by Art Davie
From my experiences, I always thought that Royce was a sweet, simple soul. He was now 26, but had always seemed like a teenager to me, dating back to our first encounter. He never said much, and he seemed firmly under the guidance and control of Rorion—teaching classes all day long, and then cleaning up the Gracie Academy with a broom and mop. Royce lived in a tiny space over the garage at Rorion’s house, with two piranhas that he kept in a hexagon-shaped fish tank as his roommates. Rorion once told me the story of taking Royce with him to an out-of-state seminar. When they returned, Royce discovered that only one roommate remained, as he’d forgotten to ask someone to feed his fish.
Royce didn’t have a car or even a checking account. On Saturdays, after classes were done and Royce had completed his clean-up duties, he would shyly slip into Rorion’s office at the Academy, and patiently wait for his weekly allowance. When I would be in there talking with Rorion, Royce would stand off to the side, not saying a word. Once Rorion had acknowledged his kid brother’s presence, he would open the safe, pull out a few twenty-dollar bills, and hand them to Royce. With a smile on his face as bright as a lit-up Christmas tree, Royce would head over to the beach, where he would flirt with the girls, surf and have a bite to eat.
I got the impression that Royce worshipped Hélio as much as the other brothers did, and that he worshipped Rorion like none of the other brothers did.
Royce didn’t seem as if he’d ever been in a street fight in his life. There was no question that he was a solid black belt, and as Ethan Milius would surely attest, an excellent instructor. And I had seen him easily choke out some karate and kung fu types at the academy in a number of Gracie Challenges. He was well built at 6-foot-1 and 175 lb., but he just never struck me as a real fighter, the way that Rickson, Relson, Royler and even Rorion did.
When I’d watched Royce roll on the mat with Rickson, it looked about as competitive as my training sessions with Royler. He just wasn’t anywhere near Rickson’s level, but in all fairness, I didn’t know who was.
A lawyer friend of mine who trained in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu once said to me that Royce seemed like the perfect guy to babysit your kids. No way did I ever see him as a killer.
I really liked Royce—he was a sweet kid and always very friendly. But it seemed to me that he was about to be in way over his head. It wasn’t my call though—it was Rorion’s. For all of his, “whatever you decide Arturo,” attitude on almost everything concerning War of the Worlds, this was his decision to make—well, with the input of Hélio, no doubt. But it certainly had nothing to do with me.
So if Rorion said it was going to be Royce, then it was going to be Royce. Case closed.
Once I gave it some thought though, I could see that with Rickson now out of the running, Rorion really had no option but to choose Royce. It was almost a decision by default. Rolker and Robin were persona non gratis—I didn’t even know if they had ever been to the U.S., or how often Rorion spoke to them.
I had only met Relson a few times, and I really knew him more by reputation. The talk around the academy was that while Rickson was the best fighter in the Gracie family, Relson was the meanest. If the shit went down for real, on the street or in a bar, Relson would fuck you up. He apparently lived in Hawaii with a beautiful girlfriend, and only made it out to Southern California on occasion. One time Rorion had let it slip to me that Relson “likes to party,” but never said more on the subject. For whatever reason, Relson may have been a wild card in Rorion’s eyes who just couldn’t be risked as the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu emissary to the world.
Through his role as my instructor, I’d really come to like and respect Royler. He had gotten me up to blue belt, which was no small feat, considering my lack of natural jiu-jitsu and grappling abilities. Despite all of his easy victories in the Gracie Challenge, the fact remained that Royler was 5-foot-8 and around 145 lb. The “invincibility” of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu aside, Rorion was smart and experienced enough to understand that if a much bigger and stronger opponent got on top of Royler—and if that opponent had even rudimentary grappling knowledge—things might not go well for his younger and smaller brother. He knew that I was talking about getting a wrestler and maybe a sumo wrestler into War of the Worlds.
As for himself, Rorion had never once floated the idea that he would be the family representative in the tournament. He was 42 years old, and while I knew that he could still whip some serious ass, he had really transitioned from a fighter into a businessman since his “toughest man in the United States” exploits had been reported by Pat Jordan in that 1989 Playboy article. Rorion often joked with me that he wanted to trade his Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt for an expensive silk tie like mine.
Beyond all of that, I felt that having an owner of W.O.W. Promotions actually fighting in War of the Worlds, would have made it look like a rigged event. I knew that it was going to look like a set-up as it was with one of his brothers in the tournament, but to have Rorion himself would have looked to the other fighters, and to the public, like we’d stacked the deck.
So of the seven Gracie brothers, that only left one real candidate: Royce. And once I got over my initial shock, I realized that I didn’t care. As I’d felt from the beginning, it truly didn’t matter to me who won War of the Worlds, because for me, this was never about promoting Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and the Gracie family name. My warm feelings for Rorion and the Gracie family aside, this was about creating a new franchise in the world of fighting. It wasn’t meant to be an in-house sales campaign, like the ones that I’d been creating for the Brajitsu, Inc. tapes. No doubt Rorion’s feelings on this were polar opposite from mine, but so what? This was not the Gracie Challenge, and I never wanted it to be.
