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“You can’t do that,” I said.

Royce had already been announced after he’d entered the cage. His corner would have to throw in the towel and forfeit the fight.

Rorion and I debated this for a moment, but I was steadfast. The rules were the rules, and they couldn’t be bent for anyone, including the promoter’s brother. I don’t think Rorion was pleased with me taking a stand like this, but he signed off on it and Royce was taken out and helped backstage, while Howard’s corner flooded the cage to congratulate him.

Eliminating Royce Gracie, the winner of UFC 1 and 2, was a big deal. Leopoldo and Joe Son reentered the Octagon a few minutes later to do their victory lap, goading the audience for support.

I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last I’d see of either of them.

With Royce out of the finals for the first time ever, it was anyone’s game. Truer words were never spoken. Steve Jennum, a Nebraskan police officer who entered the tournament as the second alternate after Ken Shamrock dropped out with an injury, fought Harold Howard fresh in the finals and won the $60,000 prize. Jennum took Howard down and pounded on him until he submitted less than ninety seconds into the fight, an anticlimactic finish to another night of bizarre firsts.

Ironically, I’d been introduced to Jennum a couple days before. I’d taken one look at him and thought, Dude, what are you doing? Please don’t let this guy get a fight. Then Jennum won it all. It goes to show you what an idiot I was for judging a book by its cover. Was he the best fighter? No, but he came in and won under the rules put in front of him, so you had to applaud him for his victory.

But wasn’t the UFC all about trying to find the best fighter in the world?

After watching Jennum sail into the finals full steam and injury free, Rorion decided alternates would have to fight like the rest to earn their way into the tournament without an unfair advantage.

I’d also made a mental note that night during Royce and Leopoldo’s match. We couldn’t let the corners have carte blanche around the Octagon ever again. Especially with moving cameramen sharing the apron’s space, I had enough to concentrate on right in front of me. At the next show, we would tape off a red box on each side of the apron and the coach wouldn’t be allowed to leave it for any reason during the fight.

At UFC 4 “Revenge of the Warriors,” held on December 16, 1994, at the Expo Square Pavilion in Tulsa, Oklahoma, three alternate bouts yielded a trio of potential replacements that night should anyone not be able to continue. The Pavilion, which regularly held rodeo events, was packed to the gills with nearly 6,000 fans, another sellout.

UFC 4 had a few familiar faces. Kevin Rosier, the UFC 1 pizza eater, returned to fight newcomer Joe Charles. Two days before the fight, I was with him in the hotel banquet room demonstrating armbars on a bodybuilder friend he’d brought with him. Rosier had asked me for help. However, a handful of minutes does not a jiu-jitsu practitioner make. Charles tapped Rosier out with, of all things, an armbar fourteen seconds into the fight.

In the quarterfinals, Joe Son, Kimo Leopoldo’s unruly manager, squeezed into the tiniest pair of red Speedo briefs he could find and entered the cage himself. I know SEG had hoped the rivalry created between Royce and Leopoldo would play out in a rematch here, but they had to settle for Leopoldo’s bulbous manager. Leopoldo had been enticed by K-1, a Japanese kickboxing promotion, with the promise of more money.

Joe Son, a master of Joe Son Do, of course, was more show than substance. Returnee Keith Hackney eventually got him to the ground and introduced his fist to Joe Son’s groin a few times in full view of the TV cameras. It wasn’t something I would have done, but it wasn’t an illegal move and certainly made for a provocative visual. Joe Son did tap out but not because the groin shots hurt him, as his cup had done a good job protecting his prized jewels; he’d just petered out when Hackney started pushing his Adam’s apple through his neck shortly after