Beast

by Doug Merlino

  Divided into two teams, they were coached by the two most popular fighters on the UFC roster, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. The end of every episode showcased an elimination fight. After all twelve episodes of the season had aired, the finale would feature fights between the remaining four fighters broadcast live on Spike. All of it would serve to build up a subsequent pay-per-view match between Couture and Liddell.

  The Ultimate Fighter debuted in January 2005 and succeeded beyond what Zuffa and Spike could have hoped. It began the modern era of MMA, redefining the sport by tapping into the fears, desires, and aspirations of its audience.

  The fighters it featured were not huge, vicious, brawling men, but young, eager aspirants—a mix of “good” guys trying to live their dreams, a couple weirdos, and a few villains.

  The emotional core of the first season was the fighter Chris Leben, an unstable twenty-four-year-old with dyed orange hair. Leben started the show by getting drunk and pissing on another contestant’s pillow. He was prone to outbursts and tears.

  In training scenes, though, he was presented as struggling to improve, a decent guy trying to overcome a hard childhood. Several episodes in, he had a meltdown when another contestant called him a “fatherless bastard,” which touched close to his real-life situation. When Leben left the house to sleep outside, two other fighters sprayed him with a hose. Leben punched through a window, slicing open his hand.

  Other key characters seemed normal and approachable: Nate Quarry, who identified himself as a “single dad”; Forrest Griffin, a University of Georgia political science graduate and former cop with a lopsided grin and aw-shucks sense of humor; Stephan Bonnar, who had a sports medicine degree from Purdue and came across as witty and clever.

  They were your crazy high school buddy who you hadn’t heard from in a few years; your brother who had always liked to fight; your cousin who last you heard was trying to get on with a fire crew in Montana. There were also guys like Josh Koscheck, one of Chris Leben’s antagonists, who seemed to be the typical cocky high school jock. In short, they were guys a vast audience of young men could identify with.

  And they reflected a vast part of America that was struggling for a break and would do what it took to get it, working hard under the paternal guidance of coaches Couture and Liddell. Fighting in the Octagon was where they showed their grit, courage, and worth. It was riveting television. Within weeks of its debut, the show was drawing a couple million viewers an episode, Spike’s first hit.

  Also central to the drama was Dana White, who took on the role of fight enthusiast, voice of reason, and final arbiter. He was shown conferring with the coaches, sharing his opinions on the fighters’ strengths and weaknesses, and putting out fires. He came across as blunt, likeable, a boss dealing with various logistical and personnel problems.

  In one early episode, several fighters griped (in front of the cameras, of course) about fighting for free on the show. One noted that the fighters could get injured and have nothing in return. In response, the fighters were called to the training facility, where a livid White, in full Anger mode, delivered a rant that both cemented his persona and foreshadowed future responses to labor issues:

  We picked who we believe are the best guys in the country right now. We did. And you guys are it. Fucking act like it, man. You are gonna fight in front of a lot of people. A lot of people. You have no fuckin’ clue at the opportunity that you have here …

  Do you wanna be a fuckin’ fighter? That is my question. And only you know that. Anybody who says they don’t, I don’t fucking want you here. And I’ll throw you the fuck outta this gym so fuckin’ fast your head will spin.

  The final episode of the season featured bouts between the remaining four fighters. In one, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar stood and bludgeoned each other for three rounds. It ended with both men cut, bloody, and exhausted.

  Some 3.3 million people watched the fight at a time when UFC pay-per-view events averaged fewer than 100,000 buys. What these viewers saw was, for many, as revolutionary as Royce Gracie’s jiu jitsu magic: two “average” white guys bashing it out in a cage in a contest to prove their mettle. It was, visually and spiritually, a throwback to the bare-knuckle boxing of more than a century earlier, except that it was broadcast to millions on basic cable.

  The UFC’s turnaround had started. When Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture had fought on pay-per-view in 2003, it had done 48,000 buys. After appearing on The Ultimate Fighter, their bout sold 280,000 buys, the most in the history of the UFC to that point.

