Have you ever felt bad
about hurting anybody?
I broke a guy's orbital bone.
He insulted me a lot before the fight,
and I shattered his face pretty good.
His confidence was never the same,
but if they could do it to me, they would.
One thing I do, I pray for my opponents before the fight.
What we do for a living is a little taboo.
There's not many who have the courage
to go in there and be so vulnerable,
knocked unconscious in front of all your friends and family,
your teacher seeing your eyes roll back in your head.
No one wants to get embarrassed in front of millions of people.
So we train
to do the things that no one wants to do.
That's what makes great fighters.
Over the past decade,
mixed martial arts has become one of the world's
fastest-growing sports.
What began as a gathering of variously trained fighters
competing for the right to claim their technique as supreme
has become the household name known today
as simply MMA.
Big on top.
Most of the sport's growth in popularity
is due to its largest organization,
the UFC.
One of the most anticipated fights in UFC history
took place in April 2012
when two former teammates faced each other in the Octagon.
Months earlier, the older fighter, Rashad Evans,
was a mentor to his friend and rising star Jon Jones.
But on that day, the Las Vegas arena
was brimming with anticipation
for the two former friends to exchange blows.
Kept Rampage at distance.
Oh, big kick...
Unable to control his fury,
Rashad made crucial errors.
Jones remained composed,
unleashing strategic attacks.
Just threw Rashad.
Oh, he tagged him.
He would love to finish this fight.
Has it 49-46,
and Richard Bertrand scores the contest 50-45...
Five rounds later,
Jones is declared the winner,
retaining his title as the light heavyweight
champion of the world.
The undisputed UFC
light heavyweight champion of the world.
The UFC has found its new superstar.
Bones Jones!
Rashad left New Mexico
after feeling betrayed by his former team
at Jackson's Gym.
He's made a new home base in Florida,
where he lives with his girlfriend Beans.
After losing another fight in a split decision,
Rashad suffered a severe knee injury
that put his career on hold
for at least a year.
The climb back up is the hardest in many ways,
but I'm right there, right there again.
And
I hurt myself.
Do you have some on my knuckle?
It sounds like you walking up,
like you are trying to be sassy.
He's just defending his house.
He's checking you guys out like you are checking him out.
Wow.
Rashad's children from his second marriage
visit him once a month.
They miss their father and it shows.
On a pleasant afternoon like this,
the family enjoys their time together.
What was your experience like
fighting Jon Jones?
I felt mentally drained
going into that fight.
There's a big, huge story behind
the whole me and Jon Jones relationship,
and furthermore the relationship,
which was fractured because of the fight,
which was Jackson's Gym.
Greg Jackson was my longtime coach,
and I had some of my best fights
training under them.
And I felt like they sold me out.
At that point, I'm just like... like,
"What happened?"
And it's weird because you never know
at that point in which
you've lost that step.
And I'm thinking to myself like,
"Did I,
"did I lose my shit?
"Where did my shit go?"
You know what I'm saying?
Like "I can't hit the button.
"I can't find that thing."
It was a lot of soul-searching, a lot of
why I started to fight.
What it means to fight.
Keep your knee right there, right there, right there.
Good.
Three times a week,
Rashad does rehab to strengthen his healing knee.
One, that's it.
Your muscle's not even shaking.
That's great.
Two.
Now it's starting to shake. I spoke too soon.
His injury changes everything.
Does he have the ability to stand on his leg,
push off as hard as he wants,
and not have to worry about it collapsing or falling?
It's okay. No big deal.
Mentally speaking, that period of time
can take just as long if not even longer
to recover than just the physical injury itself.
For me, fighting
is always overcoming.
Always overcoming, always overcoming.
And now here I am
on the road to come back,
on the road to dominate
and
try to regain
what was once mine,
which is the UFC
light heavyweight belt.
He doesn't like me.
Okay, gear it up, guys.
Get geared up.
Since defeating Rashad Evans,
Jon Jones still remains champion.
He is 27 years old and now the UFC's biggest draw.
Huge endorsements with Reebok and Beats Headphones
have made him a household name.
International appearances take up
a lot of the fighter's time.
Now, with his next fight just five weeks away,
the champ returns to his training camp
at the famous Jackson's Gym
in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Me and Rashad Evans, we were training partners.
He was somebody who I looked up to, growing up,
and he was one of the main reasons
why I came to Jackson's Gym.
I was teaching 'em all these cool, funky crazy techniques,
and they were teaching me some of their
veteran techniques and stuff,
and I think my passion allowed me to outgrow those guys.
I like that switch, Jon Jones.
I saw it.
They saw it pretty fast.
Every week, I was getting a little bit closer
to beating them, and eventually
I was beating them both.
Rashad got injured, and the UFC
offered me the opportunity to fill in for him
to compete for the next available world championship,
and obviously I took the opportunity.
He felt as if I should've
waited for him to recover,
but that's not really the way the world works.
I felt as if this was my time,
my opportunity to be great.
And I did.
I won that world championship,
really devastating fashion.
Put some pressure on him. That's all I wanna see.
Close the distance, you win.
He started his own team
and challenged me for the championship right away.
And we beat him up pretty good.
He badmouthed Greg Jackson;
he badmouthed the whole program.
Tried to twist the story to the media
and tell people that I had betrayed him.
And, really, I was just a kid following my heart,
following my dreams.
You're still shaking off Brazil a little bit.
You can see that travel's a little getting you,
but that's doesn't mean nothing.
Let's get you outta here, though.
When you told your parents
you were gonna become a professional fighter,
how did they react?
They were not about it.
My dad, being a pastor,
he always wanted me to go the route of
a spiritual leader,
and I never thought that was for me.
My mom thought that it would change my character.
She thought that I would become a violent person
or a person who didn't treat people fairly or arrogant,
but it's changed my life in a positive way.
It's given me a way to provide for my family
and to share myself with the world,
so now they realize that it's the best thing
that ever happened to me.
This is good.
Yep.
Take two.
What are the actual origins of MMA?
Where did it come from?
Originally it started
I think it's like 648 Before Christ.
I looked it up one day because
I had a real cool script about it.
And it was in the first Olympics
called Pankration.
Pancrase!
MMA's roots can be
traced back to ancient Greece.
A sporting event known as Pankration
determined who was the ultimate combatant.
Men faced off before roaring crowds,
garnering the respect of such figures
as Alexander the Great.
Contestants had the ability to submit
by raising an index finger,
similar to the tap-out technique used in modern times.
It was mixed martial arts pretty much.
Right there, in the first Olympic sports.
Back in the days, gladiators,
they would have thousands and thousands of people,
and they're killing each other
with swords and everything.
There's something about two men
that get inside of a cage
and compete against each other
that human nature loves to watch.
Every human being,
even my mother who's like a saint,
she wouldn't hurt nobody,
but I can still, even her,
put her in a situation of life or death
or even for defending someone that she love.
She gonna have to fight.
As a fighter, there's nothing harder than MMA.
You gotta do the wrestling.
You gotta do the kickboxing.
You gotta do the jiu-jitsu.
We're like a Rubik's cube. MMA is.
You gotta make sure all the colors match
at the same time to win the game.
In Brazil, the Gracie family perfected
the ancient Japanese martial art of jiu-jitsu,
molding it into a brand all their own.
This Brazilian jiu-jitsu would become
one of the key principles of today's mixed martial arts.
In 1914 Mitsuyo Maeda,
a jiu-jitsu instructor from Japan,
came to Brazil as an aide
to the Japanese immigration colony.
My grandfather was a very influential man at the time,
helped the Japanese gentleman get settled.
So to show his gratitude,
he offered to teach jiu-jitsu to my uncle Carlos,
who at the time was 13 years old.
My father Helio Gracie
was physically very frail.
Nobody knew exactly why.
And what my dad soon realized
is that the techniques he had spent a few years memorizing
by watching his brothers practice
require a certain amount of physical ability
and strength and speed,
which he did not have.
So through trial and error,
he started modifying those concepts
of the traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu
that he had observed
so that he could become proficient
in spite of his frail body.
And ultimately that was the birth of Gracie jiu-jitsu,
Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
If you're gonna rely on strikes,
if he's 50 pounds heavier than you,
there's a very good chance
that that guy can throw a punch and knock you out.
So in jiu-jitsu, we take that equation
out of the game.
The concept is to create positions of leverage
that enable a weaker person
to become highly proficient
even against somebody who's much bigger,
much heavier, much stronger,
because you're not relying on speed and strength.
My first view of a competitive match-up
between two guys that were allowed to do more
than just punch with their hands
or kick with their feet
was when I was with the Gracies,
when they were showing me fights that they had done
or other people had competed in from Brazil.
The UFC was something that was developed by me
when I came to the United States
with the objective of sharing the knowledge of jiu-jitsu
with the rest of the world.
I came up with a concept to develop a tournament
between different styles of martial arts.
A boxer fighting a grappler.
A jiu-jitsu man fighting a taekwondo guy.
I specifically did not want a boxing ring
because once they start getting beat up,
they slip through the ropes and get away.
In fact, John Milius, who was a student of mine at the time,
did Conan the Barbarian, a whole bunch of big, huge movies,
John and I used to have discussions on
how should we make that ring
so the guys would not get away.
