Stories
Here are some stories that didn't make it into the book, but are still good to tell.
Cesar Gracie’s Theory of Efficiency
Cesar Gracie is an interesting and opinionated trainer from a long line of the same. While visiting his California training center he shared with me his insights on the value of hard work that I loosely translated into the following theory of efficiency. It got cut from the book due to its lengthiness.
Cesar Gracie had his own time zone. Fighters live in a culture of lateness, but Cesar’s even worse. If he says he’s going to be somewhere at a certain time, be sure to add at least thirty minutes to it. I arrived at his Antioch gym at 1032, afraid I was going to be late for our 1030 appointment. As it turned out, I was twenty-eight minutes early. Cesar arrived at 1100 sharp, perfect if you lived in Cesar Standard Time.
Cesar was an odd mix of laid-back skateboard slacker and Andrew Dice Clay without the Mother Goose stories. Settling into his office chair and never removing his sunglasses, he provided glowing insight on the sport of MMA as his phone consistently vibrated. To his credit, he never answered it until Gary Shaw, the owner of EliteXC, called.
Cesar’s form of jiu jitsu was known for incorporating Sambo, leglocks, and spending a considerable amount of time without a gi, the standard dress for martial arts. “We train a lot with both-gi and no gi. It is a fight after all and there aren’t any in the streets, you know? But it’s the open-minded attitude that probably sets us apart. We try whatever works best and promote a healthy atmosphere with no rivalries in the gym, no egos, that kind of stuff. Otherwise the talent pool gets depleted.”
“If you want to see a gym with no egos, check out Team Quest,” I joked.
“I like the guys at Team Quest. Some of the hardest working people are in Oregon. But their technique sucks,” he said.
After looking out the window for most of our time together, Cesar finally spun his seat around to face me; an indication that this topic was of a personal nature.
“Here’s what I think. As you go from south to north, technique goes down while dedication goes up. You see the people in L.A. are pussies. They don’t want to work. They want the rewards without putting in the time to earn them. They’re not dedicated and hard working people. They’re all flash. But as you go north, that changes and people get harder. Their work ethic gets better until you get to Oregon. Technique is another story. Technique in L.A. is good. They know how to use the principles of jiu jitsu. It actually gets better as you come north to here and then gets worse as you go farther north to Oregon. Up there they’re all wrestlers, which is fine if that’s the style you’re comfortable with. But wrestling is not jiu jitsu.”
“So the best technique is here in Northern California?”
“Of course,” he smiled.
Submission wrestling and jiu jitsu are not the same thing. Wrestlers are trained from an early age to pin their opponent’s shoulders to the mat, which is the goal of freestyle wrestling. As they emerged in MMA, wrestlers had to re-learn their art and incorporate new moves to achieve a different outcome—a submission—instead of a pin. Jiu jitsu, on the other hand, was conceived around the principles of using leverage and chokes to achieve the same outcome and borrowed selected moves from other martial arts. Another difference between the two that favored wrestling was their starting positions. Most jiu jitsu classes started from the knees instead of standing. The opponents faced each other while already in a downed position instead of on the feet. Jiu jitsu fighters never had to learn the art of the takedown like wrestlers did since wrestling started in the standing position. Therefore jiu jitsu practitioners were not as proficient at taking their opponent down. The two arts weren’t worlds apart, but slight differences existed that distinguished one from the other.
Though I wasn’t convinced, it was compelling enough to deserve a deeper look. I dubbed it ‘Cesar’s Theory of Efficiency,’ because the variable of work was the common thread and efficiency is a product of work. It goes like this:
Efficiency equals work out divided by work in, or E=WO/WI. A high rate of efficiency is achieved when a small amount of work is put in and a great amount of work results. Unless Work Out (WO) increases at an equal or greater rate than Work In (WI), efficiency will decrease.
A good example is a bicycle. A bike achieves a high rate of efficiency since a human merely has to expend a small amount of energy by pushing the pedals (WI) in order to produce movement (WO).
The philosophy of jiu jitsu is similar to a bicycle—a man of smaller stature with good technique will not have to work hard to defeat a man of larger and stronger size. Good practitioners of jiu jitsu are able to decrease work in (WI) and therefore increase their efficiency as long as work out (WO) stays constant.
