Beast

by Doug Merlino

  The UFC had been a centerpiece of programming on Spike, the cable channel aimed at young men. It still aired new seasons of The Ultimate Fighter as well as lower-level UFC shows. Spike, which was owned by Viacom, did not want to lose MMA. To solve the problem, Viacom bought Bellator for a reported fifty million dollars. The plan was to move Bellator programming from MTV2 into the slot on Spike vacated by the UFC.

  Rebney had a major negotiating advantage over Straus: Though the fighter was under contract for another year, there was nothing that required Bellator to give him a fight. In fact, if it wanted, the promotion could simply let Straus sit and fume until the day his deal ended.

  His arrest certainly hurt his position. When Rebney was asked by MMA writers when the Straus-Curran title fight was going to be rescheduled, Rebney said he was trying to book it but that Straus’s probation placed restrictions on his travel. This wasn’t true and it infuriated Straus.

  Desperate for money, Straus lined up a fight for August at a small-time event in Fort Lauderdale. Bellator, as was its contractual right, nixed it. When Rebney called Straus to discuss matters, Straus told him he had three dollars in his bank account and was unable to provide for his daughter. Rebney asked how his daughter was. Straus shot back: “How do you think she’s doing when her dad has no money?”

  On the night he sparred with Dustin Poirier, I met Straus afterward for dinner. He was drained—by the injuries, his legal problems, the contract dispute. “This is a sport that you put everything into,” he said, “but it gives very little back.”

  A few weeks later, in August 2013, Alvarez settled with Bellator, reportedly agreeing to two more fights, including a title rematch with his nemesis, Michael Chandler. Soon after, Straus signed a contract extension, as well.

  The promotion immediately announced that Straus would fight Curran for the title on November 2 in Long Beach, California. The event was to be Bellator’s first on pay-per-view television, headlined by the Alvarez-Chandler fight.

  . . .

  Pay for athletes in mixed martial arts was low when compared with boxing and other sports. Collective bargaining agreements in major league baseball, football, hockey, and basketball guaranteed athletes around 50 percent of revenues. Boxers typically received 70 percent of the proceeds from their fights while 30 percent went to the promoters: The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which was enacted in 2000 to protect fighters, mandates that promoters reveal the revenues from fights.

  There was no such requirement for MMA. The UFC was privately held and did not release its financials. A Bloomberg Business article on the company estimated its annual sales at five hundred million dollars. An ESPN investigation found that fighters received perhaps 10 percent of revenues.

  In addition to the pay fighters collected for showing up to fight and the additional amount they got if they won, the UFC incentivized fighters with performance bonuses. Winning the “Knockout of the Night” or “Submission of the Night” landed you fifty thousand dollars. The two fighters who took part in the “Fight of the Night” each brought home the same.

  The UFC also awarded “discretionary bonuses” to fighters deemed deserving. The company did not disclose the amounts of these bonuses or who got them, but they were known to range from a few thousand dollars to substantially more. Fighters at American Top Team spoke about White handing out checks in the locker room, or money arriving unannounced in the mail in the weeks after a fight.

  The bonus system served the UFC in many ways. Primarily, it motivated fighters to take chances. A fighter ahead on points who might otherwise coast out the third round had a powerful reason to instead try for a knockout or a submission. But the bonuses also molded behavior in a different manner: When your salary is dependent on the favor and whim of the boss instead of being contractually guaranteed, you think hard before criticizing him.

  The UFC, by all appearances, was doing good business. The decorations in its Las Vegas office headquarters included Jean-Michel Basquiat prints and a $160,000 saber-toothed tiger skull. A $380,000 print of Stephanie Seymour, nude, hung in the bathroom. Dana White gambled at the Palms Casino and ate at its steakhouse several times a week, regularly running up $15,000 to $20,000 tabs and tossing in $10,000 tips, according to the Las Vegas Journal-Review.