  The promotion went from 145,000 pay-per-view buys in 2001 to more than 5 million in 2007. In 2009, the UFC 100 event sold 1.6 million pay-per-view buys at $45 each, a number that shocked the industry: It put the UFC in league with highly successful boxing and professional wrestling pay-per-views.

  . . .

  The second day of the UFC Fan Expo began with a jaunty Dana White taking the stage to an overflow crowd. “Good morning everybody! What’s happening?” he said.

  Zuffa had recently started a UFC Hall of Fame. White was there with Craig Piligian, still the executive producer of The Ultimate Fighter, to induct two of its first stars, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

  “As far as this sport goes, this was the most important fight in the history of this company,” White said by way of introduction. “You know where we were back then, you know where we were, and what was happening with the sport.”

  White recapped what is now company mythology—the dire times trying to get UFC fights on television, the way the mainstream had thumbed its nose until Griffin and Bonnar slugged their way into public consciousness.

  “Was anybody there that night?” White asked, his voice rising. “People were stomping their feet like a fucking train was going through the place! There has never been a more important fight in the history of the UFC! There has never been a more important fight, except for like UFC One, in the history of mixed martial arts! And it is our honor to induct Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar into the UFC Hall of Fame!”

  The hall was twice as crowded as the day before. Everywhere, people sat on the carpeted floors as they waited for autograph sessions. The music blared louder, the lights pulsed brighter, a disorienting assault meant to signal good cheer—undercut with the desperation to sell.

  The UFC kept its hands on the loudest microphone: Its autograph sessions and main-stage events drew the biggest crowds and were the reason people had come. They wanted to meet Dana White and their favorite fighters. Everything else—the shirts, the motorcycles, the UFC Fit program—was an attempt to extract some money on the back of that experience.

  On the main stage, an announcer introduced Ronda Rousey, the weekend’s biggest star after Dana White, to a euphoric reception. Rousey, in ripped jeans and a UFC muscle shirt, was rattled.

  “Hi everybody!” she said, smiling and waving. She turned and saw the announcer had disappeared. “Where’d that dude go? What am I doing?” she laughed nervously. “I just followed someone who led me on stage. Somebody help me out here!”

  Rousey’s ascent had been meteoric. Born in Riverside, California, she was a judo prodigy, making the 2004 U.S. team for the Athens Olympics at the age of seventeen. Four years later she took the bronze medal in Beijing. After, she moved to Los Angeles, tended bar, and started training MMA. Her first amateur fight was in 2010; she was fighting in Strikeforce the next year. She was a formidable fighter: Her opponents had been helpless against her signature arm bar. She was also blonde and attractive, a charismatic mix of beauty and strength, the California Girl as ass-kicker.

  Dana White for years had insisted that women would “never” fight in the UFC. Rousey, he admitted, had changed his mind; the UFC started a woman’s division to be built around her star power. Her first UFC fight had been in February 2013, against Liz Carmouche, a Marine Corps veteran.

  The entry of women into the promotion drew a flood of positive media and allowed the UFC to jiu jitsu critics who claimed it
was a violence-drenched pastime for brutes. In fact, the appearance of two women in a headline fight placed the UFC at the vanguard of social change.

  On the convention center floor, long lines once again formed at microphones on each side of the stage. A young girl named Makenna asked the first question: How old was Rousey when she started MMA? “And I know they say no autographs, but will you pretty please sign my glove?”

  Rousey blushed. “If you say it that cute, I can’t say no.”

  A woman came next. “Hi Ronda, my name’s Elena, I want to tell you you’re awesome and an inspiration to women,” she said. “You’re so strong, beautiful, and intelligent—in my opinion, you are Miss America.”

  Rousey was taken aback. “I feel like the anti–Miss America most of the time,” she said, smiling.

  Elena asked Rousey to visit the Boys and Girls Club of Barstow to inspire the kids. “There’s a lot of wannabe fighters, little kids, and the girls need to see you, to hear you.”