With me so far?
In Cesar’s theory, the people of Oregon are less efficient than the people of L.A., because they have to work harder to achieve the same result. In other words they expend more energy than is necessary to win a fight. If they had better technique, they could work less and achieve the same number of victories in competition.
So according to Cesar, there is a directly proportional relationship between efficiency and distance. As you travel north from L.A. to Oregon, efficiency decreases.
I ran this theory by Park College Professor of Statistics Gary Colonna to test its validity. He agreed with the principle, but added that distance may not be a factor unless more data was presented.
“If the people in Santa Barbara worked harder, but were less efficient than those in L.A., and those in San Francisco worked even harder, but with less efficiency, and so on up the coast, you might be able to show that distance between sites was a factor. But, about all you can really say is that people in Oregon work harder, but less efficiently than those in L.A.”
Translation—Since Cesar is really only comparing two variables (L.A. and Portland), instead of a series of them, the variable of distance is inconclusive. But one variable that can be measured is victories, or percentage of wins.
Dr. Colonna continued. “If Gracie's allegations about work and efficiency are correct, and more winners come from L.A., you could conclude that efficiency is superior to work-in,” meaning good technique is more important than hard work. “If more [winners] come from Oregon, work-in is superior,” meaning dedication is more important than good technique.
The next logical step in proving Cesar’s theory right or wrong would be to compare the number of MMA victories among L.A. based fighters to the number of victories among Portland based fighters.
A cursory study of active professional fighters signed by major promotions (UFC, Pride, IFL, Bodog, EliteXC, and King of the Cage) claiming the greater Los Angeles area as their home training grounds in June, 2007, nets a total of 22 fighters with 262 wins. This results in an average of 11.9 wins per fighter. The same study of the greater Portland area nets a total of 18 fighters with 204 wins for an average of 11.3 wins per fighter.
Ironically, statistics are correct only half the time and can always be skewed to support either side of a theory by introducing different variables, such as journeyman fighters who call L.A. or Portland home temporarily and then move on. For example, Randy Couture and Dan Henderson were not counted since they started their careers in Portland but have since moved on to Las Vegas and California respectively. Also the fighters are not broken down by style. In other words, all fighters who live in Portland and L.A. were considered instead of only those whose fighting style is predominantly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu—a major component of Cesar’s theory.
On the surface, though, he may have been onto something so I decided to hold onto the subject until later when I could run it by fighters on the other side of the coast. After all, there are two sides to every story.
Keith Florian Can’t Get a Fair Fight
While staying at Sityodtong in Boston I met the less famous Florian brother, Keith. After training one night he shared his frustration with MMA and having a well-known brother.
Wherever Kenny was, his younger brother Keith wasn’t far behind. Training partners and close friends, the two were part of a large, close-knit family that did a lot together. There were four Florian brothers total, but Keith and Kenny looked so much alike that I kept expecting them to shout “Wonder Twin powers activate!” and rush off to fight crime in purple unitards.
Oddly, it was Keith who many felt was destined to be the fighter of the Florian family. “I was a pretty hot-headed kid. I always had to get my way and if not then I would get upset,” Keith said. “Kenny is more of a calm person and gives people chances. Our friends ask me all the time why I’m not in the octagon instead of Kenny.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because of my last name. It’s a handicap.”
Handicap? In most walks of life nepotism was a standard practice. The Gracie’s started the UFC with brotherly love by throwing Royce into the octagon to protect the family name. Frank Shamrock had benefited off of the name his older brother Ken had made common. The Serra’s, Lauzon’s, and Diaz’s made their names work for each other, why couldn’t the Florian’s?
Anyone who’s grown up in the shadow of an older brother knows the answer to that. No matter how close brothers are, if the younger one has any free spirit within him, it will yearn to break free and do its own thing. It wasn’t that Keith couldn’t compete in MMA, he just couldn’t do it in his hometown, or home region for that matter because of all that Kenny had accomplished there.
