I realized that this might be my chance to try my hand at the UFC. At the time, I had announced only one fight. It was an MMA/kickboxing event named “Clash of the Dragons,” held in Kellogg, Michigan, in February 1995. I’ll never forget that day. During the undercards, Michael got in the ring and announced to the crowd that he was bringing up his “friend, manager, and brother to announce this kickboxing bout.” Before the show started, he and I had hashed out which fight I would announce. I wore a tuxedo for the occasion. I thought I did a good job, but after I announced the winner, the victor came up to me and said, “Thank you, but I’ve been waiting two months to hear Michael Buffer announce my name …”
Oh well. You can’t please everyone.
But I didn’t want to be a moonlighting announcer. If I was going to announce, I would play for keeps. I would land a good gig and pursue it full-time. And to avoid jeopardizing anything Michael had already carved out for himself, I’d make sure that I stuck to my own little corner of the fight industry.
I just needed to find some takers.
So I started pitching myself to Robert Meyrowitz, who was the owner of the UFC franchise back then. I laid out all my credentials. I knew the sport. I’d connected with it from the very beginning, through John Milius. I knew all the fighters and their records. I’d announced one fight and had enjoyed working with the power of my voice. I had done tons of motivational speaking. I was comfortable in front of crowds. Hell, I had even gotten my ass kicked by Royce.
“How about it, Bob?” I said. “Why don’t you give me a shot? You should have a Buffer in the Octagon. And if you get me in the organization, I’ll use all my marketing knowledge and media contacts to help you get publicity.” I knew that my contacts could help build the UFC into one of the biggest mainstream events in sports and entertainment. It was clear to me that the UFC could potentially go there.
Bob, a good man whom I liked and respected, wasn’t buying it. My pleas fell on deaf ears.
As it happened, around this time I had decided to accept an offer to manage a 340-pound monster from Minnesota named Scott “The Pit Bull” Ferrozzo. I liked Scott’s initiative. He had sent me a videotape and résumé, and had asked me to help him realize his dream of fighting in the UFC. Scott was going to fight in UFC 8. I called Bob and said, “Listen. I’m coming down to Puerto Rico for the fight with my fighter. I’m packing my tux. Give me a shot. Let me announce the preliminaries.”
Bob was busy as usual, and I had worn him down just enough to get to yes. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Let’s talk the night before the show, and I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
I went to the prefight party on Friday night and bugged him again. He was into it. Why not? If I botched it, he could brush me off better the next time. “I said I would give you a shot,” he said. “So go. Go for it.”
The next day was the first and only time I was nervous before announcing. Rich “G-Man” Goins was the announcer at the time, and he helped me get all set up. I went on and announced in front of 13,000 people and 160,000 pay-per-view takers.
I had a blast, and I thought, They’re going to call me for the next one. Just watch. Well, they didn’t. I was in New York City a couple of times to negotiate deals for Michael, and I’d always phone Bob at his office and say, “How about drinks? How about lunch?”
Nothing.
Then, one afternoon, I’m in the hospital visiting my mother, who’s having a gallbladder operation. Serious stuff. My mobile phone rings and it’s Bob’s right-hand man. “Uh, hi, Bruce?” he says. “Rich Goins’s uncle passed away and he’s got to go to the funeral. Can you be in Birmingham, Alabama, to announce UFC 10? Are you free in two days?”
I said, “My mom’s in the hospital, guys. I’m not prepared for this. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up the phone and looked at my mom and Brian. It was like something out of Rocky. I told them what had happened. My mom looked at me like Talia Shire, the actress who played Rocky’s wife, put her finger in the air, and said, “You gotta go. Go! Go!”
BUFFERISM NO. 7
“WHY NOT LOVE TODAY, AS YOU MAY NOT TOMORROW.”
I use this to remind myself to seize the day. Life’s short, so why would you ever want to put off what’s going to benefit you or make you happy in life? Don’t miss your chance to fall in love with a job, a business opportunity, a woman, or a special family experience. The window of love is only open for a short time—don’t miss it.
So I packed the tux and went down and did the entire show. I gave my all. But lo and behold, I got no phone call after that. What is it with these guys? I thought.
The thing is, I knew I could do the job. I’m a big believer in visualization as a way of bringing about success. I had already seen myself in action a thousand times in my head, dreaming of announcing in the Octagon. And I was confident that I had a big voice. And now I had seen myself in action at the UFC. I just needed to perfect my own distinctive style. The last thing I ever wanted to do was copy Michael and come across like a Frank Sinatra Jr., the younger guy trailing after the success of the better-known performer.
