Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [49]
“That’s it,” Elaine said, standing. She found her way to the nearest aisle, and I watched her climb the stairs to the upper level and walk right out of the arena.
Me? I thought it was awesome. Everyone had thought Tuli would win, but I’d known the heavy guy wouldn’t be able to take this thing. I was enthralled by what I’d just witnessed, and I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to see what happened next and who the best was.
Inside the cage, referee Barreto had already made his first mistake of the evening. Under no uncertain terms, Rorion had explained that the fight could be stopped one of two ways: either the fighter tapped out or his corner could throw in the towel. Instead, Baretto himself had stepped in.
Rorion wasn’t pleased. He hung over the cage’s top while Baretto sputtered out his questions in Portugeuse and pointed to Tuli’s bloody face and jack-o’-lantern smile. Rorion instructed Baretto to bring the fighter over to his cornermen, who were standing a few feet away.
Barreto asked, “Is he ready to go?”
One of Tuli’s cornermen opened the door, and the rest poured into the Octagon. A doctor who was called to the cage inspected Tuli and deemed him unfit to continue. Then Tuli’s brother threw in the towel.
In merely twenty-six seconds, by technical knockout, Gordeau had become the winner of the first UFC fight in history. He’d also taken a few souvenirs to remember Tuli by: a broken hand courtesy of Tuli’s concrete head and one of the Hawaiian’s dislodged teeth embedded in the instep of his right foot.
After the first fight, I went to see what Gordeau and Tuli looked like. Backstage, the whole mood had changed. Music wasn’t blaring, and fighters weren’t yelling or hitting their pads or chatting with their cornermen. It was a tomb, and everyone seemed to be thinking, Oh my God, this is real. That guy’s teeth just got kicked out of his mouth.
It had been the perfect first fight. It hadn’t turned out the way people had thought it would, but it’d sure woken everybody up.
I ran back out to my seat to catch the next fight, which matched Kevin Rosier against Zane “Hand Wrap” Frazier. The usually animated Rosier strode to the cage with his hood pulled over his head, his sweatshirt displaying the fitting words “Train as if your life depends on it. Someday it might.”
Frazier entered the arena, chin raised, eyes focused on the Octagon, with a slightly peppier step. Frazier and his hand wraps were decidedly ready to go.
Rosier, his sweatshirt now gone to reveal his pudgy physique, paced the cage. If this was a battle of the bodies, Rosier had already lost. Luckily for him, it wasn’t.
In Rosier’s prefight video, he’d said his greatest weapon was his overhand right, and that’s what he used to muscle Frazier down to the mat in the first few seconds. But as a kickboxer, Rosier didn’t know how to keep Frazier there, and the two were quickly on their feet again.
Frazier went to work on Rosier and started to beat the piss out of him, landing a nice uppercut and straight right while they clinched and punched. But the altitude wasn’t kind to Frazier, who was also asthmatic, and he started huffing and staggering.
Rosier went in for the kill with frantic haymakers, and Frazier wilted against the fence. When Rosier began stomping Frazier, his cornerman Frank Trejo threw in the towel. Rosier would advance.
Now it was Royce’s turn to be introduced to the world. Of all the fighters’ entrances, his was probably the most organized, and it certainly became the most beloved in those early days. With his brothers standing in front of and behind him in matching blue and white tracksuits, linked with their arms resting on each other’s shoulders, Royce walked the weaving trail to the cage in what would later be dubbed the Gracie Train.
Dressed in the traditional gi, the white jacket and pants uniform many martial artists wear, Royce scaled the steps and walked into the cage while a strong contingent of his family