Is This Legal

by Art Davie

  Locking in our eight tournament fighters gave me an incredible sense of both satisfaction and relief, but then I realized that I still had more work to do. There was a serious likelihood that a fighter could win his bout, but then be too injured, too exhausted, or both, to continue on in the tournament. I had to get an alternate, who would be on stand-by, and ready to jump in at a moment’s notice.

  Jim Mullen was a 23-year-old taekwondo black belt who had contacted me after seeing our ad. He had a solid kickboxing pedigree, but at just over 200 lb., lacked the size of my other two American representatives of that sport, Rosier and Frazier. He seemed like a nice kid though, and I offered him a spot as my alternate, which he quickly accepted. Hedging my bets, I then decided that I really needed two alternates, just in case everything went wrong.

  Rorion asked me one Friday what I thought about Jason DeLucia.

  “The kung fu guy. Nice kid,” I said.

  DeLucia was a stylist in Five Animals Kung Fu and had studied aikido. He first came to the west coast trying to get Steven Seagal to fight him, after the action film star had made some bold claims in a martial arts magazine. He was of course never able to get anywhere close to Seagal, so DeLucia then went to the Gracies in search of a fight. He was given Royce as an opponent, and summarily defeated, but not without showing a great deal of heart. The fight was included as part of the second Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tape, as a showcase for Royce. But watching it, I couldn’t help but admire how doggedly determined DeLucia had been, despite getting pummeled.

  After this loss, DeLucia became absolutely obsessed with Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I got to know him a little bit at the Academy, and I always liked how he carried himself.

  DeLucia had been lobbying both Rorion and me for a place in the tournament. So when Rorion mentioned him as a possible alternate, I thought he was a worthwhile choice. DeLucia was so determined and tenacious, I figured he would walk to Denver, just for the opportunity to be on stand-by.

  With that I now had my 10 fighters, eight for the tournament and two alternates. But what I still didn’t have was a signed contract with SEG. In the business world of sharks and goldfish, I couldn’t help but wonder how Bob Meyrowitz viewed me.

  CHAPTER 9

  IS THIS LEGAL?

  THE GODS ARE ON THE SIDE OF THE STRONGER.

  — TACITUS, Histories, Bk IV, 17

  THE third week in August 1993, Campbell flew out to LA to meet with me. He said that was the reason, but I suspected he actually had other business, and was squeezing me in. I was happy to see him nonetheless, as we had very quickly developed a friendly working relationship through our regular phone calls. Campbell was due to stay at the Chateau Marmont, but ended up at the Mondrian. Both of these were fancy “show business” hotels that producers and stars frequented. When I hooked up with him at the Mondrian close to dinnertime, he told me that he wasn’t here to talk about the contract. That was for Meyrowitz and his brother David. Rather, he had pressing issues of his own, namely what were we going to call this thing, and what were we going to use as the fighting area.

  I was resigned to the fact that, legally, War of the Worlds just wasn’t going to fly. And then there was the issue raised by Campbell and everyone at SEG that War of the Worlds just didn’t sound specifically like a fighting competition. As much as I liked the name, it was really always a working title. At times, I found myself using World’s Best Fighter again, almost subconsciously hedging my bets. But Campbell didn’t like that name either—too generic. And Meyrowitz, the SEG broadcast producer Michael Pillot, and the SEG sales guy Mike Abramson, all felt the same.

  Just before Campbell flew out from New York, Abramson came up with the name Ultimate Fighting Championship. It was his brainstorm and his alone, and it just felt too long, too convoluted to me.

  Over the phone, Abramson had tried to be persuasive.

  “Ultimate. There is nothing beyond ultimate. Think about that, Art. Nothing above and beyond ultimate.”

  I actually loved the words ultimate, fighting and championship, just not in that three-word sequence. But I couldn’t think of a better alternative. Campbell said that he was on board with this name, and Meyrowitz thought it worked as well. I told Campbell that I’d talk to Rorion about it, who I knew would probably have no strong opinion one way or the other.