“If I would do MMA, I would like to do it my way,” Keith continued. “Kenny has done such an amazing job with his fighting that I wouldn’t want people to say I got there because of my brother’s name. Right now I can’t get a fair fight in New England. I’ve got no experience in the ring so I need to fight guys who are also newcomers, but every promoter around here sees my last name and thinks I’m on the same level as Kenny. They want me to go up against guys with ten or fifteen professional fights, you know?”
Kenny agreed. “He would have to go out of state or international because they want to give him a 10-0 guy or a 13-1 guy or a high level guy. He needs to be able to build up that experience against guys on his same level. He needs to make his mistakes now on a smaller stage instead of when it’s in front of a huge crowd.”
Shooto, Cage Rage, or even Sportfight was a more likely place for Keith to cut his teeth. That could even be his nickname—Keith “The Teethcutter” Florian.
The Petition
I needed insurance. I needed a way to get an interview with a man known to shun the media. After all Dana White is a pretty popular guy, so for an unknown writer to get a couple hours of his time was a long shot at best. My solution—start a petition. There’s nothing like the voice of the people to institute change, unless you’re nineteenth century France and then it just leads to technological advances in human execution, a la the guillotine.
It was January 2007 and I was about to embark on a journey through the world of MMA, armed only with a sketchy vision of what I wanted to accomplish. I knew I wanted to find out the true reason that men fought for sport and to explore the relationship between the fighter, the fan, and the media, but that was about it at the time. I knew the adventure would end at UFC 79 in Las Vegas in December and by that time I would have spent months in MMA training camps living with fighters. It seemed only fair to balance that knowledge with an introspective from the uppermost level of MMA. I put “Dana—Please give Kelly and interview” across a piece of paper in big letters and hoped I could get a bunch of his fighters and trainers to sign it. At least then I’d have a chance, although it was as likely as Brittany Spears landing on the cover of “Responsible Parenting” magazine.
Ivan Salaverry was the first to sign. I spent an afternoon with him in his Seattle gym discussing Unions and whether or not one was feasible in MMA. The chasm between the money made by promoters versus the amount they paid their fighters was at its widest point, prompting frustration in one of the classiest guys in the sport. “They’re not the ones getting punched and kicked,” he said. “If you get this interview take it to him. Don’t let him off the hook, bro.”
Matt Lindland was second. I hung out at Team Quest for ten days in February listening to Chris Wilson and Matt Horwich justify how they balanced MMA and religion, hearing Chris Leben complain about everything, watching Ed Herman be Ed Herman, discussing the medical burdens Josh Haynes gladly bore for his son, and watching the funniest moments in MMA-fighters filming a commercial. Matt gladly signed the petition, but added a warning. “I’m not sure if it will do you any good to have my name on there. Dana doesn’t like me much.” Noted.
I couldn’t get anyone at Cesar Gracie’s Jiu Jitsu in California to sign it because I could never catch up with them. Nick and Nate Diaz drove hundreds of miles a day to train in between three cities. They boxed in Sacramento, grappled in Concord, and lived in Stockton. They even drove to San Francisco one night for a viewing party when Nathan was on The Ultimate Fighter season 5 while I waited patiently for them back in Concord. It was a frustrating ballet of miscommunication and highway convenience stores.
Greg Jackson’s guys were more than willing to hook a brother up, though Keith Jardine was wary. “Is this going to get me in trouble?” he asked before he put pen to paper. During the week I grappled with Nate Marquardt, lounged in the inner sanctum with Rashad Evans, had snot blown onto my leg by Diego Sanchez, shared Army stories with Mike Van Arsdale, and ran the dunes with Damacio Page, Leonard Garcia, and Julie Kedzie. Jackson’s crew was tight, even if their gym was located on the seedy side of Albuquerque where car theft was an accepted risk to train MMA. I left New Mexico with some UFC name recognition on my petition and a little hope that it might just accomplish what I wanted it to.
They called their instructor “Kru Mark” and wai’d to each other in the gym. Sityodtong was a small slice of Thailand in so many ways. If I hadn’t emerged from the basement it called home to Cutter Street everyday, I would have gotten lost in Thai culture down there. DellaGrotte didn’t hesitate to sign the petition, as did Kenny Florian. The page was starting to fill up and I formulated a multitude of questions that I wanted to ask the most powerful man in MMA. I could see the interview now… “Answer me dammit!” I would yell like a courtroom barrister at the man many felt was the Great Satan of MMA. I left Boston with one name on the petition that no one would recognize—Johnny McDonough. Big Johnny was an instructor at Sityodtong and he signed it as a joke to see if Dana would ask, “Who the fuck is that?” I laughed when he did it, but days later I was sick to my stomach at the notion that it might not be found funny by the Patron Saint of Public Relations.
