Into the Cage

by Nick Gullo

  THE BIRTH OF UFC

  In the late 1980s a VHS tape circulated through the martial arts underground. Copied and recopied, passed hand to hand in locker rooms and dojos, the tape would land in your lap and you’d rush home and jam it into the deck. After the static, a warning appeared—“To avoid injury, do not attempt these techniques without the supervision of a qualified instructor …”—followed by the title screen: “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action.” If you’re impatient, like me, you’d fast-forward through the scrolling history of jiu-jitsu, past black-and-white footage of old-time judo, to a segment titled “Jiu-Jitsu vs. Karate.”

  The lo-fi video footage shows a slim Rorion Gracie, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner and instructor, in a traditional gi, squaring off against a karate fighter. Rorion circles, feints, then tackles him to the ground. From here it’s a pathetic scene. The karate fighter tries to punch, kick, cover his face to avoid shots. But it’s no use. Rorion mounts his back, slips a forearm under his neck, chokes him, and it’s lights out. The remaining fights follow a similar script. A judo practitioner, a boxer, a wrestler, a brawl on the beach—in each instance a Gracie family member dodges blows, clinches his opponent and wrestles him down, slaps him like a child, then chokes him or nearly breaks an arm before the guy taps in submission.

  As the tape ended, you sat in silence, but the message was harsh and loud: the Gracie family challenged any combatants, anywhere, anytime. You want some of this?!

  Art Davie watched the tape and answered the call—not as a fighter but as a promoter. Years of advertising work taught Davie to recognize opportunity, and stoked on the possibilities he arranged a meeting with Rorion Gracie, wherein he pitched War of the Worlds, a combat tournament featuring fighters from every discipline. Rorion signed on, and Davie drafted notable Hollywood director John Milius (also a Gracie jiu-jitsu student) to serve as creative director. The team designed and trademarked the eight-sided cage (known as the Octagon), then changed the name of the tournament to Ultimate Fighting Championship.

  Next, they met with production companies. HBO and Showtime declined, but SEG, a small pay-per-view production unit, liked the concept. Fast-forward a few months. On November 12, 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship debuted in Denver, Colorado, and eighty-six thousand home viewers paid to watch. The response exceeded all expectations. “That show was only supposed to be a one-off,” Dana White said, “but it did so well on pay-per-view they decided to do another, and another. Never in a million years did these guys think they were creating a sport.”

  But with that seminal broadcast, a sport was born. Or so it now seems. Truth is, comb the records and you’ll find scattered accounts of MMA bouts dating back to the early 1900s, when Brazilian circus promoters hawked Vale Tudo (Portuguese translation: “anything goes”) battles under the big tent. And this begs the question—when does an underground pursuit qualify as a sport?

  Throughout the world, kids play soccer with duct-tape balls on empty fields. Forget the clubs and the stadiums; it’s a sport, right? Well, yes and no. In terms of rules and scores and victory celebrations, yes. But as a social institution studied and dissected by sociologists, no.

  This is important because recounting the history of MMA, there’s always a critic pointing to some earlier event or some unsung fighter: Whoa, whoa, what about those early Merikan contests in Japan? and WTF, you just dissing Sergio Batarelli?

  Exceptions don’t make the rule. As stated earlier, this isn’t an MMA encyclopedia but more of an exploration of the rising sport as social institution, e.g., gyms opening in every town, kids training and competing in leagues, evolving techniques and philosophies, teams and sponsors, government sanctioning, a defined path to stardom, the inclusion of women, and everyday folk just one, maybe two, degrees of separation from the subculture.

  So there it is. UFC 1 detonates, and during those first few years, ask anyone on the street about MMA, and if he knows anything, after a moment he probably nods and says, “Oh yeah, isn’t that the skinny dude in a white gi that choked everyone out?”

