Let’s Get It On!
Page 26
I finally told my sergeant, Andy Markel, this whole situation was bullshit and nothing more than jealousy. Andy ended up taking over the investigation and made one taped phone call to the photographer who’d shot the ad. The photographer was willing to go on the record stating that he hadn’t noticed two badges in my bag and had pinned the wrong one on me, and the investigation was finally dropped.
The first batch of Zuffa-run UFC events improved on the product immeasurably. The packaging, from its advertising to its pre-fight videos, looked much more professional. The talent was improving quickly as well, but that didn’t immediately translate into pay-per-view buys. As a train-wreck spectacle, the UFC had peaked with nearly 300,000 buys. Now a recognized sport, the UFC barely mustered 50,000 buys for its first few shows.
UFC 35 “Throwdown,” on January 11, 2002, was the first held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The main aggressor at this event was a stomach bug, which had fighters, cornermen, and even some of Zuffa’s staff rushing for their toilet bowls the entire weekend.
Everyone had a theory regarding the mystery plague that pillaged UFC 35’s roster. Some of the fighters blamed it on the food cooked by the hotel’s restaurant, ironically named The Octagon, and a few fighters stole their personalized steak knives as payback. Some had come into town with the bug, though, so maybe it had infected the rest that way. Kevin Randleman was sick and irate at the same time, convinced the hotel had poisoned him in some master conspiracy before his big fight against Renato “Babalu” Sobral.
Luckily, I was one of the few not sick. During the event, fighters were running to the bathroom backstage. UFC middleweight champion Dave Menne was one of the sicker fighters and was throwing up till his title defense against Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Murilo Bustamante. A drained and depleted Menne lost the title to Bustamante on second-round punches, but the real story is that a guy who felt like he was going to die went out and fought his heart out and never complained once about the result.
Not all of the fighters got ill. In the main event, a healthy B. J. Penn challenged Jens Pulver for his lightweight crown and won the first two rounds handily. Penn secured an armbar on Pulver at the end of the second round, but just as he extended and locked it in, the bell rang. I believe two things happened in that moment: first, Pulver got pissed off over nearly getting caught; second, Penn, who was fighting for a world championship in his fourth professional bout, lost his spark because the fight literally slipped out of his hands.
I noticed a real shift in both fighters’ demeanors when they came out for the third round. Though Penn had an early lead, Pulver used his newfound motivation to go after his opponent and win the final fifteen minutes to keep his title.
Fights are like that. They can turn on a dime, and a mental catalyst can be just as powerful as a landed punch or submission.
In a time of fast-paced growth, I made my second major refereeing blunder. It was at UFC 37 “High Impact” on May 10, 2002, at the CenturyTel Center in Bossier City, Louisiana. Middleweight champion Murilo Bustamante caught Olympic wrestling silver medalist Matt Lindland in a tight armbar in the first round, and I interceded when I thought I saw Lindland tapping out.
“I wasn’t tapping, John,” Lindland said as I separated them.
UFC 36
“Worlds Collide”
March 22, 2002
MGM Grand Garden Arena
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bouts I Reffed:
Frank Mir vs. Pete Williams
Matt Hughes vs. Hayato Sakurai
Randy Couture vs. Josh Barnett
Matt Hughes delivered the best performance of his career in the Octagon, repeatedly slamming dangerous Japanese legend Hayato Sakurai into oblivion.
Randy Couture mostly controlled a much bigger and younger Josh Barnett for the first three rounds of their heavyweight championship match. But Barnett turned things around by grounding and pinning Couture against the fence, where he landed huge shots that hurt Couture until I jumped in to stop it. Afterward, Barnett tested positive for steroids and hasn’t fought in the UFC since, which is a tragedy because he was and still is one of the best heavyweight fighters in the world.
In that moment, I made another big mistake: I doubted my call.
While 8,000 vocal Louisiana fans looked on, instead of being decisive and sticking to my first call, I decided to restart the bout.
