Let’s Get It On!
Page 30
Speaking at Lewis’ memorial was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. My friend had been too young and full of life to be gone.
In their own ways, Tanner and Lewis touched many lives in the sport. They both used the same simple term: “Believe.” When I think about the way they both incorporated it in their lives, it tells me a lot. Every time I see that word, I think of these two people. It brings a smile to my face and reminds me, Just believe. Don’t let people put limits on you. Do what you need to do how you need to do it.
One of the most uplifting fighters I ever got to be around was Justin Eilers, a former Iowa State middle linebacker who’d been recruited to UFC champion Pat Miletich’s Iowa powerhouse gym by his roommate and former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver. Eilers was a good athlete and a free spirit and could strike up a friendly conversation with practically anybody.
I had a running joke with Eilers about an incident when he’d gotten a little too intoxicated and wound up making out with a transvestite in a club, something his Miletich teammates ruthlessly ridiculed him for. I would always come into Eilers’ locker room and go over the rules and procedures before the fight in my usual serious manner. I’d finish with the same question I ask every fighter: “Do you have anything else you want to go over or any questions at all?” Once I got the “No, I’m good,” from fighters, I’d leave the locker room. But with Justin, I always had just one more question: “Justin, if it’s a girl from the waist up, does that make it okay?”
He’d always start cussing at me and then laugh, the prefight tension broken. “I’m telling you, she had some of the best tits I’ve ever seen,” he’d say.
At UFC 53 “Heavy Hitters,” held on June 4, 2005, at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Eilers challenged Andrei Arlovski for his heavyweight title. I had to stop the fight prematurely when Eilers fell to the ground cradling his leg. He’d blown out his knee.
It would be the last fight I’d have the privilege to referee him in. The day after Christmas in 2008, Eilers was shot and killed by his stepfather, an ex-sheriff, during a dispute at a family gathering. It was another senseless loss for the MMA world.
Tanner, Lewis, and Eilers all contributed to the sport in their own way. Their individual efforts helped propel the sport to new heights in mid-2005.
On the heels of Couture-Liddell II, UFC 53 was the show where I felt the atmosphere changing at the events. The strangest thing I noticed was that fans were now packing the arena way ahead of the start of the show.
When Forrest Griffin, who was fresh off his win over Stephan Bonnar at The Ultimate Fighter finale two months earlier in Las Vegas, made his entrance, he was practically accosted by crazy fans trying to touch him as he made his way to the cage. When Griffin won his fight against Canadian Bill Mahood, the crowd blew the top off the place. Griffin got the kind of reception reserved for Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, and Chuck Liddell—fighters who had toiled in the UFC for years.
UFC 54
“Boiling Point”
August 20, 2005
MGM Grand Garden
Arena Las Vegas, Nevada
Bouts I Reffed:
Chuck Liddell vs. Jeremy Horn
Now that Liddell was the UFC light heavyweight champion, Liddell got to avenge one of two career defeats to Horn, who’d choked him unconscious with an arm-triangle at UFC 13 in March of 1999. It was a hard fight to watch as Liddell hit Horn with incredibly hard punches. Remember: in the cage, I can hear and feel how heavy some of the punches and kicks are and the wheezing of an athlete who can’t breathe correctly. Horn put up a great fight but got knocked down a few times. When Horn advised me that he couldn’t see the punches coming anymore, I stopped the fight.
It was clear right then and there that the reality show had already impacted the UFC’s popularity. The promotion often refers to the series as its Trojan horse because it was the vehicle they used to bring mixed martial arts to the uninitiated masses. It wasn’t the live fight show Dana White had envisioned to do the job, but the public’s obsession with reality TV couldn’t have come at a better time for the sport. The story goes that Spike TV head Brian Diamond struck a handshake deal with White and Fertitta for the second season of TUF and more live Fight Night events in the alleyway behind the Cox Pavilion only minutes after Griffin and Bonnar had knocked the tar out of each other.
Griffin-Bonnar became a “watercooler fight,” the one talked about in offices across the country Monday morning. The ratings were the sport’s highest to date in the United States, with 2.6 million viewers tuning in. The finale was the highest-rated program on both cable and broadcast TV that night for men ages eighteen through thirty-four, which is the coveted demographic for advertisers. Here at UFC 53, more than four years and $40 million later, Zuffa’s purchase of the UFC looked like it might finally turn out to be a worthwhile investment.
UFC 55
“Fury”
October 7, 2005
Mohegan Sun Arena
Uncasville, Connecticut
Bouts I Reffed:
Marcio Cruz vs. Keigo Kunihara
Joe Riggs vs. Chris Lytle
Andrei Arlovski vs. Paul Buentello
Buentello rushed in throwing a jab-right hand combo that Arlovski dropped under while launching his own counter overhand right. Luckily I was on the side where I could see the effect on Buentello, who clearly went out when Arlovski connected. Buentello fell forward onto Arlovski, who was bent forward from ducking. Buentello slid off Arlovski and hit the canvas, which woke him up. The crowd booed until the replay, which clearly showed that Buentello had been knocked out. Buentello came to, asked me what had happened, then complained. However, Buentello’s wife thanked me afterward for stopping the fight and protecting her husband. Nothing could have made me feel better about the job I had just done.