English was a second language at American Top Team. Brazilians dominated the gym because they all followed the head instructor, Ricardo Liborio when he left Brazilian Top Team to be like Eddie Murphy and “Come to America.” Thiago Alves, Marcus Aurelio, and Liborio all signed the ragged document that was looking a little fuller. They probably felt guilty after a week of handing my own ass to me on their grappling mats. I left South Florida hating gi-style grappling, awestruck by their incredibly huge gym, reverent at their devotion to each other, and thankful I never had to endure the torture of cutting weight.
I had all the signatures I could get. There were other fighters I’d spent time with, like Jake Shields, Bart Palaszewski, and Tim Kennedy, but since they weren’t UFC fighters I thought their signatures probably wouldn’t help. After all why would the president of the UFC respond to a petition filled with names from his competitors? I had sat ringside at Sportfight, the IFL Finals, and the All-Army Combatives Tournament to learn more about what the athletes went through on fight day and now it was time to head to the Mecca of MMA, Las Vegas and UFC 79. Did I have enough signatures? Would the petition be viewed upon favorably by the almighty UFC?
Just like the Dana White-Tito Ortiz boxing match that fizzled out, it didn’t matter. After several politely worded and professional emails, I got the interview I wanted without having to resort to the document. Before heading to Sin City I had approached Victory Belt Publishing to back the book. They agreed and with them in my corner, along with a decent resume of MMA writing from Real Fighter magazine, I was in. Those credentials and some nice words got me two hours of shadowing Dana White on fight day followed by forty-five minutes of one-on-one time in locker room number 5 just an hour before the preliminary fights. I’d spent almost a year observing MMA from the bottom and middle of the pecking order and finally got my view from the top.
He wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I was sure I’d see him bark at his subordinates, disrespect underlings, and offend peons while a bald mini-me scurried about kicking people in the shins. At 3:00 on fight day, I hovered just over his shoulder while he watched and approved every video and highlight reel that was about to be broadcast, both inside the arena and on pay-per-view. I saw him schmooze with Mandy Moore and Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon, next to an empty octagon. He even grabbed my camera and took my picture with her. I watched him eat a lunch his wife had made and then get a “good luck” pat on the back from his dad. He walked among the fans, avoiding none of them, and confided in me a story from his childhood about being blown off by a local celebrity in Vegas. More than anything I was convinced of how completely dedicated he was to the UFC. It was clearly his passion and the only thing he cared about outside his wife and kids. If he was anything like the bastard I’d heard, there would have been at least a momentary crack in his demeanor during our time together, but there wasn’t.
When a security guard accidentally barged into the locker room he took a few moments to shake his hand and compliment him on his attire. When the public relations director said I only had five minutes left, Dana shook her off like a pitcher getting a bad sign. “No. We’re cool,” he said. “I got time.” Maybe I was asking the right questions because he seemed eager to keep the conversation going. Maybe he just didn’t have anywhere else to be. Maybe he wasn’t the gigantic asshole everyone makes him out to be. Either way he was more than accommodating and I was glad I didn’t have to pull out the petition to goad him into giving me time. He was as sincere as his dislike for Tito Ortiz, which I can assure you is no rumor.
Disagree with Dana White’s business decisions all you want and call me a reed bending in the wind, but none of the terrible things I’d heard about him proved to be true during the nearly three hours I spent with him. I asked him point blank questions about fighter salaries, the death of boxing, the ramifications of his decisions on people’s lives, the disappointment of Pride fighters, the future of the UFC, and the importance of the fans to the sport. Some of his answers I didn’t agree with, but at least I saw the logic of why he does what he does.
I still have the petition. I plan to auction it and give the money to the Ryan Bennet Memorial Fund. The Bennet’s still have massive medical bills to pay.
