by Art Davie
With the Fey crisis averted, Campbell called me and said that I should also contact Zane Bresloff, who was the World Wrestling Federation’s promoter in the Rocky Mountain states. Fey and Bresloff knew each other, and had both done business with Meyrowitz.
Bresloff and I hit it off immediately, and on our second phone call, he impressed me with his insight.
“Art, I looked over the list of the fighter bios that you sent me, and either your jiu-jitsu guy or this Shamrock character will win the whole thing.”
“How do you figure that?” I asked.
“Easy. None of these other palookas know anything about grappling. The best grappler always wins.”
Even though Bresloff had come to me from the world of pro wrestling works, he seemed to possess a fundamental understanding of fighting that was lost on Meyrowitz.
Fey, Bresloff and I quickly formed an alliance, in which W.O.W. Promotions would get a $25,000 guarantee, and then our two sides would split everything 50-50 that came in from ticket sales above that sum.
Despite the PPV broadcast being my absolute priority, I didn’t want us playing to rows upon rows of empty seats at the massive McNichols Arena. I knew that would be an instant mood killer, and immediately register as a huge red flag for our live TV audience. I was happy with the deal, as I had two guys who knew how to sell tickets, and were financially incentivized to bust their ass. Plus, they were both there in Denver, and were paying us a sizeable guaranteed advance regardless of what happened.
In our contract with Fey and Bresloff, I was able to negotiate a clause that let W.O.W. Promotions control some of the best seats in the house, as well as sell travel packages to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which would be coordinated through Elaine McCarthy. My idea was to target our investors, students at the Gracie Academy, and the database of names that we’d assembled through the Gracie videotape sales.
For the local Denver market, Fey and Bresloff set their ticket prices at $10, $15, $20, and $25. We offered our market two travel packages, the “Deluxe” which cost $269 for one person and $319 for two; and the “VIP” which went for $359 for a single, and $499 for a double. The VIP Package included a seat (or two) in one of the first two rows (listed at $50 per ticket), three nights at our headquarters hotel, an autograph and photo session with the fighters, a post-fight cocktail party and a masked ball and supper the night after the fights.
In writing up this one-sheet brochure, I wanted it to be as concise as possible. I’d already used the word “ultimate” twice in the copy, and I didn’t want to be redundant. I was also running out of room at the bottom of the page. So I shortened the Ultimate Fighting Championship to “UFC.” I hadn’t used this three letter abbreviation previously, nor had I heard anyone else refer to our event by this shortened name. To me, UFC had a nice concise quality to it, like NFL or NBA. I just wasn’t sure if it would take hold, as no one really knew what those letters meant out of context.
Right after I got a handle on the tickets, we landed our first sponsor, and it was a good one. Through Kathy’s original contact, I’d been able to meet with Pete and Paul Grymkowski, the brothers who owned Gold’s Gym Enterprises, Inc., based in Southern California. As part of the deal, our fight poster would be hung in Gold’s Gym locations across the U.S., we would get Gold’s Gym merchandise for our use in marketing, and the Grymkowski Brothers would attend our first event in Denver along with a number of their senior executives. They also put out the word in their company’s monthly magazine which featured a photo of Pete, Rorion, Derek Barton (their marketing VP) and me.
Pete had been a well-known bodybuilding champion on the North American scene, who quickly became a darling of Iron Man magazine. In 1979, along with two partners, Pete purchased Gold’s Gym. The following year, he brought in his brother Paul to help run the business, and soon after they launched a national and international licensing and franchise program. Within a few years, there were Gold’s Gyms all over the world, and the Grymkowski brothers were multi-millionaires.
This deal further motivated me to get SEG the necessary materials to create our poster for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the design and cost of which had been negotiated as their responsibility. What they needed from me were any relevant photographs and brief fighter bio information, such as records and titles.
For their part, SEG put an artist to work on creating the logo for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It was contractually their responsibility to both design and pay for it, although I was able to offer my input. I asked Rorion his thoughts on the matter, and just as I expected, he told me that he would be good with whatever I liked.