And we discuss having a moat with alligators,
so if the guy tried to get away
he would be eaten up by alligators and stuff like that.
Eventually, we settled for what the Octagon is today.
One of my students had actually
picked up a flyer,
and it said no holds barred on it.
And when I looked at it, I just thought, well...
In those days, it was pro wrestling.
You look at no holds barred,
it was Hulk Hogan.
When they first brought the UFC on the scene,
it was billed as the fact that somebody could die.
They were creating that sensationalism.
I go, "Hey, it says no rules.
"Pull hair?
"Groin shot?"
He says, "Yeah, everything's good.
"Only thing you can't do is bite.
"Bare knuckle."
I wanna show to the world
that if you throw a punch at somebody's face,
it's very likely gonna break your fingers.
Versus the illusion that we see sometimes in the movies
where one guy walks in and chops everybody up
and 50 people drop dead.
That's not reality.
Eight of the deadliest fighters in the world
will meet in a no-holds-barred...
In 1993, the first Ultimate
Fighting Championship commenced.
I loved it. It was very realistic.
Where back then, there were a lot of
hocus-pocus type of martial arts,
it showed everybody what techniques actually work
in a real situation and what techniques don't.
That was the first time that I really saw
martial arts go out and do what they say they could do
and that was have a little guy beat a big guy.
Gerard Gordeau versus Teila Tuli.
That was as violent as it gets.
Gordeau kicks Tuli in the face with the shin,
and his tooth flies and they call off the fight.
It lasted like 30 seconds or so.
When I saw that a little guy like Royce Gracie
beating up the bigger and more intimidating guy,
I felt very inspired because they make me remember
my childhood when I went at school
and got bullied.
So right away, I knew
I wanted to do this and I wanted to be world champion.
The first pay-per-view did
like over 350,000 pay-per-view buys
on UFC 1 and just grew and got bigger.
They didn't realize the sport that they had
intrigued fans to watch.
Thank you very much for watching the first...
Michael Guymon has dedicated
his entire life to MMA.
Born and raised in Orange County, California,
he is 39 years old
and has fought 22 professional fights.
He never achieved stardom.
Throughout most of his career,
Michael has struggled with depression
and thoughts of suicide.
Yeah, I need to...
These refilled or filled.
Okay.
And, Michael, can you fill your address
for me on that one?
What was birthday, also?
9/17/74.
Since we've got him on medicine,
it's kinda flatlined him in the sense of
he doesn't
like think of just picking up a gun
and shooting himself or driving off a cliff.
I think it's more of just like,
"I'm okay if I die."
And he says that occasionally,
like "I'm okay if I die."
So I know that that part
of the depression is still there.
I worried about him.
I don't want him to do anything drastic,
and I worried about all the injuries he suffer
when he was fighting,
because he had very serious broken bones
in all his face and his jaw and everything.
He got knocked out,
and he hit the ground.
And you can clearly see that he was out.
And the ref was coming in to stop
and do this.
And the guy came down and hit him one more time.
And the guy gave 110%
and just shattered his face.
I broke my orbital, my eye socket,
my cheekbone, my jaw.
I remember on the way to the hospital,
all of a sudden I see this pink fluid
coming out of my nose, and I'm like "Ah,
"what the hell?"
And it ended up being brain fluid.
The guy gets knocked out, he gets carted off.
You don't see him the next week, what he's like.
If you saw me the next day,
you would never have recognized me.
It's not a game.
Following his recent injuries
sustained in the cage,
Joker has been unable to compete.
This has led to a multitude of financial problems
and uncertainty over the future of his business venture:
his gym.
Stress for me is,
it's going through the roof,
and I'm trying to be, like, uh...
I'm trying to be as
positive as possible on the outside.
Inside,
inside
sucks.
Am I gonna be able to keep the gym?
How am I gonna make money
if I can't keep the gym?
Not being able to fight,
I mean I am able to fight.
It's just I'd have to force my body
through all that shit again,
which I don't wanna do.
For years, unsanctioned amateur fights
have taken place on California's Indian reservations.
This is how many of the fighters today got their start,
Joker among them.
Today he leads his student Luke along the same path
at this small amateur venue
miles away from the city.
Luke's trying to build his way up,
and this is the way to do it.
Build up your record here,
and then try and get into bigger shows.
He's the new breed.
Future, right here.
The past, right here.
When you hit pads,
it's not gonna be like that when you're fighting.
They're gonna be throwing at you.
It's like Matrix; everything slows down.
Aw, shit, he's hurt!
Hold his head.
I want you hold him so he don't move.
Chris, come here.
His teeth.
Put your head back, bro.
Gonna stitch his mouth?
I just had surgery. I don't wanna watch that.
Movement, movement, movement!
Make him commit, make 'em pay.
To my left,
from Joker MMA
is Luke Adams!
Come on, Luke!
Yeah!
Get up!
Oh, my God.
Give me a thumbs-up.
Give me a thumbs-up, coach.
Wow.
Yeah!
Ranked number six in the world,
34-year-old Sara McMann is an active UFC fighter.
Prior to joining the league,
Sara was a wrestler on the U.S. Olympic team.
She became the first American woman
to win a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics.
You wanna cut
and break a nose,
make some damage,
you gonna taper that tip.
Recently separated
from her husband of five years,
the future of Sara's marriage is now uncertain.
A devoted mother, she is constantly balancing
the demands of her fighting career
with the time needed for her daughter.
Do you have a lot of homework?
Were you a naughty girl today?
You were a good girl?
My brother wrestled since I was about three years old,
and I never really had an interest in it.
I did cheerleading for like one year.
And then when I was 14, I was like,
"I think I wanna go out for sports."
I wanted to do wrestling 'cause it just seemed like
the most natural sport.
But in North Carolina, that's just wasn't really accepted.
It was, "Girls should be
"cooking and cleaning for those boys,
"not wrasslin' with them!"
It was just a different time.
I've always kinda had a stubborn streak, so
immediately when they told me I couldn't do something,
especially 'cause they told me I couldn't do it
'cause I was a girl,
I was like, "No way. "I'm doing this."
Like, "You don't tell me what I can and can't do
"and what I'm capable of."
And my mom was like, "Oh, you're wrestling."
And I was like, "Yes!"
Some guys on the team
didn't think that I belonged there,
like I was just there to
find a boyfriend or hook up or something like that.
You know, "If she's gonna quit, we'll help make her quit."
If they came after me, I just came after them harder.
So I just kinda proved that
"Okay, you're gonna stand up to me;
"you're gonna challenge me.
"It's just gonna make me a better wrestler.
"You're actually helping me."
There's a grasshopper in the mouth.
It's trying to crawl out. Grab it, quick.
Grab it. Oh, look at it jump!
Grab it!
Quick. Got it!
Don't squeeze it.
My brother was murdered when I was 18 years old
and he was 21.
And it was at my first year of college.
The guy got beat up by my brother,
and so he was insulted
and decided like, "You know what?
"I'm gonna solve this problem.
"I'm just gonna kill the guy."
My older brother was responsible
for me choosing to wrestle and my character
developing the way it did,
my stubbornness and my hard work and my drive,
and it was...
It was horrible.
It was horrible losing
somebody you looked up to and that was your hero.
And, um...
Not even just losing somebody.
Losing somebody's hard enough,
but having somebody taken from you.
It was really difficult for an 18-year-old to
process.
I didn't process it by like crying all the time.
I threw myself into wrestling, and when I wasn't,
I was just angry.
Angry at the world, angry that
that's the hand that life dealt me at that time.
I'm not a fan of women fighting.
I think it's gross.
But that's just me.
You know, you wanna,
you wanna fight like a man, you wanna act like a man,
then I'm gonna beat you up like a man.
There's room for women competitors, for sure.
There's an opportunity for women;
they wanna compete.
They wanna be fighters.
It's cool.
I mean I don't see it too sexy.
But that's just my sexist side of me
as being a man, I guess.
But if they wanna compete, cool. That's awesome.
You know, I've always had a fascination
with combat sports.
I can remember, as a little girl,
and I'm talking very little girl,
maybe six, seven, eight,
laying in bed, thinking,
"If I hit him like this, he's gonna do this.
"If I do this, he's gonna do that."
I think my mom thought I was amazingly crazy.
People like, "You're not
"gonna have your daughter be a fighter?"
No.
Maybe a ballerina or something.
I had parents that instilled in me
to try to be strong,
and martial arts really did help me,
because I got into it so young,
build my confidence.
It kinda gave me a voice.
As female fighters,
we do have a voice,
and we can make our voice heard.
Every time we go in that cage,
we earn more and more respect.
And I think that puts us in a position
of being the voice for other women around the world
that don't have the opportunity
to have their voice heard.
It wasn't until Strikeforce
that I had the opportunity to see legitimate female athletes.
For people that say that there's no place
for women in the octagon,
I just say, "Watch."
You know?
"Watch, observe.
"Have an open mind."
If you bought a ticket to an NBA game,
and you said, "All right,
"at halftime, there's gonna be a WNBA game,"
a lot of fans would be like, "What is this?
"We hate the WNBA."
You know how that is.
No one thinks twice.
The women's fights are just
as exciting and looked forward to
as the men's fights.
There's obviously a lot of women that wanna fight,
and there's a lot of guys that wanna see 'em fight.
Do you think women are finally
getting respect as fighters?