Here are some stories that didn't make it into the book, but are still good to tell.
Cesar Gracie’s Theory of Efficiency
Cesar Gracie is an interesting and opinionated trainer from a long line of the same. While visiting his California training center he shared with me his insights on the value of hard work that I loosely translated into the following theory of efficiency. It got cut from the book due to its lengthiness.
Cesar Gracie had his own time zone. Fighters live in a culture of lateness, but Cesar’s even worse. If he says he’s going to be somewhere at a certain time, be sure to add at least thirty minutes to it. I arrived at his Antioch gym at 1032, afraid I was going to be late for our 1030 appointment. As it turned out, I was twenty-eight minutes early. Cesar arrived at 1100 sharp, perfect if you lived in Cesar Standard Time.
Cesar was an odd mix of laid-back skateboard slacker and Andrew Dice Clay without the Mother Goose stories. Settling into his office chair and never removing his sunglasses, he provided glowing insight on the sport of MMA as his phone consistently vibrated. To his credit, he never answered it until Gary Shaw, the owner of EliteXC, called.
Cesar’s form of jiu jitsu was known for incorporating Sambo, leglocks, and spending a considerable amount of time without a gi, the standard dress for martial arts. “We train a lot with both-gi and no gi. It is a fight after all and there aren’t any in the streets, you know? But it’s the open-minded attitude that probably sets us apart. We try whatever works best and promote a healthy atmosphere with no rivalries in the gym, no egos, that kind of stuff. Otherwise the talent pool gets depleted.”
“If you want to see a gym with no egos, check out Team Quest,” I joked.
“I like the guys at Team Quest. Some of the hardest working people are in Oregon. But their technique sucks,” he said.
After looking out the window for most of our time together, Cesar finally spun his seat around to face me; an indication that this topic was of a personal nature.
“Here’s what I think. As you go from south to north, technique goes down while dedication goes up. You see the people in L.A. are pussies. They don’t want to work. They want the rewards without putting in the time to earn them. They’re not dedicated and hard working people. They’re all flash. But as you go north, that changes and people get harder. Their work ethic gets better until you get to Oregon. Technique is another story. Technique in L.A. is good. They know how to use the principles of jiu jitsu. It actually gets better as you come north to here and then gets worse as you go farther north to Oregon. Up there they’re all wrestlers, which is fine if that’s the style you’re comfortable with. But wrestling is not jiu jitsu.”
“So the best technique is here in Northern California?”
“Of course,” he smiled.
Submission wrestling and jiu jitsu are not the same thing. Wrestlers are trained from an early age to pin their opponent’s shoulders to the mat, which is the goal of freestyle wrestling. As they emerged in MMA, wrestlers had to re-learn their art and incorporate new moves to achieve a different outcome—a submission—instead of a pin. Jiu jitsu, on the other hand, was conceived around the principles of using leverage and chokes to achieve the same outcome and borrowed selected moves from other martial arts. Another difference between the two that favored wrestling was their starting positions. Most jiu jitsu classes started from the knees instead of standing. The opponents faced each other while already in a downed position instead of on the feet. Jiu jitsu fighters never had to learn the art of the takedown like wrestlers did since wrestling started in the standing position. Therefore jiu jitsu practitioners were not as proficient at taking their opponent down. The two arts weren’t worlds apart, but slight differences existed that distinguished one from the other.
Though I wasn’t convinced, it was compelling enough to deserve a deeper look. I dubbed it ‘Cesar’s Theory of Efficiency,’ because the variable of work was the common thread and efficiency is a product of work. It goes like this:
Efficiency equals work out divided by work in, or E=WO/WI. A high rate of efficiency is achieved when a small amount of work is put in and a great amount of work results. Unless Work Out (WO) increases at an equal or greater rate than Work In (WI), efficiency will decrease.
A good example is a bicycle. A bike achieves a high rate of efficiency since a human merely has to expend a small amount of energy by pushing the pedals (WI) in order to produce movement (WO).
The philosophy of jiu jitsu is similar to a bicycle—a man of smaller stature with good technique will not have to work hard to defeat a man of larger and stronger size. Good practitioners of jiu jitsu are able to decrease work in (WI) and therefore increase their efficiency as long as work out (WO) stays constant.