In attempting to create the quintessential iconic image of the tournament, SEG came back to me with a bald fighter, in red trunks and a gold belt, with both fists extended. The fighter was straddling a globe, which had a yellow banner in front, on which was written in bold all capital red letters “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” In the lower right hand corner, also written in red caps, was a phrase I had given SEG, “There Are No Rules” which was followed by an exclamation point, for obvious emphasis.
My tagline aside, I didn’t love the logo that SEG created, but I didn’t hate it either. I thought it was decent, and I was expecting a lot more from them than decent. But I felt that I had much bigger concerns, namely the matter of the still unsigned contract. The logo I dubbed “Mr. Clean,” in reference to the famous cleaning products’ illustrated pitch man, would have to do.
As the staff at SEG got busy putting together the promo kit that would be sent to cable systems across the country, it came to me for approval. With my background in advertising, I felt that I could properly evaluate what they were doing. Ad slicks and posters were marketing tools I had a great deal of experience with. There was a lot of discussion over what photos to use on the official fight poster, with numerous opinions offered. Since there was obviously no existing footage of our event, I knew that we had to improvise.
SEG asked me for pictures of all eight tournament fighters, but I told them that no one knew who any of these guys were, so we should just go with one really cool photograh that screamed “fighting.” Rorion suggested that we use a photo he owned of a vale tudo fight in Brazil between Fabio Gurgel and Denilson Maia.
I didn’t think that it was perfect, but SEG said that it was good enough for them to use as the poster’s centerpiece image.
Collecting the fighter bios was a hilarious experience for me. Pat Smith had already told me about his record of 250-0. Kevin Rosier said that he had 66 wins, all by knockout. When I was recruiting fighters, it quickly became apparent that everyone was a world champion or a 10th degree black belt or on a 100-fight winning streak. Usually the fighters claimed that it was all of the above.
Outside of professional boxing, there just wasn’t much in the way of official and standardized record keeping in combat sports and martial arts. And there was an alphabet soup of organizations, federations and sanctioning bodies, all with their own recognized titleholders. Rather than become the Hall of Records, I figured that I’d let the fighters claim whatever they wanted. They could prove it in our tournament.
I was sensitive to what we could say about Royce, other than he was a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Rorion provided me with info from an organization in Brazil that claimed Royce was their world light-heavyweight champion, had a record of 132-1 as an amateur, and 13-0 as a professional. I wanted to say, “What the fuck is this? When was Royce a pro? How and where did he become their champion?”
But I remembered my newfound philosophy, and kept my mouth shut, while doing my best to suppress a laugh. I especially liked that Rorion included one defeat on his brother’s record. This made me think of the dictators who announce to the world media that they have won re-election with 99 percent of the vote, fearing that if they claimed to have received 100 percent of the vote, nobody would take them seriously.
As I was so focused on my deals with Fey/Bresloff and Gold’s Gym, travel packa
ges, the fight poster, and fighter records, it didn’t hit me right away that my contact with Campbell and everyone at SEG was starting to taper off. But then I realized that our regular phone calls were happening with less and less frequency since Campbell and I had met at the Mondrian. And when we did talk, more often than not, it was me dialing him in New York and not the other way around.
This was a letter faxed to me by a jiu-jitsu sanctioning body in Brazil testifying that Royce Gracie was their light-heavyweight champion. I wasn’t positive that this wasn’t just a gift from a Gracie family pal in their hometown.
I confronted Campbell, and he told me, “Art, you always see conspiracies on our part when you don’t get your way.”
This didn’t reassure me, and instead made me think of something that I’d once heard: “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.”
For all of the progress that we’d made with SEG since our meetings at their offices in May, and our meeting at the W.O.W. office during the summer, we still didn’t have a deal. In theory, they could pull out at any time, and there wasn’t a thing that Rorion and I could do about it. I didn’t really think this was a possibility, as Meyrowitz, Campbell, Pillot, Abramson and everyone at SEG had put in a lot of money, time and work on the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But still.
