Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [104]
In Kuwait with Bruce Buffer, Steven Quadros, Peter “Sugarfoot” Cunningham, and others
There was no guarantee that Zuffa would hire any of us who already worked with the UFC, but we didn’t have much time to worry about it.
One of the first things Zuffa did was fly Elaine, James Werme, Jeff Blatnick, me, and a few other key promotion figures to Las Vegas just before UFC 30. We all stayed at Palace Station, one of the casino hotels owned by the Fertitta family, and were taken out to an Italian restaurant. There, Fertitta briefly spoke about wanting to work with all of us.
I sat next to one of Fertitta’s friends, who said, “Everything the brothers touch turns to gold. They don’t fail at anything.” It was quite an endorsement.
Two weeks after the Zuffa buyout, UFC 30 “The Battle on the Boardwalk” would hit the Jersey shore on February 23, 2001, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. This would be the transitional event in which SEG passed the reins to Zuffa.
The new UFC employees followed the SEG staff around backstage and on the floor, taking notes in their one-night crash course on running an MMA event.
Even though Zuffa had only a few days to implement changes, right away you could see a difference in the live event production value. Quite a few extra staff members raced around to hang lighting or set up the fireworks display.
One of the more notable changes was Zuffa’s introduction of the raised entrance ramp. A day before the show, I was walking through the arena when Lorenzo Fertitta asked me if I’d like to stop and watch a run-through of Tito Ortiz’s entrance. The ramp was lined with mechanisms that would shoot fireworks and flames as Ortiz walked down it to the cage. Ortiz even had a signature song that started with a synthesizer-created voice blurting out, “Tito is in the house.” It was the most elaborate UFC entrance I’d ever seen, and it sent chills up my spine.
Fertitta was a fairly reserved character, but he couldn’t hide his excitement and aspirations for the UFC and the sport. He told me, “I want to be the one to pay fighters a million dollars. I don’t want to be like the old UFC. They didn’t make stars; they made the UFC the star.”
I was all for the fighters making more money—God knows they deserved it—but I told Fertitta, “The fighters will be only as true to you as you are true to them. If someone comes along that they think is truer, they’ll go to that person. They’re here to make money.”
The night before the event, the fighters were a little giddy, probably because of all the added frills, and decided to have some fun. Tito Ortiz, who had been managed by Dana White, decided to pull a prank on his new bosses. Ortiz had someone from his camp call White and explain in broken English that co-main event fighter Caol Uno had fallen down a hotel escalator and broken his leg. White and Fertitta nearly had side-by-side heart attacks when they heard that one. By the time they figured out what was really going on, the entire staff had had a good laugh about it.
The two championship bouts were the standout performances of UFC 30. Jens Pulver battled his way through five emotional rounds to win the bantamweight, later renamed lightweight, title over Japanese Shooto legend Caol Uno. In the main event, Ortiz slammed Evan Tanner to the canvas at the thirty-second mark, knocking him out cold.
New Jersey Commissioner Larry Hazzard was especially shaken up about the knockout and asked me if what Ortiz had done to Tanner was illegal. We discussed how the move was completely legal and went over a couple of other moments that night. This was the second UFC event that the NJSACB had allowed under the promotion’s rules while they drafted their own for the state.
They were looking closely, as was Zuffa.
In light of the Tanner knockout slam, Zuffa contracted a California-based company to build a new Octagon that would have more give to protect the fighters.
I’d seen some fighters scoping out the Octagon before shows, looking for the spots with the least give. Then, when they’d pick up their opponents,