near the end of each round, with about thirty seconds left, Shamrock’s cornerman Maurice Smith would alert him, and Shamrock would start attacking Ortiz with movement, punches, or anything to elevate Ortiz’s heart rate and make him expend energy. By the end of each round Ortiz was just about maxed out, and at the start of the next he was never fully recovered. It was brilliant. Shamrock ran Ortiz like a racehorse, pushing a pace that finally broke Ortiz and gave Shamrock the advantage.
Shamrock was especially impressive in the fourth round. He looked as fresh as when he’d started fifteen minutes earlier, peppering Ortiz with kicks and punches for two minutes before Ortiz dumped him to the mat again. Ortiz tried to pour on elbows from top position, but Shamrock reversed and got to his feet, where he trapped Ortiz on the fence with a flurry of punches. Ortiz shot and took Shamrock down again, but Shamrock reversed a second time and bludgeoned a turtled Ortiz until I saw Ortiz tap out and stepped in to stop it. It was a commendable performance by both fighters that earned a standing ovation.
As Shamrock and Ortiz stood on either side of me for the winner’s announcement, I told Ortiz, “You fought a great fight, and you’ll be back a better fighter because of it.”
In true Shamrock form, Frank had saved the best for last. To most everyone’s surprise, he told commentator Jeff Blatnick he’d be retiring his belt in the cage that night. Then he laid his middleweight belt on the canvas and walked out the Octagon door.
I’d known ahead of time that this would be Shamrock’s last fight in the UFC. He’d told me beforehand, but of course I didn’t know for sure if he’d go through with it. You never know how a fighter might react after a victory or defeat. Shamrock said he’d run out of challenges in the cage, but the truth was that he felt the UFC didn’t pay enough to make the training and time away from his family worthwhile. Retiring allowed him a loophole to get out of his UFC contract.
Tank Abbott also made an appearance at UFC 22, scaling the cage’s wall for an impromptu prance around the Octagon that sent the crowd reeling. Abbott, in the best shape of his career, had recently signed a contract with the WCW. SEG hadn’t been able to afford even their most popular fighter, so he’d gone off to pro wrestling.
UFC 23
“Ultimate Japan 2”
November 19, 1999
Tokyo Bay NK Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Bouts I Reffed:
Eugene Jackson vs. Keiichiro Yamamiya
Joe Slick vs. Jason DeLucia
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Katsuhisa Fujii
Pedro Rizzo vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka
Kevin Randleman vs. Pete Williams
The final UFC to hold a tournament, this was a much smaller show than the first UFC Japan, as the venue held about 7,000 people. In their middleweight bout, Jackson hit Yamamiya so hard it knocked out his bridge. There it was with protruding teeth on the Octagon canvas, which was kind of funny if you had a warped sense of humor.
In the heavyweight headliner, Randleman got reversed by Williams and seemed to have hurt his ribs near the end of the round. Randleman lay on the mat about forty-five seconds of the one-minute break between rounds. I thought the fight would be over, but Randleman came back out for four more rounds and eventually won. Stacked up against most of the classics, it wasn’t a great fight, but Randleman’s resilience was impressive.
For UFC 23 and 25, SEG brought the show back to Japan, yet neither event was nearly as commercially successful as the first had been. By then, Pride Fighting Championships, which boasted elaborate fight entrances using high-tech lights, music, and video, had become king in Japan. The UFC was just an afterthought. It really hit me as I saw former UFC stars like Vitor Belfort, Mark Coleman, and Mark Kerr, all now fighting for Pride, backstage and in the audience. Pride shows were starting to attract crowds of 20,000 to 30,000 people. Meanwhile, through the fight community stories spread of American fighters bringing home wads of cash stuffed in their underwear and socks. The UFC couldn’t compete with this at all.
It seemed like the ship was sinking when a ray of hope broke through. In February of 2000, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board dipped its toe into MMA regulation by approving an MMA-style bout at a regional kickboxing show held at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was called a freestyle grappling exhibition, and the fighters could take bouts to the ground and hit with open-handed strikes. New Jersey was viewed as another leading regulatory body because of the number of boxing events it oversaw in Atlantic City, while New York was also a couple hours away. This was a big break for the sport.
