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In February of 2009, Strikeforce, that local San Jose promotion that had put on only five or six events a year, signed into a multi-year broadcast deal with Showtime to put on three times as many shows. This made them the closest thing the UFC had to a competitor, and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker began to request me for his events with the commissions. I was grateful for Scott’s belief in my talents.

By April, I was refereeing my first Strikeforce bout on Showtime. In November, I officiated the main event at Strikeforce/M-1 Global’s “Fedor vs. Rogers” outside Chicago, which broadcasted live on CBS.

This would be my second time refereeing one of Fedor Emelianenko’s fights, something I probably wouldn’t have been able to do had I stayed aligned with the UFC the way I had until 2007.

I’ve had the privilege of refereeing many of the greats in MMA. I’ve admired the way fighters like Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Georges St. Pierre, B. J. Penn, and Anderson Silva have handled themselves in and out of the cage. For them, it isn’t about anger or ego. It’s about competition. No one can go out there and perform well 100 percent of the time, but these guys are all consistent.

STRIKEFORCE

“Nashville”

April 17, 2010

Bridgestone Arena

Nashville, Tennessee

Bouts I Reffed:

Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields

Zach Underwood vs. Hunter Worsham

Gegard Mousasi vs. Muhammed Lawal

I knew time had truly flown when I found myself refereeing the son of a fighter I’d officiated for fifteen years prior. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d referee for a father and his son, either.

History was doomed to repeat itself when an in-cage altercation broke out between Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Jake Shields’ team after the main event on CBS. Miller entered the cage on his own and pushed Shields to try and ignite a rematch, but teammates Nate and Nick Diaz, Gil Melendez, and others jumped in and fists started flying. We managed to break it up, but it came at a price—CBS wouldn’t broadcast another Strikeforce event after that.

Fedor Emelianenko is another fighter I admire. If you’re a boxing referee, you want to say you got to do a Muhammad Ali fight. The equivalent in MMA would be Emelianenko.

During my one-year retirement, I’d actually had the opportunity to grapple with Emelianenko as part of a demonstration for National Geographic Channel’s Fight Science series. Scientists wanted to test the fighter’s choking force compared to that of a hungry Burmese python. Before Emelianenko squeezed the test dummy’s neck against his forearm, he got to demonstrate the move on this dummy for the cameras. I’d watched Emelianenko establish himself as one of the greatest fighters of the modern era, so I knew there had to be something special about him. With some of the submissions he pulled off, I figured he had to be really strong. And I don’t mean in terms of what he could bench-press; I mean brute strength.

We didn’t roll hard. When I grabbed him, he went to move his wrist and I felt like I could hold on to it if I wanted to. But it was quickly clear that Emelianenko’s advantage wasn’t about strength. He’s super fast—especially for a heavyweight—and explodes into the movement. Eventually he catches you in a mistake and gets you where he wants you. I’m just glad what we did was for fun, because truly fighting Fedor Emelianenko would’ve been far from what I’d call enjoyable.

Because Emelianenko had turned down a UFC contract and fought in the smaller rival Strikeforce promotion instead, I would get to referee three of his fights in the United States. I was inches away when he tapped out to Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Fabricio Werdum’s armbar-triangle choke combination at Strikeforce “Fedor vs. Werdum,” on June 26, 2010, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. It was Emelianenko’s first loss in twenty-nine fights and nearly a decade, and he handled it with such professionalism and grace.

I never care which fighter wins. However, I can’t help but