At the time, I didn’t have the ability to restart the fight from the grounded position the fighters had been in; I had to stand them up and restart them from their corners. That was completely unfair to Bustamante, who’d been on the verge of winning the fight on the mat, but I did it anyway and immediately felt terrible about it.
Despite my intervention, the right man found the win that night. In the third round, Bustamante trapped Lindland’s neck with a guillotine choke, and Lindland clearly tapped out this time.
When I left the cage, Elaine said something she rarely does about my refereeing: “You screwed up.”
In my heart, I knew she was right.
When I reviewed the video, I saw I’d been right the first time and Lindland had tapped out. I’d been duped, but the blame was on me for caving on my original call. Referees don’t always make the correct calls, but they need to stand by them in that moment no matter what. I had to make sure I never got caught up in that type of situation again.
UFC 37.5
“As Real As It Gets”
June 22, 2002
Bellagio Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bouts I Reffed:
Robbie Lawler vs. Steve Berger
Benji Radach vs. Nick Serra
Chuck Liddell vs. Vitor Belfort
This six-fight event was thrown together in a week, when the UFC got the opportunity to air its first live fights on cable for FOX Sports Network’s The Best Damn Sports Show Period. This was another big break forthe UFC and the sport, but the fighters had to come through with appealing performances. Both Lawler and Liddell stepped up to the plate with victories as exciting as Zuffa could’ve hoped for. Held in an intimate ballroom in the Bellagio with about 2,000 fans, the event had a certain electricity not felt at the larger arena shows.
UFC 38 “Brawl at the Hall,” the promotion’s first venture into England, was held in London’s 5,000-seat Royal Albert Hall. MMA had a small but loyal fan base in the United Kingdom, and a couple smaller local promotions were grooming talent. The UFC had also secured a minor TV deal in the United Kingdom to air past events, something not yet achieved in the United States.
The Royal Albert Hall was far different from any other UFC venue to date. It was essentially an opera house, with red velvet curtains and box seats on all sides. Not exactly what you’d picture when you think of fighting. I know it had never been intended to hold fights, but it really felt like the Roman days to me. A day before the show, several of us stood in the middle of the Octagon and yelled out, “Are you not entertained?” Silly, yes, but still pretty cool.
Of the matches, Ian Freeman’s victory over Frank Mir was probably the most potent. Having appeared at UFC 24, 26, and 27, Freeman, a native of Sunderland, was the most recognized fighter from the United Kingdom. Freeman went into the bout knowing his father was ill, but his corner, friends, and family decided to not tell him his father had passed away the day of the event. Freeman used all of his stirring emotion to take out Mir with a flurry of first-round punches on the ground, earning his biggest career win. The crowd went nuts for him.
The event also featured the rematch of the controversial UFC 34 encounter between Matt Hughes and Carlos Newton. However, there was no doubt this time around. Hughes walked through Newton and got a fourth-round stoppage.
Many were surprised by Hughes’ domination, but sometimes the fans forget that outside of the cage fighters balance complex lives just like everybody else. This was a clear case of two fighters moving in different directions. Hughes was coming into his own as a fighter and honin
g a style that worked for him. Newton had been in the game so long and was pursuing a medical degree and other interests at the same time. Fighting wasn’t his first priority anymore.
I did attend Zuffa’s after party at a trendy nightclub in London and left about a minute before the now infamous brawl broke out in the street between Lee Murray and Tito Ortiz and their drunken entourages. After that night, Zuffa decided not to host its own after parties. Fighters and alcohol didn’t seem to mix too well.
Though Zuffa had now held eleven quality events in nineteen months, it didn’t seem the UFC was making substantial strides. They had spent millions on a magazine ad campaign, tried to coax the mainstream press to cover them, and even taken an event halfway around the world to England. However, the pay-per-view numbers for the first eleven events under Zuffa’s watch were reported to be under 100,000 buys each, with some rumored to be 30,000 or lower. It was time to try something different.
