Hello, everyone.
I was lucky enough to interview the great Bob Meyrowitz. Mr. Meyrowitz has had an outstanding career in music and is responsible for Co-Creating the UFC. I cannot thank him enough for being so gracious with his time and thoughtful answers. The transcript of my interview can be viewed below.
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Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Early Career in Music
Lukas
Thank you for taking the time to share a bit about your past and what you're working on now. You have had quite a career as an entrepreneur, and I am excited to share with my readers some of the projects you worked on.
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, I don't know if you know about my history in music. What became Biscuit Flower Hour was when The Rolling Stones played a concert in Altamont, and unfortunately, it turned into this horrible thing. It was a free concert, and they had the Hells Angels doing security. While the Rolling Stones were on stage, the Hells Angels killed somebody in the audience. And it turned into this horrible thing. And I thought that maybe we could do a concert on the radio. That way, everyone could attend and not be endangered.
I called it the King Biscuit Flower Hour, in looking through old radio books. I saw a picture of a radio show somewhere in Tennessee, and it was all black artists. The sponsor was a company that made King Biscuit Flour, and to memorialize what they did, I called my show King Biscuit Flower Hour, which was quite an amazing thing. I mean, we got everybody you could imagine. I had never mixed, never been in the studio. I knew nothing about mixing. And you just go in, and then you discover you have a talent at mixing tapes. I was doing The Who, The Rolling Stones, everybody you can think of, and bands you never heard of.
The first show I ever did was at a club called Max's Kansas City. It's a little club in New York City. And I went there. The opening act is this kid wearing a T-shirt. He gets up there. And he says, “Normally I move around a lot on stage. But somebody spilled a Coke, and my sneakers are stuck.” And this kid blows the place away like nothing you've ever seen. I mean, it was hysterical, magical. I mean, everyone in the place. When Biff Rose finally came out, he said, “Look, we've all had enough of a night. I really can't follow that. I'm going to sing one song, and then we'll all go.” The kid was named Bruce Springsteen. I went up to my manager, and I said, “Look, I'm doing a radio show.” I didn't do anything yet. “And I'd like him to be on,” and we signed a contract on a napkin. In my first King Biscuit, I had the Maha Vishnu orchestra, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Bruce Springsteen.
One of my sponsors was CBS Records. And they said, “You can't put him on; he's nobody.” I said, “Well, I'm putting him on” and they said, “we're pulling our sponsorship,” which they did. But I started a lifelong friendship with Bruce Springsteen to this day. So that was the first show we did. Miraculously, we just would go out every week and record two artists and put together all these shows.
Then I started something called Sugar Hill, and that was all black artists. Then I started the Silver Eagle, which was all country artists. We were recording just about everybody there was every week, and it started with snap-called syndicated radio, which didn't exist and, and really quite an amazing phenomenon. We went on to do television shows; we broadcasted everybody; we did comedy, we did PPV. It was just this small group of people doing this amazing stuff. And I also did a show with Mary. I don't know if you know Mary Traverse from Peter, Paul, and Mary. But my thought was she's an older musician. She could talk to the younger musicians. I had set up a show with her and Eric Clapton. And Eric was performing in Chicago, and we flew to Chicago. And it's after his show, and we do the interview, and we get done. After, Eric Clapton says to Mary, “I would love to sing Puff the Magic Dragon with you.” It certainly surprised me that Eric Clapton is one of the greatest rock and roll musicians ever to hit the era that he wants to do that. They sat down on the floor. And they had microphones that I was using for the interview, and I went to put the microphone so I could record it. And Eric said, “No, this is just for the gods.” The two of them sat there and sang Puff the Magic Dragon, and you're sitting there looking at this. How did I happen to fall into this? It was just an incredible, wonderful experience.
I did a show with Rodney Dangerfield and Pete Townsend of The Who. I introduced them, and Rodney said, “You're The Who? I'm the what.” The next day, Rodney says, “Why didn’t you tell me that guy was so famous?” He had no idea who he was. So, we went through all of that. I started producing a lot for television; I was doing a lot of hip hop at that point. But I was looking for what could we do [to promote]?
