A bloody spectacle rolled through our town this week, and we were there to cover it. I've watched the UFC since the very first competition appeared on pay-per-view in 1993, often with one eye squinted shut. The sport's current operators have molded it into an incredibly successful, legitimate, element in modern athletics, and the manly arts may never be the same.The UFC Goes from "Extreme" to Mainstream"
By Jeff Dominguez
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2006:
A night when the boxing world staged another in a long line of so-called “fights of the century”, as someone by the name of Pacquiao steps into a Las Vegas ring to fight someone named Morales for a third time in about a year and a half. The first fight was boxing’s most memorable in recent times, so they’ve repeated it twice. But some 600 miles north of that location, on the very same night, there are 16,000 avid, loyal, mixed martial arts (MMA) fans filling Sacramento’s Arco Arena to capacity to witness UFC 65—and millions more across the country tuning in to the show via pay-per-view—and none of them can possibly care less about the recycled boxing match. For them, what is happening in Vegas this night can very well just stay in Vegas.
In fact, at any high school or college campus across the country, ask any sports fan you find there to name the world champion of any weight division in any of the half-dozen or so sanctioning bodies in the fractured and fading sport of boxing, and you’re infinitely more likely to get a puzzled look than an accurate answer. On the other hand, you’d have an equally difficult time finding anyone among that same crowd who DOESN’T know who Chuck Liddell is. Or Matt Hughes, or Randy Couture, or Georges St. Pierre, or any one of a number of other UFC stars.
Back in the early 1990’s, the UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship, was born when it occurred to an advertising executive and his jujitsu-expert friend that the idea of a tournament to determine which of the combative arts was the most effective just might make for a show that people would pay to see. UFC 1 was a tournament that featured practitioners of kickboxing, shoot fighting, karate, savate, boxing, jujitsu, and even sumo wrestling. Privately, it was meant to serve as an infomercial for the superiority of jujitsu, but although the jujitsu champion won, the debate continued to rage on.
UFC 1 was meant to be a one-time event to settle this age-old question once and for all, a one-time score for an entrepreneurial pair of promoters. There was actually never intended to be a UFC 2, much less a UFC 65. But in the wake of this first show, it didn’t take a think tank participant to realize that these guys were on to something here. Not long after UFC 1, there was a UFC 2, then a UFC 3, and so on, and before too long, the UFC was attracting more than its share of national attention… and controversy.
AT THE PRE-FIGHT PRESS CONFERENCE FOR UFC 65, TWO DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW,
Dana White strides to the podium on a stage in the underbelly of Arco Arena with the self-assuredness of a man in firm possession of an idea whose time he knows has come. He beams as he talks about his fighters one at a time, and there’s a gleam in his eye that is not unlike the gleam you might see in the eye of a father talking about his sons, only most of these “sons” are just a couple of years younger than “dad”. As he speaks about the combatants in the upcoming show and briefly discusses the history and future of the sport of MMA and the UFC, the preeminent sanctioning body in the sport, there is no mistaking his pride. And there is much about which to be proud.
Since taking over the UFC in 2001, White and his partners, Frank and Lorenzo Ferttita, have transformed this “sport of the future” into what is very much the sport of the present. White, a former boxer and agent, was just 31 years old when he became President of the UFC. That might seem a bit young for such a lofty position, but it’s doubtful that, without the energy and determination of a young man, he could ever have transformed the UFC as thoroughly and effectively as he has. In the past five years, he has diligently ushered the sport to a level of respectability and prominence that might have seemed impossible to many at the time that “ZUFFA” (an Italian word meaning “to fight”), the company he owns with the Ferttita brothers, took over.
After making such a big splash in its early years, the UFC soon became a lightning rod for activists decrying violence in society in general and a popular target of sanctimonious politicians looking to make a name for themselves by championing a cause that was gaining momentum among the misinformed. While serving as a guest host on the popular national radio sports talk show, the Jim Rome Show, HBO boxing analyst, Jim Lampley refers to the UFC’s competition as “human cockfighting”. The remark reflects not only a surprising lack of knowledge on the part of a man whom Rome commonly refers to as “one of the smartest men in sports”—when questioned by callers later in the show, Nance is proven to be completely unfamiliar with the many rules that the UFC has instituted to protect its participants—but it also signals that the institution of boxing is well aware of the serious threat that the UFC poses to its very survival.
IT’S THE DAY BEFORE THE UFC 65 EVENT, AND THE OFFICIAL WEIGH-IN IS ABOUT TO START.
“Boxing is in big trouble,” exclaims White, when the topic of Lampley’s remark is broached. He is standing beside the Octagon, the eight-sided ring where the UFC fighters will compete in a little over 24 hours. “Jim Lampley knows how big (the UFC) is and how good it is,” he goes on, “and, whenever he gets on the radio, he talks negatively about the UFC because he knows people are going to get fired up and call in, and he needs the (attention). He talks like he’s living under a rock. MMA is a threat to him, so he tries to tear it down instead of educating himself about the sport and what it’s really all about.”