Yes, definitely.
Well, especially since there's Ronda Rousey.
She's definitely deserved the respect.
How hard she trains,
her mental and her physical
everything is so prepared.
And that's what make her a good fighter.
Ronda Rousey,
a reigning UFC champion and number-four
pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
She has viciously dominated her opponents,
beating many of them within the opening seconds.
Here is the action,
and there's not a lot of it.
Done!
That is the end, ladies and gentlemen!
Seconds into the first round, again.
Ronda Rousey looks unbeatable.
Phenomenal...
All right, y'all. Here she is.
Hi, everybody.
Hi. Nice to meet you, too.
I found a scrapbook
in our house when I was around eight,
and I discovered that my mom was
the first American judo world champion.
I just found out that
she was actually Wonder Woman.
People all over the world
gravitate towards fighting because
it's something that's in everyone
and it's an actual instinct.
It's not a man's thing or a woman's thing.
It's simple and it's natural,
and we're all compelled to do it.
It's in our blood. It's in our history.
We're instinctively protective creatures
because we're mothers.
So if you ever watch a female fight,
you see that
relentless passion
to dominate and to survive.
Recently, Ronda took on Sara McMann,
dropping her with a knee to the liver,
a stoppage that Sara still believes was premature.
It is all over.
She continues to train daily,
patiently awaiting her next fight.
Fighting out of High Ridge, Missouri,
the former Bellator lightweight world champion,
please welcome Michael Chandler!
Ever since I lost that belt a couple years ago,
I knew that it was only a matter of time,
only a matter of work,
only a matter of positive thinking.
Losing extra pounds
to make weight is never easy.
It drastically affects a fighter's mind.
I'm very disciplined for my whole training camp,
and I get my body down to the best physical shape
it possibly can be,
four or five, 6% body fat,
and then that last 15 pounds or so
is a lot of water weight.
Once you make the weight,
then you have about 24 hours,
and you can finally breathe
because that first fight was just making the weight.
Now you can focus on the task at hand,
which is going out there and winning that next fight.
Growing up in the Midwest, my mom and dad worked two jobs
to make sure us kids had
every single thing that we wanted.
My first love was wrestling.
And my mom worked two jobs.
My dad was a carpenter,
so he went to work throughout the week
and then would do side jobs on the weekends
just to scrape up enough money
to make sure I could go to wrestling camps.
They truly wanted to give us kids
more than they had when they grew up,
and now kinda coming into the sport of MMA,
it's really helped me keep my roots
very strongly planted in the ground.
Republicans' bamboo trees.
Even though he is completely different.
There was a guy that dressed exceptionally good.
Kicking and striking, it was unnatural
because I wasn't a fighter growing up,
I never got into fights,
and I never really had that adrenaline rush
of fighting and throwing punches and kicks
and knees and elbows,
but I wasn't afraid of anybody, and I knew
that I was already gonna be tougher
than a lot of the guys I stepped in the cage with.
I might not really understand
how a fight works, but I know
when it comes to hand-to-hand combat,
I've already done it at the highest level
in that Division I wrestling room,
that Division I grind,
where for 12 months out of the year
for five years straight,
you were literally putting your body through a living hell.
You cannot go from an elbow strike from 12 to six.
Now you can be on your back and throw it from
six to 12.
That is legal.
Having a loss is tough.
I've trained so hard and so smart
and surrounded myself with the right people,
the people I think that are gonna help me,
and I never envision seeing myself lose.
My first 12 fights I was 12-0,
ten finishes, and seven of those in the first round.
Alvarez!
Bleeding terribly out of the mouth
from Michael Chandler!
Now giving up his back!
- Chandler looking... - That's it!
There's the tap!
And we have a new champion!
Michael Chandler is Bellator's
new lightweight world champion!
My rematch against Eddie Alvarez
I lost by a tough, tough split decision.
A lot of people thought I won.
I was put in this sport to become a champion
and be put on a platform to reach people,
so I couldn't see how I could possibly lose
inside that cage.
And then it happens.
I came back from the dead almost.
Not many guys lose three fights in a row
and then came back and become
where I think that I'm gonna end up.
You step in that cage,
you have one goal and one mission,
and that's to dominate.
This is the hurt business.
Huge right!
I am pretty darn good at it.
I visualize myself on top of my opponent,
hitting him or putting him in a submission,
watching him crumble,
watching his facial expression turn from
looking like he thinks that he's gonna win
to that sunken-in facial expression of "Oh, my gosh,
"this guy won't get off me.
"Oh, my gosh.
"It's only a matter of time before I get finished."
Iron Michael Chandler!
You know what to do!
Lights out.
Chandler!
And it's over!
Michael Chandler came in
wanting to take the fight to the ground.
Instead, he puts Patricky Pitbull to the ground.
And we have a new lightweight world champion.
Let me amend that.
There definitely are still some troubled guys
who wanna get in the sport to channel their anger
or, "Hey, I wanna make some money.
"There's girls around.
"Maybe I'll get on TV,
"and my friends'll think I'm cool."
But it's starting to become such a high-profile sport,
it's not easy to get signed to these promotions
unless you are a quality fighter
and a quality human being.
It's interesting the way the sport has grown,
matured, and advanced.
Clint Dahl, a manager to many fighters,
studied the UFC formula
and soon began promoting local fights in Orange County.
These local events became a breeding ground
for some of the world's greatest fighters.
There's a good example of California's finest.
What up, buddy?
Time I had graduated high school,
a large number of my friends had been murdered,
and street fights were a common thing.
You know, you just did it.
Fight fans, 1,000 strong
in an Orange County college gym,
cheer on the bare-knuckle brawlers.
There are few rules, and gloves are not required.
The UFC had been going,
and we started wanting to be the UFC.
We started putting on fights that we called shoot fights.
Shoot fighting's not pro wrestling.
You really fight out there, and you don't go out there...
Orange County in the '90s was the mecca.
Orange County was truly the mecca of mixed martial arts.
Well, the less rules there are, the more intense it...
I have a scar on my palm
from when I hit a guy and broke his nose,
and I guess his skull went into my hand and just
blood everywhere.
One night this guy came in,
and he was a known badass.
He was like the guy on the street.
He wasn't a big guy,
but he'd beat up big guys.
Everyone would talk about him.
And I'm like, "Will you fight?"
And he's all like, "Who am I fighting?"
I go, "I got a 16-year-old kid back here
"who trains here."
That 16-year-old kid beat the shit
outta that street fighter.
Mangled him.
So this street fighter's sitting on the floor.
I go, "Are you okay?"
And the $100 that I gave him
were in twenties, and they were all crumbled up,
and he just reached and grabbed 'em,
and he just like pulls them into himself.
He's just afraid in that moment
that I'm gonna take his $100.
So there's a street fighting story.
Street fighters lose.
And that's where it started to progress.
A practicing minister,
please welcome Kimo!
In America, since it's the melting pot
of all different cultures,
I believe that same thing happens
when a martial art comes here.
Kickboxing, karate, taekwondo,
all of these things got mixed together
to make mixed martial arts.
The sport of mixed martial arts
has constantly reinvented itself.
Once dominated by Brazilian jiu-jitsu,
today's fighters must develop a more well-rounded approach
to stay competitive.
We learned about the Gracies.
A fundamental ground fighting system
was revealed to us, and we all went, "Holy smokes!"
But then when Stan Longinidis beat Dennis Alexio
with a leg kick, Muay Thai came around,
and everybody went, "Holy smokes.
"What's Muay Thai?"
Then you get a guy like a Don Frye,
who's a very good boxer and a good wrestler,
that could stuff a takedown
and then start punching and knock a guy out.
UFC 8, versus Gary Goodridge,
he was a monster.
UFC 9, Amaury Bitetti,
God bless him,
he almost died that night,
'cause he would not quit.
There it is.
"More," he's saying "More."
UFC 10, Coleman almost killed me.
You got guys like Tito Ortiz
who reinvented the ground-and-pound
after Coleman pretty much invented it,
to a sprawl-and-brawl,
which Chuck Liddell mastered.
Oh!
Oh, and a big right hand!
Big left kick!
That's it! Oh, it's over!
It's all over!
There has never been a challenger like this before.
Knocking someone out, it feels great.
If you play baseball, it's like hitting that clean
line drive out of the park.
The young guys at that time
said, "Okay, we gotta be a complete fighter.
"Otherwise, if you have a hole in your game
"and I don't, then
"I'm gonna probably win the fight."
In our schools, we teach striking
and ground tactics.
You have to know both.
For a street situation you have to know it,
and of course for MMA.
And I would never put somebody in the cage
that's not well rounded.
It's putting it all together, making it
as one.
If you can make it all seamless,
then that's the art of it.
Each fighter gets to put his own flavor on it
and come out and express himself to the world
in a canvas that's painted in blood.
This sport started with barroom brawlers,
guys who were angry or just getting out of prison,
and it was taboo.
But now you see so many people coming into this sport
where they're just passionate about it.
I have my degree from Mizzou.
If I wanted to stop fighting today,
I could go use that degree
and do whatever I wanted to do with it.
But I choose fighting because I like it.
I'm not the kind of guy who goes out to a bar
and gets into a fight like an idiot.
I can't say I ever got in a fight
that I wasn't paid for.
