Let’s Get It On! (16 page)

The Gracie family opened their first jiu-jitsu academy in 1925 in Brazil, nearly a dozen years after a Japanese foreigner named Esai Maeda, also called Conde Koma or Count Combat, had befriended Helio’s father, Gastão, a respected politician.

Gastão and his family lived in the northern state of Pará in Brazil. Gastão helped Maeda, who was part of a Japanese colony there, establish himself in Para. In gratitude, Maeda, a champion martial artist, offered to teach Japanese jiu-jitsu to the oldest son of Gastão’s family.

For the next few years, Carlos Gracie learned the self-defense art, then passed it on to his four brothers. One of those siblings was Helio, the youngest and frailest. Helio was said to get winded scaling a flight of stairs, but from the sidelines he intently watched his brothers master the moves on the mats.

One day when his brother Carlos was late for a private lesson he would be instructing, sixteen-year-old Helio offered to begin the session with the student. When Carlos finally did walk into the academy, the student asked if his brother could continue the lesson. Carlos agreed, and Helio became another instructor.

Helio was an innovator and could see beyond what others did. He realized quickly that many of the Japanese jiu-jitsu moves relied on strength, something he didn’t possess. For the next few years, Helio modified every move he’d learned to manipulate leverage and timing in his favor. The eventual result was Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, also referred to as Brazilian jiu-jitsu today.

Word of Helio’s new effective techniques spread throughout Brazil. Fighters came from far and wide to challenge him. Helio, whose small frame never surpassed more than 140 pounds, wasn’t afraid to demonstrate his system.

In 1932, Helio submitted boxer Antonio Portugal in thirty seconds with an armlock. Helio would go on to fight seventeen more times, submitting wrestlers, judokas, and sumo wrestlers alike. Sometimes Helio would issue his own challenges to the well-known practitioners of the day.

Because of Brazil’s fascination with combat sports, many of these battles were fought in stadiums filled with thousands of people. Helio didn’t win every time, and on numerous occasions the bouts were declared draws, but no opponent ever spoke ill of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu when leaving the proving ground.

Helio’s most famous match was against the much heavier judo expert Masahiko Kimura at a Rio de Janeiro stadium, where the president of Brazil and thousands of other spectators watched.

Because of their size difference, Kimura told Gracie, “If you last more than two minutes with me, you should be viewed as the winner.”

The match lasted thirteen minutes. Kimura controlled most of it and finally caught Helio in a reverse ude-garami, a type of shoulder lock that eventually broke Helio’s arm.
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When the thirty-eight-year-old Helio wouldn’t tap out to Kimura, Helio’s older brother Carlos threw in a towel to stop the match. The results graced the covers of the local newspapers the next day.

Helio also fought what could be considered the longest uninterrupted MMA bout in history when he grappled with his former student Waldemar Santana for three hours and forty-two minutes at a private event. Gracie lost due to a kick to the head as well as exhaustion. In 1967, fifty-four-year-old Helio fought his last public match.

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and other forms of combat sports continued to grow in Brazil. In the 1960s, the early forms of MMA, called vale tudo, or “anything goes,” found its way to TV on a show in Brazil called
Heróis do Ringue.
Some of the Gracie family participated as coaches. The bouts attracted all styles, including another popular discipline called luta livre, or “free fighting.”

Soon the popularity of the sport would cross national borders. Rorion, the oldest of Helio’s seven sons, was the first to come to America to spread the gospel of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Out of his garage in Southern California, Rorion taught private lessons and accepted the frequent challenges of nonbelievers who would seek him out. Some of those bouts, along with a detailed version of the Gracie family history as told by them, were captured on the
Gracie in Action
videotapes.

When Rorion decided to create the War of the Worlds tournament, it came from the greatest inspiration of all and one that I could personally identify with: his father. At Rorion’s gym, we’d all watched the tapes of vale tudo fights from Brazil.

Rorion said, “I am going to bring these fights to America. It will be like those fights you see on TV.” The ambitious Rorion wanted Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to become a household name in America and knew the TV medium could do just that.