One of the problems in doing music on television is that the bands would never allow me to promote the next show. They didn't want another artist’s name mentioned. And I was looking at where you could promote. The brilliance of Vince McMahon is that the minute you turned on his show, he was promoting the next show.
Lukas
Your beginnings were producing music, and then that morphed into Semaphore Entertainment Group. Then you started doing the PPVs for musicians; is that accurate?
Bob Meyrowitz
I was doing PPV before Semaphore. I was doing all this PPV, and one of my most successful was Ozzy Osborn, but I did The Who’s “Tommy” (their 1969 double album) with all these great people. We did some amazing shows Travis Tritt, Marty Stuart, Andrew Dice Clay. We did all kinds of things on Pay Per View. Some worked, some didn't.
But in looking at Vince McMahon, I said boxing some did. Some didn't. People always say the only thing that worked at that time was boxing and wrestling. Some boxing did, some boxing didn’t. The beauty of Vince McMahon is he owned it all. He controlled it all.
Origins of the UFC
Bob Meyrowitz
I used to ride horses; I had stables on my property. One of my friends I rode with was New York State Supreme Court Justice Dana Winslow. He was also the head of the New York State Taekwondo Association. And he always used to say to me, “Why don't you put Taekwondo on Pay Per View?” I'd say, “Dana, honestly, I don't think there are enough people who follow Taekwondo that we could get an audience.” He would argue, “No, you got to do Taekwondo.” One week, I said to him, “Can Taekwondo beat up Karate?” And he said, “What kind of question is that? It's not about beating up; they are separate disciplines.” I said, “I know. But if I were going to study one, I think I'd want to know the one that could beat up.” He said, “It’s not beating up. Don't say that again.” I went in every Tuesday in my company for a creative meeting and I said, “What if we did a show Karate versus Taekwondo?” I don't know if there are enough Taekwondo people who are Karate people, but this way, we'll have double the amount.
A week later, at the creative meeting, someone who worked for me said, “What about jiu-jitsu? What about wrestling? What about boxing?” So I said, yes. Now I had to find somebody who really knew all of this. And there was a playboy article with Rorian Gracie. I contacted Rorian Gracie, and he had a partner Art Davie, and they were trying to sell a fighting show. When they heard what I wanted to do, they were very aggressive and very pleased. I was thrilled to have a partner who knew all these fighting things.
Lukas
To summarize, the base idea of what later became the UFC was determining which discipline would be the best amongst all the martial arts?
Bob Meyrowitz
Exactly. That's exactly what I thought. People credit me with having started MMA. I did not. The fighters did. They immediately realized that they had to cross-train; they had to know more than just one discipline in order to compete, because of the rules in the beginning: no rounds, no time limits, no weight limits. Rorian Gracie’s brother, Royce, was 175 pounds. When I wanted to pose him for a publicity picture without his gi, he said, “No, they'll see how skinny I am. I have no muscles.” People didn't understand what Brazilian jiu-jitsu was all about. They didn't understand that he wanted to be on the bottom, in his guard, exhaust you as there was no time limit. The heavier the man was, the easier it was for Royce to beat him. The no weight limits, the no time limits really favored Royce. And Royce was like the perfect person to have as our champion. He was nice-looking, well-spoken, and an amazing athlete. So that's how we got it started.
The first Ultimate Fighting show I did was the only show I have ever produced that I didn't go to. Everyone says, Why didn't you go? Well, I produced all these music shows. And everyone thinks they know music. And everyone would give me advice, which I didn't want. And I didn't need it. I felt in this: I don't know what's going on. I don't want to be the one getting in everyone’s way. And I know since I'm the boss, they're going to listen to me, and I don't know what I'm talking about. I stayed home and watched it with my college roommate, and he brought his 13-year-old son. After that first show, I was horrified. My friend Richard kept saying to me, “I can't believe you did this.” And Nicholas, the 13-year-old, said, “This is the greatest thing I ever saw.”
