Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [76]
If you believe Tank wrote this letter, I have some great beachfront property for you in Arizona.
That’s exactly what Michigan did. UFC 9 “Motor City Madness,” which was scheduled to take place on May 17, 1996, at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, was a lesson in the pitfalls of shortsightedness.
I’d been flown out to Detroit six weeks before the event for a press conference SEG had hosted to drum up support. Instead, the county’s district attorney dragged us all back into court from that point all the way up till 4:30 p.m. the day of the show.
It was a big story in Detroit, and the press came out in droves to cover it. The battle over No Holds Barred dominated the headlines. At the first hearing, the district attorney’s expert witness on Ultimate Fighting was an old-time boxing writer who’d written a book on . . . guess what. Yes, boxing.
I read the book beforehand and gave SEG’s lawyer a slew of questions to ask the writer to show that he didn’t have any real experience with or knowledge of MMA.
When we reconvened with the courts at the follow-up hearing the week of the show, SEG brought in Emanuel Steward, a renowned boxing trainer who was helping promote this UFC event and spoke on its behalf.
However, the DA went ahead with filing a last-minute injunction, which meant it was another race against time to get the judge to throw it out before the show was advertised to start.
The judge listened to me, Steward, and a couple other prominent local figures willing to defend the promotion.
The judge then decided he saw two similarities between boxing and Ultimate Fighting, and they were closed-fisted punches and headbutts. I don’t know how he derived headbutts from boxing, but that’s what he came up with. He told SEG that if they outlawed closed-handed punches and headbutts, we wouldn’t be categorized as boxing and he didn’t see where the state would have any jurisdiction over what we were doing, because only boxing was in the books. He’d let the show move ahead.
Standing there in court, in front of a throng of media and onlookers, Meyrowitz said, “No problem.”
Outside the courthouse, I grabbed Meyrowitz. “How the fuck are we not going to have any punching in this?”
“I didn’t say there wasn’t going to be any punching,” Meyrowitz coolly answered. “I just said I’d make it illegal. When they punch, you’re going to tell them, ‘That’s illegal.’ And you’re going to have to fine them eventually. When they have to pay that fine, only God knows.”
I was almost sick over Meyrowitz’s decision, but the event was hours away. What could I do? I had to be there to protect the fighters, so I carefully explained the scenario to them all backstage and told them they wouldn’t have to pay any fines accrued that night. Because boxing used closed-fisted punches, open-handed strikes would be interpreted as legal.
I didn’t hear much fuss about it until I got to Ken Shamrock, who was scheduled to rematch Dan Severn in the superfight that night. I gave Ken the same speech I’d delivered to everyone else, but Ken had a totally different reaction.
“John, I can’t do that. My father has a boys’ home, and I can’t set that example for those boys. I’m not going to stand there and knowingly punch illegally just because I know I won’t have to pay the fine.”
“Ken, you do what you gotta do. It’s your choice. If you want to hit him with open hands, hit him with open hands. But I’m telling you, Dan is going to try and hit you with closed hands.”
The result of this whole mess was a subpar event. During the fights, I felt like an idiot instructing the fighters to open their fists when they punched and calling out fouls left and right. And when it got to the Shamrock-Severn fight, it was thirty minutes of a whole lot of nothing, as both circled but barely laid a hand on each other. Severn, who won by split decision, later claimed that the bout was a brilliant strategic display, but