Now you're coming in
as a guy who started training in MMA
as a 12-year-old and now you're 21
with all those skillset.
It's fun to look back at that time,
but that's wasn't sport;
that was more spectacle.
This is true sport.
All right, guys, let's go!
Let's get, get it, get it.
Rashad's knee has yet to fully heal.
But he's eager to begin his training.
Thank you, my prince.
Thank you, my princess.
He steps back into the gym
for the first time in ten months.
What's up, man, how you doing?
This is just the beginning of his comeback.
What was your childhood like?
I moved with my dad when I was three years old,
and I stayed until I was seven.
He had very bad anger issues.
You know, he whooped our ass a lot
to the point sometimes where
I didn't even fear the paddle anymore.
Ha!
My mother was a good mom.
She was very strict.
She would give you a couple warnings.
And if by the third warning you didn't get it right,
it was bop, bop, bop, bop!
"Rashad, go get that belt!"
And I'm like, "Damn!"
Okay, here we go!
I used to love to fight.
That was like the funnest thing in the world to me,
just to get into a street fight with some other kids.
It was natural for me
because I grew up fighting.
Back when I was four or five years old,
my brother Lance would make me fight
other little kids.
They would love to fight me
because I looked like a wimp.
And I had to always prove to them that
I'm 'bout it, and I'm not scared of nothing.
It helped me release a lot of frustration
and hurt that I had.
You know what I'm saying?
We grew up kind of poor, very poor.
And it was just,
it was hard.
Bop, bop!
Once I got old enough to really start to understand
that I was poor,
then I had a lot of resentment
for my father, even resentment for my mother,
because I was like...
I used to think like, "Why the fuck do I gotta
"grow up like this?"
It was one of the things in my life that
always gives me drive
because I can still remember that feeling.
That's the business, you know what I'm saying?
I got one chance in my lifetime right now
to seize this opportunity and make the most out of it,
and I gotta do what I gotta do
to make sure I'm doing that.
You know?
I been in this game since
2003, man.
When you met Rashad,
did you know he was a professional fighter?
No.
I had no idea what I was in for.
He tried to tell me,
and I asked him,
"A fighter, what do you mean?"
And he said, "Mixed martial arts."
I was like, "Okay, that's a nice hobby,
"but what do you do for a living?"
He asked how you do it and cut off,
you not only controlled
but you cut off blood supply.
He's trying to prove something. That's why.
No, no, no, no, no, I'm just showing him.
I just wanna feel it.
Hold on, let me finish my tuna, man. Come on, damn.
Was it difficult seeing him
not able to train?
Yeah, it's difficult because
it's like a child that's not able to play.
Don't hurt his neck.
Out of all the sports out there,
it's the hardest one to be connected with,
to watch him want to do so much but
you can't.
With his upcoming fight
against Daniel Cormier looming,
Jon takes time away from training
to fulfill his fatherly duties.
Oh, look.
Jon Bones Jones doll.
I let my kids watch my fights, but
never live,
because you never know what's gonna happen out there.
I've had some fights where I've gotten pretty bloody,
and I've had some fights
where I've gotten other people pretty bloody.
And I don't really like them to see that type of stuff.
Excuse me, Bones.
How's it going?
Pretty good, pretty good.
Good, good to see you, buddy.
Do a lot of fighters
bring their families along during the training?
That seems to work for a lot of fighters.
I've also seen a lot of fighters
come down here by themselves.
And those guys really,
they don't really seem as happy.
They seem to get burned out a little faster.
They miss their kids and
just having my kids run up to me
screaming "Daddy, Daddy!"
things in the gym just don't seem
that serious.
Daddy!
Guess what?
Got you guys some toys tonight.
Yay!
Yeah.
Your opponent, Daniel Cormier,
keeps saying that you're gonna poke him in the eyes
during the fight.
Why does he keep saying that?
So Daniel Cormier is saying before the fight
that I'll end up poking him in the eyes
at some point,
and the reason why he says that
is because I do poke people in the eyes.
And it's very illegal.
But I do it.
Livies.
- She hit me today. - Did she?
I react to people
trying to punch me in the face by
usually sticking my hand out
and pushing their face away,
kinda like you see on TV
where the big brother's holding his little brother
and the little brother can't hit him
'cause his arms isn't long enough or whatnot.
And I do that in real fights.
Like if someone's coming at me,
I'll just put my hand on their forehead.
And a lot of times they end up missing the punch
that was intended for my face.
And sometimes it lands in people's eyes.
And people hate that.
They're like, "Jonny, you're a very talented fighter.
"You don't need to use an illegal tactic
"to be successful."
And I try to tell people it's not intentional,
but now I'm kinda known for it, and
it's working.
Mwah!
Thank you.
What gives you the most stress in life?
My MMA career.
Definitely.
Not only winning, but performing at people's expectations.
Being called the greatest fighter in the world
pound-for-pound,
not only do you have to win
but you have to be impressive.
And I think that's what causes me stress.
Oy!
Seat belts.
Seat belts, seat belts, seat belts.
In August, the press conference
of the upcoming UFC 182 was held.
Jones and Cormier finally got a chance
to size each other up.
Things escalated quickly
as the two fighters met face to face
at center stage.
Despite the melee, the status of the fight
remains unchanged.
However, both fighters were given serious fines
as well as community service.
You're the scum of the earth.
You are a terrible human being,
but you can sure turn it on, huh?
Thank you.
I actually admire that you can actually be this fake
and, like, when the TV comes on, how you can just change.
It's like you're a chameleon.
Both managed to exchange
obscenities and even live threats to the mainstream media.
The fact that you're a pussy hasn't changed.
Including ESPN's SportsCenter.
I wish they would let me next door
so I could spit in your face.
You know I would absolutely kill you
if you ever did something like that, right?
You could never kill me.
Oh, I bet you I could.
Cormier is a tough opponent,
and previous confrontations
have made it personal. I would literally kill you
if you spit in my face.
Yeah, let's try that, Jon.
- Literally kill you. - Let's try that, Jon.
I'm not saying I would fight you;
I say I would kill you
if you did some stupid shit like that.
So Jon, do you think I'm just gonna sit there
and let you kill me, Jon?
I mean, really?
Harder, harder, harder! Higher!
Go, go, go! Five seconds, finish strong!
The best liver kick that I see is
from catching a kick or parrying a kick...
Earlier in the day,
Sara received a call from the UFC matchmaker.
She has been offered to fight Miesha Tate,
one of the top-ranked fighters in the world.
It will be the challenge Sara has prepared for.
Reset, back neutral!
One step back, come back in!
That's it.
Is she accounting for elbows and down pressure?
Pull him into the ground.
In college, you had a fiancé.
Was it easy for you to get along with him
because he was a wrestler also?
Yeah. He understood everything, you know.
Like he knew the stress and pressure I was under.
There's so many things that go unspoken
between two athletes.
Like I would never have any question
of how he was feeling, what was going on,
what was he experiencing.
And the same things vice versa.
You just have a different understanding of it.
What happened in September of 2004?
He'd gotten into Columbia Law School.
And we were driving to go
move all of my stuff there.
And for whatever reason, the car veered off the road,
and I tried to correct it.
And I overcorrected it, and it rolled, and
I got injuries,
we were both ejected from the vehicle,
and he passed away.
We were planning on getting married.
So I lost him and everything that he brings to the world,
and then I also lost all of our future plans,
children we would've had together,
all the things that happen throughout
the course of a lifetime, so
I just went through a really, really bad time,
struggling to come to terms with things.
Like this is what happened in life.
This is your life,
and whether you like it or not,
this is how it's going.
I really started to review and realize
what life really is all about.
You gonna brush your teeth?
You want help?
No, ma'am.
You kinda grow up thinking that
certain things are expected
like, oh, if you work really hard,
good things will come to you,
and if you're a really good person,
you'll find somebody to be with and it'll last forever,
and we don't realize that we're living...
envisioning the fairy tale,
but we kinda are.
And then something happens that
just kinda wipes all that out.
And you just have to figure out
"Okay, this isn't something that is
"outside of the range of life.
"This is life.
"This is what it's about."
Life offers some really, really wonderful, beautiful things,
but it's almost pretty much part of the package
that you go through the really extremely
difficult ones, too.
I love you.
I love new!
Do you ever get scared
that if you get injured fighting
you might not be there for your daughter?
It's something I definitely worry about.
You only get one brain,
so will I be able to be there for her?
The winner!
Throughout professional MMA's existence,
maintaining a fighter's health
has always been a challenge.
Many careers have been cut short
as a result of injury.
When I first refereed,
the real two rules there were was
no biting and no eye gouging.
Everything else was allowed.
I was put in there by Rorian
not because he thought I was gonna be this great referee.
He actually told me, he goes,
"You're not squeamish about people getting hurt."
So I guess that was my qualifying factor.
His corner will probably throw the towel in.
The corner could stop the fight
by throwing in the towel,
or the fighter could stop the fight
by tapping out,
but in no way
was the referee supposed to stop the fight.
And it got to the point where I had guys getting hurt
in a significant fashion,
and they did not have the ability to defend themselves.
I was screaming at corners to throw towels,
but the fighter said, "Don't you ever throw the towel,"
so they're not gonna throw the towel.
And now the fighter is unconscious.
And I'm supposed to just let him get hit.
It was ridiculous.