  There was muted talk among the fighters about forming a union, but no one had much faith in the idea. Any chance of success would require the support of the sport’s biggest stars—the ones who drew pay-per-view buys. No one thought that fighters making hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a fight would risk it to help out those farther down the chain.*

  Fighters who spoke out learned it was a bad idea. In June 2013, Tim Kennedy, a UFC fighter most known for being an active-duty member of the Army, said in an interview: “It’s a good thing I have another job because the UFC doesn’t pay very well … I hope this isn’t the reality of the sport. If it is, I should probably go do something else, like empty trash cans. I’d make more money than I do now.”

  By the next day, Kennedy had reconsidered his position and issued a lengthy apology on Facebook: “Fighting for the UFC is an honor and a privilege,” he wrote. “I look forward to putting this situation behind me.”

  It failed to placate Dana White, who told an interviewer that if people wanted higher pay for undercard fighters, fine, he would just eliminate all the bonuses. Those, he said, were something the company did “out of the kindnesses of our fucking hearts.”

  As for Tim Kennedy, White suggested a career change. “Be a fucking garbage man,” he said. “Who gives a shit about Tim Kennedy? Is he selling out venues? Are they buying fucking tickets for Tim Kennedy?”

  Several days later, White was still worked up. On July 4, the day before White appeared on stage at the UFC Fan Expo, the UFC held a press conference in the lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel to kick off its big celebration.

  Hundreds of people milled around the lobby. Posters of Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman hung on its Greek columns. The statue of the gold MGM lion had been surrounded by an Octagon cage. The screens behind the check-in counter played UFC highlights.

  White sat at a table on a raised platform in a gray golf shirt as reporters crowded around. One asked about his comments about eliminating bonuses.

  White smiled. “It wasn’t just the fight of the night bonuses, it was all bonuses,” he said. “There are a lot of bonuses that fly around this company, a lot of bonuses. And the reality is the bonuses that are given are bonuses that are deserved. So the ones you hear crying about not making any money …”

  White paused and thought. He shifted his chair to face his questioner. “Now I’m going to get crazy on you, okay?” he said.

  “We work in a business where we are as good as our last fight—not just them, me too. The UFC, every time we do a fight, whether it’s a pay-per-view or it’s on TV, people make the decision to stay home on a Saturday night and not do anything else when there’s movies, dinners, spending time with the family, there’s a lot of shit to do on a Saturday night. These people make a decision to stay home on a Saturday night and watch our show.

  “We get a show with a bunch of guys who want to push up against the fucking fence and stand there for fifteen fucking minutes to try to squeak out a win, how many people do you think are going to tune in next Saturday?

  “The guys who are complaining about this are the guys that don’t matter. Now that might sound fucking mean, and harsh …”

  White adopted a whine: “Why would nobody matter? Everybody matters.”

  He reverted to his normal voice. “We’re in this fucking society now where everybody should win a trophy. No, everybody doesn’t win a fucking trophy. The guys who stand out and the guys who deserve bonuses, the guys who make it exciting, the guys who rise to the top are the guys who deserve the money.”

  He’d found his rhythm. “Let’s not forget we live in fucking America, okay? The land of opportunity.”

  He smiled. “I feel like we’re in t
his fucking country where the American Dream is, like, going away. Nobody has the American Dream anymore. I am living the fucking American Dream. I got into this thing, you know, got these guys to invest, looked like it wasn’t going to happen, and now look at this fucking thing, look at this place and what we’re doing now.”

  White spread his arms and nodded toward the lobby of the MGM.

  “This is the shit you should be fucking dreaming about,” he said. “You should fucking want to be Anderson Silva, you should want to be Jon Jones, you should aspire to be the best, but what happens is, one day, in any professional sport where you’re an athlete, the day of reckoning comes where you either are that guy, or you are not.