In UFC 1, Rorian had his sons clean up the blood in the ring. He said, “Can I be a blood boy for the next show?” I looked at him: “The next show? I'm not doing this again.” I got rid of the ring announcer, the ring commentators, brought in a new referee. Because I was sitting at home watching, I could see what was wrong for television. We fixed everything. Having done that, the second show was much better. From there on, every show just kept improving and improving and improving. We created a great show and a great sport. It's also one of my beliefs that people don't watch sports; people watch people. When you had Tiger Woods, everyone was watching golf. Michael Jordan, everyone watched basketball. That's what you need to create. You need to create these kinds of iconic stars, and we were able to do it with Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock. I took Tank Abbott, who honestly was not the greatest fighter. But Tank Abbott came to me and said, “Look, you got all these guys trying to be good guys, I'll be the bad guy.” He was great at it. Everyone was talking about how they trained, what they did. Tank would say, “I go into a bar and beat everyone up.” But he was a very smart guy.
Lukas
One of my questions about the marketing of the sport. Did you take some of it from wrestling and how Vince McMahon generated a level of personality behind the actual athletes?
Bob Meyrowitz
Oh, definitely. We were doing interviews; I wanted people. And if you might remember, in the early days, we did a tournament, and they had to fight three fights in one night. Really a very unfair thing to ask an athlete to do, but what I was looking at that was saying, okay, nobody knows who these people are. By the end of the night, and that last fight, they're going to know which one of the two men who were left there rooting for, or which one they're rooting against, but they'll know them, and they didn't know any of them when it started. And that worked very well. We were able to really create stars, some of whom are better known right now. And I know you would know, but most people wouldn't even know who the Heavyweight Champion is right now.
Lukas
That's very true. In UFC 1 with Royce Gracie, he basically ran through everyone with relative ease. Did you notice during the preparation for subsequent events that the other fighters started training in multiple disciplines?
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, I definitely saw Ken Shamrock get himself better prepared to fight Royce Gracie. And I am not sure if it was their last fight. And I believe Royce won all of them [their second bout was a draw]. But perhaps in the last one, Ken should have won. It was a very close, very tough fight. But the fighters learned what to do, how not to be taken down, what to do if you're taken down, and then we got all the pressure from various groups where we had to change the rules, had to create rounds, weight limits. All of that did not favor Royce Gracie, and he dropped out.
Lukas
In the recruiting talent, if you have someone like Royce Gracie dropping out was Rorian Gracie in charge of finding the fighters in those early days? How were you finding talent?
Bob Meyrowitz
Rorian and really Art Davie was doing a great deal of it. But we had me and David Isaacs, who worked for me. We would look at what we wanted in terms of personality, Tank Abbott being a perfect example. Tank Abbott was one tough guy, but he wasn't really, and he refused to really work as hard as he should. I shouldn't say as hard as he should. He didn't want to work with a trainer. And I think had he could have been a much better fighter but fans loved Tank Abbott, so we were always trying to give Tank Abbott fights that he could do well in. Mainly he did, sometimes he lost. Tank was great whether he won or lost; he kept the Tank Abbott persona. We had great athletes, Mark Coleman an Olympic athlete. We had Don Frye. We had all these incredible people. We had Jim Brown as an announcer. Jeff Blatnik an Olympic Gold Medal winner wrestler. We had incredible athletes and incredible people all around. At the same time fighting off the media, virtually every place.
Difficulties and Political Pressures
Bob Meyrowitz
Every place we did a show, I was in court. When we were doing a show in Rhode Island, the local attorney general sued to stop us. We went into court. I thought my lawyer did an incredible job. And at the end, the judge ruled we could do it there as long as we followed the rules of the WWE. My lawyer got up and said, “Your Honor, the WWE isn't real.” The judge said, “I've been watching it for 20 years; it is real.” I've already sat down, we left the court, and said to my lawyer, “Why did you sit down?” He said, “Where are you going?” I said, “Back to New York.” He said, “Right. Tomorrow, I'll be in front of that judge. So I can't push it too far.” We didn't do it there because they wanted us to follow the rules of the WWE. It was really hard.
