Let’s Get It On! (48 page)

In his nineties but still as vivacious as ever, Helio answered me through his translator, and I’ll never forget what he said. “Everything that I have done with jiu-jitsu, you have done with this sport. You are the best there ever was or ever will be. I am proud of who you are and what you have done.”

It would be the last time I’d get to speak with the sport’s patriarch. In January of 2009, he passed away. He was ninety-five.

Zuffa continued on with UFC 61 “Bitter Rivals,” held July 8, 2006, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. I officiated two fights on the card, including a spirited lightweight contest between Yves Edwards and Joe “Daddy” Stevenson. I’d always thought highly of Edwards and Stevenson, and their bout was competitive. Stevenson took Edwards down and planted him against the cage. Edwards was protecting himself until Stevenson reached back and acted like he was going to set up a leg lock. Edwards responded by sitting up toward Stevenson, who timed a perfect elbow that connected with the side of Edwards’ head. It created a small one-inch laceration but cut a vein that started spraying the mat and the fighters.

Dr. David Watson, one of the best cageside physicians in MMA, wasn’t squeamish about blood; only the cut and its location mattered. He always said he wasn’t worried about a fighter bleeding to death from a cut in the cage, but this fight may have changed his mind. After thirty seconds, the canvas had a bloodstain like a crime scene, but Watson examined Edwards and let the bout continue for another minute until the bell.

As Edwards went back to his corner, Dr. Watson came into the cage to look at him again and then walked to me. “You need to stop the fight.”

I said, “Okay, but why’d you change your mind in one minute?” The fighter’s face was now clean, and the blood was out of his eyes.

“I would guess he’s lost about 400 cc of blood at this point; if he loses 500 cc, I’ll be giving him a transfusion.”

I didn’t doubt Dr. Watson’s wisdom and promptly waived off the fight.

Six weeks later we all returned to the same venue for UFC 62 “Liddell vs. Sobral,” held August 26, 2006. There was some controversy in a lightweight bout I officiated between Hermes Franca and Jamie Varner, when I stopped the fight in the second round to take a point away from Varner for timidity—something I’ve rarely had to do in recent years.

After winning the first and possibly the second round, Varner gassed out fast and was actually running away from Franca in an attempt to steal time and not engage in the fight. After I warned Varner, Franca turned up the heat in the final moments, which prompted Varner to backpedal again. He was tired and spit out his mouthpiece, either in an attempt to kill time on the clock or get a clearer airway. I stopped the fight and took a point away. Franca ended up winning the fight with a guillotine choke, but I was criticized for slowing down the fight for the point deduction. However, if Franca hadn’t caught the last-minute submission, that point would have made the bout a draw—a much fairer outcome in a bout where one fighter was trying to stall to his advantage.

In the main event, Chuck Liddell defended his light heavyweight title against Renato “Babalu” Sobral in a rematch of their UFC 40 bout when Liddell had knocked out Babalu with a beautiful left shin kick to the face. Babalu started the bout calm, but Liddell quickly connected, and that pissed off Babalu. Fighters usually can’t fight mad because they make stupid mistakes and their opponents usually capitalize. Babalu went after Liddell and left an opening for a right uppercut, which sent the Brazilian down. Liddell followed up with more punches, and Babalu was holding onto Liddell, but there was nobody home. I put myself between Liddell and the prone Babalu, but Babalu thought the fight was still going and his training took over. He found a leg and grabbed it; however, the leg belonged to me. Babalu tried to take me down as I kept telling him the fight was over, but his mind was too scrambled to understand what he was doing. I realized if I didn’t do something I’d have a fighter on top of me. I under-hooked his arm, forced him over, then moved to mount where I was finally able to get control of Babalu, who was snorting and gasping for air. Just one more thing to add to the list. Fighter tried to take me down—check.

Teaching my first COMMAND referee course (December 2007)

Coaching my son and the Canyon Cowboys in the Pac Youth Football League

You can fool the whole world down the highway of years, and take pats on the back as you pass. But your final reward will be heartache and tears if you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

—Peter “Dale” Wimbrow Sr.

Heading into 2007, I had no idea I was entering what would be my fourteenth and final year as an MMA referee. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; the sport was evolving, and so were the people within it.

It had been my dream back since my powerlifting days to open my own gym, but I’d gone into police work instead. Back then, I hadn’t thought to open an MMA gym. The sport hadn’t existed in the United States at that point. However, over the years I’d soaked in every detail I could about the combat sports gyms I’d walked into.

I’d been in everything from filthy boxing gyms that smelled like the inside of a never-washed jockstrap to tidier karate dojos filled with kids in their white, pressed gis. Rorion Gracie’s school was the nicest gym I’d ever been to. The mats were kept clean, and it even had a juice bar, but it was limited to Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes.

As I watched mixed martial arts evolve and grow over the years, my dream shifted to opening a facility where a fighter could get all the necessary instruction, equipment, and experience to compete and excel in the sport.

Dana White, who had opened a couple gyms in Boston and Las Vegas prior to getting involved with the UFC, gave me some advice. First, he said I was an idiot for wanting to open a gym because all they did was lose money, but he helped me nonetheless by hooking me up with equipment distributors, like Ringside, who gave me discounts that kept some of my initial costs down. White also gave me a few of the thirty-foot canvases that covered the Octagon floor—bloodstains and all—from some past events.
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I hung these pieces of MMA history on the gym walls.

I also ran the gym’s name, Big John McCarthy’s Ultimate Training Academy, past Dana to make sure I had his blessing. Elaine and I found a warehouse on an industrial road a few minutes from our house, and we filled it with a cage, a ring, an ample mat area for grappling, and weightlifting and cardio equipment.

People who know me understand that when I do something, I like to do it right. Billionaire Donald Trump says if you’re thinking of something, you might as well think big. So BJMUTA, which Elaine and I opened in Valencia, California, in September of 2006, lived up to its name. At 16,000 square feet, it was three times the size of most MMA gyms. The best part was that it was all mine to run the way I wanted.

The plan was to get the gym on its feet so I could eventually retire from the police department. My time with the LAPD had run its course, and although I hated a lot of politics in the department, I loved a lot of the people who worked there, which made it fun. But I knew once I left the police force, the gym would be a place where I could find my next team.

I also liked the idea of opening my own gym because I’d be able to train anytime. With my police job and my UFC assignments, it was difficult to get to a gym to take a jiu-jitsu class or hit the weights. I was still a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, and every time I watched a fighter line up a crafty submission in the cage, I missed being able to do the same.

In reality, though, I ended up working out less once the gym finally opened. Every time I’d walk in there, somebody, whether an instructor or a student or a friend who’d stopped by to visit, would need to talk to me. Sometimes I was tempted to sneak off to the gym down the street so I’d be left alone during my own workouts.

At the start, owning a gym was a bit of a strain because I was still teaching at the LAPD. In 2000, the training academy had been moved to a nasty patch of Earth located in the hottest part of the San Fernando Valley. It was a lot closer to where we now lived, but I’d still be out my door at 4:30 every morning, teach the cadets, then head to the gym around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon to stay until it closed that evening. I hired instructors in all the disciplines, from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to boxing, and helped teach a nighttime MMA class where the fighters could put it all together. Afterward, I stayed around mopping the mats and cleaning up for the next day and wouldn’t get home until midnight or later. Then I was up a few hours later to do it all over again. In the beginning, if I wanted to have my own gym, this is what had to be done.