  “If you are that fucking guy, the system works for you, right? But if you are not that guy, then boo-fucking-hoo, you don’t matter. And I’m sure that fucking sucks. And I’m sure it hurts. And I’m sure you want to stand up and scream from the fucking rooftops, ‘I’m pissed!’ And, ‘This isn’t fair!’ And, ‘This isn’t right!’ This is fucking life, dude, get ready, ’cause every day when you get out of bed life is standing there to kick you in the fucking face.”

  * * *

  * In December 2014, three former UFC fighters filed a class action lawsuit against the promotion, accusing the UFC of suppressing fighters’ pay through the use of monopoly power. In the following months, several other former fighters filed similar complaints.

  Part Seven

  Pushing On

  When two men are fighting, what you’re watching is more a contest of wills than of skills, with the stronger usually overcoming skill. The skill will prevail only when it is so superior to the other man’s skill that the will is not tested.

  —Cus D’Amato, boxing trainer

  (Doug Merlino)

  Head Down

  Jeff Monson waited in a photo studio in a warehouse building in an industrial section of Saint Petersburg, surrounded by burly men in sweat suits with close-cropped hair and cauliflower ears. The fighters sat under photos of lingerie models giving sultry pouts. There was no conversation.

  One by one, the men were called into a dressing room, where they stripped off their shirts and spread baby oil over their torsos.

  Monson slipped into an empty studio, which contained a bed stacked with pillows. He stripped, lay down, took a small, heart-shaped red pillow, and placed it in front of his genitals. He reclined with his hands behind his head and had his picture taken. A moment later it was on Twitter.

  It was October 2013. Monson was in town to fight for the M-1 Global promotion, facing Satoshi Ishii, who won the judo gold medal for Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before turning to MMA. Ishii, a hulking twenty-six-year-old, was building his career in fights against big name fighters on the downsides of their careers. In December 2011, he had fought Fedor Emelianenko—six weeks after Monson had faced him—and had been brutalized. He’d stayed on safer ground since then, earning victories over Tim Sylvia, who had beat Monson for the UFC heavyweight belt in 2006, and Pedro Rizzo, a formidable fighter in the early 2000s who was well past his glory days.

  The photographer now called all six of the main card fighters into the studio for a promotional group shot. They lined up, shirtless, right shoulders to the camera, holding up their fists. The photographer’s flash lit the studio. Their chests shimmered with oil.

  . . .

  Monson was under pressure.

  He’d sat out for three months due to the pectoral tear he’d suffered in March 2013 in Geneva. The inability to compete had clearly tortured him. For his return, he accepted two fights for June.

  The first was in Ingushetia, a republic of Russia in the Caucasus, where a ring was set up on the side of a mountain. Monson made his walk-out in a long coat of animal hide and matching hat, apparently the traditional garb of the region.

  He faced Magomed Malikov, a Dagestani heavyweight who had knocked out Aleksander Emelianenko in a prior fight with the very first punch he threw.

  He punched Monson hard in the face several times to start the fight, opening a bloody gash above Monson’s left eye. The fight stopped as the ring doctors tried to block it up, but Monson’s face was coated in blood as soon as it restarted.

  After his fight with Fedor, Monson had conceded he was going to take a lot of punches—he was too slow to avoid them now. His strategy was to take as many blows as he needed until he had an opening to slip in on his opponent, take him to the ground, and submit him. He just had to hope that opening came at some point.

  By the second round, blood was also flowing from the top of Monson’s head. The doctors returned to the ring and tried to staunch it. This time they called the fight off.

  Monson was upset; he felt the stoppage was premature, done to give the local fighter a win. It also ended his post-Fedor six-fight winning streak.

  Two weeks later he fought in Kharkov, a city in northeastern Ukraine, against Alexey Oleinik, whom he had beaten in a split decision a year earlier. This time, fighting in a small club in Oleinik’s hometown, Monson was thwarted by the Russian-Ukrainian’s reach advantage as Oleinik bludgeoned him from outside. Monson’s face was once again pulverized into a bloody mess.