  As for our fighting area, Rorion did have strong opinions. Repeatedly he had told me that he didn’t care what we used, as long as it wasn’t a boxing ring. Rorion had fought in them personally, and had seen them used in vale tudo fights in Brazil, including with his dad and his brother Rickson. In Rorion’s opinion, they just didn’t work when grappling was involved. And it was without question that grappling would be involved as far as Royce was concerned. Rorion felt that a boxing ring allowed a grounded fighter to slide under the ring ropes for a quick exit, or tie himself up in the ropes to avoid being taken down.

  Here I am with Campbell McLaren while we were both still sober. We loved Cuban cigars and single malt scotch in those days—although he was a Cohiba fan and I favored the Montecristo #2.

  I didn’t really care how this would affect Royce, but I did care about the flow of the fights. Rorion made a lot of sense. We needed brutal action, not stalling and escapes. Campbell bought into this logic when I relayed Rorion’s sentiments.

  “But what would we use then, wrestling mats?” he asked me. Campbell’s brother-in-law had apparently been a wrestler, and he’d gone to him for some ideas.

  Inspired by Milius and all of his talk of spectacle and grandiosity, I’d been thinking about this quite a bit. Rorion and I had already spread word around the Gracie Academy that any ideas were welcome—no matter how unrealistic or outrageous.

  One of Rorion’s students proposed something he called “the Cage of Death.” It featured a mesh enclosure suspended from the ceiling, which would be dramatically lowered from the rafters to surround the fighting mat, and then locked into place. I thought this was pretty cool, and incredibly theatrical. The guy gave me his notes and a sketch. Seeing it on paper, I liked the Cage of Death even more. But it would require a lot of precise coordination and solid engineering that I wasn’t sure we could accomplish.

  On my own, I came up with three ideas. The first was a circular grappling mat, which would be bordered on the outside by electrified copper flooring panels. My thought was that a fighter would be discouraged from fleeing or even backpedaling, as he would know that a small jolt of electricity was waiting for him. The shock would be nothing major; just a little tingle similar to what happens when a person touches an electrified fence. I floated this idea by Rorion, and he in turn mentioned it to one of his students who was a doctor.

  “Are you guys trying to kill someone?” was the M.D.’s terse reply.

  The doctor explained that if a sweaty fighter landed stomach first on the electrified panels, he could possibly suffer ventricular fibrillation—a rapid contraction of the heart—which could cause a heart attack or even sudden death. So I moved on.

  My second idea felt truly revolutionary to me, and I was curious to see if I’d found the answer. We’d build a huge Plexiglas box, open only on top and with a door created on one side. The fighters would have no way to escape the battle, and the view of the in-house and PPV television audiences would never be obstructed. With a look of disbelief, Rorion asked me about the flooring, and I told him that it would probably be Plexiglas as well.

  “And you think this would be a good idea for fighting on the ground, Arturo?”

  He, of course, had a valid point. It would be very uncomfortable, especially for Royce, who was just as offensive and effective fighting off of his back as he was on top of his opponent. Holding closed guard with a 220-pound man on top of you while lying on hard Plexiglas, was not a pleasant proposition. And how about my enormous sumo wrestler Teila Tuli potentially slamming someone down onto the floor? Plus, I started thinking back to my conversations with Pillot about the numerous bright lights required for the broadca
st. Clear, shiny Plexiglas was going to look like the surface of the sun on TV, although I did love the thought of putting a camera below the fighters, and shooting upwards for a really unique view.

  My third idea also involved a grappling mat, but this time it would be surrounded by a moat, filled with water, and sharks or piranhas. Again, an incentive for both fighters to keep moving forward. It would be a gimmick, as we’d use sand sharks or lemon sharks, neither of which are particularly threatening when it comes to humans; or piranhas that would be well fed, thus making them about as dangerous to the submerged fighters as catfish. But what a gimmick it would be.

  My enthusiasm, though, quickly gave way to the cold, hard and un-sexy world of logistics. We would have to transport all of those fish from who knows where to the venue. And we’d have to fill up the moat with water, adding a lot of time to the set up. How practical would this be, event after event? I didn’t even mention my sharks and piranhas concept to Rorion.