With me so far?
In Cesar’s theory, the people of Oregon are less efficient than the people of L.A., because they have to work harder to achieve the same result. In other words they expend more energy than is necessary to win a fight. If they had better technique, they could work less and achieve the same number of victories in competition.
So according to Cesar, there is a directly proportional relationship between efficiency and distance. As you travel north from L.A. to Oregon, efficiency decreases.
I ran this theory by Park College Professor of Statistics Gary Colonna to test its validity. He agreed with the principle, but added that distance may not be a factor unless more data was presented.
“If the people in Santa Barbara worked harder, but were less efficient than those in L.A., and those in San Francisco worked even harder, but with less efficiency, and so on up the coast, you might be able to show that distance between sites was a factor. But, about all you can really say is that people in Oregon work harder, but less efficiently than those in L.A.”
Translation—Since Cesar is really only comparing two variables (L.A. and Portland), instead of a series of them, the variable of distance is inconclusive. But one variable that can be measured is victories, or percentage of wins.
Dr. Colonna continued. “If Gracie's allegations about work and efficiency are correct, and more winners come from L.A., you could conclude that efficiency is superior to work-in,” meaning good technique is more important than hard work. “If more [winners] come from Oregon, work-in is superior,” meaning dedication is more important than good technique.
The next logical step in proving Cesar’s theory right or wrong would be to compare the number of MMA victories among L.A. based fighters to the number of victories among Portland based fighters.
A cursory study of active professional fighters signed by major promotions (UFC, Pride, IFL, Bodog, EliteXC, and King of the Cage) claiming the greater Los Angeles area as their home training grounds in June, 2007, nets a total of 22 fighters with 262 wins. This results in an average of 11.9 wins per fighter. The same study of the greater Portland area nets a total of 18 fighters with 204 wins for an average of 11.3 wins per fighter.
Ironically, statistics are correct only half the time and can always be skewed to support either side of a theory by introducing different variables, such as journeyman fighters who call L.A. or Portland home temporarily and then move on. For example, Randy Couture and Dan Henderson were not counted since they started their careers in Portland but have since moved on to Las Vegas and California respectively. Also the fighters are not broken down by style. In other words, all fighters who live in Portland and L.A. were considered instead of only those whose fighting style is predominantly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu—a major component of Cesar’s theory.
On the surface, though, he may have been onto something so I decided to hold onto the subject until later when I could run it by fighters on the other side of the coast. After all, there are two sides to every story.
Keith Florian Can’t Get a Fair Fight
While staying at Sityodtong in Boston I met the less famous Florian brother, Keith. After training one night he shared his frustration with MMA and having a well-known brother.
Wherever Kenny was, his younger brother Keith wasn’t far behind. Training partners and close friends, the two were part of a large, close-knit family that did a lot together. There were four Florian brothers total, but Keith and Kenny looked so much alike that I kept expecting them to shout “Wonder Twin powers activate!” and rush off to fight crime in purple unitards.
Oddly, it was Keith who many felt was destined to be the fighter of the Florian family. “I was a pretty hot-headed kid. I always had to get my way and if not then I would get upset,” Keith said. “Kenny is more of a calm person and gives people chances. Our friends ask me all the time why I’m not in the octagon instead of Kenny.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because of my last name. It’s a handicap.”
Handicap? In most walks of life nepotism was a standard practice. The Gracie’s started the UFC with brotherly love by throwing Royce into the octagon to protect the family name. Frank Shamrock had benefited off of the name his older brother Ken had made common. The Serra’s, Lauzon’s, and Diaz’s made their names work for each other, why couldn’t the Florian’s?
Anyone who’s grown up in the shadow of an older brother knows the answer to that. No matter how close brothers are, if the younger one has any free spirit within him, it will yearn to break free and do its own thing. It wasn’t that Keith couldn’t compete in MMA, he just couldn’t do it in his hometown, or home region for that matter because of all that Kenny had accomplished there.
“If I would do MMA, I would like to do it my way,” Keith continued. “Kenny has done such an amazing job with his fighting that I wouldn’t want people to say I got there because of my brother’s name. Right now I can’t get a fair fight in New England. I’ve got no experience in the ring so I need to fight guys who are also newcomers, but every promoter around here sees my last name and thinks I’m on the same level as Kenny. They want me to go up against guys with ten or fifteen professional fights, you know?”