We went to Detroit. When you drive into Detroit, a huge fist swings out to punch you. New York has the Statue of Liberty; they have a big fist punching you. And they objected to our doing Ultimate Fighting. We went into court, and we won as we usually did. But they said they had to be open-fisted strikes.
Lukas
So, a slap?
Bob Meyrowitz
You are correct. I told Ken Shamrock that and thought he was going to kill me. This is what we were going against. This is what we were dealing with constantly. We were doing a show in Puerto Rico. Next to where we were doing our show, they had all these ads for cockfights. But they didn't want us to do our show there. Again, we won the case there. And we did our show there. But this is what I was going through all the time.
Fighting that off was a very, very difficult, and an unrewarding time when I was in rock'n'roll every year at least once and usually twice a year, we would do a big show for charity. I did a show, Amnesty International, where we traveled the entire world putting on shows, and finished in Argentina at the River Plate stadium. 120,000 people. Sting, Bruce, and Peter Gabriel. It was one of the most amazing shows I have ever been at. At the end of the show, Bruce sings Twist and Shout. At some point, the audience thought he was singing La Bomba. 120,000 people jumping up and down thinking that he's singing that. And it was just amazing, amazing to watch the performance. We were doing all this amazing stuff, but here I was in court, every month, every show. And I would do interviews. Whenever I did an interview, I was on The Today show, the ABC Morning show, Fox News. Every time I would do an interview, they would ask: “Do you have anything to say?” I would say the same thing, “Yes. Have you seen the [UFC]? And they always admit no, they never saw it. Then, if you have never watched it, you must really take into consideration that you've called me in here, but you've never seen it.
Now I was interviewed by Neil Cavuto from Fox. And I said to him, “Have you ever seen the show?” And he replied, “Yes.” I said, “Well, then I congratulate you. You're the first person to interview me who’s actually seen the show. And as the interview went along, I could tell he had never seen this. When the interview was over, he said to me, “I want to thank you. I never saw the show. And I know you knew it. But when you asked me that question, you just caught me off guard. I didn't mean to lie. You just caught me off guard, and I said yes. And the entire interview. I was thinking should I just apologize. What should I do? I'm sorry, by the way.”
One day, I got a call. Would you come down to the Larry King Show in Washington DC? He's got this Senator on from Arizona who wants to debate you. I didn't know who the Senator from Arizona was at that point in time. But I had a show coming up that week. I took a big red poster with me. I thought I'll hold it up and promote my show. The Senator from Arizona was John McCain. I'm sitting there two people come in man in a suit and tie woman well dressed. And they've got these big folios that say UFC on it.
Oh, shit. He's probably got my income tax. God knows what he has. He's a Senator. What was I thinking? I go into the bathrooms. And my thought is the posters are red on one side and the back is all white. I can cut it up and make it look like it's a booklet, and I'll write on the white side. All I did was destroy the poster, which I had to throw away. So, I had walked out of their bathroom with nothing. McCain came in with another man. So now he's got three people, four books. And we go in. And Larry King says, “John, where the hell were you Friday night?” So now I'm saying, Oh, yeah, great. He's a Senator. He's got all this information. I have nothing, and they are friends. But after a while, it became obvious that he had never seen it and didn't know what he was talking about. Somewhat to his credit, when he ran for President, he sent me a note thanking me for not bringing up how badly he did on that interview— big deal. I threw away the letter.
Lukas
I want to talk about the political pressures that led to many cities and states outlawing the UFC. What was the difficulty in hosting shows in big cities? Was your inclination that the primary revenue driver was PPV?
Also, for UFC 1, you charged $19.95, and I think you pulled in around 80,000 purchases for the Pay Per View, which is phenomenal. Today the UFC’s PPVs guarantees revenue from the gate plus the backend with the PPV buys. But with the amount of political pressure in hosting the events, were you always thinking of the Pay Per View side as the real revenue driver?