  For the next forty-five minutes, Rousey fielded questions, signed autographs, and posed for pictures as a stream of people—mostly women and girls—told her how much she inspired them.

  The other main-stage star of the afternoon was Chael Sonnen, who was thirty-six and had been fighting since 1997, the same year Jeff Monson started. He had in fact trained at Team Quest in Portland with Monson back at the turn of the century. Having since built an even more successful persona than Monson, Sonnen was a lesson in how to parlay decent athletic talent into stardom.

  Sonnen had been a middleweight journeyman, fighting, like Monson, in an alphabet stew of promotions around the world. He’d run for the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican in 2010 before dropping out of the race. Soon after, he was charged with money laundering related to mortgage fraud and pled guilty, for which he was fined ten thousand dollars and received two years of probation.

  But a string of three UFC wins going into 2010 had earned him a title shot against Anderson Silva, the dominant Brazilian middleweight champion and one of the best MMA fighters ever. Sonnen seized the moment. He adopted a pro-wrestling shtick as a “heel,” trash-talking and race-baiting Silva: “He’s a grown man with earrings. He’s a grown man with saggy pants, pink T-shirts, and crooked hats. Go join a gang, don’t get in the UFC.”

  He called the Portuguese language “just a half step up from Pig Latin” and tweeted at Silva’s manager, Ed Soares: “Ed, pray to whatever Demon effigy you prance and dance in front of with your piglet tribe of savages that I decide not to CRUCIFY you.”

  It went on and on. Sonnen would say something outrageous and garner headlines on MMA websites. Next, he would do interviews to comment on what he’d already said, during which he would make further outrageous statements, starting the cycle over. It was an MMA media click-bait ouroboros.

  Sonnen, to the shock of nearly everyone, actually won the first four rounds of the August 2010 title fight in Oakland, keeping it on the ground and punishing the Brazilian. With two minutes left in the fifth round, however, Silva caught Sonnen in a submission hold. Sonnen tapped out.

  When the drug tests came back, Sonnen’s testosterone to epitestosterone levels were nearly 17:1. The average man’s ratio is 1:1. The California Athletic Commission allowed a ratio of up to 4:1. It banned Sonnen from competition for a year.

  When Sonnen returned, he got wins over contenders Brian Stann and Michael Bisping, earning a rematch with Silva in July 2012. Sonnen repeated his trash talk. This time Silva finished him in the second round. The event sold 925,000 pay-per-views, the best the UFC had done in two years.

  Almost two months later, light heavyweight contender Dan Henderson suffered an injury and dropped out of a fight with champion Jon Jones. Sonnen offered to step in. Jones refused to face a new opponent on short notice, and the UFC ended up canceling the whole event. Dana White publicly lambasted Jones, calling him “selfish” and “disgusting” as well as “a little diva” and a “male supermodel.”

  In the end, it was good for both fighters, who got competing coaching slots on The Ultimate Fighter and a title fight in April 2013. Sonnen kept up his banter before the fight; Jones destroyed him in the first round.

  Sonnen, however, had successfully transformed from aging fighter on the way out to being one of the UFC’s biggest personalities, with a commentating slot on its weekly cable show and a seemingly secure future once he stepped away from the cage, which was more than the vast majority of fighters could say.

  The expo crowd relished his act, the square-jawed Sonnen pacing the stage and taking questions. They got what they wanted when one questioner, a black man, tried to get the best of him, meandering around to making the point that Sonnen had not earned his title shot against Jones.

  “Dana keeps you around because you can sell tickets,” he said. “Real talk.”

  Sonnen paused. It was almost possible to see the gears turn as he decided his course of action. “I’m about to come down there and whip your ass in a second,” he shouted into the microphone. “‘Real talk,’ stupid!”

  The crowd whooped.

  “Speak English, I don’t speak ghetto,” Sonnen continued. “What is your name again? Who are you? Tell my room of fans what ‘real talk’ means. Beat it! Next question.”

  The audience clapped and hollered as the questioner slunk away from the microphone.