Zuffa used its big break to its best possible advantage. When the second season of The Ultimate Fighter debuted on Spike TV that August, UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes and middleweight titleholder Rich Franklin were cast as the new coaches. What better way to familiarize fans with their champions than to have them broadcasted into millions of homes each week?
I returned to referee some of the fights on the show, and when it concluded in November to steady ratings, both Hughes and Franklin had already been assigned to headline UFC 56 against their respective challengers two weeks later. Zuffa had momentum, and it wasn’t stopping now.
At UFC 57 “Liddell vs. Couture 3” on February 4, 2006, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, I got to referee the third and final bout between the two stars and TUF season one coaches. Their exposure on the show had made Liddell and Couture Zuffa’s most recognizable fighters, and they each had a win over the other, so the rubber match made perfect sense.
At the top of the bout, I thought Couture was fighting really smart. He got hit with a big shot that busted up his nose, which was bleeding a lot, but after much effort he took Liddell down in the last thirty seconds.
It went into the second round, but Liddell caught Couture again in the first two minutes. Couture went down and tried to flail his arms and legs to keep Liddell off him, but Liddell connected again.
I watched Couture’s arms fall and his head bounce against the canvas. He came to from the impact as I was coming in. Liddell could have caused more damage if I hadn’t stepped in.
I was pleased with this stoppage, even after Couture told the press he hadn’t felt out of it at any point. Fighters who’ve been knocked out often claim they weren’t, so I don’t ever take it personally. They don’t know what’s happened because they’ve lost that little piece of time. The two most popular lines for fighters during these times are “What happened?” and “Why is my opponent putting on his shirt?”
Throughout 2005, the UFC’s future seemed to get steadily brighter. In August, Spike TV debuted Ultimate Fight Night, later re-branded UFC Fight Night, a two-hour live fight show featuring the previous TUF season’s fighters,
which would serve as the lead-in to the reality show’s next season debut.
I don’t think the pay-per-view numbers took off that year. Zuffa never released the buy numbers, though Lorenzo Fertitta or Dana White would sometimes share them with me.
However, the live crowds were consistently growing, and it would take me a bit longer to leave the arena, as I’d be asked for a few more autographs and pictures each time.
UFC 56
“Full Force”
November 19, 2005
MGM Grand Garden Arena
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bouts I Reffed:
Thiago Alves vs. Ansar Chalangov
Matt Hughes vs. Joe Riggs
Rich Franklin vs. Nate Quarry
Franklin-Quarry ended in spectacular fashion for the crowd when Quarry fell back like a stiff tree from Franklin’s last punch, but I wasn’t happy with the outcome. I’m not saying I cared who won or lost, but Quarry took substantial damage and was out there trying to survive as much as he was trying to win. The fans were thrilled because they had a dramatic and definitive ending to the fight, but I knew it was over before that punch ever landed. I just wasn’t able to protect Quarry from that final blow.
UFC 58
“USA vs. Canada”
March 4, 2006
Mandalay Bay Events Center
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bouts I Reffed:
Nate Marquardt vs. Joe Doerksen
Rich Franklin vs. David Loiseau
Franklin-Loiseau was highly anticipated, as Loiseau was a talented striker who liked to throw spinning back kicks, flying knees, and landed elbows that cut and incapacitated quality opponents. But it was Franklin, an unorthodox southpaw, who put a beatdown on the French Canadian.
Between rounds, I heard Franklin tell his cornerman Jorge Gurgel his hand was broken (he also broke a foot). Gurgel looked straight at Franklin and said, “Just keep hitting him with it, and it will go numb.”
What people didn’t know was Loiseau was having problems with his management that were sapping his focus. I’d noticed Loiseau’s tension and anxiety in the locker room beforehand, then watched Franklin bludgeon his face over five rounds until he resembled the Elephant Man.
UFC 59 “Reality Check,” held on April 15, 2006, at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim was a bittersweet moment for me. On the bright side, it was the first UFC ever held in my home state. After fifteen years of traveling across the country and the globe to referee fights, I had to get in my car and drive only one hour south this time.
I’d spoken before the California State Athletic Commission at its public meetings in the months prior as it locked down its own set of regulations to oversee the sport in the Golden State. I defended the Unified Rules already widely utilized stateside, much to the chagrin of Pride Fighting Championships’ executives from Japan, who were also in attendance to try to get some of their own rules recognized in the key state.
I never had a problem with Pride or their rules, but it had taken California five years to finally approve MMA’s legalization with a four-to-one vote. Pride’s requests would hold up the regulation process for another six months to a year. To me, that was crap. I figured they should let the legalization go through entirely, then attempt to put in an addendum that allowed for what they were asking. I have heard some people say that I fought to keep Pride out of the United States, but that’s not true. I was just fighting to get MMA going here as fast as possible.