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, we started doing fairly big events and having fairly big audiences. But as the political pressure became more and more and more, we started doing them down south in some of the casinos. And it was funny. The first time we did it there, the casinos did not want tickets. Usually, they do an event and want tickets. When they called me, they said we need tickets. Everybody is asking for tickets. Well, you know, I offered you a deal. You didn't want them. They said how much if we want to buy them? They bought a ton of tickets. And from then on whenever we went to a casino, they always bought a ton of tickets.
We did very well. I mean, we were really making some good money until we started losing our cable operators. And it just became really terrible. When we did the show in New York. We had the total permission of New York State. And we were doing it in Buffalo, and it had become a position where I started getting involved in politics. And I was at a breakfast event to raise money to reelect Rudy Giuliani. His lawyer comes up to me and says, “We're now on opposite sides. Don't talk to us.” What are you talking about? What happened? Why are we on opposite sides? He said, “We all read the Times this morning.” I grabbed the Times, and another group, and I forget his name. They were doing a show in Brooklyn. And somehow, Giuliani thought that was me. But I mean, Dennis something. There was the guy's picture. It wasn't me. I got a call from the New York Times; they said they canceled your show. I said, “No, they can't cancel it. And if they did, they would contact me.” He said, “Well, we've got the thing here.” I said, “Well, you got the wrong thing.” And I got a call from the New York Post: “What do you say about them canceling your show.” So, I called back the New York Times. I said, “Send me what you got. I'll give you an exclusive.” And that's how I found out they canceled the show. They never told me.
We went into court. Nobody knew what they were talking about. They wanted the fighters to wear headgear and be in a boxing ring. We had John McCarthy explain. If you had them wear headgear, someone could grab their headgear, and you could break someone's neck. If you do it in a boxing ring, you can fall through the ropes and get hurt. We have done it in such a way that in all these years, no one has ever been seriously injured.
But nonetheless, they canceled us, and we had a run to Dothan, Alabama… I was just on the phone trying to get planes that had a big enough opening to get all our equipment into the plane. There was no place in Dothan where you could land those planes. So, we had a place where we could land them. Then I had to get trucks to pick up the stuff from where we could land them and drive them to Dothan. This is what was going on.
Lukas
It's a double standard because of the actual trauma from boxing to the head. And it seems like they were they were using boxing as the gold standard where I'd argue boxing is just as dangerous.
Bob Meyrowitz
Boxing is far more dangerous. I love boxing. Far more dangerous. When I was on with McCain on Larry King’s show, during a commercial break, he said to me, “You're just doing this to make money for yourself.” And I said to him, “Look, I'm not going after you personally. Don't you go after me personally, I know you were at the Ramirez fight. You happened to be sitting in the corner. Ramirez was dead in the ring. You didn't know it, but the camera caught you sitting there laughing. I know you weren't laughing that a man died. It's just one of those things, but I wouldn't bring it up.”
He says to Larry King, “Mr. Meyrowitz just brought up that I was there (he gets Ramirez's name wrong) when Ramirez died. But at least we had a referee in the ring.” I said, “We have a referee ring also.” I mean, he had no idea what he was talking about. None. And then the actor Charlie Sheen and called and said, “John, I'm a good Republican I support you. These are two men who practice their art and what they do, and they were allowed to go in and compete. There's no reason for you to stop, go take care of we have real problems with the budget.” And McCain obviously didn't realize who it was and said, “You, sir, are part of the lowest common denominator of our country.” Larry King said, “Excuse me, John, you might know that that's Charlie Sheen, one of our finest actors.” But that's what I was going through.
Going to court. I knew the law after a while. The law was always the same. It's an interesting thing that we have Athletic Commissions and Athletic Commission’s do nothing except boxing and a little bit of wrestling. So how come the Athletic Commission has nothing to do with football, baseball, basketball? Because it's against the law to fight. So, you need a commission to say it's okay. Now, unfortunately, when the New York State Athletic Commission had a problem with what I was doing, the commissioner was Floyd Patterson. And prior to and I have great respect for Patterson for what he did. Prior to the trial, we wanted to depose Floyd Patterson. And my brother was my attorney, David Meyrowitz, and he's deposing Floyd Patterson.
