Original subtitles

-Welcome to the most exciting, the most provocative,

the most brutal martial arts competition that there is.

-In the '90s, a controversial new sport

hits television.

America can't look away.

-This is the real deal here.

Everything goes... No gloves, no rules.

-Oh, that is brutal.

-They'd never saw anything like this.

- Suplex... - Wrestling, kickboxing,

boxing, submission holds,

all these things wrapped into one fight.

-The fight could end by you throw in the towel,

you get knocked out, or you die.

-He's out. My goodness.

-But the violence inherent in no-holds-barred combat...

-Someone's gonna get seriously hurt.

- will leave the UFC in a fight for its own survival.

-Banned in North Carolina.

Banned in Mississippi.

-Is Jack Kevorkian the referee?

It's just a disgusting way to make money.

-We don't let roosters engage in cockfighting.

We don't allow human beings to engage in this kind of activity.

-The judge said, "Your show's gonna get shut down."

♪♪

[ Dial-up modems screeching ]

♪♪

-This first match in UFC history

sounds like the setup to a bad joke...

A sumo wrestler and a French kickboxing champion

walked into an eight-sided cage...

[ Bell dings ] - And they go.

- but there's no punchline here.

Just this.

-When he kicked him in the face and teeth went flying,

everything just stopped.

Like, did he just do that?

♪♪

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

We never seen something like that other than on the street.

-And that was a pretty heavy way to start

the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

It also gave people who tuned in

exactly what they were looking for.

-A first glimpse at a sport popular overseas,

mixed martial arts or MMA.

-Mixed martial arts is a tournament format

whereby you can kick, punch, and you can grapple.

It incorporates karate, tae kwon do,

judo, wrestling, jiu-jitsu.

-This is the real deal here.

Everything goes... No gloves, no rules.

-It's exciting.

It shows who the real men are.

-If you're a real fight fan, you might see the guy

doing a reverse armbar,

that impresses you.

If you're just a casual observer,

it's the mayhem, it's the blood, it's the guts.

-That's what it's all about.

-The best part is the blood.

- And they loved it. - Finish him!

-With its intoxicating mix of fighting styles

and a roster packed with steely-eyed competitors,

the early UFC is a far cry... - Bombs away!

- from the predetermined matches

and scripted characters

seen in professional wrestling.

-Whoa! André...

-And it bears no resemblance to the glitz and glamor

of professional boxing. - Mike Tyson.

[ Crowd cheering ]

-This is not even the UFC you know today.

This is an anything goes, unregulated, unsanctioned

free-for-all...

-Oh, that is brutal.

-...that attracts fighters from around the world

to a series of cage matches

where anything can happen. - Pushes him out of the ring.

-UFC in the '90s sold the blood, the violence.

And that's part of it.

But that's not the whole truth.

-The real story of how the UFC grew

to become a multibillion-dollar sports franchise...

♪♪

begins with a 46-year-old salesman in California

who makes a living hustling everything from office machines

to health club memberships.

-I was a classic entrepreneur.

I owned a car dealership in San Diego

where I did my own stunts.

[ Screams ]

Hurtling 25 feet through the air is a very big risk.

You would not do it.

Why take the same risk when you buy a new car?

I jumped off a 10-story building.

I got shot with a .357 Magnum.

[ Sirens wail ] I got set on fire.

And then I got dangled from a helicopter.

Anything to sell a car.

But I also got burned out

selling things that other people created,

and I was ready to create something myself.

I'm Art Davie, the creator of the UFC.

-Having trained as a boxer in his youth,

Davie is fascinated by the huge array

of fighting styles from around the world.

-During the 1980s in the martial arts magazines,

there were articles about who would win in a contest

between different martial arts styles...

The boxer versus a sumo wrestler.

What about kung fu versus karate?

-My tiger kung fu is better than yours.

-I started to think about

what I could do in the way of a tournament.

And one of the things I discovered was an article

in a national magazine

about an individual named Rorion Gracie.

-The Gracie family was a family of martial artists from Brazil

who innovated a particularly modern style of martial arts.

They called it Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

-Standby.

-I'm Robin Black.

I analyze and commentate fighting all over the world.

The statement the Gracie family was trying to make

was that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu could defeat anyone

regardless of size.

-Rorion learned jiu-jitsu from his father.

And when Rorion Gracie emigrated to America,

he told the martial arts magazines

that he was ready to issue the Gracie Challenge.

-Didn't matter where you came from or who you were...

You like boxing, you study karate

all your life... Come into our gym

and test it,

and we believe we will defeat you using Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

And they did.