  With two minutes left in the second round, Monson collapsed to the mat. Oleinik got behind him, wrapped an arm around his throat, and strangled Monson until he submitted. Monson had not tapped out since 1998. As Oleinik celebrated, Monson crawled to his knees, head down, bright red blood dripping onto the white canvas.

  At two A.M. the night before his fight with Ishii, Monson decided to get in some last-minute practice. He stood outside the elevators on his floor in the Marriott hotel, shirtless, in shorts and black Converse shoes. He went over things in his head and then charged forward, throwing punches while exhaling Shh! Shh! Shh! He attacked so hard that he often ran straight into the wall.

  Ishii, in his previous fights, had been aggressive, advancing and throwing overhand punches. Monson’s strategy was to turtle up, block those punches, and come back with his own jabs to get inside and tie him up. Once Monson got an arm around the Japanese fighter, he could then use his free hand to punch him, a technique known as dirty boxing. It was doubtful he was going to have much luck taking the mammoth judo expert to the ground.

  Paul Gavoni could not take the time off work to come to Russia, so Monson did not have a corner man. He asked if I would shadowbox with him.

  I looped overhand punches at Monson, who blocked them and threw short jabs back—Shh! Shh! Shh! He charged, put his shoulder under my chin, and lifted me up.

  Monson had shaved his chest and each time he grabbed me, the stubble pricked my skin. We drilled over and over, Monson blocking my punch, jabbing, and then running forward and sweeping me off the floor.

  At one point, he punched me in the face.

  “Ouch!” I said, grabbing my nose. I remembered he had no depth perception since detaching his retina: he’d lost his vision in one eye.

  . . .

  Thirty minutes before the doors of the Saint Petersburg Ice Palace opened to the public, the ring girls, dancers, and undercard fighters prepared backstage. It was like a fleshy Broadway production. The women tugged at shorts that crept into their buttocks. Fighters reached down, fiddled with their cups, and then adjusted them again. Trainers and teammates strutted through the hallways, chests thrown back. A rumble of bass—Boom! Boom! Boom!—seeped through the concrete as the arena’s sound system cranked up.

  Monson warmed up with a striking coach from Latvia, there to corner another fighter.

  When the time came, he waited behind the curtains in the dark, pacing back and forth. Beams of light from the arena reflected off his head. People patted him on the back and wished him luck in broken English. Others snapped pictures on their phones.

  Monson leaned back against a pillar and adjusted his spine. He stared down, his brow knit with worry.

  Ishii walked out first, emerging between male dancers dressed in black, wearing Zorro masks and swinging samurai swo
rds. One waved the Rising Sun flag.

  Monson came next to a Russian pop song. Before him six male dancers goose-stepped out in white-and-black striped bodysuits. One wore a fake mustache and leather hat like the biker in the Village People; another wore sunglasses and a fake afro.

  They jogged in circles. One picked up a Russian flag, another an American flag. One dancer did a handstand and waved his legs around. The others flexed their muscles in a style reminiscent of Madonna’s “Vogue” video.

  “Jeefffffff Mooooooonsssoooonn!!!!” a woman’s voice yelled from the loudspeakers as he appeared on the stage.

  The crowd chanted: “Mooonsooon! Mooonsooon! Mooonsooon!”

  The fight did not go the way Monson had planned.

  In the first round, Ishii did not charge in, but kept his distance, throwing punches from long range. Few landed, and neither fighter did any damage.

  In the second, the two engaged a little more. When Monson got close to Ishii, the Japanese fighter tossed him twice with judo trips.

  In the third, Monson adjusted his weight so that Ishii could not execute his throws. He grabbed Ishii around the back of the neck and delivered some right hands to his body, the original strategy. At the end of fifteen minutes, however, neither fighter had done much of anything.

  Ishii won the decision.

  Monson returned to his dressing room. On the way, a Russian fan jumped in front of him and asked for an autograph. It was the only time I ever saw Monson walk right by someone.

  He tore off his shirt and collapsed on the couch. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” he muttered.