  I got a text from Ricardo Liborio and made my way toward the grappling mats, Sonnen’s voice still bellowing. Liborio had already been in Vegas for several days, going first to a convention for owners of martial arts gyms and staying for the UFC extravaganza.

  He already had an entourage. It included a pair of Ivy League graduates who had started a performance sports clothing company that they hoped would become the Under Armour of MMA; a Japanese couple who spoke little English; and a guy named Hassan, who was opening a martial arts gym in Saudi Arabia.

  We trailed as Liborio worked the floor, greeting people, shaking hands, slapping backs.

  A man in his late twenties, in jeans and a T-shirt, came up. Liborio hugged him, chatted for a minute, and then introduced us.

  His name was Matt Betzold. He’d grown up in Phoenix. When he was six, a boarder in his family’s house gave him a piece of poisoned candy. Betzold fell ill and had to have his left leg amputated below the knee. He discovered jiu jitsu as a teenager and had become a high-level grappler before starting to fight MMA. He wanted to write a book about his life, aimed to inspire other people who were facing hard times.

  We stood near the entrance to the convention hall and talked, though it was hard to focus through the onslaught of noise, lights, and jostle. This was MMA—the hideous T-shirts, the bobble-head dolls, the sports drinks and supplements of dubious nutritional value, Chael Sonnen, Saudi Arabian gym owners, DART personas, Harley-Davidsons, kids in the grappling tournament, teenagers posing for photos in the replica Octagon. A thousand hustles. At the heart of it all was the fight, the will to excel, to rise, to be something. Every person of the thousands in the hall saw that central metaphor according to their own needs. The UFC had provided the canvas for our desires.

  Beast

  My engagement with MMA transformed me in unexpected ways.

  The most obvious was in physical appearance. The gym was a culture based around health and exercise: The fighters constantly talked about things like good sources of protein, what carbs to consume and when, how to eat for maximum energy. They drank very little alcohol. A fair number did yoga on Sundays, their days off from training.

  I adapted to my surroundings. I exercised more, ate better, drank less, and started to lose weight and add muscle—my waist dropped from forty to thirty-four inches. I felt more energetic, upbeat, resilient.

  And, after my early sparring sessions with Kami Barzini, I kept training. The range of emotions—from fear and panic to rage to elation—I’d experienced during our bouts had sparked my curiosity. When I was home in New York City, I joined a fight gym.

  It lin
ked in with everything else that was happening in my life. My brothers and I remained stuck in a deepening dispute with my aunt and uncle over my dad’s estate. It was its own ugly, no-holds-barred fight that included attacks on our character, in my opinion employed to both add an emotional edge to and distract from an argument that lacked legal substance. They lost motion after motion.

  Though my father, a successful businessman, had often been at odds with his family—when all the rhetoric was swept away, it seemed to predictably boil down to expectations of him doling out money—he had also always avoided conflict, choosing instead to duck, dodge, and otherwise get away. He always said he wanted to “keep the peace.” He biked, skied, got out of town any way he could (and was responsible for my involvement in sports since toddlerhood). There were, of course, benefits to this avoidance approach: If he wasn’t around to fight, he mostly could do his own thing, and the ties would never be irreparably severed.

  But it was stressful in its own way, never really fully standing up for yourself, always trying to smooth things over. As his son, I sometimes found him frustrating to deal with—he often seemed half-present in his own life, always plotting his next escape.

  Much as his approach had exasperated me, I also adopted many of his tendencies toward conflict avoidance with the family and simply moved away when I was eighteen. I tried to keep myself at arm’s length from tension, wherever it was, using jokes, stalling, or other techniques of evasion. It worked to a certain extent, but left me feeling vaguely uncentered.

  My dad had gotten in one farewell blow: The family was not happy with his will. By the time I went to the UFC Fan Expo, it was nearly two years since his death, and I saw that he had handed his problems down to my brothers and me. I was accepting that I had to change my ways; this conflict could not be avoided or ducked. It would have to play all the way out through the legal system.