  Phase I: That Skinny Dude in a Gi (Royce Gracie)

  In the parking lot, Royce Gracie opens his trunk. I peer over his shoulder while he picks through rifles and pistols, fills a shoulder bag, dumps in ammo, and turns to me, grinning like a kid at Christmas. I’d heard from his friend Evaldo Lima that Royce was an avid marksman, so while in Toronto for UFC 152 in September 2012, cageside I told him that after midnight our crew was flying to Maine so we could test Dana’s cache on the firing range. He raised his hand, stopping me, and motioned for Dana to hear this. Squinting across the Octagon, Royce pointed out tiny markers in the audience—not heads per se but a cup of soda, a raised camera. “Forget jiu-jitsu, guys, from this far I could pick off that, and that. I love to shoot. You guys want, I’ll show you, we should go shooting.”

  So here I am, following him into the Sharpshooter target facility in Torrance, California. Royce struts ahead with the most carefree gait, but it’s got little to do with guns or targets—the guy is always stoked. Which makes it hard to fathom why, for the first UFC tournament, Rorion selected this Gracie to represent the family. After all, Helio had fathered seven sons, all jiu-jitsu black belts, and no question oldest brother Rickson was the obvious choice: muscular and fierce, a decade prior to UFC 1 Rickson had choked out the infamous Rei Zulu, a 230-pound beast, before twenty thousand fans. Royce was the complete opposite: a slender 175 pounds at six-foot-one, and compared with the heavyweight savages he would face in the cage, he hardly appeared up to the challenge.

  But that was the point. “I picked Royce because he was so young and skinny,” Rorion told me. “If Rickson won the tournament everyone would say, ‘Oh, it’s not jiu-jitsu that won, it’s this monster.’ But Royce, he was just a kid. Anyone would fight him on the street.”

  Helio’s lifelong goal, and the goal embraced by his children, was to prove Gracie jiu-jitsu as the supreme combat system. Prove and spread his beloved art around the world. Understand, Helio grew up a fragile and sickly boy, plagued by panic attacks, and as an adult he weighed only 138 pounds. But mastering jiu-jitsu increased his confidence, relieved his ailments, and earned him fame in Brazil and Japan. If jiu-jitsu improved his life to such a degree, he couldn’t miser-like hoard that knowledge. Think of the positive impact of spreading the discipline throughout a given city, country, continent. Or the world.

  So skinny Royce, wearing his traditional gi, entered the cage, and throughout the night his Gracie jiu-jitsu easily bested boxing, shootfighting, and karate. Those three wins earned Royce $50,000. But more important, they forever etched his name in the history books as the first UFC champion. He went on to dominate UFC 2 and 4, and he is the only fighter to win three UFC tournaments.

  Now, at the target station, Royce’s son Khonry, still in high school, unfurls a zombie poster. He clips it to a string and zips it off into the range. Royce waves me into the booth. No, I don’t wanna shoot first. What if I suck? I’m gonna look like a fool, and I’ll never hear the end of this. He hands me a Glock, and I raise the gun and squint down the barrel. Royce watching. Khonry watching. Which is just great—it feels like auditioning for a spot on the team. So trying to steady the gun (it’s shaking) and keep my arms loose (they’re tensed), I single out a one-eyed wraith and squeeze.

  Bap! Bap! Bap! Bap! Bap!

  Lowering the safety goggles, I spot a small rip in the poster’s corner. That’s it?! Twenty-five yards out, even given Night of the Living Dead peril, we’re goners. Royce steps beside me, but the smile is gone. Now he’s the patient instructor: Here, spread your feet, bend your knees, lean in to the pistol.

  Listen, I swear, I’ve shot guns plenty, I’m not this bad. It’s the pressure. So I squeeze off a few more. Blow through a zombie’s shoulder, but like that’s worth a damn during an apocalypse.

  I suck.

  Royce takes the pistol, pats my back. At the booth he squares his legs and shoulders, exhales like a Zen master, and squee
zes off seven shots. Each bullet tears through a zombie wielding an axe. Saved by a black belt in jiu-jitsu and marksmanship.

  Khonry steps up with a desert-camo assault rifle, aims through the scope, and decimates another walker. He zips the poster back into the booth and declares himself the winner. Ah, Dad, look at all these hits, I so beat you! Royce sighs, tell him to keep dreaming, and points out his son’s errant shots.

  After a bit, they both look to me, as if I’m qualified to judge.

  I just shrug.

  Top: With Royce Gracie at the Sharpshooter target facility in Torrance, California.

  Bottom: Royce and his son Khonry admire their handiwork.

