Let’s Get It On! (52 page)

“It’s not the low blow,” a pained Filipovic answered, looking up at me. “I just can’t do this anymore. John, do you think I am too old for this anymore?”

I covered the microphone on my shirt. This was a vulnerable moment for one of the most feared fighters on the planet, and I’m sure he didn’t realize I was wired for the world to hear him doubting himself.

“You’re not too old. You just need to believe in yourself and go back to what you’re good at. Get yourself right before we restart. Or if you don’t want to restart, I’ll get you out.”

It was nobody’s business what was said between Filipovic and me, but cageside commentator Joe Rogan was sitting close enough to hear some of the conversation and relay what he’d heard. That’s the only reason I would share this now.

Fighters have told me things I’ve never told anyone else. I want fighters to know they can trust me in the cage, and that includes keeping some of our conversations private.

By October, I was having my own private conversations with The Fight Network, a two-year-old Toronto-based cable channel that broadcasted boxing, MMA, and pro wrestling content twenty-four hours a day across Canada. The channel wasn’t available in the United States yet, but it hoped to bridge that gap shortly. What I liked about The Fight Network was that it covered as many combat sports events as it could from the UFC down to the smaller promotions, so this was a way for me to still be a part of the sport. The Fight Network reminded me of ESPN when it had launched years before, and there was something intriguing about getting in on the ground floor.

On November 6, 2007, I verbally agreed to join the company full-time as an on-air analyst and commentator, signaling the end of my fourteen-year career as a referee.

We kept the news under wraps for weeks. I wanted to tell a few key people in the industry on my own. I still felt a great sense of loyalty to the UFC and wanted to speak to Lorenzo Fertitta alone, if only to thank him for what he’d done for me and MMA over the past six years.

Just before I committed to the The Fight Network, I headed to the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio, for UFC 77 “Hostile Territory,” to be held on October 20, 2007. While we prepared for the event, Fertitta pulled me aside and asked if I remembered the conversation we’d had six years before at UFC 30 in New Jersey about paying fighters millions of dollars. “I never realized that would be the start of all my troubles,” said Fertitta, who’d been hit with the very public resignation of disgruntled heavyweight champion Randy Couture over a contract dispute the month before. The UFC was getting popular and, in turn, the fighters were expecting a larger share in the profits.

I didn’t share with Fertitta then that this would be my last UFC pay-per-view as a referee. Only a couple friends knew of my plans, and I conducted myself as I would any other given night.

But visible to the astute eye, I took a slight pause before delivering what I thought would be my last “Let’s get it on” to start a UFC pay-per-view. I savored that moment.

After I’d left Dana White’s office a few months earlier, I’d thought about the state of officiating in the sport. Rather than continue to complain to my wife every time I saw an inexperienced referee make a bad call, I decided to do something about it. I pored over fight tapes and prepared a curriculum to begin teaching others how to properly referee mixed martial arts fights. For years, Elaine had received inquiries about a course from all over the world. I thought if anyone was going to teach it, why not me?

On December 1, 2007, I held my first COMMAND (Certification of Officials for Mixed Martial Arts National Development) course in Valencia, California. I’d feared we wouldn’t get a single person to sign up, but the first run had twenty-one attendees, some from as far away as Brazil and Australia. A few of the students had already been refereeing for years in their states; others never had. One guy said he’d sat in the front row of the first Ultimate Ultimate in 1995 in Denver, Colorado. All of them had a passion for MMA, which was obvious from their questions and willingness to be there.

My dad even made it up for the day and watched from the back of the hotel conference room as I went through my PowerPoint presentation. There was so much to get through that we went well past the allotted time, so we ordered pizza for the class and stayed until midnight. Not a single person complained.

The course lasted two days and included hands-on instruction, with my fighters demonstrating techniques in the cage at my gym, and final-day testing. Of that inaugural class of twenty-one participants, only four passed. I didn’t mind the low pass rate at all. I knew it was a difficult test. I’d made it that way to flag any weak areas because I wanted each student to leave as prepared as possible.

The regulations and rules could be learned, but what I really wanted to impart above everything else was that referees should be decisive. “When you make a decision, go with it,” I told them. “Don’t hem and haw before or after the call. It doesn’t mean in the end someone won’t say you’re wrong. If you say it’s right, it’s right at the time. If you waver, you’ll always be in a position to make more mistakes. Trust your instinct.” It was a lesson I’d learned in the cage.

I’d never had the benefit of learning MMA refereeing from anybody. Everything I’d picked up had come from seeing what had worked and what hadn’t over the last fourteen years. But if I’d had someone teach me, this was one of the more crucial lessons I would have wanted.

A week after my first COMMAND course, I refereed my last fight at
The Ultimate Fighter 6
finale at the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. A friend and I had tried to calculate how many fights I’d officiated since 1994. We came up with 535 bouts, give or take one or two I may have forgotten.

The Fight Network began to publicize my retirement from officiating and my move to full-time analysis and commentary. They’d had a conference call for me earlier that week with the media, and I’d chattered on about this great new opportunity to offer insight into fights for the fans. I’d told everyone how excited I was, but inside I’d been scared and felt like a fool for having a conference call to announce my retirement from refereeing. I’d wanted to just walk away and not make any fuss about the whole situation, but my new employer had wanted to use this opportunity to get publicity for the channel. The whole time, I wondered if leaving was the right decision.

I didn’t want my final night as a referee to change anything for the fighters I was there to protect, and I certainly didn’t want any extra attention. I was completely relieved when Lorenzo, Dana, and the rest of the Zuffa staff approached me backstage between bouts and privately presented me with an Audemars Piguet watch with an Octagon-shaped face. I certainly appreciated the gesture. It was something they definitely didn’t have to do, and it showed just how classy they could be.

I refereed the main event that night, a bout between hungry lightweights Roger Huerta and Clay Guida. As he’d done with almost all of his opponents before him, Guida drilled Huerta into the mat with takedown after takedown and pulled well ahead on the scorecards. But in the third round, Huerta, who’d been tossed around and pretty much abused the entire fight, caught Guida with a knee as he bull-rushed in with his head down. Huerta got the rear-naked choke submission shortly afterward to punctuate a highly emotional and entertaining come-from-behind win.

It was a perfect fight for me to end my career with.

Afterward, The Fight Network hosted a retirement party for me in one of the hotel’s famous suites upstairs. Dana and Lorenzo didn’t attend, but there was a great turnout from fighters, including Matt Hughes, Tito Ortiz, Forrest Griffin, Urijah Faber, and many others. Many were kind enough to give me a validating word.

When he’d heard I’d be hanging up my black uniform, Royce Gracie, who was in the Philippines at the time and couldn’t attend, had sent a message to be read for the other guests. UFC announcer Bruce Buffer did the honors. “We are a dying breed, John, but it was fun while it lasted. Good luck, my friend. Wish you all the best in life and future endeavors. Your friend, Royce.”

At my retirement party: standing between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin, the two guys who turned the sport around with one fight (December 2007)

A few nights later, back at home in California, I got a phone message from Dana White. The UFC president sounded like he was out enjoying a cocktail or two, but I still got a kick out it. “John, you are the fucking best,” an excitable White said. “I fucking love you, man.”

A picture that says it all about this sport: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski, Affliction “Day of Reckoning” (January 2009)