Kenny agreed. “He would have to go out of state or international because they want to give him a 10-0 guy or a 13-1 guy or a high level guy. He needs to be able to build up that experience against guys on his same level. He needs to make his mistakes now on a smaller stage instead of when it’s in front of a huge crowd.”
Shooto, Cage Rage, or even Sportfight was a more likely place for Keith to cut his teeth. That could even be his nickname—Keith “The Teethcutter” Florian.
The Petition
I needed insurance. I needed a way to get an interview with a man known to shun the media. After all Dana White is a pretty popular guy, so for an unknown writer to get a couple hours of his time was a long shot at best. My solution—start a petition. There’s nothing like the voice of the people to institute change, unless you’re nineteenth century France and then it just leads to technological advances in human execution, a la the guillotine.
It was January 2007 and I was about to embark on a journey through the world of MMA, armed only with a sketchy vision of what I wanted to accomplish. I knew I wanted to find out the true reason that men fought for sport and to explore the relationship between the fighter, the fan, and the media, but that was about it at the time. I knew the adventure would end at UFC 79 in Las Vegas in December and by that time I would have spent months in MMA training camps living with fighters. It seemed only fair to balance that knowledge with an introspective from the uppermost level of MMA. I put “Dana—Please give Kelly and interview” across a piece of paper in big letters and hoped I could get a bunch of his fighters and trainers to sign it. At least then I’d have a chance, although it was as likely as Brittany Spears landing on the cover of “Responsible Parenting” magazine.
Ivan Salaverry was the first to sign. I spent an afternoon with him in his Seattle gym discussing Unions and whether or not one was feasible in MMA. The chasm between the money made by promoters versus the amount they paid their fighters was at its widest point, prompting frustration in one of the classiest guys in the sport. “They’re not the ones getting punched and kicked,” he said. “If you get this interview take it to him. Don’t let him off the hook, bro.”
Matt Lindland was second. I hung out at Team Quest for ten days in February listening to Chris Wilson and Matt Horwich justify how they balanced MMA and religion, hearing Chris Leben complain about everything, watching Ed Herman be Ed Herman, discussing the medical burdens Josh Haynes gladly bore for his son, and watching the funniest moments in MMA-fighters filming a commercial. Matt gladly signed the petition, but added a warning. “I’m not sure if it will do you any good to have my name on there. Dana doesn’t like me much.” Noted.
I couldn’t get anyone at Cesar Gracie’s Jiu Jitsu in California to sign it because I could never catch up with them. Nick and Nate Diaz drove hundreds of miles a day to train in between three cities. They boxed in Sacramento, grappled in Concord, and lived in Stockton. They even drove to San Francisco one night for a viewing party when Nathan was on The Ultimate Fighter season 5 while I waited patiently for them back in Concord. It was a frustrating ballet of miscommunication and highway convenience stores.
Greg Jackson’s guys were more than willing to hook a brother up, though Keith Jardine was wary. “Is this going to get me in trouble?” he asked before he put pen to paper. During the week I grappled with Nate Marquardt, lounged in the inner sanctum with Rashad Evans, had snot blown onto my leg by Diego Sanchez, shared Army stories with Mike Van Arsdale, and ran the dunes with Damacio Page, Leonard Garcia, and Julie Kedzie. Jackson’s crew was tight, even if their gym was located on the seedy side of Albuquerque where car theft was an accepted risk to train MMA. I left New Mexico with some UFC name recognition on my petition and a little hope that it might just accomplish what I wanted it to.
They called their instructor “Kru Mark” and wai’d to each other in the gym. Sityodtong was a small slice of Thailand in so many ways. If I hadn’t emerged from the basement it called home to Cutter Street everyday, I would have gotten lost in Thai culture down there. DellaGrotte didn’t hesitate to sign the petition, as did Kenny Florian. The page was starting to fill up and I formulated a multitude of questions that I wanted to ask the most powerful man in MMA. I could see the interview now… “Answer me dammit!” I would yell like a courtroom barrister at the man many felt was the Great Satan of MMA. I left Boston with one name on the petition that no one would recognize—Johnny McDonough. Big Johnny was an instructor at Sityodtong and he signed it as a joke to see if Dana would ask, “Who the fuck is that?” I laughed when he did it, but days later I was sick to my stomach at the notion that it might not be found funny by the Patron Saint of Public Relations.