I finally got the word from ESPN that our fighting tournament was not ready for prime time.
From my experience as a student at the academy, I knew first-hand that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was incredibly effective and dominant. But I also understood that no fighting style was unbeatable. The Grandmaster Hélio had himself been submitted in his competitive past, which only bolstered my belief that in a real fight, anything could happen. And that, at its core, was what I had always envisioned, initially for the World’s Best Fighter, and now for War of the Worlds.
Meyrowitz and his lawyer brother David flew to Los Angeles to meet with Rorion, our attorney Don Moss, and me in the first week of August. We were closer to that “tentative” October 30 date, but no closer to a signed and executed contract between our two groups.
I knew that my Plan B television options were evaporating, as I had received a letter dated May 28, (just before SEG sent their contract offer) from Michael Aresco, program manager at ESPN, which stated “After carefully considering your show as far as our scheduling, programming and commitments are concerned, ESPN will not be able to air your product.”
And on July 13, lowly Prime Ticket officially passed on War of the Worlds, as Program Coordinator Terri Quinn cheerfully concluded in the letter, “Please feel free to submit a proposal should you find that you have other product to offer in the future.”
I, of course, wasn’t about to let Meyrowitz, his brother David or Campbell know about these rejections, nor was I going to tell them that if things fell apart with SEG, I’d start my search anew for a broadcast partner. I wanted to do a deal with SEG, and get War of the Worlds launched sooner rather than later. But the deal was going to have to make sense for my side, and not just theirs.
The August meeting was at the W.O.W. Promotions office, and we all sat around my big blue desk/conference table. Meyrowitz, David, Moss and I negotiated and debated and threatened and discussed all day long. I sent out for deli sandwiches and we ate. We talked some more. Finally, we all shook hands, and agreed to keep moving forward with War of the Worlds, even though absolutely nothing was finalized.
In early July 1993, even Prime Ticket kicked us to the curb. They wouldn’t distribute our event on a national basis, but shunted us off to their regional affiliates.
At this point, I thoug
ht that October 30 was going to be a tough date to hit. But I was lockedin to Denver, and felt that once we got into late November and then December, the strong likelihood of snow would wreak havoc on our travel and logistics. So I set my mind on early-to-mid-November. There was really only one place in Denver for me to consider, and that was the city’s major indoor venue. Anything else would have been an image killer, and given the perception that we were a low-rent event.
Campbell told me that the first weekend in November was a no-go, as Saturday, Novenber 6 was the date set for the boxing heavyweight championship rematch between Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas, to be broadcast live on TVKO Pay-Per-View. There was no way that we could launch War of the Worlds in the shadow of that massive fight, which would lock down all of the PPV buys.
From my cold call to the 17,000-seat McNichols Arena, I found out that the Denver Nuggets would be hosting the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, November 13, but the day before was available for booking. I negotiated the price down to $4,000, and our date for War of the Worlds moved from “tentative” to firm. Campbell told me that November 12, 1993 worked great for him. If only everything was this easy with SEG, my New York Bankees.
CHAPTER 8
SHARKS AND GOLDFISH
A FISHING ROD IS A STICK WITH A HOOK AT ONE END AND A FOOL AT THE OTHER.
— SAMUEL JOHNSON
SO with an unsigned contract offer from SEG, two fighters, an arena deal and a date, I now put all of my energy into filling out the tournament bracket. Kathy was working dutifully on sponsorship sales, and said that she had a lead on Gold’s Gym. Rorion was doing his thing at the Academy, and repeatedly told me that he was fine with whatever fighters and fighting styles I recruited. After all, who could beat Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, even with Royce as the representative?
I then approached Rorion to officially lock in my role as matchmaker.
“What does a matchmaker do?” he asked me.
“Sets the matches. I’ll decide who fights who. Are you OK with that?”
“Do you think you can get all the fighters, Arturo?”
“I can get everyone we need. You’ve chosen Royce. I’ve already gotten Pat Smith, and I’ll get the rest. Trust me.”
“And you’ll match them?”
“Absolutely. If we have you do it, we’ll get a ton of shit. It’ll look like your rigging things for Royce to win,” I responded.
“Actually, I’m not worried about any of these guys. We have always taken them down and choked them out. No problem. I’m good with you doing the matchmaking.”
I felt relieved that Rorion seemed to grasp the big picture. And I felt grateful, as even though I had plenty on my plate, this was a job I wanted.
I thought that Meyrowitz might have some ideas on who he’d like to see, but he exclaimed to me on the phone, “Jiu-jitsu, kung fu, taekwondo—it’s all moo goo guy pan to me.” And I was reluctant to bother Milius about his views on the matter. In truth, he was a pretty loyal Gracie man and wasn’t really into the different martial arts. I knew Milius would just want me to get the biggest, baddest, and toughest guys I could find.
With my mind made up about a tournament consisting of eight fighters instead of 16 (a number that SEG fully endorsed), I set out to find the remaining six men needed to complete the bracket for War of the Worlds.
