UFC: Reforming Their Own Game, Coming Out Party
Published by on December 14th, 2007 in History

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In describing boxing for a May 2007 Sports Illustrated cover story, Dana White said, “Blame Don King and Bob Arum. Those two sucked the life out of boxing, put it in their pockets and did nothing to secure the future of (the sport).”

Boxing reform, of course, was not White’s task at hand. What he had to be concerned with from the outset was reforming his own sport. The Ultimate Fighting Championship had begun as a Wild Wild West experience, with nothing in the way of an appreciable set of rules and regulations and a circus atmosphere. As the sport progressed, it became somewhat more refined, but there was still a sideshow element, which included sumo wrestlers such as 600-pound Emmanuel Yarborough. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to convince the uninitiated that the sport was populated with serious, dedicated athletes, like Ken Shamrock and Chuck Liddell. White, however, wanted to go even beyond that; it was his opinion, and the opinion of others close to the sport, that perhaps the MMA fighter was the best athlete in the world – period.

In addition, it was important to communicate that the participants were not monsters, bullies or oafs, but people who were in fact educated, articulate and accomplished outside the octagon. Rich Franklin, for example, had been a high school teacher in the Cincinnati area before delving into MMA full time. Liddell had a degree from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. Randy Couture was an amateur wrestling standout and a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Many of the fighters have had experience owning and operating their own dojos and are quite entrepreneurial; Ken Shamrock, who has a training center, clothing line, promotional company, and other enterprises, is an example of this. The participant angle in mixed martial arts is another thing that can not be ignored; many more people take part in some kind of martial arts class than sports such as wrestling or boxing. There was a natural fan base there, not unlike those who follow golf and play it on the weekends. This was certainly recognized by the new organizers of the UFC.

“When we got involved, we started to meet some of the [fighters] and realized the old marketing wasn’t true,” White said in a June 2007 interview with Entrepreneur Magazine. “Most of these guys are college-educated guys, really good people and incredible athletes. We came in and marketed it the way it should have been marketed–as an incredible sport with amazing athletes.”

Increasing awareness about the image of the competitors was only part of the battle, however. Mixed martial arts had, for all intents and purposes, been shut out of the pay-per-view market by John McCain’s scare tactics, and it was essential to the growth of the UFC that the relationship between the elements of Big Politics and Big Television be repaired. Under Meyrowitz, the UFC had acceded to some adjustments in the rules, but his presence had become too antagonistic to the powers-that-be.
It was White and Fertitta’s master plan to adopt a set of “civilized” rules in full, and sell the idea of increased safety in order to be approved and accepted by the cable TV carriers so the UFC’s pay-per-view capability could be revived.
To put it mildly, they were successful.

UFC’S COMING-OUT PARTY

On February 23, 2001, the “new” UFC made its debut at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey with UFC 30, “Battle on the Boardwalk.” This was a major league move for the organization, which had often struggled to find acceptable locations, well off the beaten path. This was a major boxing state, with a real commission, and at a property owned by none other than Donald Trump. Fertitta had named his company Zuffa LLC. “Zuffa,” in Italian, meant “to fight,” or something similar. The UFC was about fighting, but the fight for its very life, which was ongoing under Bob Meyrowitz, had been transformed into a fight for the hearts of mainstream sports fans.

By this time, obviously some major changes in the organization had been made. John Perretti, who had been the matchmaker, was now out of the picture. In his place was Joe Silva, an innovative thinker and deft matchmaker who, over the course of time, played a key role in the ascendency of the UFC.

Lorenzo Fertitta brought a spirit of merchandising and sales to the table, recognizing that the UFC had never really leveraged its power as a brand to its fullest. The product itself had also taken on a new look. Production values were improved. There was weight classes established on a permanent basis, so that no competitor would have to endure a prohibitive and potentially harmful weight disadvantage. The safety provisions, derived from a uniform set of rules original put forward by the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB) were firmly in place. And the fighters seemed rejuvenated. The UFC looked very much like it had been given a new, fresh coat of paint.

Part of the plan for revitalization of the UFC was to become proactive in terms of marketing its product, both for the interest of the live audience on the local and regional level, as well as nationally, for the sake of pay-per-view television sales. Because it was now a “tamer” version than the UFC that had been maligned by the mainstream press before, there was an opportunity to instead utilize relationships with the press to help remove the stigma that had been there previously. And Dana White welcomed the chance for his company to portray itself as a great corporate citizen by taking the sport in a positive direction in more ways than one.

White and Fertitta were cooking up a formula for across-the-board success, while at the same time retaining some of the elements that would keep the hardcore fan base loyal. What was important was that now the UFC had an influential owner who had his share of connections with regulatory agencies, vendors and advertisers; a more “friendly” set of rules and regulations, a new logo, a new marketing plan, a new vision, and a new attitude, making it something cable companies were willing to carry once again on their pay channels.

Heck, a cleaned-up version of the UFC would even bring the scrooge-like McCain around eventually, wouldn’t it?
On this coming-out show, Tito Ortiz retained his UFC middleweight title in thirty seconds over Evan Tanner and continued to firmly implant his status as one of the sport’s signature stars. Jens Pulver also emerged, winning the bantamweight championship on a split decision.

The new guys on the block were off and running.