And it was to the point where
when it got all over with,
I said, "Hey, thank you very much.
"I will never do that again."
It was not sport.
The show itself back then was a spectacle.
And as a spectacle, it shocked the world.
And when it shocked the world,
we created a lot of critics.
One independently was a politician
who said we were human cockfighting.
John McCain, the senator from Arizona,
piece of dirt.
"It's the most brutal thing in the world,
"and it needs to stop immediately."
And then when he was asked if he'd ever watched one,
he said no.
McCain can't straighten out his elbows
to wipe his own ass.
So what's he gonna know about mixed martial arts?
Don't trust a word a politician says
especially when he's trying to save you from yourself.
We were in a lot of political pressure.
We ended up in federal court.
The cable networks took us off the air,
with the exception of DirecTV.
So we went from the fastest-growing pay-per-view in history
to now lucky to get 50,000 buys.
You can't tell me that anything is a true sport
if you can kick somebody in the balls, basically.
I can see you taking deep breaths at home.
I saw Gary Goodridge fighting The Pedro,
going in his cup, squeezing his cojones.
They started realizing, "We gotta change something here."
I made up a list of 18 different rules.
And those 18 rules, some of 'em were stupid rules
just for me to try to give fluff to say, "Oh, you can't do this."
Some of 'em were good rules.
All these were just
an attempt to try to get people to understand
"Yes, there's rules involved with it,
"you can regulate these rules,
"and this is not the barbaric
"action that you think it is."
The conclusion was
not only you have to put time limits
to control the amount of time, which I understand and respect,
not what I think is best for a real fight,
but it's necessary for the show.
The other thing is you can't
no longer put a huge fighter against a little guy,
because if it's a five-minute round,
by the time the big guy gets tired
the round is over.
So it, for me, lost its purpose
because it's no longer a comparison of styles.
Became a show of entertainment.
This is why I decide to sell my interest in the company,
which I don't regret.
My name is Lorenzo Fertitta.
I'm the UFC's chairman and CEO.
And to my right, of course, is Dana White,
our president.
The greatest day in the history of mixed martial arts
was the day that Dana White
and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta bought the UFC.
Had they not bought the UFC
and done what they did with it,
even suffering in the beginning themselves
with trial and error,
we would not be where we're at today,
the sport would be dead in this country,
it would be underground,
we wouldn't be having this interview,
and I truly believe that.
They are the saviors of the sport.
Gonna let it all go.
The opening of tonight's show, the bigger...
Any entertainment business,
there has to be a balance.
I used to this to gyms:
"Hey, you need to support me, too.
"You can't just send all your fighters to the UFC.
"You need to support us because
"if you only end up with one buyer,
"what's that gonna do to the industry?"
The league can control the marketplace.
Right?
Bellator is a relatively new organization
that started in 2008.
I came in in the infancy stage.
My first fight, the cards were getting jumped over
by like high school girls' softball games,
and then Scott Coker took over in 2014,
who ran Strikeforce very successfully
until the UFC bought them out.
And now we're on this worldwide platform of Spike.
Don't underestimate the power of network television.
He's about building stars and building guys
and building people.
This is a business of star power.
At the end of the day, we put fighters into the cage
that people want to see.
What was Michael like as a child?
Wonderful. Very good.
Everybody like him.
He was friendly all the time.
Are you, as a family,
trying to help Michael
to get over his depression.
Yeah, we try whenever possible,
but sometimes he doesn't let you.
I have to drag things out of him.
He say, "No, Mom. "I'm okay."
You know.
I know he has gotten to counselors,
but I don't know how good they are.
I hate doing this.
Basically lie to the guy a lot,
because if I told him the truth truth,
he would probably lock me up.
Are you still using the Xanax?
Xanax, yeah.
I used that a lot over the last, like...
I'd say over the last, like, month.
Oh, and one thing... You say "a lot."
Do you mean more than two a day?
Yeah, more than two. Yeah.
I get concerned if you say "a lot" meaning...
No, no, no, no...
That you're taking...
- Oh, no, no, no, no... - No, no, not like
taking it to kill yourself,
but just taking extra pills...
No, like I'll take two at the most a day,
and then there's a couple days I took three.
And I'm dead serious when I say
I've never had,
I guess, a panic attack?
But I was riding, I was cycling,
I cycle a lot,
and I'm cycling this one day,
and I literally
felt like I was gonna break down, start crying,
and frickin' I just couldn't catch my breath,
and I was literally about to stop
in the middle of the ride
and just lay on the side of the road.
That's not normal.
Like a panic attack?
Yeah, yeah, like, "Oh, my God.
"I'm gonna be 40 years old.
"What do I do?"
Yeah.
Mid-life crisis?
I hate traffic.
Just wish I could mount cannons on this thing.
I'd shoot that guy.
I'd probably shoot that guy twice.
Look at you guys!
Hi, honey.
Hey.
Hey, babe.
Huh?
I love you, babe.
You got nice melons.
How would you describe your marriage?
You know, it's marriage.
It's up and down. It's constant work.
We've been through a lot.
You know, that attempted suicide
and kinda dealing with that.
And sometimes it's a challenge
because with that name Joker,
he's always got this smile on his face
and constantly joking around
so that he doesn't have to,
I think, a lot of the times, face
his challenges inside
and whatever he feels that he needs to accomplish
within himself.
How was your day?
Great.
What was great about it?
Just another day in paradise.
As a way to make extra cash,
fighters often make appearances at expo events
and stage meet-and-greets with their fans.
On a late afternoon, Joker takes a drive to Las Vegas
for an MMA trivia game.
Tell me about the day you attempted suicide.
I had my .45.
Put one round in the chamber.
I'm walking out to the car.
My friend Jim Arabino,
one of the heads at the sheriff's department at the time.
Nicole's got his number,
calls it up and says,
"Mike's tried to kill himself.
"I got the gun from him,
"but he's gonna find one of you guys
"to shoot him."
He said, "I'll take care of it."
A sea of patrol cars
pull into each side.
Bullhorn like "Come on, man.
"Everybody has a bad day."
My phone was ringing off the hook.
It was Jim, and Jim's like,
"Don't get out of your car.
"Don't do anything.
"I'm coming there to personally get you."
This little old guy.
Gets out of the car.
Officer's like, "Jim, step back."
And he's like, "Nope.
"Nope, no."
"Nope. I'm gonna go get my buddy.
"That's my friend.
"He's not gonna hurt me, not gonna hurt himself."
He gives me a big hug.
Tells me he loves me.
Yeah, that was,
that was that day.
I get people crying in my office,
falling apart in the office,
thinking their life is over
'cause they've lost a really big match.
I've even worried about a few people, suicide.
I've worried.
Because they're more prone to depression.
A lot of athletes are perfectionists.
But the problem with perfectionists is
they can drive themselves mercilessly
to the point where
they're seeing what's wrong all the time,
not what's right.
They have one little loss. Okay.
Another little loss. Okay, another one.
Now by the time the third or fourth one pops in
or they have one really big, bad one,
people around 'em are telling 'em,
"You're in a slump.
"You're messing up; you're going down."
Those negative thoughts take seed.
"Maybe you aren't as good as you thought you were."
Negativity can be the most powerful emotion on Earth
if you don't take care of it.
It's the highest highs, the lowest lows.
You feel like Tarzan when you win,
and you feel like Jane when you lose.
After the third loss,
I actually went and saw a sports psychologist.
People will tell me,
"I look around at my other competitors in MMA.
"They don't seem nervous at all."
And I say, "Well,
"how many of them do you really know personally?
"If you were to really know those people,
"and they were to tell you the truth,
"they would probably tell you
"they're actually as nervous as anybody else."
But there is such a thing as bluster
and bravado and faking it.
Especially in a very macho sport like the combat sports,
does anybody wanna walk around dropping their head
and looking like a hangdog?
No way.
Because people are gonna key on that
and use it against them.
So they're gonna puff up, and they're gonna walk around
like they're all that and a bag of chips,
because they wanna show the illusion that
"I'm Superman."
But inside, they could be very fearful.
So don't assume
what you see is what you get.
Toh-gee Wan Kenobi...
Did you sustain a lot of injuries
when you were fighting?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But you know what? That's part of being a man.
I never have been scared
because I like my job.
When I walk for the cage,
I smile because I'm happy.
I like this moment.
All people have fear.
If anyone says, "I'm not afraid
"of being in that fight,"
they're lying to you.
I have experienced fear in every one of my fights.
There's two things I do before my fight.
I throw up and I cry.
When I'm in the locker room about to walk out,
there's a lot that goes through my head.
I try not to overthink things
'cause that's the worst time to do it.
But
part of me is telling me
I'm gonna go out there and kill it.
The other part of me is saying,
"Oh, what if this happens?
"What if you lose?"
I think about getting injuries all the time
because these girls,
they're not just going in there trying to win.
They're trying to maim me.
They wanna be the one that
maybe they didn't beat me but they gave me
a big enough gash on my face
where I wouldn't be able to work in Hollywood.
It's not a bad thing to be scared.
It's a bad thing to doubt.
I'm full of fear but without any doubts.
I got 28 stitches.
I shattered this whole knuckle out here.
Broke the hand and shattered the knuckle.
People don't understand what it's like to have back pain
unless they have it.