Dana White had told me a couple days before UFC 40 that Tank Abbott would be returning to fight at UFC 41, and Zuffa managed to keep the MMA press from finding out. When Abbott appeared at the top of the ramp at UFC 40 and swaggered down with his salt-and-pepper goatee and leather jacket, the audience was shocked.
UFC 39
“The Warriors Return”
September 27, 2002
Mohegan Sun Arena
Uncasville, Connecticut
Bouts I Reffed:
Gan McGee vs. Pedro Rizzo
B. J. Penn vs. Matt Serra
Ricco Rodriguez vs. Randy Couture
McGee stopped Rizzo in the first round via a nasty cut, the start of the downfall for the Brazilian striker.
Rodriguez’s fifth-round victory over Couture was a tough bout to watch. Couture led early, but later Rodriguez used his size to trap him on the mat. Rodriguez then hit Couture with a legal elbow that cracked his orbital bone. It was the one time I heard Couture verbally submit in a fight.
My sons, Ron and Johnny, with former UFC welterweight champion Carlos Newton in their best Dragon Ball Z poses
Some time had passed since Abbott had been in the UFC, and I didn’t have a strong opinion about his return either way. Times had changed, and the UFC was overcoming a lot of the stigma I’d felt Abbott had helped feed during his SEG days, but if it would get people to tune in, why not? I knew he wouldn’t win against good fighters, and Zuffa and the audience would see that when they watched him fight.
UFC 40 “Vendetta,” held on November 22, 2002, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, launched the sport’s first true rivalry of the Zuffa era. The brash and outspoken Tito Ortiz took on Ken Shamrock in a flashback to their UFC 19 encounter when Ortiz had beaten Shamrock’s prized student Guy Mezger and donned the “Gay Mezger Is My Bitch” T-shirt.
The bad blood built up in the days before the show. At the press conference, Shamrock uttered the now famous line, “I’m going to beat you into a living death,” and kicked a chair Ortiz’s way, which Dana caught midair. It was a pretty nice catch for someone who never expected a chair to come flying his way.
At the weigh-ins, I was asked to stand between these passionate showmen. I got the impression everyone else was afraid to do it. When they lunged at one another, I had to wedge between them.
The actual fight wasn’t as competitive. Even though Ortiz wasn’t a great striker, he managed to bash Shamrock’s face until it was almost unrecognizable.
At the end of the third round, Shamrock looked my direction. “I can’t see anything, John.”
I walked him to his corner and told Tra Telligman, his lead cornerman, “Your fighter’s having trouble seeing.”
Standing between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock at the UFC 40 weigh-ins, a job I’m glad UFC President Dana White took over later
I wanted Shamrock’s corner to have the chance to pull him out of the fight, but I had also told the ringside physician what he had said to me. It was time to get him out: the question was which way it was going to happen. Shamrock’s corner called it, saving their man from any more damage. It was a great bout and an honorable ending.
The energy that night was unlike any I’d felt before. Shamrock’s entrance was magic, as always, and the matchup had a “big fight” feel. Something clicked with the TV audience as well. Maybe it was the name recognition of two of the UFC’s pioneers or their genuine dislike for one another, but when the pay-per-view numbers were finally tallied, UFC 40 had gotten 150,000 buys. It was Zuffa’s first commercial success.
My sons were lucky enough to grow up meeting some of the sport’s great stars: here with Jerry Bohlander and Ken Shamrock.
At Zuffa’s second show in Las Vegas with my family. You can see Zuffa was stepping up the production value. (UFC 34 “High Voltage,” November 2001)
THE HAIL MRRY
We are not retreating
We are advancing in another direction.