  At that point, I had nothing concrete for Campbell when we met at the Mondrian, other than a lot of Milius-inspired “think big” ideas. Since I felt we were inventing this thing as we went along, it seemed appropriate to offer up anything and everything that came to mind, no matter how out-of-the-box. Campbell and I smoked cigars and sipped single malt as we riffed on what the fighting area could be. It was a laugh-filled night, and I felt a definite “show business” vibe hanging out with my hippy-dippy pal from back east.

  “Why didn’t you wind up staying at the Chateau Marmont?” I asked him at one point.

  “Too many echoes from my misspent youth,” Campbell said with a wink and a grin.

  “Drugs?”

  “Well, you know you can still get a contact high from staying there. That’s where John Belushi bought it,” Campbell darkly joked, about the famed comic actor who had died from a drug overdose at that hotel in 1982.

  The next night, Rorion and I took Campbell to meet Milius for dinner at Schatzi in Santa Monica, which was owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Once a month, Cigar Night was held at Schatzi, and a who’s who of Hollywood would turn out to eat and smoke and smoke some more. We had chosen Schatzi for just this reason, as all of us were cigar aficionados, apart from Rorion of course.

  Milius was in outstanding form, telling one showbiz story after another. Campbell was entranced and entertained. Rorion meanwhile looked as though he was about to pass out, as he was the only one of the 90-plus diners who did not have a cigar in hand. He continually excused himself to get fresh air outside.

  Schwarzenegger worked the room, shaking hands, and carrying a big prop cigar. He was amazing, like a politician running for office.

  At one point in the evening, Schwarzenegger and Sven Ole Thorsen came to our table. Thorsen was one of Schwarzenegger’s closest pals and a co-founder of Cigar Night at the restaurant. As well as being an actor, Thorsen was a bodybuilder and power lifter, and had won the title of Denmark’s Strongest Man in 1982. He’d had roles in a number of films that starred his Austrian buddy, including Conan the Barbarian, The Running Man and Total Recall.

  Schwarzenegger greeted his Conan director by throwing up his arms theatrically and exclaiming, “Ah, the Milius!”

  Milius introduced us, and when Thorsen asked Rorion, who he knew from the movie business, what we were all working on together, he mumbled, “We’re... uh... doing something with fighting.”

  I had never seen Rorion this subdued—ever. I didn’t know if it was the evening’s star power or cigar smoke, but he barely said a word. Milius said plenty, but very little had anything to do with the issues still undecided for our fighting tournament. Our creative director was an outstanding dinner companion, but we, as a group, didn’t move the needle very far forward.

  It had been an enjoyable evening, but it just wasn’t much of a working session.

  Campbell and I agreed that he’d take my half-formed theories on the fighting area to Pillot when he returned to the SEG offices. As the TV producer, Pillot would have to take into consideration our input plus whatever parameters and issues would be involved with the live PPV broadcast.

  When Campbell was back at his office in New York, he called and asked me again what I thought about the name proposed by Abramson. I still wasn’t crazy about “the Ultimate Fighting Championship,” but the posters, press kits and marketing materials all needed to get made, and they were on hold until we got this issue settled. So I gave Campbell my consent, but told him that it just wasn’t catchy enough. I felt that the name needed to be shortened, but I was bereft of ideas. So the Ultimate Fighting Championship it was. I knew that I should have been more pro-active, given my ad agency experience. I had sold and created product names for a number of client companies. But when the chips were on the line with what to call my pet project, I came up short.

  On this call, Campbell also told me he had talked to Pillot about all of my ideas, concepts and theories regarding our fighting area. To make sure we were heard, I then drafted a fax with a list of bullet points for a designer to use in its creation. It was based on Rorion’s anti-boxing ring position, plus considerations from me about the canvas and the padding underneath. I also suggested in this fax that the fighting area should be at least 30 feet in diameter—six feet bigger than a standard world championship boxing ring.

  Pillot then gave my list, along with his TV production requirements, to two set designers in California he had worked with in the past: Greg Harrison and Jason Cusson. Pillot told them that we wanted it to look almost primitive, incorporating the feeling of ancient Pankration and the Roman Coliseum.