The irony of a boxing enthusiast condemning the UFC for its brutality is not lost on White, who opines that, of the two sports, the UFC is actually the more humane. “No doubt about it,” he declares. “The big misconception about boxing is that the gloves were created to protect the guy getting hit. Gloves were created at the beginning of the century because, early on into a fight, a guy fighting bareknuckled would break his hand, and the fight would be over. So they created a glove so that one guy could hit another guy more times in the head harder without breaking his hand. They put gloves on the fighters so a guy can dish out twelve rounds or fifteen rounds of punishment without breaking his hand. It’s not more humane for the fighters; it’s more profitable for the promoters and more entertaining for the fans. And a lot of the deaths that have occurred in boxing are directly because of the head trauma, the damage those multiple punches do to the head.”
A bit of research into the subject confirms that White definitely knows what he’s talking about. According to a report published in the Journal of Combative Sport in May 2006, in just the fifteen years that the UFC has been in existence, nearly 130 deaths have occurred in boxing rings around the world. In contrast, the UFC has never endured a single death related to competition in the Octagon.
UFC 65 IN SACRAMENTO IS A ROARING SUCCESS, A MICROCOSM OF EVERYTHING THAT IS RIGHT ABOUT THE SPORT.
And a sort of afterglow lingers over the arena and in the hearts of everyone who attended the show. A dramatic changing of the guard has occurred, as Georges Rush St. Pierre, a thoughtful, polite, and wildly popular 25-year-old French Canadian has done what many UFC enthusiasts had previously deemed to be impossible, taking in surprisingly convincing fashion the UFC World Welterweight Championship from longstanding champion Matt Hughes. Hughes, an undeniably great, if unapologetically cocky, former college wrestling champion has taken backhanded swipes at Canada and its historical lack of experience in war whenever possible in the prefight buildup. Even after the fight, St. Pierre remains uncommonly humble, he raises his new belt over his head and exclaims, “I know I am not from the United States, but I promise I will do everything in my power to keep the championship in North American territory.” At the post-fight press conference, he resists a request from a Canadian reporter to send a message in French to his Canadian fans. “I work in The States,” he says, “and when I am here, out of respect, I speak only English.” Hughes, on the other hand, refuses to back down from his pre-fight inferences about Canadians in general lacking a certain “fighting spirit”, much to the obvious chagrin of White.
Tim Sylvia, the lanky 6’8” heavyweight champ from Maine who sounds a bit like the mailman from “Cheers” as he seizes every opportunity prior to the fight to make fun of the height of his 5’9” opponent, Jeff Monson, manages to retain his title. The shaven headed, cartoonishly musclebound Monson is covered in tattoos, and his appearance belies his introspective, intelligent nature. In a pre-fight interview, he shares that he holds a Master’s Degree in psychology and would like to travel to a third-world country and become an English teacher when his UFC days are over. Most fighters walk out to heavy metal or hardcore rap tunes blaring throughout the arena. Monson’s walkout song: “Imagine” by John Lennon. Unfortunately for him, he is unable to overcome his 11-inch height disadvantage, as Sylvia utilizes his superior reach to keep himself just out of harm’s way against Monson for all five rounds of their match. This may be the first UFC championship victory that can be squarely credited to a fighter’s pituitary gland.
Among the several other bouts, two local boys, James Irvin, a light-heavyweight from Citrus Heights, and Nick Diaz, a welterweight from Stockton, both win their fights by dramatic TKOs. The crowd regales each of them with lusty support, and excitement fills the arena from the opening bell to the final raised arm. For local UFC fans, Arco Arena has become nirvana ground zero. Even the ring girls somehow seem especially beautiful tonight. Throughout the show, the noise level is every bit as loud as the loudest of the Sacramento Kings NBA playoff games ever played at Arco, as can be verified by Kings guard Mike Bibby and forward Kenny Thomas, and San Antonio Spurs center Tim Duncan, all of whom are in attendance this night. The crowd’s enthusiasm is not lost on the President of the UFC. “I love Sacramento,” exclaims Dana White in the post-fight press conference, when asked about the audience. “We will be back without a doubt.”
In dismissing the detractors from the boxing world, White seems to imply that he will not be content merely to overtake boxing in popularity throughout the world. It’s actually too modest a target for the UFC. For White, becoming “mainstream” is more a matter of the UFC realizing its own massive potential, irrespective of the sports it surpasses in the process. “I don’t think we’re even close to being ‘mainstream’ yet, and we’re (ahead of) boxing and WWE (wrestling) already,” he says. “We haven’t even scratched the surface of how big this thing’s going to be. Timing is everything, and since we bought this company to where the UFC is right now, the stars have aligned, and we’re going after it.” His approach to his business is, apparently, not at all unlike his fighters’ approach to their matches, or, as he puts it, “We’re young, aggressive guys, and we’re going to keep pushing.”
And there is absolutely no reason to doubt that they will, well, “Ultimately” be successful.
