Bridging One Era to another
Published by on December 14th, 2007 in History

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Monte Cox bridges one era to another in mixed martial arts. He is a significant figure because he had a hand in getting the sport more recognition among the mainstream crowd, and in that way and others he is really an unsung hero of MMA.

Cox’s background in sports was mostly in boxing, which believe it or not, makes him quite unusual for prominent people in mixed martial arts. He was in fact a professional boxer at one time, and went on to promote a number of successful boxing shows in his native Iowa. Cox was editor of the Davenport, Iowa-based Quad City Times, so he had a finger on the pulse of what was going on in the area, and for one story he was covering, he interviewed a local martial artist named Pat Miletich.

After talking to Miletich and seeing him work out, he became hooked on mixed martial arts. He then watched as Miletich won the Battle of the Masters, a prestigious event in Chicago. This inspired Cox to try his hand at putting on an MMA show. It made some sense, as he had a structure in place from his experience with boxing, and a relationship with the state athletic commission.

With the help of Miletich (who later went on to become the UFC’s lightweight title), Cox promoted something called the “Quad City Ultimate” on January 20, 1996. And if he wasn’t convinced about MMA as a viable enterprise, he certainly was after 8000 fans came through the turnstiles. Cox put on two Quad Cities Ultimate promotions, then changed the name to the Extreme Challenge.

Cox gained a reputation as a sharp, hands-on operator, the equivalent of a high-level “club show” promoter in boxing. he did a lot of great public relations work for the sport, pointing out to those from the mainstream media that his was a thinking man’s sport, with competitors who were not goons or monsters but who took their profession very seriously. At least in the Midwest, he was a great, unofficial spokesman for mixed martial arts.

Cox was adept at negotiating his way through the negative political atmosphere, as MMA was getting a bad rap from heavy-handed opportunists like John McCain. But his diplomacy was important. Cox got together with the regulatory authorities in Iowa to come up with a set of adjusted rules that would make the sport acceptable and in some ways serve as a forerunner of what was to come throughout the sport. The Extreme Challenge got the approval of the commission, and Iowa became a “safe haven” for MMA events, enough so that the Nevada State Athletic Commission came to Iowa to observe a UFC card in anticipation of voting on the sport’s approval.

On the Nevada commission at the time was a gentleman named Lorenzo Fertitta, whose family owned the massive Station Casinos company, a stalwart in Las Vegas and beyond. Fertitta had watched the UFC, and was already a fan, but he still had reservations about the rules – or lack of same – that the sport had become identified with. While the Nevada commission did not vote on MMA based on the Iowa show, going to a live event for the first time was enough to reel Fertitta in.

Shortly thereafter, he talked to Bob Meyrowitz, who had been looking for investors, about a buyout of the UFC. Fertitta would accept nothing less than 100% control, and on January 9, 2001, the deal was announced – a purchase by Fertitta’s company, which was called “Zuffa” (Italian for “to fight”)

A new and prosperous era in MMA was about to begin.