Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [114]
The actual fight wasn’t as competitive. Even though Ortiz wasn’t a great striker, he managed to bash Shamrock’s face until it was almost unrecognizable.
At the end of the third round, Shamrock looked my direction. “I can’t see anything, John.”
I walked him to his corner and told Tra Telligman, his lead cornerman, “Your fighter’s having trouble seeing.”
Standing between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock at the UFC 40 weigh-ins, a job I’m glad UFC President Dana White took over later
I wanted Shamrock’s corner to have the chance to pull him out of the fight, but I had also told the ringside physician what he had said to me. It was time to get him out: the question was which way it was going to happen. Shamrock’s corner called it, saving their man from any more damage. It was a great bout and an honorable ending.
The energy that night was unlike any I’d felt before. Shamrock’s entrance was magic, as always, and the matchup had a “big fight” feel. Something clicked with the TV audience as well. Maybe it was the name recognition of two of the UFC’s pioneers or their genuine dislike for one another, but when the pay-per-view numbers were finally tallied, UFC 40 had gotten 150,000 buys. It was Zuffa’s first commercial success.
My sons were lucky enough to grow up meeting some of the sport’s great stars: here with Jerry Bohlander and Ken Shamrock.
At Zuffa’s second show in Las Vegas with my family. You can see Zuffa was stepping up the production value. (UFC 34 “High Voltage,” November 2001)
THE HAIL MRRY
We are not retreating
We are advancing in another direction.
—General Douglas MacArthur
With Zuffa desperate to connect with new fans, Abbott would be thrown right into the fire at the promotion’s next event, UFC 41 “Onslaught” on February 28, 2003, at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Bringing back the now thirty-eight-year-old “barstool brawler” didn’t mesh with the UFC’s line that its fighters were world-class athletes trained in multiple martial arts disciplines, but Zuffa needed a hook—fast.
I wondered who they could match Abbott with so he’d have a decent chance. Randy Couture had stood up at UFC 40 to volunteer for the job, but I knew that wouldn’t happen.
Instead, Frank Mir, the twenty-three-year-old grappling enthusiast, was offered Abbott first. Mir had notched back-to-back submission wins before British Ian Freeman had beaten and bloodied him to a first-round finish at UFC 38 in London. He hadn’t taken Freeman’s punches well at all, and that was about all Abbott had, at least for the first couple of minutes before he’d gas out.
I think the match was made because Mir had a good name but couldn’t take strong punching well, which is where Abbott had the best shot. But to me, Mir was the exact type of fighter who would give Abbott problems. He was smart and would not be stupid enough to stand and trade shots with someone like Abbott.
As I suspected, Mir turned out to be a terrible matchup for Abbott. He was big and strong and managed to get Abbott down to the mat early, caught him in an omoplata shoulder lock, then reached down and applied a toe hold that cranked Abbott’s ankle in a violent rotation. With no ground training to know how to get out of it, Abbott tapped out in just forty-six seconds. It was a beautiful double submission that emphasized how far the sport had progressed. However, we all realized after the fact that this wasn’t a smart match if they were trying to bring back an older UFC star to gain some momentum.
Another fighter the UFC was hoping to build at UFC 41 was Ricco Rodriguez, who’d won the vacant heavyweight title over Couture five months earlier at UFC 39. However, Rodriguez wouldn’t hold the belt long at all. Tim Sylvia, a six-feet-eight newcomer, came out of nowhere and knocked down Rodriguez in the first round. As soon as Sylvia hit Rodriguez, you could see the champion didn’t want to stand with him anymore, but he couldn