  The morning after UFC 1 Royce woke to a new life. No screaming mobs or Tonight Show offers, but the requests poured in for self-defense seminars—not just from martial arts schools, but also sheriff’s departments and military bases. And these law enforcement types were more than happy to take Royce shooting. Hence his skills on the firing range.

  Twenty years later, most weekends find Royce jetting around the globe, dispensing his knowledge to eager students: New York, Florida, Paris, Kuwait. Who wouldn’t want to learn from the master?

  In the years following the inaugural UFC tournament, jiu-jitsu evolved and fractured along various fault lines: the original Gracie jiu-jitsu, MMA jiu-jitsu, and sport jiu-jitsu. Gracie jiu-jitsu schools emphasize self-defense training in the traditional gi. MMA jiu-jitsu schools, such as 10th Planet, ditch the gi and emphasize a more cage-based approach. Sport schools prepare students for the countless regional, national, and international gi tournaments, focusing on overly technical moves that are often not practical against an opponent dropping elbows or knees.

  “What use is points in a street fight?” Royce complained when I asked about jiu-jitsu competitions. “Most of those guys don’t know how to get out of a basic headlock. Sure, they know X-guard, or the berimbolo, but how’s that gonna help when a guy’s punching you in the face?”

  But more than teaching adults to best thugs in a dark alley, Royce enjoys working with children. “My father showed how jiu-jitsu transforms a person. Learning, practicing, and working hard teaches discipline and confidence. These kids grow to respect others and make positive contributions. That’s the only way to change the world—one child at a time.”

  Helio passed away in 2009. I ask Royce, in light of MMA’s worldwide takeover, how his father viewed his legacy. Royce pauses, clearly remembering his mentor: “He didn’t like the new rules, the weight classes, and the judging; after all, MMA was meant to reproduce a street fight. But he was proud, and he respected the sport.”

  After Royce won his third tournament, in 1994, MMA found itself mired in controversy. In 1997, Senator John McCain viewed a tape of UFC 1, publicly called it “human cockfighting,” then campaigned to ban subsequent events. Other politicians joined the parade, and most states refused to sanction the tournaments. After two years of high-profile scrutiny and declining revenues, Art Davie and his partners sold the company to SEG. Throughout the 1990s the new owners welcomed the bad publicity, believing the attention lent underground credibility. But this stance only isolated the sport. Cable providers refused to carry the broadcasts, and the promoters were forced to hold the events in less-lucrative jurisdictions, such as New Orleans and Colorado. Even the fighters devolved—from single-sport tacticians garbed in traditional attire, they now by and large resembled professional wrestlers: burly, mustached, rage-faced lumberjacks. None more so than Tank Abbott.

  Phase II: The Pit Fighters (Tank Abbott)

  “By far the greatest number of spontaneous synchronistic phenomena that I have had occasion to observe and analyze can easily be shown to have a direct connection with an archetype. This, in itself, is an irrepresentable, psychoid factor of the collective unconscious.”

  —CARL J. JUNG

  Royce Gracie mentors the next generation.

  It’s a cool summer night and I’m hurrying down Main Street in Huntington Beach, California, an hour late for beers with a friend. I step into the Aloha Grill and scan the crowd for my boy. I don’t see him, and just as I’m ducking out I hear raucous laughter from the corner. Standing in the center of an entourage is a brawny, goateed guy in a Hawaiian shirt, raising his glass and—

  It’s David “Tank” Abbott, the former UFC fighter. Which shouldn’t surprise me. Brazil might’ve birthed Gracie jiu-jitsu, but Huntington Beach in the mid-1990s begat a slew of early MMA standouts: Kimo Leopoldo, “Razor” Rob McCullough, Tito Ortiz, Jason Miller, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Tiki Ghosn, and Ricco Rodriguez.