UFC 24
“First Defense”
March 10, 2000
Lake Charles Civic Center
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Bouts I Reffed:
Jens Pulver vs. David Velasquez
Bob Cook vs. Tiki Ghosn
Dave Menne vs. Fabiano Iha
Lance Gibson vs. Jermaine Andre
Tedd Williams vs. Steve Judson
You know things are bad when the heavyweight championship fight is cancelled during the show because the c
hampion gets knocked out backstage. Yes, Randleman was warming up in the back and slipped on some pipes strewn on the ground. He was knocked unconscious, woke up, and then started vomiting, indicating that he had a severe concussion. Dr. Istrico wouldn’t let Randleman fight, which was the right thing to do, even though Randleman wanted to go out there regardless.
Dan Severn made his reffing debut when he officiated the Freeman-Adams fight. Severn, wearing a traditional black-and-white striped shirt and red wrestling shoes, did fine but never reffed in the UFC again.
UFC 25
“Ultimate Japan 3”
April 14, 2000
Yoyogi National Gymnasium
Tokyo, Japan
Bouts I Reffed:
LaVerne Clark vs. Koji Oishi
Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Joe Slick
Ron Waterman vs. Satoshi Honma
Sanae Kikuta vs. Eugene Jackson
Murilo Bustamante vs. Yoji Anjo
Tito Ortiz vs. Wanderlei Silva
Seeing Murilo Bustamante finally get into the UFC was a big moment for me. I had always admired his fighting and the classy way he conducted himself. The one downside was that he made short work of Yoji Anjo.
The Ortiz-Silva fight, which would determine a new middleweight champion in Frank Shamrock’s place, had some good moments but overall wasn’t the barn burner you’d hope for. Ortiz was really nervous about the fight, as was pretty much everyone who faced Wanderlei “the Axe Murderer” Silva, but he pulled out the unanimous nod and fulfilled his own prophetic destiny to become a champion.
On September 30, 2000, the NJSACB regulated its first MMA event on a trial basis under the leadership of Commissioner Larry Hazzard Sr., a former Golden Gloves boxing champion and accomplished Hall of Fame boxing referee. Six MMA bouts were approved at the International Fighting Championships (IFC) event that night, but the one that really caught Hazzard’s eye was a heavyweight contest between the six-feet-ten Gan McGee and a Canadian kickboxer with limited ground experience, Brad Gabriel. McGee, who’d trained with Chuck Liddell in California, took the bout to the ground and repeatedly slammed his knee into a turtled Gabriel’s head until the referee called the bout. It was a type of attack that had long been admissible in MMA bouts, but Hazzard had a real issue with it.
When Meyrowitz approached the New Jersey board to hold three UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City beginning that November, Hazzard said he would allow the events to take place during a probationary period under the two conditions that knees to a downed opponent’s head were made illegal and that the regulatory agency would continue to observe the sport at the next three shows. It seemed a small price to pay to get the UFC into a state as influential as New Jersey, so Meyrowitz agreed.
As a small window began to open in New Jersey, SEG also banged on the doors of Nevada, specifically Las Vegas. Sin City was the crowned jewel for combat sports. Boxing events regularly pulled in live gates in the double-digit million-dollar range.
As he had in New York four years earlier, Meyrowitz hired a lobbyist, Sig Rogich, to champion the sport with the Nevada State Athletic Commission and push regulation through. Right around UFC 28, SEG got word that a proposal for mixed martial arts’ regulation in Nevada had been scheduled for the athletic commission’s next meeting. Lorenzo Fertitta and Glenn Carano along with three additional commissioners would vote on the proposal; SEG needed the support of three.
I was flown to Las Vegas to answer any questions the commissioners had about the sport. SEG and the lobbyist figured Fertitta would support the sport because he’d now become John Lewis’ jiu-jitsu student. They thought Glenn Carano would vote against it and two other commissioners would split with their votes. The fifth was a veterinarian who wasn’t particularly familiar with the sport, so I was sent to meet him. With the swing vote in the balance, I did my best to persuade him to give MMA a chance, talking up its safety points, but he didn’t seem to care either way.