  Soon after, I was shown four preliminary design sketches that Harrison and Cusson had created. The first looked like a standard boxing ring, but instead of ropes, a wall of thick fencing surrounded the perimeter. The fence, which started on the floor, and extended a few feet above the canvas, was topped with barbed wire. In the four corners of the ring were lit torches for obvious dramatic effect.

  The second sketch also featured what seemed like a boxing ring, but this one had an inner fighting area that was enclosed by a thick rope netting, similar to what would hang behind home plate at a baseball stadium. The netting was held in place by support poles anchored just outside the four corners of the ring.

  The third depicted the fighting area with an elevated circular mat. In essence, a raised platform. The mat sloped down to be surrounded by an inside circular walkway, with a circular chain link fence around the perimeter.

  The fourth and final sketch that I saw employed an octagon shape, enclosed by a chain link fence, and surrounded by an outer catwalk. It was elevated, just like a boxing ring, and had two entry gates placed on opposite sides, which could be locked shut. I immediately felt that this was our winner, as did Harrison, Cusson, and everyone at SEG.

  As we hit September and two months out from our November 12 premiere date, things were rolling. Moss was making real headway with Meyrowitz and his brother David in the negotiations. Just after Campbell departed from LA, Moss had successfully been able to negotiate that SEG, and not W.O.W. Promotions, would pay the full bill for the design and construction of the fighting area. It was a small victory in the larger war that was still raging over the unsigned contract between our two sides.

  Kathy Kidd was even better than I had expected, and she had assembled a support staff that came to include her gal pals, Sally Starr and Terry Parr. Collectively, their names sounded to me like the roster of some Ivy League sorority. Kathy also hired Elaine McCarthy as our travel coordinator. Elaine owned Katella Travel with her mom, and was the wife of John McCarthy, the LAPD cop I knew from the Gracie Academy.

  Jeff Black, the VP of music at SEG, gave me the number of Barry Fey, a guy who he said could really help us with local ticket sales.

  Fey was a living legend in the concert business, and the fact that he was based in Denver, made him an ideal choice. He was known as the “Rockfather,” and had first established himself by bringing big name English music acts to the
U.S., including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Who. Three times Fay had been voted Promoter of the Year by Billboard magazine, and one of his crowning achievements was U2’s show at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, which was the basis of the 1984 concert film Under a Blood Red Sky.

  I had, of course, never promoted a fight or a music concert, so I was all for the idea. Plus, with everything going on, I was in no position to start hawking tickets in Denver.

  Meyrowitz then followed up Black’s call, and said that I should personally reach out to Fey, and sell him on our event.

  When I got Fey on the phone, I told him all about the Ultimate Fighting Championship, as well as the uniqueness of our fighters and the fights themselves.

  “Think of this like one of your big rock concerts. Lots of theatrics and fireworks to get the crowd going.”

  I then went on to tell Fey that while I knew that “the real money” was in the PPV broadcast, the in-house show was still very important to me.

  With that, Fey suddenly got very quiet, and soon after ended the call.

  Thirty minutes later, my phone rang, and Meyrowitz was on the line.

  “What do you mean by fucking up a deal with Barry Fey? Do you know how fucking hard it is to bring a Barry Fey to the table? What the fuck is with you?”

  I had never heard Meyrowitz lose his cool like this before, even in our contract negotiating sessions.

  “I’m spending a lot of fucking money to make this work. I don’t need you running around like a bull in a China shop with Barry Fey!”

  Apparently, I had insulted Fey by denigrating the live event and its revenue potential. I immediately called him back, said that I was sorry if I had offended him in any way, and told him that I felt fortunate he wanted to be involved in our event. To his credit, Fey accepted my apology, and we quickly moved on. I had no doubt that Fey knew that the “real money” was indeed in the PPV broadcast, and not his in-arena ticket sales. But this was a guy who had made his living, and his reputation, by staging amazing live shows. And he wasn’t about to let some fast-talking fight promoter from Torrance, California demean his bread and butter.