  Tank first stepped into the cage at UFC 6, held in Casper, Wyoming, in July 1995. A bear of a fighter, in that first bout he swarmed John Matua, a 400-pound Kapu Kuialua specialist, unloading blow after blow, and finishing the giant in eighteen seconds. Next round he stormed Paul Varelans with an overhand right, tackled him into the cage, wrestled him to the mat, and in typical MMA style mounted and pounded him—but then, never seen this before or since (rewind that footage)—Tank casually sat up and dropped his knee on Varelans’s face, and with his fingers he gripped the cage and compressed his knee like a compactor. For a moment he looked into the audience, flashed a “Hey, want to see something neat?” grin, and lifted on the fence, sinking his knee until Varelans’s eyes bulged. The announcer groaned, “He’s kneeing Varelans in the head, and he’s enjoying doing it …” To which his sidekick responded, “He’s smiling at the crowd!” Tank wasn’t just smiling, he was laughing … LAUGHING at the crowd! Yeowww, how fun is this! But then, like a bully growing bored on the playground, he released the fence and close-fist bombed Varelans’s temple. Once, twice, three times, and the referee leapt in and stopped the action. TKO.

  In the post-fight interviews Tank was jolly, challenging all comers with disdain and scarcely masked rage. The fans loved it. Loved the beer-belly physique and the motorcycle-gang goatee. Loved the bluster and the maniacal aggression. Dan Severn best summarized our boy: “I watched Tank Abbott knock out a sumo [fighter] with one punch, and as the sumo laid there his body stiffened, and Tank struck him again, and I kept thinking there’s a man that doesn’t have much of a conscience.”

  Researching this book I’d come across videos of Tank slugging the heavy bag, bench-pressing six hundred pounds. I’d heard he hangs out in Huntington Beach bars, but a friend warned, “Watch your ass. Tank gets drunk, he gets mean. You won’t be the first dude he’s thrown through a window.” But I don’t care—I need to talk to him.

  The bar is packed, with just a single empty stool one removed from Tank. So I wander up and sit beside an old man, and as the meek interloper I order a shot. Don’t look over, just blend in. The glass hits the bar, I down it and take a long breath. My nerves must translate as exhaustion, like that drink is the only good thing in the world, because the old man turns his white goatee my way and eyes my wedding ring. “Yeah, son,” he quips, “marriage is hard, I know. Forty-six years, I know. Here, let’s have us another.”

  And that’s how it went—me drinking with this old-timer, waiting for an opening with Tank.

  Did I mention the bartender’s golden pitching arm? How he poured our glasses to the rim, Stoli and Jack, Stoli and Jack, round after round? As we drank, the lights pulsed, or maybe that was the music; it’s all a blur … The old man slapped my shoulder, told me to cheer up, and, shouting over Bob Seger, here’s a bit of what he said:

  “—So you’re from New Orleans. Great city, had some good times in the French Quarter.”

  “—No, it’s Don, name is Don. Want another?”

  “—Katrina, that must’a been a bitch. Can’t even imagine what that’s like.”

  “—Well, I coached football at the local junior college close to thirty years. Coached defensive line and linebackers. Loved it. You play?”

  “—Take what you can, son. That’s the way of the world. If you don’t take it, no one gonna hand it to you.”

  “—Yeah, I hear you, kid
s can be stubborn. Raised three of ’em, so I know. Just gotta let ’em find their own way.”

  “—Your daughter’s how old? … Oh, you started young. Damn.”

  “—Yeah, I hear you, daughters can break your heart, but sons, they’ll give you heartburn. And I know. On weekends I kept $10,000 in the dresser, for bail. Serious. I couldn’t really afford the money, being a teacher, but what can you do?”

  “—Family’s more important than anything. Don’t lose sight of that, son. Shit. I miss my wife. Forty-six years we were married. Love of my life. She passed, and I was mad, mad as hell she left me.”

  “—Come on, drink up. Thought you were from New Orleans!”

  “—No question, family comes first. Hell, that’s the reason I’m visiting from Colorado, came to see this one—”

  With that Don leaned back, hitched his thumb toward Tank. Tank glared at me with narrowed eyes, and that none-too-pleased smirk.

  Oh shit.

  Clearly, I was in no shape to properly interview the father, much less request an audience with the son. We were at maximum risk of an inappropriate comment or perceived slight, and drunk or sober I’m always good for a few of those. I started to apologize: “Hey, I left my number a few times. I understand you don’t like reporters, and that’s okay, that’s understandable, but I’m a fan …”

  And to my shock, Tank most graciously nods, tells me this is his hangout, he never misses happy hour.