—General Douglas MacArthur
With Zuffa desperate to connect with new fans, Abbott would be thrown right into the fire at the promotion’s next event, UFC 41 “Onslaught” on February 28, 2003, at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Bringing back the now thirty-eight-year-old “barstool brawler” didn’t mesh with the UFC’s line that its fighters were world-class athletes trained in multiple martial arts disciplines, but Zuffa needed a hook—fast.
I wondered who they could match Abbott with so he’d have a decent chance. Randy Couture had stood up at UFC 40 to volunteer for the job, but I knew that wouldn’t happen.
Instead, Frank Mir, the twenty-three-year-old grappling enthusiast, was offered Abbott first. Mir had notched back-to-back submission wins before British Ian Freeman had beaten and bloodied him to a first-round finish at UFC 38 in London. He hadn’t taken Freeman’s punches well at all, and that was about all Abbott had, at least for the first couple of minutes before he’d gas out.
I think the match was made because Mir had a good name but couldn’t take strong punching well, which is where Abbott had the best shot. But to me, Mir was the exact type of fighter who would give Abbott problems. He was smart and would not be stupid enough to stand and trade shots with someone like Abbott.
As I suspected, Mir turned out to be a terrible matchup for Abbott. He was big and strong and managed to get Abbott down to the mat early, caught him in an omoplata shoulder lock, then reached down and applied a toe hold that cranked Abbott’s ankle in a violent rotation. With no ground training to know how to get out of it, Abbott tapped out in just forty-six seconds. It was a beautiful double submission that emphasized how far the sport had progressed. However, we all realized after the fact that this wasn’t a smart match if they were trying to bring back an older UFC star to gain some momentum.
Another fighter the UFC was hoping to build at UFC 41 was Ricco Rodriguez, who’d won the vacant heavyweight title over Couture five months earlier at UFC 39. However, Rodriguez wouldn’t hold the belt long at all. Tim Sylvia, a six-feet-eight newcomer, came out of nowhere and knocked down Rodriguez in the first round. As soon as Sylvia hit Rodriguez, you could see the champion didn’t want to stand with him anymore, but he couldn’t get Sylvia down to the mat. From his back, Rodriguez tried an armbar and Sylvia lifted him up and slammed him on his head. It was the beginning of the end for Rodriguez, who never again found the success he’d achieved early in his career.
I also refereed the B. J. Penn versus Caol Uno rematch for the lightweight title vacated by Jens Pulver.
11 UFC 41’s championship bout was the culmination of a four-man tournament, and the promotion was eager to get a new 155-pound champion back in the mix. But after five rounds of action, the fight was ruled a draw.
I couldn’t believe one of the judges had given the fight to Uno and another had scored it a draw when Penn had clearly won. To me, it was simply a crime.
Though Abbott’s drawing power had helped UFC 41 sell out the Boardwalk Hall with 11,700 spectators, things didn’t bode well on the pay-per-view front. UFC 40 had bee
n able to break through the 100,000 buy-rate ceiling, but UFC 41 was said to have dipped right back below it, where the numbers would stay for the next handful of shows.
Zuffa continued to Miami, Florida, site of UFC 42 “Sudden Impact,” held on April 25, 2003, at the 16,000-seat American Airlines Arena. It was another sobering night for all of us, with only about half the venue filled with fans. Even O. J. Simpson, notorious at this point for his acquittal in his ex-wife’s murder trial, was able to sneak into the arena undetected and watch the show unfettered in a sea of empty seats.
The Florida State Boxing Commission had insisted on using two of its own referees for the preliminary bouts that night. During the event, one of the local referees watched Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Hermes Franca dislocate Rich Crunkilton’s elbow two times with a straight armlock attempt in their lightweight contest. Franca actually pointed to the dislocated elbow to let the referee know what he’d done, but that didn’t work.
The referee should have been protecting Crunkilton from himself, as he wouldn’t submit, but since he didn’t know what he was looking at, it would’ve been hard to accomplish that. The commission pulled the referee from the rest of the fights he’d been assigned to that night and had me sub for him.