I used a shotgun approach in reaching out to the martial arts world—spraying pellets in all directions. By 9 a.m. every day, I was behind my big blue desk making calls, putting out feelers and sending letters and faxes, to fighters, managers, agents, promoters, martial arts schools and gyms. And I contacted 38 separate organizations and sanctioning bodies—ranging from the United States Tang Soo Do Association to the World SAMBO Committee to the International Pencak-Silat & Puklulan Federation. And I was back at the Torrance Public Library, scouring books, magazines, newspapers and even microfiche, for anything and everything that might prove useful.
If I was lucky enough to get someone on the phone, or in the extreme rarity, actually receive a returned call, it usually went downhill from there. Most listened very quietly, and then told me they would either get back to me (which I knew they wouldn’t), or that this just wasn’t something that they’d be interested in.
I heard, over and over again:
“Who are you?”
“Who do you represent?”
“What is it exactly that you want?”
“Why are you calling me?”
And on multiple occasions I was told something along the lines of, “You’ll never get this off the ground. People have been talking about this for years. It never goes anywhere.”
A huge positive was when the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Well, good luck” as opposed to the usual brusque hang-up without a goodbye.
What bothered me the most was when I would hear some version of, “This would be bad for martial arts.” I heard that a lot.
I thought that perhaps I could spread the word by speaking to reporters from the top martial arts magazines. But none of them would bite. The closest that I came was a phone call with Jim Coleman, the executive editor of Black Belt. But Coleman seemed repulsed by War of the Worlds, as though I was going to be corrupting the nation’s youth with my plan to stage “dirty fighting.”
I got used to rejection. I was knocking on the doors of established martial arts organizations and dojos, and these guys were set in their ways. To them, I was a newcomer, an outsider. What did I know? But, I was too stupid and stubborn to take their rejection as final. I had a vision. All I had to do was recruit enough people to get this off the ground. If I could do that I knew everybody would see what this actually was, and we would be flying at that point. The problem was to make sure that I enlisted enough viable brave souls to join this ship of fools with me as the navigator.
Undeterred, I purchased a series of quarter page ads in the magazines Black Belt, Inside Karate and Inside Kung Fu, which heralded the $50,000 first prize, and dangled the chance to “Compete as one of the toughest punchers, kickers and grapplers in the world in this full-contact, no-holds-barred tournament” and, “Show yourself to the world.” Some of the ads specified that a fee of $100 had to accompany the application. Rorion was always listed as the matchmaker, with the Gracie Academy phone and fax numbers included.
I did this figuring that Rorion’s name had a hell of a lot more credibility than mine in the fight world, and even if the prospective fighter had never heard of Rorion or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, at least his call would be answered at a martial arts school. When the messages and faxes came in to Rorion, he would then pass them on to me.
Aside from the Rorion as matchmaker sleight of hand in the ads, I also squeezed the truth in three other ways. I listed the date of the event as October 2, figuring that this would get fighters off their collective asses a lot faster than if they knew we weren’t actually going to be fighting until November 12. I was running out of time, and I needed to fill six spots in the tournament bracket.
I also wrote in the ad that the fighters would compete in “A pit designed by famed film director John Milius.” Anything to motivate the talent.
And I listed the name of our event as “World’s Best Fighter.” SEG was expressing to me the same concerns that I had long held about the name War of the Worlds—that it opened us up to a copyright infringement claim related to the H.G. Wells book, the 1953 Paramount film or both. Meyrowitz, Campbell and SEG’s main sales guy Mike Abramson, all thought as well that War of the Worlds didn’t sound like a fighting tournament. Their attitude, which made sense to me, was that a brand new event had to have an obvious name—one which would let people know immediately what they were going to see. World’s Best Fighter met that criteria, but it didn’t pop enough for them, or any of us really. It just sounded too bland.
Here is a 1993 advertisement I placed in various martial arts magazines soliciting fighters for our no-holds-barred event.
From studying Tex Rickard and Mike Jacobs
, legendary boxing promoters from the first half of the 20th century, I knew that to create buzz and sell tickets, you needed a shark. This was an extremely talented fighter who you built up carefully by feeding goldfish, also known in the boxing parlance of the Rickard/Jacobs era as a “tomato soup can.” Eventually, when your shark was ready, you matched him up against another shark—with one portrayed to the public and media as the hero, the other as the villain. These were the biggest fights of all. Look no further than the two heavyweight world title bouts between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney that took place in 1926 and 1927 as a classic example of this approach.
Even with my concerns, Royce was a shark, a baby shark perhaps, but a shark nonetheless. Pat Smith looked like a shark, but the more that I talked to him on the phone, the more he seemed to have the mental frailty of a goldfish. Smith could go either way.
The fake October 2 event date seemed to serve its purpose. To my great relief, the magazine ads proved to be a success, and the replies started trickling in. We even received more than a dozen $100 checks in the mail from hopeful fighters, including one from Trent Jenkins, a Sabaki Challenge veteran from Denver.
One of the first calls was from Kevin Rosier, who said that he had experience as a pro boxer, and was the three-time World Kickboxing Association (WKA) super heavyweight champion. He told me that he could knock out anyone in the world with his “big right hand,” but that his fighting career had been derailed by dirty promoters.