Even though I hadn’t done much announcing, I knew how to project my voice. I’d learned from the best: my father. Joe Buffer had a strong voice, even better than Michael’s, and Michael had once admitted as much, saying, “Pop has the best pipes of all of us.” When Joe Buffer spoke, I listened. My father only hit me twice in my life. He apologized with tears in his eyes afterward. But his voice carried enough discipline to send chills down my spine. If he was mad, he could assemble a string of words in such a way that it was absolutely horrifying. His verbal discipline always drove the point home better than any whipping could have. The man could scare the pope.
He was, after all, a former Marine drill instructor who could intimidate men who were bigger and stronger than himself. He always said that your voice is your most important tool. And if he ever asked me a question that I answered weakly, he’d yell, “Pro-ject! Pro-ject your voice!” His training came back to me when I ran those telemarketing rooms, and I had to connect with people fifty feet away, across the boiler room.
I figured that if I had to learn to announce better, I would. It was only a matter of time. But after UFC 10 came and went, I ended up watching UFC 11 at home on the TV. No call. I was like a girl waiting for a date to the prom.
But here’s how I gained some leverage on the situation. One day I got a call from Robert Meyrowitz, who said he’d been contacted by the producers of the hit TV show Friends. They were doing a UFC-themed show and had written their script to include the voice-over of a UFC announcer. But now they had changed their minds; they wanted the real announcer, in the flesh, to appear on camera. Rehearsals began tomorrow, so whoever was doing the gig had to be on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California, the very next morning. I was the perfect man for the job, since I lived in L.A. How did I feel about representing the UFC in that way? How could I say no? Friends was the top-rated comedy at the time. During the call with Bob, I agreed to do it but requested that we meet on the set because I had something very important to talk to him about.
The rehearsals took place the next day on the Warner Bros. studio lot. Big John McCarthy was there to play a referee, and Tank Abbott was guest-starring, too. While I was there, Bob and I met to talk.
“Look, Robert,” I said, “this show is the biggest on TV, and when it comes out, you’re going to get more publicity for the UFC brand than you’ve ever dreamed. Everyone’s going to think I’m your announcer because I’m co-starring as myself with Tank and Big John. Let’s make a deal. It’s time for me to announce every single UFC from now on.”
7
LOW POINT
We had a couple of good years at the beginning, but soon we were looking down the barrel of a gun. In March 2000, at UFC 24, I was gettin
g ready to announce the main event of the evening when I got a message in my earpiece:
The heavyweight title bout has been canceled.
What the hell?
Kevin Randleman, the two-hundred-pound heavyweight wrestler from Ohio, had been warming up backstage when he slipped, as if on a banana peel, on some pipes carelessly left lying around. He’d whacked his skull against the concrete floor. He was out cold, being rushed to a hospital with a concussion. This was serious stuff, not to be taken lightly. And now the bosses wanted me to announce to this crowd—and those watching at home—that the event they’d all been waiting for was dead in the water.
The crowd at the Lake Charles Center in Louisiana that night was pathetically sparse. As I looked out in the arena, I saw empty seats everywhere. This was something we’d begun to notice. At UFC 8 in Puerto Rico, attendance had hit an all-time UFC high of 13,000, but ever since, it had been dropping off. In Lake Charles the night Randleman slipped, there were only 1,800 people watching me about to become the bearer of bad news. Every one of those people had paid good money for their seats. Every one had come out to show their pride in the young sport. I knew I’d hear boos, and braced for bottles and cans to be thrown into the Octagon.
That, for me, was the low point of the ambitious organization to which I’d hitched my star. That night epitomized for me what had been happening for the last couple of years. The UFC had come under fire by many who accused it of promoting an inherently barbaric sport. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the future presidential candidate, famously described our sport as “human cockfighting,” and throughout the nation he and others were lobbying venues and athletic commissions to have the sport banned.
The witch hunt was working. Venues were locking us out, and management was dealing with legal issues over the right to put on a decent show to paying fans. Now, in retrospect, this was actually the best thing that could have happened to the sport. It forced the powers that be to look at the sport and ask, Hey, what’s good, what’s bad, what’s getting us in trouble, and what can we drop without tossing out the essence and purity of these phenomenal fights? Ultimately, the persecution of those early years made the organization stronger. It had, frankly, nowhere to go but up. But hindsight is 20/20. That night, in the dismal light of the stadium, it felt like we were fighting for our survival.
I wasn’t relying on the UFC to pay my bills at that point. I think I was making $650 a fight. But my dream of being an announcer and helping build the UFC into a mainstream sporting franchise was on the line.
I wanted MMA to be a respected sport. And I wanted UFC fights to be the premier events in the world of MMA. If the UFC tanked, I would have to reevaluate my dream of becoming an announcer. I could not see myself announcing anywhere other than the UFC Octagon. Sure, I was being approached by other MMA organizations, including K-1 and a couple of boxing promoters who offered me the chance to be their man in the ring, but none of them excited me. I knew that if the UFC failed to exist, then I would lay down the microphone and not pursue announcing anywhere else. No other fight organization did it for me. I didn’t want to be just another announcer looking for a paycheck and a free seat. I hadn’t signed up for that kind of life. I wanted to be a part of a sport and an organization that I loved and believed in.
