Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [94]
UFC 19
“Young Guns”
March 5, 1999
Casino Magic
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Bouts I Reffed:
Evan Tanner vs. Valeri Ignatov
Kevin Randleman vs. Maurice Smith
Jeremy Horn vs. Chuck Liddell
Gary Goodridge vs. Andre Roberts
Tito Ortiz vs. Guy Mezger
Former Ohio State wrestling star Kevin Randleman entered the Octagon a second time but now as a fighter.
Jeremy Horn and Chuck Liddell had a classic finish at the bell, when Horn applied an arm-triangle and put the striker to sleep.
Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock kicked off the first great rivalry in the sport when Ortiz flipped off the Lion’s Den corner following his rematch win over Guy Mezger. I had to pick up Ortiz and carry him away from Shamrock, who was leaning over the cage barking at Ortiz. Ortiz took it to a new level when he donned a T-shirt that said, “Gay Mezger Is My Bitch.” I promptly told him to take it off, which he did.
The UFC crew in Japan: Elaine, me, James Werme, Maria Eveicheria, David Isaacs, and UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz
Me, Bob Meyrowitz, and Jeff Blatnick in Japan
WRITING ON THE WALL
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Confucius
If I had to pick one of the fights that made a huge impact on mixed martial arts, it would be the heavyweight championship bout between Bas Rutten and Kevin Randleman at UFC 20 “Battle for the Gold” on May 7, 1999, at the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama.
Senator John McCain’s smear campaign had cornered the UFC in the Deep South, and Alabama had no athletic commission at the time. It was the ninth UFC event in a row that wouldn’t air on the major cable platforms, and viewership had taken a nosedive far below the 300,000 pay-per-view buy-rate heyday four years earlier at UFC 7. We began to refer to this time as the Dark Ages of MMA.
With millions of dollars in potential pay-per-view income gone, SEG depended on its live audiences, but we weren’t even filling 5,000-seat arenas. It wasn’t long before we saw the writing on the wall.
Still, amidst all the turmoil and uncertainty, this is when the sport made some of its greatest developmental strides. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.
The Rutten-Randleman fight marked the conclusion of the promotion’s “Road to the Heavyweight Title” tournament, which had been held over the last few shows to crown a new heavyweight champion. Randy Couture had won the title from Maurice Smith fair and square at Ultimate Japan, but Couture had left the promotion because of a pay cut from his previously agreed-upon contract.
Though SEG had been talking about implementing five-minute rounds between the last couple of shows, it was decided that this championship bout would remain one fifteen-minute round to be followed, as necessary, by two three-minute overtime periods.
John Perretti, the UFC’s matchmaker, knew Rutten was a striker and Randleman was a wrestler. He told Meyrowitz that since Randleman would be forced to stand at the beginning of the two overtime periods, this would give Rutten a better chance to implement his striking.
None of that made sense to me since five five-minute rounds would have given Rutten even more opportunities to start from his feet. I also wasn’t into the idea of them even thinking they should give one fighter an advantage over another, but I wasn’t the promoter.
For the first ten minutes of the bout, Randleman, one of the most explosive wrestlers ever to enter the sport, took Rutten down at will and beat the crap out of him from top position.
Randleman broke Rutten’s nose within the first five minutes, which demonstrates how lopsided the match was. I had to stop the bout momentarily and bring Rutten to the doctor to have his nose checked.
Rutten is a jocular guy, but he was pretty serious as the doctor looked him over. I’ll never forget what he asked. “If I get punched again and the bone pushes farther into my brain, will it kill me?” I’m not making this up. When I told him, “No,” Rutten