They have a ruptured disc in their lower back.
I went through seven years of competition with it.
Eating Vicodins every day
just to make my pain go away.
Excellent kick by Rob...
Oh, my God!
His bone is gone.
You think people are
drawn to violence generally?
Absolutely. It's in our DNA.
His leg's broken! His leg's broken!
Dana White once said that you could have a corner,
there's a tennis match,
soccer on that corner, baseball game over there.
A fight breaks out in the fourth corner,
everybody's gonna go watch the fight.
It's just the way it is.
Everybody wants to see blood.
Who doesn't wanna see blood? You know what I mean?
That's why they pay the tickets. They pay to see
two guys in there bloody, sweaty,
one guy get knocked out.
That's what the sport is.
- That's it! - He's down!
Is MMA brutal? Yeah, 100% it is.
Sometimes, especially when I'm cornering a fight
and I'm watching these guys hit and kick each other,
I'm like, "Shit! I gotta do this?"
"That's pretty brutal in there."
It's very barbaric. I'm not denying it.
That's the problem,
is that other guys try to deny it.
It's not a form of entertainment
that is made for everybody.
We're willingly putting ourselves through this
to see who's the best in the world, you know?
It really poses the question:
What do you want to do?
Do you want to take a chance and risk
getting knocked out!
Some critics still argue
that the sport is too cruel
and has no place in modern society.
I recognize it's a tremendously popular sport,
but what point in a civilized society
do we draw the line
on violence-inducing sports?
And I think the whole concept of the cage
is also rather disturbing.
We all have brain damage.
You don't get into this, thinking like
"Oh, I'm gonna be fine."
We're gonna get lacerations,
but lacerations are not a severe injury.
It gets sutured together,
and the guy is gonna be fine.
Hematomas where we have swelling,
it's gonna go down.
The things that we really try to mitigate
is that concussion.
We talk to a lot of former fighters
who are not all there, you know, mentally.
How do you feel about that?
That's life.
Good morning.
I'm Gary Goodridge.
Okay, come on over.
Have a seat and they'll call you.
Many injuries leave a permanent mark
on a fighter's physical and emotional being.
We're gonna go ahead and have you sign in
right here.
And then they got one more form for you to sign...
I already did this, didn't I?
Gary Goodridge is a retired fighter
that has competed in both boxing and mixed martial arts.
A veteran of the infamous Pride and K-1 fighting leagues,
he shows the scars of numerous battles
both mentally and physically.
I became the boxing champ of Canada with
eight months of...
from the time I walked in the gym
to the time I was champion.
And then I had my fight with the best in Canada
to face the best in the United States.
And I fought this guy David Bostice
in Florida.
And man, that was,
that was the first concussion I ever had.
I won the first round.
The second round was probably about even.
And the third round, I don't remember at all.
The purpose of this study
is to help us identify brain injury in professional fighters
and to create testing to help better treat it.
'Cause, you know, for concussions
the diagnosis is not quite that clear.
So this will help create testing
which will help catch that earlier.
My coach, he told me, "Gary, I can't come with you,
"'cause I can't afford it,
"but after the fight,
"right after the fight, I want you to call me."
After the fight,
the only thing I could remember is "I gotta call Norm.
"I gotta call Norm. I gotta call Norm."
My brain didn't know anything else.
I didn't know where I was, what I was doing.
The only thing I remember is,
"I gotta call Norm. I gotta call Norm."
So I told everybody, "I gotta call Norm."
I told everybody who was listening, "I gotta call Norm.
"I gotta call Norm."
And we went to the phone, and I called Norm.
He says, "How you doing?" I say, "I don't know."
Said, "Did you win?" I said, "Win what?"
"You fought; did you win?"
He said, "Put somebody else on the phone."
And, uh... Sorry.
And I put somebody else on the phone, and
that's when he decided,
that's when he said,
he told them to take me to the hospital.
And, uh... I'm sorry.
I'm a little emotional because,
just 'cause
that's when he...
Nobody around me knew that I was,
that I was messed up.
There you go.
Side effects are
mental lapse,
forgetfulness,
the speech,
aggression.
So in your career,
do you have any sense of how many concussions and
things you've had?
I had over 14. Over 14 concussions.
- That you know of. - Yeah, that I know of.
We've been very fortunate to have funding for this study
by the major promoters, the UFC and Bellator, boxing.
And this allows us to really do the work we're doing.
All these organizations really truly
have an interest in the safety of the sport,
and hopefully, as our findings come out,
it will be useful to the sport, not only of MMA
but our society at large,
including military and other people
that are exposed to head trauma.
It all worked on being knocked out.
When you see somebody pow!
He's knocked out, drops on the floor.
Their eyes roll in the back of their head
and they don't wake up for two minutes.
Everybody sees it, "Wow!"
Cheering in the stands
and everybody getting up.
And it's a good fight,
and they're shaking the guy's hand,
and everything's going on.
And really the concern
that everybody don't see
is the damage being done to this individual.
And with every applause,
there's just as much downward spiral.
And so is the UFC and Bellator
and all the rest of them want it out?
Hell, no. Of course they don't.
Because that sells tickets.
When you see somebody gets knocked out,
when you see this happens,
that sells tickets.
And because it sells tickets
and it sells to the public,
why stop it?
You know?
All but one state
has accepted mixed martial arts as a legal sport.
New York remains the last holdout.
Many fighters still dream of fighting under the lights
of Madison Square Garden.
Anyone that can get over watching this
for any extended period of time
has to become desensitized.
We regulate a lot of things to protect our children.
New York City has been a world leader
in arts and culture.
Is this the type of arts, culture, and sports
that we want to be known for?
The owners of the UFC, the Fertitta brothers,
own the Station Casinos in Nevada.
We want to send a message to a Station Casino:
We are not second-class citizens!
For around 15 years or so,
the Station Casinos have been battling
the culinary union in Nevada,
because the culinary union wants them to unionize.
The biggest company doing MMA is the UFC,
so in order to essentially stick it to them,
the culinary union's parent company,
they're stopping MMA from getting legalized in New York.
So this has nothing to do essentially
with a moral issue?
Nothing. Nothing to do with it.
Nothing to do with the sport.
If all these other commissions
from California to Nevada to New Jersey to Florida,
all of them sign off on it,
this is a sport that would bring
millions of dollars to the state,
a state that would sorely need that revenue.
Do you think bringing MMA to New York
would help at all to boost the economy?
I don't. I don't.
I don't see MMA
as being something that's gonna provide jobs
for a great mass of Americans,
good middle-class jobs
that we need to have in this country,
so I'm not much into the economic argument for it.
My top issue is the injuries,
particularly the concussions and related brain injuries.
The best study I have seen on brain injuries
is coming out of Canada,
which raise serious questions.
What we really were doing
in the study was twofold.
One was just actually to document
the frequency of knockouts and technical knockouts,
then identifying any patterns
associated with the injuries.
What we were finding
was that almost one in three were either
a technical knockout or a knockout.
They're being struck in the head
quite frequently prior to that time
and also for a certain number of strikes
after that decision or the outcome of a knockout
or the match has ended.
How many is too many?
When should we stop playing?
And it's kind of like this golden question
that really no one has the answer to.
I think what is best practice at this point
is to say, "Listen,
"if you're starting to sustain these injuries
"in closer proximity to each other
"and they're causing you to feel worse,
"you're probably not in the best environment or sport."
You're always going forward to fight.
You're always going forward to fight,
although you've had enough and you're ready to die.
Your feet are burning. Your hands, you can't lift them.
"No, nothing's wrong. Don't stop the bout."
Fighters will always say that
because you're always chasing that rainbow.
It's gonna shine. It's gonna shine.
If it lasts one more second,
you can probably win.
You can win.
I couldn't stop myself.
I lived by the sword, and I basically died by the sword.
And do I regret it?
It is me.
It's my story, my legacy.
It's who I am.
I loved my sport.
I would die for my sport.
And
that's what I'm doing.
When I got married
and became a fighter,
I was pulled in so many different directions,
and I really didn't know how to handle it.
I have a career
that, any given moment, can just be over.
So I always found myself trying to seize
every opportunity that I had,
which ended up being the downfall in my marriage.
And I didn't really know how
bad and how hard it was gonna be
until
it set in, like "Damn, I can't,
"I can't see my two children
"that I have with her
"every morning when I wake up."
You know, I gotta go sometimes
a month or a few weeks without seeing them.
You move us.
You speak to us and we listen.
And we give it back to you.
Being away from the cage
means no income for a fighter.
Luckily for Rashad, his name still bears recognition.
With the UFC's help,
Rashad travels to Los Angeles
for a paid appearance on a weekly Fox Sports show,
where he serves as co-anchor.
You and Rashad have this Fox gig,
but what do you think about other fighters
and their opportunities after retirement?
Well, there's the thing.
Hey, you have to think of the future, obviously,
'cause the big checks aren't gonna keep coming.
I've always been doing teaching and fighting hand in hand.
My first two UFC checks,
I opened up my first jiu-jitsu school,
little, modest, little school.
Now, 43 kids, two big schools that are over
12,000 square feet.
Once in a while, I'll get a gig like this.
And I'm whistling to work every day.
I could pull this off!
That's all we got here, guys.
Back to you, K.B.
Dude, what's the matter with me?