So, on September 15 I faxed a two-page letter to Meyrowitz outlining my complaints. I broke them down into six areas, which I underlined for emphasis—“lack of regular professional communication,” “sloppy execution,” “you’re not giving the project 100 percent,” “you’re not treating us like a partner,” “we are concerned about your staffing adequacy,” and “strained relationships.”
I then gave a summary of gripes under each of these six headings, such as the write-up of the Ultimate Fighting Championship that SEG sent out to cable systems across the country had “18 typo and factual errors, including the misspelling of Rorion’s name!” and “no one in your organization seems to be in charge of the UFC when Campbell is preoccupied with overseas trips and jury duty. Jury duty?!”
In conclusion, I wrote:
We’re not threating to pull out of either the November 12 show or the five-year commitment. But as I have told Campbell, we are unhappy with aspects of your performance composed to the picture which was painted for us and to which we responded by agreeing to your 6/3/93 offer. And we’re not pleased when it comes to how we’re being treated. Knowing what we do today, we are very concerned that this long-term commitment will be mutually beneficial given the current circumstances and climate. We think it has to improve or it jeopardizes the project’s success. We need to talk and we suggest that you tell us when. We feel strongly that our attorney be present for this conference call.
I made the document from both Rorion and me, and I had him sign it just above my signature. Rorion wasn’t overly concerned, as he felt that this was just posturing on my behalf to get us a better deal. And I was posturing to a certain extent, including when I put in this letter that we had agreed, in principle, to their original contract offer of June 3. But I didn’t feel that SEG was giving us their best effort, at least not anymore, and combined with their decreased frequency in communication and the never-ending contract negotiations, this had me genuinely concerned.
Rather than answer me personally, Meyrowitz had Campbell respond to my letter. He told me not to worry, that SEG was fully behind the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and that the lawyers Moss and David would get everything sorted. There was still a huge elephant in the room—the lack of an actual agreement between W.O.W. and SEG—but it seemed that the elephant had at least moved a few inches.
I felt a lot better after getting my frustrations out via fax, and Moss told me we were getting closer. SEG was slowly making concessions, and as tough as Meyrowitz and David had been, it was clear to Moss that they were determined to do this deal.
By the end of September, SEG was more engaged, and they sent me a copy of our official Ultimate Fighting Championship poster. The Gurgel/Maia photo was front and center, surrounded by a black border with red stars and the names of the eight tournament fighters in reversed type. Down the left side—top to bottom—were the names of Royce, Smith, Tuli and Frazier. Listed down the right side of the poster—top to bottom—were Gordeau, Jimmerson, Rosier and Shamrock.
Below each fighter’s name, a few lines of bio information were listed, mixing fact and fiction. For Shamrock, it read: “220 lb. 6-foot-0, Lockeford, CA, #1 ranked shootfighter in the world, Japanese Pancrase Association.” I let Royce have his 13-0 record, but I couldn’t go with 250-0 for Smith. It was just too ridiculous, even for a fight poster built on over-the-top hype. So I had sent SEG his combined documented pro boxing and pro kickboxing records, which worked out to 17-2, and that’s what was listed.
Written in thick reversed type over the Gurgel/Maia picture was, “The Ultimate! Sumo vs. Kickboxing vs. Karate vs. Jiu-Jitsu vs. Tae Kwon Do vs. Boxing vs. Savate vs. Shootfighting. Who will be the Ultimate Fighter?” In the bottom right corner was the four-word tagline, inspired by my days in the ad business, that I had suggested to SEG: “There Are No Rules!”
It was a take-no-prisoners positioning statement, but there were, of course, going to be some rules. We weren’t going to let a fighter get repeatedly kicked in the balls or have his ear bitten off on live TV. But if young guys thought those brutalities were a possibility, then they just might be inspired to buy a ticket or call their local cable company and place an order.
As we hit October, there were still jobs on the Ultimate Fighting Championship that needed to be filled—the referee and the television commentators.
