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“I’m going to kill you,” Abbott said, as we tore the fighters as far apart as we could.

After the legal battle we’d gone through just to get the show started, this was not the event to have a brawl break out in the crowd, especially not between two fighters.

Thinking the drama had passed, I went back into the cage to referee the superfight that night between Ken Shamrock and Kimo Leopoldo. But the real fireworks were happening backstage.

When Abbott had lost his composure cageside, Elaine had gone to his girlfriend and asked why she’d kept egging Abbott on to fight Goes. Now Abbott’s girlfriend was telling her boyfriend Elaine had gotten in her face.

Abbott, inebriated on alcohol and bad intentions, approached my wife and threatened to kill her.

Once I’d finished my refereeing duties and Elaine told me what had happened backstage, I dropped everything and went looking for Abbott. Ken Shamrock’s crew, who loved Elaine, also joined me.

I found Abbott’s manager, Dave Thomas, who apologized profusely for what Abbott had done. Everybody knew what had happened; word had spread that quickly.

I searched the hotel and anywhere else I could think of to find Abbott, but he’d flown the coop. We don’t even know if he made his flight the next morning.

“We have a problem,” I told Meyrowitz at the after party. “Your boy threatened my wife, and I’m not going to put up with that. Either he’s gone or I’m gone. It’s up to you. I don’t care.” Of course, I think I said it with a few more expletives included.

Meyrowitz tried to settle me down.

“Trust me, I’ve settled down. It’s your choice, Bob.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

But threatening Elaine was the tip of the iceberg. That was the one thing that put me over the edge, but what really bothered me was that SEG loved what Abbott represented. He was marketed as this average tough guy taking out all these trained martial arts practitioners, but I didn’t buy into it. It’s not that I didn’t like Abbott. I did, and I thought he was smart. He was doing a great job of orchestrating his persona, but he wasn’t what people thought. He had tried to train but never had the determination to put in the true effort needed to make himself better. As soon as he got with someone in the gym who could outbox him or toss him around, he would bolt. To me, that wasn’t the spirit in which the UFC had been created.

SEG loved him because of the way Abbott represented that everyday man, but I looked at it a different way. To me, he wasn’t good for the sport. He wasn’t a true martial artist, and he went against everything we were trying to say the UFC was. His behavior played into everything our detractors were saying about us.

I knew Abbott was a big star for the UFC, but he’d threatened my wife. I wouldn’t go to the shows anymore if Abbott was there. A few days later, Meyrowitz called to say he’d suspend Abbott from the show, so I agreed to stay on board. Abbott sat out UFC 9 and 10, events I knew SEG had wanted him to fight in.

In the meantime, David Isaacs, another SEG executive, continued to call Elaine to try to smooth things over. Isaacs said he’d spoken with Abbott, who’d voiced his deep regret. I told Elaine to do what she wanted to.

Finally, Elaine received a letter, supposedly from Abbott, expressing his remorse. I knew the letter wasn’t from Abbott and suspected David Isaacs had written it himself. Still, Elaine decided we should all move on, and Abbott returned to the Octagon at UFC 11.

Abbott’s antics aside, Meyrowitz had looked at the UFC 8 court debacle as a victory. That worried me. Meyrowitz felt so good about his legal coup in Puerto Rico that when New York cable providers became the first to pull the UFC from programming, he took out an ad in the New York Times that said: “Mad that you can’t get your UFC? Call this number and complain.” Below was the home phone number of the executive responsible. It may have been funny to him at the time, but it would come back to bite us in the ass down the line.

Though