English was a second language at American Top Team. Brazilians dominated the gym because they all followed the head instructor, Ricardo Liborio when he left Brazilian Top Team to be like Eddie Murphy and “Come to America.” Thiago Alves, Marcus Aurelio, and Liborio all signed the ragged document that was looking a little fuller. They probably felt guilty after a week of handing my own ass to me on their grappling mats. I left South Florida hating gi-style grappling, awestruck by their incredibly huge gym, reverent at their devotion to each other, and thankful I never had to endure the torture of cutting weight.
I had all the signatures I could get. There were other fighters I’d spent time with, like Jake Shields, Bart Palaszewski, and Tim Kennedy, but since they weren’t UFC fighters I thought their signatures probably wouldn’t help. After all why would the president of the UFC respond to a petition filled with names from his competitors? I had sat ringside at Sportfight, the IFL Finals, and the All-Army Combatives Tournament to learn more about what the athletes went through on fight day and now it was time to head to the Mecca of MMA, Las Vegas and UFC 79. Did I have enough signatures? Would the petition be viewed upon favorably by the almighty UFC?
Just like the Dana White-Tito Ortiz boxing match that fizzled out, it didn’t matter. After several politely worded and professional emails, I got the interview I wanted without having to resort to the document. Before heading to Sin City I had approached Victory Belt Publishing to back the book. They agreed and with them in my corner, along with a decent resume of MMA writing from Real Fighter magazine, I was in. Those credentials and some nice words got me two hours of shadowing Dana White on fight day followed by forty-five minutes of one-on-one time in locker room number 5 just an hour before the preliminary fights. I’d spent almost a year observing MMA from the bottom and middle of the pecking order and finally got my view from the top.
He wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I was sure I’d see him bark at his subordinates, disrespect underlings, and offend peons while a bald mini-me scurried about kicking people in the shins. At 3:00 on fight day, I hovered just over his shoulder while he watched and approved every video and highlight reel that was about to be broadcast, both inside the arena and on pay-per-view. I saw him schmooze with Mandy Moore and Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon, next to an empty octagon. He even grabbed my camera and took my picture with her. I watched him eat a lunch his wife had made and then get a “good luck” pat on the back from his dad. He walked among the fans, avoiding none of them, and confided in me a story from his childhood about being blown off by a local celebrity in Vegas. More than anything I was convinced of how completely dedicated he was to the UFC. It was clearly his passion and the only thing he cared about outside his wife and kids. If he was anything like the bastard I’d heard, there would have been at least a momentary crack in his demeanor during our time together, but there wasn’t.
When a security guard accidentally barged into the locker room he took a few moments to shake his hand and compliment him on his attire. When the public relations director said I only had five minutes left, Dana shook her off like a pitcher getting a bad sign. “No. We’re cool,” he said. “I got time.” Maybe I was asking the right questions because he seemed eager to keep the conversation going. Maybe he just didn’t have anywhere else to be. Maybe he wasn’t the gigantic asshole everyone makes him out to be. Either way he was more than accommodating and I was glad I didn’t have to pull out the petition to goad him into giving me time. He was as sincere as his dislike for Tito Ortiz, which I can assure you is no rumor.
Disagree with Dana White’s business decisions all you want and call me a reed bending in the wind, but none of the terrible things I’d heard about him proved to be true during the nearly three hours I spent with him. I asked him point blank questions about fighter salaries, the death of boxing, the ramifications of his decisions on people’s lives, the disappointment of Pride fighters, the future of the UFC, and the importance of the fans to the sport. Some of his answers I didn’t agree with, but at least I saw the logic of why he does what he does.
I still have the petition. I plan to auction it and give the money to the Ryan Bennet Memorial Fund. The Bennet’s still have massive medical bills to pay.
Copyright © 2008 Kelly Crigger. All Rights Reserved.