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By Root 1061 0

time around St. Pierre’s gaze never left the Illinois wrestler’s eyes. St. Pierre confidently attacked Hughes with a variety of stand-up techniques performed to perfection. St. Pierre’s footwork was beautiful, like a master painter throwing colors on a canvas, each new hue making the portrait that much better. St. Pierre clipped Hughes with a flurry, and he went down, but the bell sounded before the younger fighter could finish the job. In the second round, Hughes tried to figure out what to do with his lightning-fast opponent. Then, St. Pierre landed a left high kick that dropped the champion and finished him with ground punches. It was an electrifying performance by St. Pierre.

At the start, owning a gym was a bit of a strain because I was still teaching at the LAPD. In 2000, the training academy had been moved to a nasty patch of Earth located in the hottest part of the San Fernando Valley. It was a lot closer to where we now lived, but I’d still be out my door at 4:30 every morning, teach the cadets, then head to the gym around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon to stay until it closed that evening. I hired instructors in all the disciplines, from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to boxing, and helped teach a nighttime MMA class where the fighters could put it all together. Afterward, I stayed around mopping the mats and cleaning up for the next day and wouldn’t get home until midnight or later. Then I was up a few hours later to do it all over again. In the beginning, if I wanted to have my own gym, this is what had to be done.

Despite the rigorous schedule, I was delighted to be grappling again. A couple months after the gym’s opening, my Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructors Lou Salseda, Mike Ortiz, Todd White, and Felicia Oh jointly awarded me my black belt.

UFC 66

“Liddell vs. Ortiz”

December 30, 2006

MGM Grand Garden Arena

Las Vegas, Nevada

Bouts I Reffed:

Thiago Alves vs. Tony DeSouza

Keith Jardine vs. Forrest Griffin

Jardine-Griffin was a competitive fight until Jardine landed a clean right hand that knocked Griffin down. When Griffin couldn’t recover, I put an end to it so he wouldn’t get hurt more. Griffin came to his senses and broke down crying on the telecast as the cameras chased him around the cage to get his reaction.

What most people don’t understand is that fighters are just like you and me: they work hard and put everything they have into something, and when they come up short, it can be a serious letdown. Losing a fight could be the difference between being able to pay your bills or not.

In late December, Zuffa promoted the rematch between former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz and his rival Chuck Liddell at UFC 66 over the New Year’s weekend in Las Vegas. The show was said to have gotten 1.05 million pay-per-view buys. It was the first time the promotion had broken the 1 million barrier, and the event garnered nearly twice as many purchases as the previous installment had.

Ortiz lasted into the third round with Liddell this time, but the outcome was still in the Iceman’s favor.

At $50 a pop and with Zuffa supposedly receiving half of that amount for each buy, the promotion would have made over $26 million in pay-per-view dollars alone. Not a bad day’s work in anyone’s book.

With profits like that seemingly possible, in 2007 the market began to flood with new promotions, clothing companies, and other MMA-related businesses that sold everything from gear to mats to cages. It seemed everyone with money thought they could get into the business to make a buck or two, and why not? Zuffa made it look much easier than it really was. Some new MMA businesses did find success, while others weren’t as lucky.

A new group called the World Fighting Alliance was one of the first to realize promoting fights isn’t as elementary as putting a big-named card together. After a handful of shows hosted in nearly empty arenas, the UFC swooped in on the promotion in turmoil and bought out a bunch of the WFA’s more attractive fighter contracts.

UFC 67 “All or Nothing,” held on February 3,