Since Rorion had arrived in California in the late 1970s, he’d taught relentlessly and collected a diverse clientele. One Gracie student, Art Davie, then an advertising executive, began to develop War of the Worlds with his jiu-jitsu teacher. John Milius, another client and the writer and director of
Conan the Barbarian
and
Red Dawn,
also joined Rorion and Davie. The three men brainstormed and developed the concept of a sixteen-man single-elimination tournament where each participant would represent a recognized combat art.
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Milius, who became the show’s initial creative director, first conceptualized an eight-sided fighting structure, which Jason Cusson helped develop into an eight-sided cage with canvas-covered floor padding enclosed by fencing so competitors could neither flee nor fall off the sides or through a set of ropes. The cage was named the Octagon. Initially there was an elaborate plan to either surround it with a moat full of alligators or electrify the chain-link fencing. Cooler heads prevailed, and it was decided the cage alone would suffice.

Among Rorion’s students, friends, and family, he and Art gathered enough investors to fund the event and formed a company called WOW Promotions to produce it. Davie then pitched the concept as a one-off event to a handful of pay-per-view producers, including HBO and Showtime.

Semaphore Entertainment Group, a New York—based company that had been successful in the growing pay-per-view market, agreed to broadcast the event. Michael Abramson, an SEG executive, suggested that the name of the event be changed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to which everyone agreed.

Now it was time to pick the fighters. To find the fiercest, deadliest combat sports practitioners in the world, Rorion placed an ad in
Black Belt
magazine that simply said, “Are you tough enough?”

Rorion got a few replies, but he wanted to include certain types of fighters he’d have to go after himself. “I have to include a boxer,” he told me. At that time, boxers were seen as the baddest fighters on the planet.

Rorion and Davie approached both James “Bonecrusher” Smith and Leon Spinks to compete in the first tournament, but they turned it down because they didn’t know what the UFC was and Rorion had no footage to show them. However, Sam Solomon, a trainer of Spinks, was hired as a cutman for the event.

Though a bit skeptical, Art Jimmerson, a thirty-year-old journeyman boxer who was in line for a shot at an aging Tommy Hearns, agreed to enter the tournament. Jimmerson’s camp later expressed reservations and tried to withdraw him from the event. Acutely aware that much of their audience would recognize and relate to a boxer, Rorion convinced Jimmerson to stay on board by offering him $20,000 to simply show up, though most of the remaining seven fighters would be paid only $1,000 each to enter. The winner of the tournament, who’d have to survive three fights in a night, was promised a $50,000 prize.

Rorion and Art tried to recruit martial arts’ heaviest hitters, such as Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Dennis Alexio, Ernesto Hoost, and Peter Aerts, but they all turned down the offer. Not convinced the whole thing wasn’t illegal, Chuck Norris wouldn’t even accept a cageside seat from Art.

Zane Frazier, a karate expert from Southern California, got into the UFC because of a fight against Frank Dux, the legendary and controversial martial artist whose story was loosely adapted into the Jean-Claude Van Damme film
Bloodsport.
Rorion and Art had been at a karate tournament called the Long Beach Internationals when a real street fight had erupted. Rorion and Art had watched Frazier punch the shit out of Dux over a few disrespectful words.

Afterward, Rorion had told Frazier, “You’re a tough guy. You want to fight?”

Of course, one of the eight slots would go to a Gracie. The best jiu-jitsu black belt of all of Rorion’s six brothers was Rickson. He would have been the logical choice, but since he’d opened his own school in West Los Angeles away from Rorion’s Torrance academy, he wouldn’t get that slot. Rorion was pretty savvy when it came to the business side of things, which led to squabbles with some of his relatives. With UFC 1, Rorion wasn’t going to lose all those potential new students who would come looking for training after watching the show. He’d give the spot to his twenty-six-year-old brother, Royce, who taught at the Torrance academy.