Meyrowitz met me in Las Vegas a day before the vote. The lobbyist, who was relaying updates, said we had the three votes and would get the sport passed. However, later that night, he called back to say something had changed. One commissioner had changed his mind and was going to vote the proposal down. Since it would be difficult to get this proposal budgeted again in a timely fashion, the lobbyist encouraged Meyrowitz to pull it from the table so they could regroup. Meyrowitz listened to the lobbyist’s advice, and MMA never went to a vote the next day.
UFC 26
“Ultimate Field of Dreams”
June 9, 2000
Five Seasons Events Center
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Bouts I Reffed:
Matt Hughes vs. Marcelo Aguiar
Amaury Bitetti vs. Alex Andrade
Pat Miletich vs. John Alessio
Tyrone Roberts vs. David Dodd
Kevin Randleman vs. Pedro Rizzo
In another misguided stroke of matchmaking, a young and green Alessio challenged Miletich for his lightweight title, making it into the second round before he lost by submission.
I had to disqualify Andrade for kicking Bitetti to the head three times while wearing wrestling shoes. At this point we had a rule that fighters could wear them as long as they didn’t kick to the head.
It was one in a long line of disappointing developments, but we still had the shows in New Jersey and the opportunity to convince its officials to regulate MMA. We all had to stay focused.
UFC 28 “High Stakes” was held on November 17, 2000, at the 5,000-seat Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It didn’t sell out, but it was quite a good show if I do say so myself. The UFC had negotiated the return of Randy Couture in a heavyweight title bout against champion Kevin Randleman, and Couture out-wrestled and ground-and-pounded him en route to a third-round stoppage. Just fifteen seconds into their lightweight bout, Jens Pulver knocked out John Lewis with a blistering left hand that broke Lewis’ jaw. And Mark Hughes, the brother of future UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes, made his one and only appearance in the Octagon with a unanimous decision victory over Alex Stiebling.
UFC 27
“Ultimate Bad Boyz”
September 22, 2000
Lakefront Arena
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bouts I Reffed:
Jeff Monson vs. Tim Lajcik
Ian Freeman vs. Tedd Williams
Yuki Kondo vs. Alexandre Dantas
Jeremy Horn vs. Eugene Jackson
Maurice Smith vs. Bobby Hoffman
Pedro Rizzo vs. Dan Severn
Smith hit Hoffman with so many uppercuts that Hoffman bit off about one-third of his tongue. He went in the back and tried to tear off the remaining piece still attached. Now, that was a crazy bastard.
The fight between Rizzo and Severn should never have happened. Severn, now in his midforties, had long since passed his prime and took a couple of leg kicks that ended his night in a minute and a half.
Of course, I’ll never forget a mistake I made in one of the other heavyweight bouts that night. Belarusian Andrei Arlovski grabbed the cage and was able to change his direction when opponent Aaron Brink went to take him down. Arlovski, a sambo expert, quickly found the armbar, and Brink tapped out. All of this happened in just fifty-four seconds. After reviewing it, I realized I should’ve stopped the bout after the takedown and restarted the fighters on their feet, but I hadn’t reacted quickly enough.
UFC 29 would be the promotion’s last trip to Japan, though we didn’t know it at the time. “Defense of the Belts” was held on December 16, 2000, at the Differ Ariake Arena in Tokyo. The arena had only 1,246 seats, so it seemed like a waste of money, but SEG was there to satisfy the contract with its Japanese copromoter.
Tito Ortiz made his first successful title defense against rising local star Yuki Kondo, who knocked Ortiz on his backside with a rarely seen flying knee. Pat Miletich defended his lightweight title against Kenichi Yamamoto as well.
However, it wasn’t a banner event
overall by any stretch.
Before the bouts, I sat in an empty chair next to Dana White, who managed Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. Earlier that night, Liddell had fought and beaten Jeff Monson in a light heavyweight match that had been scheduled for the previous UFC.
Though we’d never really talked, I’d met White a few shows prior and my only impression had been that he was driven. I’d been told he was trying to get Ortiz more money and was playing hardball with Meyrowitz. I knew the figure White was asking for and that he wouldn’t get it because SEG couldn’t afford it.
This night, White asked if I had plans after the show and if I wanted to go out to eat with him and Lorenzo Fertitta. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but lo and behold, there was Fertitta sitting in the first row.