They were able to defeat almost every style.

-The Gracie Challenge

is the clash of competing fighting styles

that Davie has been dreaming about.

Who better to partner with than this famous family of fighters?

-I wound up working right down the street

from the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Torrance.

♪♪

So I went down and I presented to him the idea

that maybe we could do this as a big tournament.

-To promote the supremacy of this family's fighting style,

Gracie agrees to partner up on an MMA tournament,

if Davie can overcome the state laws

and athletic commission rules

that would prohibit this kind of fighting event.

-He said, "How do we do that?"

I said, "I've got a plan."

I said, "I have figured out that the state of Colorado

has a loophole in the law

that will allow us to do a bare knuckle tournament."

And I went up to Colorado.

I got us a limited liability company for Rorion and I.

We called it Wild Promotion's "War of the Worlds."

So I said to Rorion, "We've got to raise some money."

-And find someone to air the events on TV.

-I got turned down by HBO,

I got turned down by Showtime, and I got turned down by ESPN.

They all said the same thing to me...

"Are you crazy?"

-Television of the future?

I've got it now.

-But in 1993, the television landscape in America

is going through a transformation.

Newly launched communications satellites make

up to 150 channels available to homes across the country.

- "WrestleMania" is coming at you live.

-It also opens the way for pay-per-view events

where audiences pony up a one-time fee

to see live events at home on TV.

Davie is hoping his "War of the Worlds"

will be one of them.

-There was a company in New York called

Semaphore Entertainment Group.

Now they had been doing concerts and comedy on pay-per-view,

you know, like "The Judds Farewell Tour,"

Andrew Dice Clay.

-Maybe I'll piss on you tonight, huh?

-But they didn't have a franchise.

I said, "Young men all over North America,

eventually the world, will pay to see this."

-Semaphore's executive, Bob Meyrowitz,

is intrigued by the idea

and agrees to a 50/50 partnership

with "War of the Worlds" productions,

joining Davie as one of the UFC's co-creators.

-They were looking for something that could be repetitive.

What could they do and then do it again and then do it again?

And that became why Semaphore Entertainment Group

really decided, "Okay, we're gonna go in on this."

I'm "Big" John McCarthy.

I'm known as one of the original referees and officials

for the UFC.

Still ugly as ever.

A guy named Michael Abramson from Semaphore,

eh, close to last minute was the one that said,

"Hey, you know, 'War of the Worlds'

tells me that this is a movie."

-Fire!

[ Gunfire ]

-This isn't a movie, this is real life.

This is the ultimate fighting championship,

and everyone went, "Hey, that's a pretty good name."

-The title sticks.

With funding secured,

Davie and his creative team are eager to heighten

the drama of the competition

by creating a fighting platform perfectly suited to the UFC's

unique style of combat.

-I thought about some sort of a cage,

but maybe with a moat... We could put sharks in it.

Then I had thought about some sort of a... a circle,

and then maybe the outer ring would be electrified.

-Eventually it came up, "What about chain link?"

We could use chain link that would keep them

from falling outside of the fighting surface.

And they put all these straight panels together.

It becomes an octagon.

♪♪

-But Davie still needs fighters courageous enough

or crazy enough to enter this octagon and defeat

three different opponents to be declared champion.

-My plan was an eight-man tournament,

and I said to Rorion, "Can one of your brothers

compete against three different fighters in one night?"

-Rorion immediately offers up his younger brother,

Royce Gracie,

a skilled master of the family's Brazilian fighting style.

-Royce was chosen by the family,

not because he was the biggest and the strongest,

but because he was the smallest.

If Royce could defeat bigger, stronger man,

it proved the effectiveness of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

-Soon, other contenders, like sumo wrestler Teila Tuli

and boxer Art Jimmerson, are added to the card.

But Davie is still looking for the face of this new sport.

What he finds is a powerful and explosive fighter

whose rivalry with Royce Gracie will come to define the UFC

and be its first major draw.

-This changes everything here.

-This will outsell the Frazier fight,

outsell the Fullmer fight, all the fights in the history,

this will be... - In June of 1976,

America's most famous athlete,

boxer Muhammad Ali,

agrees to fight Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki

in a highly publicized event.

-I didn't come to Japan to leave my title to you.

I come to destroy you.

-It's an unusual matchup that brings together two fighters

from wildly different disciplines

and one that anticipates the birth of mixed martial arts.