Ironically, UFC 59 marked the first UFC when I wasn’t assigned to the main event fight. This wasn’t a really big deal for me, but it upset Elaine because she knew why the commission had decided not to assign me.
About a month prior, I’d been offered the main event bout in a Strikeforce show, which would be the first regulated MMA event in the state. The commission was kind about it. Executive Officer Armando Garcia said I’d earned the honor of officiating the fight for all I’d done in the sport.
However, I felt I needed to turn down the assignment.
I had a personal issue with the fight because it paired former UFC champion Frank Shamrock against Cesar Gracie, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who’d never entered an MMA fight in his life. I told the commission if this were a boxing match, they never would have approved it. The commission and Gracie went to great lengths to prove Gracie had a record of fourteen wins and zero losses back in Brazil. However, I knew he was just a grappler, a good grappler, but not a person who’d been under the pressure of performing in an MMA match in front of thousands of people the way Shamrock had. When a grappler who’s never been hit in a real fight gets struck in the face and he’s not used to it, things can go bad for him quickly.
The proof was in the pudding. Shamrock needed one punch to crumble Gracie for a twenty-second finish. I’m glad it didn’t go longer, because I didn’t want to see Gracie get seriously hurt.
But since I didn’t support the fight that the CSAC’s executive officer had approved, I sat out a UFC main event for the first time.
Honestly, I preferred the bouts I was assigned to at UFC 59 because they were evenly matched. Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin went to a split decision. It was also great to have my family with me for part of fight week. My dad and children sat together in the audience, something we couldn’t swing often at the out-of-state shows.
MMA’s passage in California was a coup for many more in the sport as well. A number of fighters and their camps lived in the Golden State, so it was a hotbed market that the UFC didn’t hesitate to tap into. Following the success of UFC 59 in Anaheim, which drew 13,000 paying customers, UFC 60 “Hughes vs. Gracie” was scheduled for the 20,000-seat STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.
In the main event, UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes faced a returning Royce Gracie in a special nontitle bout. Royce had taken a few fights overseas but hadn’t competed in the Octagon since UFC 5 in April of 1995.
I had mixed feelings about it. I knew why the UFC was making the bout: to illustrate the difference between the UFC now and the UFC then and to pump Hughes up as this unbeatable star who wrecks past champions. Businesswise, it was a smart move. The name Royce Gracie still drew a lot of interest from the casual fan who didn’t buy all of the pay-per-views. Royce had done so much in helping to create the sport and had carried himself in such a respectful and noble manner, and people were interested in seeing him return to the house he’d built.
There was no doubt in my mind that Royce absolutely felt he could win, but I just didn’t see it. Obviously Royce had his jiu-jitsu, but Hughes wasn’t one of the befuddled fighters Royce had met at the early shows. Like any other fighter of this time, Hughes knew jiu-jitsu and was damn good at it.
On top of that, they were completely different guys physically. Hughes was powerful and could grind his opponents down, while Royce’s wiry figure required that he achieve positional leverage to overtake his opponent.
I felt Royce couldn’t hurt Hughes standing up, and if Hughes wanted to keep it on its feet, he could. Royce wouldn’t be able to take the former collegiate wrestler down unless he hurt him standing, and that wasn’t likely to happen. In other words, Hughes could take the fight wherever he wanted to.
It broke my heart when Hughes flattened out Royce hard and crushed his face into the canvas. It wasn’t that I cared who won or lost. I simply felt bad that in the end, just as with 99 percent of fighters who compete till the age of forty or beyond, Royce was on the receiving end and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Royce dragged himself back up to his knees, but Hughes muscled him flat onto his stomach and started hitting the sides of his head. Royce had nothing for Hughes. I told Royce the same thing I tell all fighters: “Move. Get out.” All I was looking for was for Royce to try and move himself out of the horrible position he was in.
But Royce just lay there taking shots, each one denting his pride a little bit more than the last. I knew Royce’s wife and kids were sitting in the front row, so when it was obvious Royce
couldn’t come back, I promptly jumped in.
As I stood center cage with Hughes on my one side and Royce on the other, I spoke to my former teacher. “You’re a warrior. You did good, and you should be proud.”
I could see one of Royce’s kids crying cageside, and that resonated with me on a raw level. I felt terrible inside.
One of the only good things to come out of Royce’s UFC return was that I’d gotten to see Royce’s father, Helio Gracie, another time when I’d given my prefight talk to the fighters. I’d always had a special place in my heart for Helio, the father of the sport. The relationship Helio had with his sons reminded me of the great respect I have for my own father.
“All of this is because of you,” I told him, “and I want you to know how much I appreciate you and everything you did to make this possible.”
In his nineties but still as vivacious as ever, Helio answered me through his translator, and I’ll never forget what he said. “Everything that I have done with jiu-jitsu, you have done with this sport. You are the best there ever was or ever will be. I am proud of who you are and what you have done.”
It would be the last time I’d get to speak with the sport’s patriarch. In January of 2009, he passed away. He was ninety-five.