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ALL IN THE TIMING

You can fool the whole world down the highway of years, and take pats on the back as you pass. But your final reward will be heartache and tears if you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

—Peter “Dale” Wimbrow Sr.

Heading into 2007, I had no idea I was entering what would be my fourteenth and final year as an MMA referee. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; the sport was evolving, and so were the people within it.

It had been my dream back since my powerlifting days to open my own gym, but I’d gone into police work instead. Back then, I hadn’t thought to open an MMA gym. The sport hadn’t existed in the United States at that point. However, over the years I’d soaked in every detail I could about the combat sports gyms I’d walked into.

I’d been in everything from filthy boxing gyms that smelled like the inside of a never-washed jockstrap to tidier karate dojos filled with kids in their white, pressed gis. Rorion Gracie’s school was the nicest gym I’d ever been to. The mats were kept clean, and it even had a juice bar, but it was limited to Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes.

As I watched mixed martial arts evolve and grow over the years, my dream shifted to opening a facility where a fighter could get all the necessary instruction, equipment, and experience to compete and excel in the sport.

Dana White, who had opened a couple gyms in Boston and Las Vegas prior to getting involved with the UFC, gave me some advice. First, he said I was an idiot for wanting to open a gym because all they did was lose money, but he helped me nonetheless by hooking me up with equipment distributors, like Ringside, who gave me discounts that kept some of my initial costs down. White also gave me a few of the thirty-foot canvases that covered the Octagon floor—bloodstains and all—from some past events.

13 I hung these pieces of MMA history on the gym walls.

I also ran the gym’s name, Big John McCarthy’s Ultimate Training Academy, past Dana to make sure I had his blessing. Elaine and I found a warehouse on an industrial road a few minutes from our house, and we filled it with a cage, a ring, an ample mat area for grappling, and weightlifting and cardio equipment.

People who know me understand that when I do something, I like to do it right. Billionaire Donald Trump says if you’re thinking of something, you might as well think big. So BJMUTA, which Elaine and I opened in Valencia, California, in September of 2006, lived up to its name. At 16,000 square feet, it was three times the size of most MMA gyms. The best part was that it was all mine to run the way I wanted.

The plan was to get the gym on its feet so I could eventually retire from the police department. My time with the LAPD had run its course, and although I hated a lot of politics in the department, I loved a lot of the people who worked there, which made it fun. But I knew once I left the police force, the gym would be a place where I could find my next team.

I also liked the idea of opening my own gym because I’d be able to train anytime. With my police job and my UFC assignments, it was difficult to get to a gym to take a jiu-jitsu class or hit the weights. I was still a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, and every time I watched a fighter line up a crafty submission in the cage, I missed being able to do the same.

In reality, though, I ended up working out less once the gym finally opened. Every time I’d walk in there, somebody, whether an instructor or a student or a friend who’d stopped by to visit, would need to talk to me. Sometimes I was tempted to sneak off to the gym down the street so I’d be left alone during my own workouts.

UFC 65

“Bad Intentions”

November 18, 2006

Arco Arena

Sacramento, California

Bouts I Reffed:

Antoni Hardonk vs. Sherman Pendergarst

Tim Sylvia vs. Jeff Monson

Matt Hughes vs. George St. Pierre

Hughes had been a dominant champion and had already defeated the rising French Canadian star with a first-round armbar at UFC 51 in 2005. This