The ref would be our call, and the commentators would be a joint decision between W.O.W. and SEG, which really boiled down to Campbell and me. For some time I’d been thinking about “Judo” Gene LeBell to be our referee. It would be an homage to the brief and scattered past of 20th century mixed match fighting, as LeBell had of course choked out the boxer Milo Savage in 1963 and 13 years later refereed the Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki debacle in Japan. LeBell was a no-bullshit, old-school tough guy who wouldn’t be intimidated by any of the fighters. But Rorion shot his name down as quickly as I brought it up.
In 1983, Rorion had a bit acting role and some stunt work on an episode of the Robert Wagner TV series Hart to Hart, on which LeBell was also working. As Rorion told it, the two hit it off, and he was invited by LeBell to come to his school and roll with some of the better students. Apparently, Rorion choked them all out, one after the other. LeBell got more and more pissed off, and started dismissing Rorion’s obviously impressive grappling and submission skills. So Rorion challenged LeBell to have a go with him on the mat, but his host declined. Words were exchanged, and that was the end of their very brief friendship.
No way now after all those years was Rorion going to do anything for LeBell. I didn’t argue, as Rorion so rarely raised his objections to any of my ideas. But I didn’t know who else to get. There were big name boxing refs like Mills Lane and Richard Steele, but I didn’t think that I could interest them, and even if I could, I figured they’d likely know nothing about ground fighting and submissions.
Rorion told me not to worry, as he had two old friends back in Brazil who would be perfect. Hélio Vigio and Joao Alberto Barreto were both Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belts who he said would understand the intricacies of the fights we were going to stage. Neither spoke English, but Rorion assured me that it wouldn’t matter, as the two men would have a commanding presence that would produce immediate respect from the fighters.
I agreed, but then went about doing some research. The fact that they’d be giving instructions in Portuguese was a bit troubling, and so to was the cost of their flights from Brazil to Denver and back. I had to be certain that these guys could do the job.
From what I could find, Barreto was a big footnote in the annals of vale tudo. Sometime around 1960, Barreto was fighting in a match on the Brazilian television program Heróis d
o Ringue (Heroes of the Ring). Barreto apparently caught his opponent in an arm bar, and when his opponent refused to submit, Barreto broke his arm. This led to a big public outcry in Brazil, and the show was soon off the air.
What I read about Vigio was a bit more troubling. The term Esquadrão da Morte (death squad) kept coming up, but I could never tell if this was fact or opinion, and these stories were in Portuguese, a language in which I was far from fluent. I did, however, find a solid bit of reporting in English from an extremely credible source. An Associated Press story, dated July 24, 1987, detailed a Rio de Janeiro police team rescuing a woman and her daughter from gunmen, “led by Brazil’s best-known man-hunter, Police Chief Hélio Vigio.”
Maybe there was another guy in Brazil named Hélio Vigio. Maybe this was the right Hélio Vigio and he was a brave protector of the public from the criminal element. Or maybe it was something far different. I had no way of knowing and I certainly wasn’t going to press Rorion. Vigio and Barreto were his friends, and Rorion said that his father was in favor of them as well. That was good enough for me and I stopped digging.
I knew that finding our television commentators was going to be a far more involved process. Rorion suggested we use Rod Machado, a student at the Gracie Academy who’d been a host of the straight-to-video series ABC Wide World of Flying. I didn’t think Machado had the star power that we needed to be one of our main broadcasters, but I figured we could bring him in on Royce’s fights to discuss the intricacies of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. He was good-looking, well-spoken and in possession of a head of hair usually found on local TV news anchors.
The guy who I thought would be perfect was Chuck Norris. He was a martial arts legend in the U.S., arguably second only to Bruce Lee; an action movie star in films such Way of the Dragon, Lone Wolf McQuaid, and The Delta Force; and had a new television series on CBS, Walker, Texas Ranger. As far as I was concerned, Chuck could be our play-by-play commentator, color analyst, back stage interviewer, anything he wanted. I’d pay him just to show up in Denver, sign autographs and wave at the camera.
