Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [69]
Art Davie observed all of this, and I think he knew it was his cue to make a move. He went to Rorion and suggested they sell their shares of the UFC to Bob Meyrowitz and SEG on the premise that they’d just branch off and start another show from scratch on their own.
Rorion was discouraged that his vision had been tampered with anyway. He wanted to preserve the no-rules, no-time-limit vale tudo fights that had made his father, Helio, a legend in Brazil. Rorion agreed to go along with Davie’s plan.
What Davie didn’t tell Rorion was that he was going to sell his piece and then take a job with SEG as the UFC matchmaker for $25,000 a show. When I saw this all shake down, I felt that Rorion had been duped by Davie. He was talked into selling his share of the UFC without knowing what Davie was up to.
It was kind of surprising that Rorion had chosen to walk away. UFC 5 had sold about 300,000 pay-per-view buys—astronomical numbers for that time.
Bob Meyrowitz was the first to call me after the ink dried.
“I don’t know if you know this, John, but I bought the UFC,” he said in his nasally voice. “You’re a big part of the show, and I want you to stay. Is this something you’ll do for me?”
“Yeah, no problem, Bob.”
A couple days later, I went down to Rorion’s Torrance gym to work out, and he called me into his office. He had a sober look on his face.
“Meyrowitz called and requested that I stay on with the show,” I said.
“What are you going to do? You can’t fly two flags.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we can’t do it for a little while—that’s part of the deal—but we’re going to do another show, and it’s going to be bigger and better. Just because they were the first doesn’t mean they’ll be the best. We’ll do something much, much better.”
All I could think about in that moment was how Rorion had always gone on about having his family to look after.
“Rorion, I’ve got babies to feed,” I said, stealing one of the lines I’d heard him use. I wasn’t making much money refereeing the shows, but with a seven-year-old, four-year-old, and one-year-old at home depending on me, every cent counted.
“Well, you can’t be with them and me.”
I wasn’t a fan of ultimatums. “No problem.” I got up, walked out the door, and never went back. I wouldn’t talk to Rorion, my teacher and friend, for the next four years, until we ran into each other at a party for the Japanese promotion, Pride Fighting Championships, in Hollywood. Rorion never launched his new promotion.
There were other casualties in the shake-up as well. Kathy Kidd, who’d served as event coordinator for the first five shows, decided to jump ship and go work for Chris Peters, who launched World Combat Championship. The WCC would promote one event, which featured Renzo Gracie, Royce’s cousin. Kidd married UFC matchmaker Art Davie in December of 1996. A small world, I know.
After Kidd’s exit, Elaine accepted the role of UFC event coordinator, which meant she’d be running the show from UFC 6 on. She’d continue to do all the preplanning from home, which would also give me a sneak preview of the new fighters Davie and Meyrowitz would be bringing in.
UFC 6 “Clash of the Titans” rolled into the Casper Events Center in Casper, Wyoming, on July 14, 1995. It would be the first UFC without Royce, who’d obviously parted ways along with his brother Rorion. But it just so happened that there was another star waiting in the wings.
David “Tank” Abbott wasn’t as much protagonist as antagonist. For every man who scoffed at the hours of training some stalwart martial artists had put into perfecting their katas and techniques without actually having been in a real fight, Tank was their antihero. Abbott actually had some previous wrestling and submission experience, though the myth was that he rolled off his barstool and into the Octagon relying on the strength of his fists and cojones and the experience of over 200 street fights. Brimming with arrogance, Abbott would resonate with