Even before the night of the Randleman debacle, from my privileged perspective inside the organization, I could tell that things were not right. When I visited Robert Meyrowitz’s corporate offices in New York City, my business sense told me things were in trouble as soon as I stepped off the elevator. Office workers I’d known were now gone. Desks sat empty. The employees who remained seemed in over their heads.
When we lost those iN DEMAND pay-per-views, that was the larger share of the money that was coming in. My guess is Bob had little revenue coming in and just wasn’t breaking even. DirecTV’s 16-million-home subscriber base didn’t tell you how many people were actually going to watch. And how many home sales were you going to make when you were only attracting 2,000 to 3,000 people to the shows themselves?
That’s only the beginning of the numbers equation. If only 16 million people have the potential to watch your show, it’s hard to make intelligent ad buys. Where do you advertise? How do you get people to discover you? It’s not as if anyone in the mainstream media was covering us back then. It’s not as if you could open the Los Angeles Times or USA Today or the New York Times and check the sports TV schedule to find out what was going on in the sport and where you could watch it tonight. It was an underground sport. You almost had to be in the know to know when it was going to be on and where you could catch it. I know some fans get off on that; it makes them feel special to be in the know. But that’s no way to run a business. Business is about making things predictable, so fans know where you’re going to be and when. Same bat time, same bat channel.
The underground element concerned me. It meant that it was becoming harder for fighters to make a living. If you have a dream to fight, but one fight doesn’t pay your bills, what do you think you’re going to do? Fight more fights, of course. And pretty soon you’ll be grasping desperately at meager paychecks to make your nut and pay your trainers. That’s when fighters fight fights they really shouldn’t, when they succumb to the lure of unscrupulous outside promoters who only want to stage a spectacle. The UFC had to get better, had to get stronger, not only for its own good but for the good of the warriors who were its lifeblood.
I remember hanging out with Frank Shamrock a year or so after UFC 22, when he beat Tito Ortiz by strike submission. Frank’s an extremely intelligent man with excellent communication skills, which is why I have always enjoyed his fight commentary and his friendship. Whether in a mental debate or going head-to-head in the Octagon, Frank is a calm cat with a very low resting heart rate. When he fought Tito, he was remarkably calm and spoke into Tito’s ear much of the time, psyching him out by taunting Tito about how tired he was getting.
That fight had been pretty dramatic, and they’d both suffered some damage. Frank told me that he pulled in about $65,000 the night of the fight. But after he paid for his medical expenses and God knows what else, he cleared maybe a third of that. That was all he got for the second of only two fights he fought that year. “Tell me, Bruce,” he said. “I have to ask, Was it really worth it?”
There’s no question in my mind that if Frank were fighting today, he’d be making millions. Back then, there just wasn’t the kind of money fighters can make today under the Zuffa realm, which has helped many fighters become millionaires, if not multimillionaires.
In the back of my mind, there was always a scale, similar to the scales of justice, hanging over the UFC, weighing the difference between spectacle and sport. I had been fascinated by UFCs 1 and 2 because of the Gracies, and the martial arts component, which had been such a major influence on me when I was growing up. But UFC 3 turned me off a bit. There were basically no rules, no judges, no time limits, and apparently no weight classes. The skill was there, but the matchup was like a heavy-duty street fight where sometimes one guy would clearly have an advantage
over someone else. They were touting this as a new, up-and-coming sport and I thought, Whoa, wait a second. This is completely unregulated and someone could get hurt. If the sport wanted to go mainstream, it would have to get some rules.
Anytime you’re watching an event hoping for someone to get hurt, I think it’s ceased to be a sport. Sport is about skill. A spectacle is regressing to the days of the ancient Romans, watching people get torn apart by lions. So I skipped the next show and started watching again at UFC 5. I told myself to appreciate it for what it was. I realized it had potential but that it needed to be fine-tuned. There had to be a way to refine what was taking place, or it would just disappear because it was too violent.
Even today you hear people say how much they liked the old days. Well, sure, so do I. I love the head butt, for example. That’s something that we can’t do today, but it’s a cool thing to watch.
The businessman in me got great pleasure watching Robert Meyrowitz at work. He was a consummate showman who understood entertainment. He made his bones in pay-per-view and the radio industry. Once, he had a venue cancel and had to move the show to Alabama overnight. He got the trucks packed and the fighters and all their equipment on their way in a matter of hours, all without breaking a sweat. Imagine having to pack up the Octagon and all that goes with it overnight! What an incredible feat of logistics and grace under pressure.
If there was a fight on a Saturday in some city, I guarantee you that Robert was in court in that city earlier that week, fighting to make sure that the show went off without a hitch, because people were out to block them.