DM: Can you please give us your name and address?
FP: Floyd Patterson
DM: And your address?
FP: I really don't know.
DM: Your home address?
FP: I don't know.
DM: All right, then. Would you give us your work address?
FP: I don't know.
DM: Just tell us. Are you in Manhattan? Are you in New York?
FP: I don't know.
And it turns out that Floyd Patterson, unfortunately, suffered so much brain damage that he couldn't answer any of those questions. And my brother said, “I'm going to suggest that we stop the questioning. And let's see that we can perhaps get some information some other way.” Floyd Patterson then removes himself from being the Boxing Commissioner. This is what we were up against really. Nonsense. We had something which we thought was terrific. We did everything possible to make it as safe as possible. I am thrilled to say in the time I did it nobody ever sustained a serious injury. And you look at boxing, what happens in boxing. I must say, when they [Fertitta brothers & Dana White] made me the offer, I was thrilled to get out.
Selling the UFC
Lukas
Were you looking to sell the UFC? Were the Fertitta brothers and Dana White proactive and the only offer on the border? Did you strategically accept their offer because you trusted them?
Bob Meyrowitz
We had several cable operators who had stopped carrying the show. So, as you had suggested before, the big money was from Pay Per View. Now because of the lack of cable operators, that was cut down. I was just fighting. I was using all my own money. I wasn't making money. I was just putting all my own money into it to keep it going. And I had a couple of people make me offers. When the Fertitta brothers offered me the money, I was absolutely thrilled to sell it. There was no negotiation. That’s how much you're offering to me. Thank you. I am out of here, and people continually ask me: Do you regret selling it? I don't. I was thrilled to get out of it at the time. I am thrilled with what the parties and Dana White did with it to keep it going. And they had the ability to invest a great deal of money as I say, I was paying for it. That's how it was running it with my money.
They came in, and over the next ten years, I believe they invested $40 million dollars. Good for them. If it were me, I would have taken the $40 million, and I'd be in St. Barts. They had the opportunity to be fans, so they were real fans; they were super rich and real fans. And I was running around like, you know, all the time trying to protect it trying to get this done, get a venue, where we could do it and get it saved, that wouldn't give us a hard time. Get it on the air. It’d become a real fight. And I was being portrayed everywhere as some kind of villain, which I certainly didn't like. And they made me an offer, sure. I didn't know them. I knew they had the money. They gave me the money. And then I think, you know, people say that it's now gotten so much more brutal. I don't know if I still owned it if it would not have gotten that way on its own. It's a very tough sport, a contact sport.
Lukas
It's very tough. I consider myself an avid fan. I would also just to your point. Even after the Fertitta brothers and Dana invested all that money, it wasn't a sudden change and became mass adopted. I remember reading that the Fertitta brothers themselves were questioning whether they should continue putting money into it. I would argue that it was just so before its time, requiring a massive capital injection. But beyond that, it needed time for people to watch the events and permeate more into our culture.
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, it was very hard to understand. I boxed when I was a kid. And when you box, you are throwing a punch from a distance: a jab. And the jab isn't as effective. The reason is that you don't have as long a distance. The more distance you have to throw the punch, the more power comes. When two guys are on the ground and one guy is punching the other guy in the face. Believe me; I don't want to be that guy. But when you're on the ground and one guy is punching the other guy in the face, that's not a very damaging blow. It's not comfortable, but it's not a very damaging blow.
One of the worst injuries is Frank Shamrock was fighting this Russian fighter who was supposed to be great, and Frank picked him up, threw him down. The guy broke his shoulder. As far as I can remember, that was the most serious injury. Then you take a look at Oleg Taktarov being a movie star. Royce's all over teaching all over the world Gracie jiu-jitsu. Dan Severn is another great athlete. By the way, Dan Severn’s all over the world teaching. People have set up John McCarthy’s gyms; the Gracie’s have gyms. It's become totally acceptable. I mean, I'll tell you I had my daughters take lessons from the Gracies. Everybody should. Everybody should learn. And you study jiu-jitsu?