I knew I should hit the steam this morning.
He's kvetching like a hah-zuhm.
Look at this.
Look at this. Is this normal?
Holly.
I like your little bun.
We know that, Jon.
Rigorous training
is an everyday practice for the champion.
Today, he's going for a resistance run
with a close friend and new UFC contender,
Holly Holm. I've done 12 before.
- See? - Took me about an hour.
No. I already know better.
Holly is chasing her own dream
of facing off with the champ Ronda Rousey.
Ready? One, two.
It's been crazy
training both of them and just
watching them push each other 'cause
there's nothing else like watching two champs
really truly thrive and push off of each other.
That's what these two do.
Training as hard as you do,
do you ever worry that somebody who's using steroids
can take your title away?
You know, like in all sports,
people want to get an advantage,
especially once millions of dollars get involved.
People want to do anything they can
to be the top dog.
Fighting means everything to me
and I work my tail off
to make my body work.
So if I can do it,
other people should be able to figure it out, too.
I would call it an epidemic at this point.
Now that they are trying to clean up the sport,
we're starting to realize that it's pretty ugly.
I've heard fighters say that
60 to 90% of the fighters in the UFC
are using something.
I'm in the business.
I see what's going on, and it's insane.
These guys aren't going out there
and hitting a baseball over a wall.
They're punching and kicking each other in the face.
Steroids is something that's very real in the UFC.
Dan Gable, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time,
said, "Once I found out
"that my opponent's done steroids,
"I knew I could beat him,"
'cause he didn't have that dog in him
to become victorious.
There's no shortcuts to greatness.
The penalties are stiff.
Year's suspension,
that's a year of not getting paid.
I peed positive for steroids.
It did affect my career.
You're put into that whole category.
You're not no longer your individual.
Now you're labeled.
You don't want a father to tell his son,
"This is not for us. "We shouldn't be watching this.
"These are just roided-up guys beating each other up,"
'cause once that happens,
it's hard to regain that trust.
Look at the view.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Spiritual, for sure.
We're doing the Muay Thai class.
This is Nadeer,
who's advanced.
He could fight professionally if he wanted to,
but he's smarter than any professional fighter
and got a real job
and makes real money
with, what do you call that,
security and
job stability.
Switch partner!
After months of uncertainty and unpaid bills,
Joker receives news that he will be forced
to close his gym.
He finds the strength to tell his wife
that they are losing the business
and that the only way out of their financial problems
is to restart his fighting career.
Michael told us
that he wants to get back into fighting.
Oh, no, my God. I hope not.
So you don't want him to?
You know, I been praying to God every day
and several times, late in the night,
"Lord, please give them a retirement,
"a good job."
He's not that old.
He can start all over again.
You know?
But it's his life.
It's his decision.
Do you think this business
is fair to the fighters?
No, no, no, no. Not even, no.
Not close.
The only people really making money,
get that ass outta my way,
are like the top three on the card.
Look at the UFC and how much they bring in.
They're paying the fighters out
less than 2% of what the total is.
If you put in all your hours,
training, dieting, all the sacrifices,
I guarantee you I'd fall under
two bucks an hour.
When I first started fighting,
I basically had to pay for my first fight.
I paid $25.
You know.
Then when you walk away from it,
you look back and go, "God, I'm stupid."
There will always be someone that says, "What I didn't get,"
but it's a business at the same time.
It's a league and a business.
And the athletes sometimes forget
that it's a business
and that the UFC has to make money,
to be profitable, to put on more shows,
to continue.
So there's a lot of emotional feelings
that get mixed into the business.
Of course, the most money's gonna go to the promoters.
The promotion, the promoters.
The fighters get a little piece.
I mean, what are you gonna do?
I've gotten plenty of raw deals.
I'm still getting raw deals, I'm sure.
Especially, I did not start off drawing the most
professional, upright citizens of the world.
If you put on exciting fights and you win,
they take good care of you.
2012, I retired with the UFC.
I got sick of getting bullied by Dana.
My mind wasn't there anymore.
I didn't like to train.
I didn't like to fight.
I didn't like to be around any of it.
I was empty. I was a shell of a person.
Dana White.
Dana White is the current president of the UFC.
Brash and opinionated,
his running feuds with fighters past and present
have made him a lightning rod for controversy.
Contrary to popular belief,
I really respect everybody in this industry,
everybody in this industry, other promoters...
I give the owners a lot of respect.
Dana White, he's just a face.
He's gained a lot of experience along the way.
That I gotta give him.
He semi-knows what he's talking about now.
He's one of those guys that if you piss him off,
then he's just turn his back on you
until you tap out to him.
My free agency period was very political
in nature.
And obviously with one Dana White,
he's told so many lies about me,
and because he has the largest mouthpiece,
a lot of people believe what he's saying
even though it is very far from what the truth is.
A lot of people don't like him.
They think that he's mean and stuff.
He is absolutely passionate
about the UFC.
He's a great businessman for UFC.
He's awesome.
He's great for the sport,
making everybody know who it is.
He turned himself into a celebrity out of it.
The UFC was sold for $4 billion, right?
So since there's so much money to it,
that's a fantastic thing
'cause people like myself can earn a living
from the sport of mixed martial arts
where, say, you couldn't in wrestling.
But at the same time, there's a very negative side
'cause people are greedy, sneaky,
and every other negative term you wanna throw out there.
They've come to a point where now,
now meaning within the last year, two years maybe,
that they're,
they're respectfully taking care of the fighters
adequately.
People get excited like,
"Oh, I'm gonna make $20,000 in this fight."
Well, $20,000 is a fart in a windstorm.
And I'm not saying that
to be like, "Oh, I am better than everyone.
"I have way more money than everyone."
No, just, you know,
in this world, $20,000, are you kidding me?
There's very few people that actually
have something when it's all said and done.
I look at so many athletes today,
especially on the men's side.
They have nothing.
They have spent their life in this career, and
they haven't saved money,
they haven't done things, and
they are out there with nothing.
So many guys continue to fight
because they have to make that paycheck
because they already spent all the money
that they already had.
Me, I can literally say that I've put away
90% of the money that I've made in the last four years.
Some athletes are fine,
and they've saved their money.
Some spent the money
as if it was always gonna be replenished
It's tough to see these guys go through it,
but it's just part of life.
It's a rough sport. It's the hurt business.
They don't call it the hurt business for
no reason.
You gotta weather a lot of storms
inside the cage, outside the cage.
I don't care if you're paid a million dollars to fight
or 10,000 to fight.
It's the hardest thing to do.
It's the loneliest sport in the world.
Once you've left your team and walked in that cage,
and that door closes,
it's only you, brother. That's it.
And they deserve every bit they can.
I want all of 'em to be millionaires.
Have you studied
Daniel Cormier's previous fights?
Yes, I've watched his whole career
maybe six, seven times now.
Just from start to finish.
I've had some opponents where I've watched them
50 times.
And so when I get into the Octagon,
I kinda feel like I already know him.
Freshman year, I got invited
to my first pay-per-view fight.
Chuck Liddell versus Randy Couture.
All these people were just so obsessed
with what was going on on the screen.
People were looking at this Chuck Liddell guy
as if he was a god.
The most memorable fight was my UFC debut.
I watched the UFC as a fan for so many years,
and to finally hear Bruce Buffer's famous voice say,
"And the winner is Jonny 'Bones' Jones!"
And to lift my hand up
and the people cheer.
I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm on TV right now.
"I just won a fight in the UFC."
Like, "It's so obtainable.
"If I made it here, why not be the best?"
I've been fighting some of the most
dangerous men on the planet.
Daniel Cormier is an amazing athlete,
but I've been really fortunate to make
a lot of great fighters not look so great.
I'm a winner, he's a winner,
and one of us is gonna have to give in.
But I don't think it's gonna be me.
Closing in on full recovery,
Rashad suffers a devastating setback,
as his reconstructed knee gives out.
A second surgery is now imminent.
I had an offer to fight.
I felt a little pop,
and I was like, "Damn,
"did my knee just go out?"
I'm just like, "No."
And sure enough,
the ACL snapped.
Man, I cried.
I cried; I was frustrated.
I'd never been injured before.
And I never thought this'd happen to me,
'cause it just seemed like
not too long ago
that I was
just starting this sport.
Like I was the new kid on the block.
And now, I'm the old guy on the block.
Have you had anything to eat or drink...
It's really just put me mentally in a bad place, like
"Is this it? Is this how an athlete dies?"
I don't know when I'm gonna fight.
I don't know
if the UFC's gonna stand behind me
and give me another great fight or
have a chance to headline a great card again.
This is definitely a sport of
"What have you done lately?"
I'm missing too much action.
People forget.
Should I go in?
I don't wanna go out like this.
So ACL's torn completely?
Injured on the sideline.
Forever wondering what it would've been like if
I could've been able to get healthy
just one more time.
Once only open to the biggest boxing events,
the MGM Grand in Las Vegas
is now a major attraction for MMA.
McMann countered with a nice right hand there,
caught her.
Sara finally faces Miesha Tate
with millions watching her skill in action.
Better watch out.
As Joe talked about, that big right hand
for the Olympian.
Oh, she hurt her there, Mike.
She's pushing forward.
Miesha's in trouble early.
Big, powerful punches by Sara McMann.
