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Carano wouldn’t budge.

Ironically, years later Glenn Carano would sit in the front row at events cheering for his daughter while she blasted away on her opponents on live network TV. In 2008, Gina Carano would become one of the most popular MMA fighters on Earth.

With Fertitta willing to at least investigate the sport, I gave him the name of John Lewis, a UFC fighter and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt living and teaching in Las Vegas. If Fertitta was seriously interested, he could call Lewis and roll with the fighter to see what it was like for himself.

We ended the meeting, and the three commission representatives left.

I turned to Meyrowitz and said, “You’re screwed.”

Dr. Homansky was the only one of the three who seemed to like the sport, but he was also the only one who didn’t have a vote. It wasn’t going to happen right now.

The Nevada commission was far from giving the sport a chance, one of many factors spelling the UFC’s impending demise. SEG had long before cut costs by scaling down the show’s pageantry and using cheaper talent in the preliminary fights to save up for the main events they thought the fans would want most, much like a boxing card.

At the same time, many of the best fighters, like Mark Coleman, Vitor Belfort, and Mark Kerr, were being lured away by outrageous cash-and-carry paydays from rival promotion Pride Fighting Championships, which had deep financial backing from a TV channel and the Yakuza mob in Japan. Pride was really starting to pick up steam in terms of popularity and soon began to surpass the UFC in attendance numbers, drawing nine to ten times more spectators at some events, up to 50,000 at a time.

Pride even made a play for me, first as a referee and then as a fighter. I was contacted to possibly fight in Pride against popular pro wrestler Nobuhiko Takada, who would later become the figurehead for the organization. I priced myself out of the offer, though, by asking for $250,000. I knew if I fought, it would be the end of my reffing for the UFC.

I thought the whole thing was a bit ridiculous, anyway, especially when Pride said I’d have to throw the match so Takada won. There was no way I’d do that. The sport didn’t need that type of attention.

I did approach SEG with Pride’s offer to get them to compensate me when payments started to lag. Meyrowitz threatened to sue if I left for Pride, but it was all bluster.

As for the others, SEG’s accountant, Steven Loeb, was highly skilled at stalling people as they came looking for their money. SEG used a production team comprised of brothers Al and Bruce Connal, and they were always three shows behind getting paid, so they had to either keep coming back to produce the shows or risk losing it all.

At one point, before they’d started paying me again, I’d called the accountant for money I was owed, and he’d asked, “Are you going to send me a bullet, too?” Apparently Tank Abbott had mailed him a bullet with the accountant’s name drawn on it and a note that said, “If I don’t get paid, this is what’s going to happen to you.”

But the biggest blow was yet to come for Elaine and me. After UFC 21, Meyrowitz called her with bad news. “I really want you to work with me, but understand I’m under a lot of pressure here. I need you to work, but I can’t pay you anymore.”

We weren’t completely surprised. When Elaine had started, she’d had all kinds of help running the shows, but those numbers had dwindled. Elaine had been a trooper through the decline. She would occasionally talk to me about how hard it was to get things done. She felt the fighters needed to be taken care of and respected, but the UFC was traveling to shoddy venues with limited support staff, so no one could expect much.

Meyrowitz promised Elaine he’d make it up to her when things got better, but we knew they wouldn’t. The UFC was on its last leg.

I asked Elaine if she wanted me to quit, but we were paying for a house we couldn’t afford, and I was still making $75,000 a year from the UFC.

Elaine left the promotion, and I stayed. Many of the fighters, managers, and