Lukas
I do.
Bob Meyrowitz
And I don't know if you're doing Gracie or Brazilian or which jiu-jitsu. But you learn to do things. Rorian always wanted to roll with me. I didn't trust him. But he would show me and teach me incredible things. Small things. He taught a class that was only for women's empowerment. And my older daughter, who's very smart, really terrific. But if you want to hit her, she's just ducking and running. And I don't say that I wanted to, but my younger daughter used to take her around. I had my oldest daughter take a class with Rorian. When he taught the class, I was in there, and then he said, “Now, you must leave; no men can be in here.” And then an hour and a half later he invited me back in and you could feel the empowerment that those women had from what Rorian Gracie had taught them. It is amazing to learn this stuff. I think what has happened is we created this gigantic, international sport.
Crafting the Octagon
Lukas
Undoubtedly. One last question about the actual UFC and its formation I was curious about the Octagon itself. As the sport of MMA has ballooned, all these other promotions are trying different rings and styles. I know recently, Triad Combat is using a triangle-type ring. But the Octagon has become so synonymous with MMA; I was curious if you could give me any insight into the discussions behind it. I thought it was developed for its neutrality across all disciplines. But what were the conversations like when you were creating the Octagon?
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, just like the UFC, there are many people now who claim to have created the Octagon. I happened to be there when Rorian Gracie had as a pupil, John Milius, who is a famous movie director. And he suggested the Octagon. Now what we were doing is and forgive me if I'm not right about each one of them. Of course, boxing is in a square, judo in a circle, and another is in a triangle. We created something for the square, triangle, and circle to all fit in. But nobody would be at an advantage; nobody would be at a disadvantage. And so that's how we created it.
Originally, I wanted to have the sides be plexiglass so that we could shoot, you know, the television show right through it. They pointed out that if someone hits their head against it, not a good idea. We then got the steel covered in plastic that would give so that people wouldn't get hurt putting their heads or getting up against it. And that worked extremely well. We had it at a certain height till Tank Abbott tried to throw somebody over, then we made it higher, and everything was totally safe.
Lukas
And it's lasted until now and is still the gold standard. It's honestly incredible. Just the amount of foresight there to create something with such lasting implications and will continue to be the standard for MMA for the foreseeable future.
MMA & UFC Today
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, as you know, it's interesting that the Professional Fighters League (PFL) and Bellator each claim to be second. But nobody is first except the UFC.
Lukas
Yes.
Bob Meyrowitz
Do you watch any of the others? I watch Bellator. I think Scott Coker does a great job and it's very well run.
Lukas
I do watch Bellator, and I'm a fan. And I also like how the PFL experiments with different things; for example, I like the “Ref Cam”. Bellator, I agree with you, has come a long way. They have a strong chance of being number 2. The biggest issue for them is the lack of depth. In the UFC from start to finish, there are so many great fighters and fights. In Bellator, you might have an amazing Main Event, but the fights beforehand are questionable. They need to strengthen the overall roster but have a clear path to be number two. And there's nothing wrong with being number two since no one will catch the UFC.
Bob Meyrowitz
The UFC has so many fighters, but it's interesting that Endeavor now owns it. If I asked their biggest star, most people would say, Conor McGregor.
Lukas
Star-wise, notoriety, and brand value, I agree with Conor McGregor.
Bob Meyrowitz
Yeah, but he's really not fighting anymore. I think he's lost his last three fights [three out of his last four]. He's been shown for what he is. Well, anybody who gets in that Octagon, you have to be tough. But it's just like any other sport, some just rise above. And at this point, you know, I'll tell you who I think is the best: Khabib.
Lukas
Yeah. I think he's the most dominant fighter ever. For me, the greatest of all time is Jon Jones. But I think Khabib’s the most dominant.
Bob Meyrowitz
Yeah, I look at George St. Pierre. Jon Jones, I think without question. But I tend to believe that had [Khabib] stayed longer. He would have really been recognized, I think, for all that he was.
Lukas
I agree. I don't know who beats him.