I hadn’t had the money to put in the show when Rorion had been looking for investors, so my own contribution to the first UFC was relatively modest. I was enlisted as Royce’s sparring partner. Royce was six feet and about 176 pounds, which meant he would more than likely be the smallest fighter in the tournament, not that Rorion was worried about that. At nearly 290 pounds, I could help him prepare for the bigger opponents he’d be facing.

Rickson was still coming around to the academy to train Royce, but I could tell he was seriously pissed off with Rorion. Everybody thought Rickson was the better fighter by far, but he had to step aside and let Royce get the shot at glory.
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I was really excited about the first UFC and was sure people were going to love it. In my mind, there was no question it was legitimate, and I was protective of it.

A week before the event, I was listening to a local radio show and heard the hosts talking about “this ultimate fight challenge.” I decided to call in and give them some information. No matter what I said, though, the hosts just blasted the event. I had to defend the UFC before it even happened. It certainly wouldn’t be the last time.

I was so sure of the UFC that I even got Elaine a job as a travel assistant for the event coordinator, Kathy Kidd. Over the months and weeks leading up to the show, Elaine spoke to many of the fighters and their wives while booking flights and hotel rooms. Tina Shamrock was particularly confident about her husband, Ken, who had some experience fighting for a promotion in Japan called Pancrase. Tina basically told Elaine the UFC would be easy for Ken, he’d destroy everybody, and the $50,000 prize would be great for them.

When Elaine told me how assured Tina was during their phone calls, I took note, but I was far from convinced that Ken Shamrock would be the one to take it.

The week of the event, Elaine and I flew out to stay at the Executive Tower Inn in downtown Denver, Colorado, which was about six miles from the arena. Elaine spent most of the week prepping with the other staff members in one of the meeting rooms. Meanwhile, I joined Royce’s group, which included his brothers Royler, Relson, Rickson, and Rolker, as well as Fabio Santos, who worked at the Torrance academy, training at a local gym reserved for the fighters.

When I wasn’t with Royce, I was helping Rorion. There wasn’t really a promotional model to follow for this type of show, so we were all just winging it, which meant there were tons of last-minute snafus to fix. When Rorion needed a certain fighter somewhere, I’d go retrieve the guy. People had to be picked up at the airport, and some would want to be taxied from the hotel to the local gym and back.

Behind the scenes, Rorion was dealing with much more than mounting his first UFC event. On more than one occasion, Rorion called me to his hotel room to discuss his issues with his family. The UFC was a reunion of sorts for many members of the Gracie family, some of whom had flown in from Brazil. A few of Rorion’s relatives weren’t pleased with the way he’d trademarked the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu name in the United States and felt he was trying to monopolize jiu-jitsu here. Rorion had even legally stipulated that his brother Rickson add his first name to his own academy so it wouldn’t be confused with Rorion’s.

Rorion told me he’d been physically threatened by one older family member, and he asked if I thought he should hire security or if I could get him a gun. I’d thought Rorion had all the answers, but in the end he wanted what I had. There’s nothing better for self-defense than a gun. I didn’t fulfill his request, of course.

The night of the show, a few of Rorion’s friends stood within earshot of him, just in case a confrontation erupted outside the cage. It was the first time I saw these little cracks that are present in all families, whether they’re a martial arts dynasty or not.

When I wasn’t with Rorion, I had the opportunity to meet the other competitors, some of whom had larger-than-life personalities. Kevin Rosier, a lively New Yorker and former ISKA kickboxing champion, showed up at the hotel an unfit-looking 300 pounds or so, but he was funny as hell.

Kevin talked more about how much he could eat than anything else. “How many large pizzas have you eaten at one time?” He surveyed the people at the table at the hotel restaurant. “I’ve eaten four at once by myself in one sitting.”

You could tell he was proud of it.

Naturally, we’d also talked about what was to come. Jimmerson, the boxer from St. Louis, Missouri, told me he doubted Royce would be able to get by his vaunted left jab. “How’s he going to deal with that?” Jimmerson flicked out his fist a few times.