[ Crowd shouting ]

Despite a handful of explosive moments,

Inoki spends most of the 15 rounds on his back,

with Ali standing over him, barely able to throw a punch.

[ Bell rings ] The fight was ultimately

declared a draw

and dismissed as a bizarre one-off.

But in the '90s, 46-year-old Art Davie

is poised to bring mixed martial arts

back to the mainstream

with his Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Most of the fighters for the eight-man tournament

have been chosen, but Davie isn't satisfied.

-I was very clear that I was in show business.

In addition to looking for the world's best fighter,

I also had to find the world's most entertaining fighter.

-5,000 miles away in Tokyo, Japan...

-Shamrock Ken!

-...a young grappler from the U.S.

is already making a name for himself

as a mixed martial arts champion.

-My DNA is a fighter.

I lived and breathed being a fighter.

I'm Ken Shamrock, former UFC Heavyweight Champion

and Pancrase Champion.

I want to go back a little bit,

because I think that there's a story here.

-Born Ken Kilpatrick in 1964 in Macon, Georgia,

the future fighter, his two brothers,

and their single mom live in extreme poverty.

-We slept in one room, no bed.

Sometimes we didn't even have food.

And I remember stealing food out of the trash can.

It was... It was bad.

I don't remember ever being hugged by my mother.

I didn't know my father.

That's my childhood.

-After his family moves to Napa, California,

10-year-old Ken runs away from home.

♪♪

-I was hanging out with bad people

and surviving only in ways that you know how,

and that's stealing and robbing.

It was lay down and die or stand up and fight.

♪♪

-One fateful day, Ken has to fight for his life.

-Some other kids came walking up

that weren't from our neighborhood.

And words were said.

And the next thing you know, fists were throwing.

And I had a knife on me.

And I ended up trying to stab a guy

and end up getting stabbed myself.

I lost consciousness, because I was spurting blood out.

And I woke up in a hospital handcuffed to a bed.

The police were looking for me for a while.

My rap sheet was like that thick.

-Ken becomes aware of the court.

Then at the age of 14,

he meets the man who will give him his last name

and a glimpse at a better future.

-Bob Shamrock dedicated his life to helping at-risk kids.

When I walked into the Bob Shamrock Boys' Home,

this was a mansion.

It was 18 boys in there.

And then Bob Shamrock comes up

and he goes, "Come on over here."

And then he walked us over to this... this bar that had,

like, soda and candy and ice cream.

And I was like, "This is not real,"

pinch, pinch, pinch.

And he goes, "I'm telling you right now in this house,

you have a fresh start."

He said, "Ken, you're violent, and you fight all the time."

He goes, "Let's figure out how we can vent

that frustration into something positive."

-Come on, men, let's go!

-Bob Shamrock enrolls Ken in the local high school.

It's on the football and wrestling teams

that Ken discovers a place where violence is rewarded.

-I look around my teammates are jumping, "Yeah! Nice job."

And the coaches, like, were like, "Yeah! Do that again."

And I'm like, "This can't be right."

I hurt this kid, I hit him,

and they're telling me it's okay.

And Bob said, "You've got to know the rules.

And if you play within those rules,

whether it's sports or life,

you can be successful in anything you want to be."

-A father-son bond forms between Bob and Ken.

I love my biological mom,

but she didn't have the means to take care of us.

We got into trouble.

I couldn't go back there.

I felt like my life with Bob,

that's where I was supposed to be.

-And in 1982, Shamrock formally adopts the teenager.

-That's who took care of me.

I was a part of this family.

-In his final year of high school,

Shamrock is definitely getting noticed on the football field.

But he's become disenchanted with the sport.

-I just didn't want to do that.

So I ended up going into pro wrestling.

- Vince Torelli. - Working under stage names

like Vince Torelli and Mr. Wrestling,

Shamrock becomes an expert in pro wrestling style

of choreographed combat.

But eventually he tires of pulling his punches.

-Everything was working in pro wrestling for me,

but I was always that guy trying to find the most extreme level

that I could actually get to.

And I ran into a friend of mine, Dean Malenko,

and he showed me this tape.

And then I saw these two Japanese guys on there.

-In the early '90s, Japan's Universal Wrestling Federation

is pioneering a new, more aggressive style

of pro wrestling,

where fighters often incorporate elements

of martial arts in the ring.

-I'd never saw anything like this.

Judo, kickboxing, boxing, submission holds...

All these things wrapped into one fight.

Now, if you can do that, you are truly a badass.

And I looked at him and I said, "Yeah, I want to do that."

And he goes, "All right, man, I'll hook you up."

