Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [89]
Belfort suddenly appeared on the ramp and walked to the cage. He had no reason to be intimidated. He was the better striker and a far superior ground practitioner. Where Couture had the advantage was in the wrestling, and isn’t it ironic that wrestling is where the key moments played out?
A tested wrestler on the ultracompetitive international circuit for years, Couture had mastered subtle upper body movements, which made him especially strong in the clinch. I watched him force Belfort, a formidable striker, into playing the wrestling game. Couture softened up Belfort before taking him down and pounding out the stoppage after eight minutes. It was the first of many upsets we’d all see from Couture. And it was the first time I really understood the young Belfort’s weakness: his mental game.
In the evening’s other main bout, Dan Severn didn’t make it to his fight with Maurice Smith for the UFC heavyweight title. A week before UFC 15, Severn had fought Kimo Leopoldo for a new promotion in Japan called Pride Fighting Championships and had hurt his hand.
Tank Abbott was called in to replace Severn, and Smith bludgeoned Abbott’s legs with damaging kicks for eight minutes until Abbott called it quits.
Smith would end up defending his title against Couture at the next event, which would be held in Japan, while Pride Fighting Championships would become a significant feature on MMA’s horizon.
Before the UFC traveled halfway around the world for its next event, it had some housecleaning to do. Art Davie, who had been around since UFC 1 and served as the show’s matchmaker, was fired for going behind Meyrowitz’s back to start a new MMA promotion called Thunderdome, which never got off the ground. Davie was replaced by John Perretti, a martial artist and movie stunt coordinator who’d worked for Battlecade: Extreme Fighting.
Meyrowitz asked me to accompany him, Abbott, and Belfort on a trip to Japan to promote UFC “Ultimate Japan,” the promotion’s eighteenth event, scheduled to take place two months later on December 21, 1997, inside the Yokohama Arena. It made sense to travel to a country where judo, not baseball, was the national pastime. Variations of mixed martial arts had been alive and well in Japan since the 1980s with promotions like Shooto and later Pancrase.
UFC 16
“Battle in the Bayou”
March 3, 1998
Pontchartrain Center
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bouts I Reffed:
Pat Miletich vs. Townsend Saunders
Jerry Bohlander vs. Kevin Jackson
Pat Miletich vs. Chris Brennan
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs. Kimo Leopoldo
Frank Shamrock vs. Igor Zinoviev
Returning to Louisiana, the second state to sanction the UFC, SEG separated the fighters into three weight classes, including a lightweight division for competitors under 170 pounds. This is really when the lighter guys got off to a rip-roaring start. Mikey Burnett and Eugenio Tadeau had it out in their preliminary bout, but it was alternate Chris Brennan who would meet Pat Miletich in the finals after Burnett withdrew with a broken hand.
It was disheartening to see the athletic Russian fighter Igor Zinoviev get hurt as badly as he did by Frank Shamrock’s body slam. Zinoviev sustained a broken collarbone and a separated shoulder and was knocked out cold in one fateful drop. Zinoviev never fought professionally again.
When we got off the plane, a few photographers were waiting to meet us. I recognized Susumu Nagao, who’d photographed every event since UFC 2. Nagao’s pictures had appeared in the mainstream newspapers and magazines that covered the sport in Japan, so we were somewhat recognizable to the fans there.
Abbott made his presence known by shouting, “I am Godzillaaaaaa,” at the top of his lungs for the startled commuters. Then he chased the photographers around the airport.
SEG was copromoting the event with a Japanese organization, so we met a few of their executives for dinner. I remember only