Bob Meyrowitz
Yeah, that's right. I mean, I forget who said it eventually, Father Time beats everybody. But until then, I don't know who beats him. He was so dominant, so good. And no bullshit. He really got in and did what you're supposed to do. And for me, one of my favorites was Frank Shamrock.
Lukas
About Khabib, I would argue that, as opposed to Conor. Conor relied, to a fault, on his hands. And I think Conor’s issue was that he didn't develop enough to evolve with the sport. But with Khabib, his wrestling is probably the best, but he made significant improvements in his striking. You can see the improvement with his hands and his commitment to become well-rounded. That's an excellent way to reference the beginning of our conversation, because in the UFC today, fighters realize early that they cannot be good at one discipline. You need some level of jiu-jitsu, etc.
Bob Meyrowitz
That's right. We used to say about the UFC there are so many ways to lose. It is very hard not to lose because there are so many ways you can. I don't care how good you are. But Khabib really was just a great fighter. He had all the skills; you're right that he developed and was able to train into other ones. Many people would say to me: Mike Tyson will knock any one of them out. I don't know that Mike Tyson's ever been on the ground with somebody punching him or getting his arm in an armbar.
Lukas
Exactly. You see this now as some fighters from UFC fighters are moving into boxing. There's more money there, but outside of Tyson Fury, few boxers have spoken about transferring into MMA.
Bob Meyrowitz
And speaking of fighters who changed, Randy Couture. When he fought Vitor Belfort, and everyone's talking about Randy Couture being such a great wrestler; Randy Couture fought him completely on his feet and out-punched Vitor Belfort. It's a great sport. It's a great sport to watch how the fighters transform and how they get better. And as you know, you go roll around with them. I used to have people all the time come to me and say, “My Sensei would love to be in Ultimate Fighting.” No, he wouldn’t. Your Sensei is really good. I appreciate it. I had this guy from CAA – a talent agency. And he kept saying he got to see my Sensei in a mountain in LA. I'm having breakfast, and he comes over to me, “You got to do this for me.” I said, “Well, it turns out I'm going out to see Tank Abbott this afternoon in Huntington Beach. Get your Sensei, have him come with me to Huntington Beach, and he can roll with Tank Abbott.” He never came. These are world-class people; it takes so many years, so much training to do what they do. Ken Shamrock said to me that the first time he went into the Octagon, there were all those people screaming, but he heard when the gate was locked. And he said, “then I knew it was just me and him.”
eSports
Lukas
You have exemplified a tremendous amount of foresight throughout your career, both with the music and the PPV, the UFC, eYada.com, which I know we don't really cover — the first internet radio station.
Bob Meyrowitz
My favorite [eYada.com].
Lukas
I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to cover it, but you can talk about it briefly in this answer. You have shown an adeptness at identifying future trends before anyone else. And I don't know if you want to talk about what you're working on. But I assume whatever you're working on now is something that we'll all be using in 5-10 years. I'll leave it there with you; if you have anything else to add.
Bob Meyrowitz
I am currently working on e-gaming, which is not 5 or 10 years. I think that it's just this phenomenon that nobody has really taken advantage of. Talking to these young guys who do it, and, factually, it's almost all males. And one of the big things that I think we'll be able to do is bring in women. These are competitors. These aren't kids living in their mother's basement playing games. These are honest to God competitors who want to beat the other guy. And nobody is showing them like that. I really look forward to our interviewing. There's a whole bunch of things that you could do, so help me God, are not genius. I would love to tell you I have things. No, just nobody is doing it right. We will do it right. Hopefully, in the next three months, we will launch it. And it's called Leet Hall. Leet being the game of phrase for the very best.
Lukas
That's fantastic. Well, I look forward to reading all about it once Leet Hall launches. And, hopefully, we can get you to come back at some point and talk to us about it and plug it a little bit because I'm sure everyone here after this interview would love to get involved with whatever you work on next. So, I want to thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Bob Meyrowitz
Well, forgive me for speaking so much. I'm sure you'll be able to edit it down to what you need. I look forward to speaking with you and we'll see what we've got.