After dominating the first round of the fight,
Sara begins to lose on the ground,
as Miesha catches her in a guillotine choke,
a move the calculating Sara did not expect.
Those are hard elbows to the face
with the point of the elbow.
She has got to get up.
The fight ends and they go to the scorecards.
Majority decision,
Miesha 'Cupcake' Tate!
After months of training and trash-talking,
it's finally on.
Nice knee to the body by Jon.
Kick to the body.
Caught.
Good uppercut by Cormier.
The fight seems even at first.
- Both men... - Elbow in tight.
Motivated by the other's verbiage.
Cormier appears to be strong and aggressive.
Stop.
Oh, the first eye poke.
Stop.
That's what a lot of people are worried about.
But as the fight progresses,
Jon puts his skills on full display.
He's looking to take him down again.
And he does.
Wow.
Momentum
is rapidly rising in the corner of Jones.
It's looked at as a moral victory for Cormier...
There it is!
But Jon Jones springs right back up to his feet.
As one of the few fighters
to take Jon the distance.
Whew!
Perhaps maybe all the bad blood
has not boiled over.
The winner by unanimous decision...
Jon has another title defense
to add to his flawless record.
Three o'clock in the morning,
things get a little bit outta control.
Right now, I would describe my current position in the UFC
a pretty darn good one.
A pretty good one.
Amongst the masses, I'm considered the number-one
pound-for-pound fighter in the world right now.
Working at something so hard
to becoming the best in the world at it,
it's a phenomenal feeling.
Derek, why you punching like this?
Look at his eyes, too.
- Come on, dude. - Wow.
Feliz said he couldn't go 25 seconds.
Ooh!
Why you gotta put me on blast like that?
'Cause I can!
It's a tough loss.
A defeat that will lower her ranking
and potential salary for the next bout.
UFC may even terminate her contract.
This is the reality of the fight game.
When you realized that you lost,
what was going through your mind?
I wasn't upset
hearing the decision.
I was upset during the third round that I didn't
get back to a good position,
and that's on me, so I'm not gonna
be upset at judges for something that's
my job to take care of.
I'm always looking at my own fighting,
and win or lose, even if it's a dominant fight,
I'll go out there and find something
that I need to get better at.
My daughter's kindergarten class.
Aw.
Bunch of little hand prints.
"Win, Mom!"
Win.
"Don't give up, Sara."
Aw, that's really sweet.
Yeah.
Good.
You ready to go.
- Mm-hmm. - You strong?
I'm ready to train.
Wow.
What are the chances
that Rashad might injure his knee again?
There's always a possibility of that.
There's no ACL that you put in
that can never be re-torn.
Otherwise, we could just do 'em once
and you'd never hear about it again.
So, going back to the sport gradually, following protocol,
that's the best thing,
but Rashad, he's like "Ready to go.
"I wanna go. "I wanna fight."
It's the attitude of the athlete.
But it's definitely against medical advice.
You always end up with Brett Favre, for example.
He had such a great career and then
he just kinda played a little bit too long
and then people remember those last
couple seasons that he had.
He was injured, or he had some bad performances.
I would hate for my legacy to be tarnished because
I'm 37 years old, and I'm slow,
and I shouldn't be fighting,
and I'm doing it just to collect a paycheck.
Do you remember the moment
when you decided to retire from the sport?
Actually I had
a dinner meeting with Dana White.
He was worried, actually, I was coming to tell him
that I wanna ask for another fight.
And I was actually coming to tell him I wanna retire.
First of all I wanna thank my fans.
It was a tough decision for me.
The career of a professional
MMA fighter is short,
an average of nine years.
Many are forced to retire due to injuries,
while countless others are dropped by the league
after suffering multiple losses.
I love this sport.
I was always training for something.
And then now, that's done.
And it's kinda weird.
There's people that need to stop.
Find another way.
Maybe you can create something new.
But they don't have the right people around them
to tell them just that.
The fans, they're always gonna want you to fight again.
They're never gonna be happy when you retire.
That's a decision that myself and Brie and my team
are gonna sit down and say,
"Hey, maybe it's time to hang 'em up,"
because of health issues,
or maybe I just don't wanna continue to
juggle family life and fighting life, you know?
People talk about "Oh, this guy should retire.
"This guy should retire. He's done.
"He took two losses," or whatever.
But the thing is, at the end of the day,
one, they're fighting 'cause they enjoy it,
and two, it's work.
They're getting paid, so
for you to tell a guy to walk away from
making money is basically,
what are you telling him to go do?
What up, Zach?
I'm doing good, buddy.
Hanging out here with the Danes.
Well,
I know I told you I'd get back to you.
Got some not-so-good news.
Decided not to pick you up on the next Bellator fight.
It's really quite bad for you,
but just with your injuries and everything.
I know that's not what you wanted to hear,
but your safety's first, and we got another guy to...
911, operator 3830.
Where is your emergency?
Yeah, there was a car accident right here
on Juan Tabo and Southern Boulevard.
Three-car accident.
Anyone injured?
I'm not sure.
In April of 2015,
Albuquerque police respond to a report
of a suspect fleeing the scene of an accident
involving a pregnant woman.
Which way did he go? What direction?
He's going onto a gated community.
Okay, we'll get somebody out there.
Yeah, there's cash in here.
Yeah.
True Honor?
Dude, I wonder if this is that fighter's car?
- Hm? - Jon Jones?
They did?
Pro MMA, bro. Right there.
Where?
Pro MMA. It's right here.
Pro MMA.
Yep, that's him.
Well, he's.
Yep, he is.
Jones turned himself in
and was later arrested.
He almost killed both these people.
Where's that pipe at?
Following the aftermath,
the UFC suspended Jon,
stripping him of his light heavyweight title.
This year had so much great MMA for the fans to consume.
Right, guys?
There really was.
And honestly there's so much more to come.
Where do you think MMA's headed
in the next five to ten years?
Right now, it seems to be exploding.
Women's MMA is getting to a point where it's
pretty independent of me,
and they won't really need me much anymore.
You're seeing guys switching organizations
a lot more than you used to.
There's no longer that clear distinction of
what organization is better.
Maybe one's bigger.
Maybe one takes care of fighters better.
It really matters what your personal goals are.
Jon Jones said, "He's considering going to Bellator,
"because he heard their president is a Coker."
If you think about ten years ago,
there was no MMA on TV
outside of Spike TV.
Because it was like, oh, taboo.
Now it's on almost every network.
We've seen a sport be created
and go to mainstream.
I can't name another sport
that's ever done that in my lifetime.
It's become just a normal thing.
Not just in America but worldwide.
I went to the Super Bowl this year,
and it was like
a whole different level.
Even our biggest events in mixed martial arts
aren't even a speck compared to the coverage
that those bigger sporting events get,
so we have that room for growth,
but there's no secret this is the fastest-growing sport
in the world.
We're not quite at the level of the Big Four,
which I considered to be NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL.
But it's on Fox, it's on free TV,
Bellator's on Spike,
and if you go to any major UFC event,
you'll see ESPN there.
USA Today is there.
All major outlets are there, as well.
The UFC is sometimes obsessed with this idea
of it becoming the number-one sport in the world,
surpassing soccer.
That's never gonna happen,
and I think that's okay.
Folks, one of the things
that's not gonna go tumbling this year
is worldwide expansion of MMA.
From Sweden to Japan, Macao,
this thing only grows further.
Now, unfortunately, there's one guy
you guys won't see here tonight...
Oh, get off me.
These guys give me great joy.
I'm trying to get more positive things
'cause it can't just be fighting alone
and kickboxing or wrestling or jiu-jitsu.
I understand that now because
my body, I'm losing it.
I can't do it for the whole time,
and I need to figure something out.
Any time I look off into long distances,
I sit there and I try and imagine, like,
what normal people think.
From my eyes, I think that everybody's better than me,
and I'm trying to figure out how I could be like them.
Oh, my gosh.
50 to 100 years ago in this country,
life was probably more real.
People were born at home,
and people would die at home.
So people would see the whole cycle of life
from life to death.
Very real.
As we've progressed as a society,
it kinda seems like we're becoming more sterile.
There's not a whole lot of things
that are more real than MMA.
It has this kind of graphic, raw quality to it
that maybe people are longing for?
Life is a little too plastic, maybe.
And MMA is very, very real.
Simplify it.
Simplify it, simplify it.
A lot easier.
Don't have a choice now, do we?
Bella, do you wanna hand 'em some?
Here's a long one.
You can go hand it to one.
Walk slowly.
For those that put
their bodies and minds on the line
for the sake of pride, glory, and entertainment,
whether they travel steadily along that journey
or their bodies and minds fail them,
they are always fighting,
because for these men and women
there is no defeat that keeps them on their backs,
no referee to stop their fight.
Make any other promises to you about this matter...
No corner to show them the way.
Yes, sir.
According to this,
you are to plead guilty of one allegation
of leaving the scene of an accident...
They must find the strength to carry on
within themselves.
That's a fourth-degree felony.
A fourth-degree felony...
And that is why we follow
their stories so intently.
Their magnificent victories and crushing defeats.
So that just for a moment,
we can put our own struggles on hold
and witness the triumphs of another.
Kimo-san.
Banzai.
Kamikaze!
Osu!
Didn't even look like you had to that time, dude.
Coconut head.