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UFC 43

“Meltdown”

June 6, 2003

Thomas & Mack Center

Las Vegas, Nevada

Bouts I Reffed:

Falaniko Vitale vs. Matt Lindland

Vitor Belfort vs. Marvin Eastman

Kimo Leopoldo vs. David “Tank” Abbott

Randy Couture vs. Chuck Liddell

Matt Lindland knocked himself out cold falling back for a suplex attempt in his bout with Falaniko Vitale. Lindland had felt the Octagon’s floor earlier in the walk-throughs and had found a hard spot where the padding was missing. The UFC crew tried to fix the problem, but Lindland ended up hitting his head right near that spot. This would lead to even more Octagon refinements.

Vitor Belfort came back to the UFC and looked fantastic knocking out Marvin Eastman with a knee to the head that opened up the biggest cut I’ve ever seen in combative sports. Commentator Joe Rogan called it a “goat’s vagina” during the live telecast. When I heard that later, all I could think was What’s Joe doing looking at goats’ vaginas?

When people had questions about the sport’s regulations, Zuffa would usually call on me. Between UFC 43 and 44, I was asked to attend the 2003 Conference of the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) in St. Louis, Missouri, with Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White. Comprised of a majority of the athletic commissions and other combat sports’ regulatory bodies throughout North America, the ABC gathered all the people the UFC and the MMA needed to impress. MMA had been regulated in key states like New Jersey and Nevada, but quite a few more had either previously banned it or had no laws on the books to either allow or oversee it. Zuffa had gotten the UFC on the conference’s weekend agenda to ask the ABC if they’d consider regulating the sport. The ABC’s seal of approval could certainly open the door to more states.

Fertitta gave a PowerPoint presentation showing the economic advantages of allowing the UFC and MMA into the individual states. He also highlighted how most of the fighters were college educated and some were even Olympic-caliber athletes rather than the street thugs many thought them to be. The ABC members watched a tape of some recent UFC fights, and then the presentation was opened to a question-and-answer session, which I also participated in. The questions ranged from rules to how a state could get their officials trained if they decided to regulate an event.

Fertitta’s answer regarding training was always, “John will come and do it.”

A few ABC members were interested in the sport, but the majority turned their noses up at it. A lot of these commissioners were comfortable with boxing, but you could tell they felt MMA was too new and unproven. The commission elected to not even address the question of regulating MMA without more research, so Fertitta, White, and I left St. Louis not quite empty-handed but not with what we wanted.

Zuffa sent me back to the annual ABC conferences two or three more times, and each time a few members seemed slightly more interested.

I was Zuffa’s man for assignments like this, but my involvement with the promotion didn’t go much further than that, which was a change for me. I’d been a part of intricate facets of the UFC since Rorion Gracie had created it. When SEG and Bob Meyrowitz bought the show, he’d call me all the time from New York City to ask for advice about specific fighters and matches.

Zuffa was different, though. They’d call me from time to time for the ABC meetings or to ask about a new official they wanted to bring in, but Fertitta, White, and their employees handled everything else. I was gradually getting pushed out of that inner circle.

I stayed pretty rational about it. I always thought of what Fertitta and White had said to me in the beginning: “Business is business, and friendship is friendship. Don’t think the business doesn’t come before friendship, because business is business.” That’s the way I felt they looked at me, and that’s the way I figured they did things.

I understood