-Shamrock!

-Shamrock is invited to join the organization's

roster of fighters. [ Bell dings ]

It's the beginning of his career as a so-called shoot fighter,

where the fighting inside the ring is unscripted

and unplanned up to a certain point.

-I literally made sure that everything I did landed.

I hit them, kicked them, I threw them,

I put submission holds on them.

But there was always a predetermined ending.

In other words, we always knew who was going to win.

I was tired of that, and I wanted something more.

I wanted the real deal.

-In 1993, Shamrock joins Japan's Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling,

which promises real hand-to-hand combat.

And this time, there's no script.

-We're gonna take pro wrestling,

and we were going to make it real.

We were so far in advance of anyone,

even if they were world champion kick boxers,

we would take them down, we would destroy them.

Yes!

Whoo! [ Applause ]

Not having to lose to somebody,

there was nothing better than that.

That was the elite of elites.

-Shamrock becomes the first King of Pancrase

openweight champion.

-I felt that I was good enough to beat anybody.

This is my world.

This is it.

And then all of a sudden, I hear about this thing called the UFC.

-Ken Shamrock was exactly what I was looking for.

He's Captain America.

♪♪

He's 6'1".

He's 212 pounds.

He's got a bodybuilders body, and he competes in red Speedos.

And I knew he was gonna be a star.

[ Bell rings ] - Whoo!

-And I said, "Tell me about what you're doing in Japan."

-I said, "I fight in a mixed martial arts company

where it was kicks, punches, throws, submissions."

-He said, "Well, it's the real deal."

-I said, "No, what I want to do is the real deal... a shoot."

-And he says, "Anything goes, no rules."

And I was like,

"All right, okay."

-He said, "Well, I'm interested."

Well, I wound up signing him.

-But in my mind, I'm like, "Dude, there's no way

they can let this happen."

It's sanctioning bodies everywhere.

There's no way that they're gonna allow somebody

to kick somebody in the head.

But I'm literally the mixed martial arts champion.

I have to go defend my title.

-Days before the event, the eight elite fighters chosen

for the UFC's inaugural tournament

begin arriving in Denver.

-We fly in.

The whole time I'm like, "It's not gonna happen."

We get in there, there's a press conference,

and I notice one guy, Gerard Gordeau,

who I saw fight in Japan, and I see Royce,

and he's walking around in his gi.

And I'm like, "Who walks around in their gi?"

Dude, I mean, come on, like, that's weak.

I'm thinking to myself, "There's no way

I'm gonna destroy these kids.

Man, I'm gonna kill them."

-But after the press conference,

the fighters are surprised to be called into a meeting

to discuss the rules of the tournament.

-I'm like, "What do you mean rules?

I thought there was no rules."

-There was only three rules for the fight...

No groin shots, no biting, and no eye gouging.

-The fight could end by you throw in the towel,

you get knocked out, or you die.

And we now want you to sign on the rules.

Rorion was there to talk to the fighters.

He winds up talking about the fact

that the kicker punchers can't wrap their fist.

He said you wouldn't do that in the street

if you were in a fight, you wouldn't have time.

Well, that doesn't appeal to Zane Frazier, who's a kickboxer

and Art Jimmerson who's a professional boxer.

Both of them are now arguing,

"We need to be able to wrap our hands."

-Shamrock is also given a handicap by the organizers.

-They took away my wrestling shoes.

If you understand that

everything starts from your foundation,

which is your feet, your movement for takedowns,

and then all of a sudden you get these shoes taken off of you.

It's like being on ice because you've never been there before.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

-Well, now the room is turning into chaos.

I figured the next thing that's gonna happen is a brawl.

I'm gonna have fighters in jail,

fighters in the hospital,

and there's no event tomorrow night.

-The night before the Ultimate Fighting Championship's

first match,

fighters are in fierce disagreement

over the last-minute addition of new rules and regulations.

UFC creator Art Davie is worried the tournament is in jeopardy.

-Who saves my butt is the sumo wrestler,

Teila Tuli.

He picks up the one-page release.

He says, "I've already signed it."

He slams it down on the table

and he says, "I'll see everybody else tomorrow night."

[ Applause ]

-When he stood up and said that, it really took away

any opportunity for anybody to say,

"Wait a minute, this is supposed to be no rules,

anything goes. Why are you taking things away?"

-Ken Shamrock comes up to me and he says,

"Is this a shoot or work?"

A work is a scripted bout, a shoot is a real fight.

-Leading right up to it, it was almost like a question of

is this real or is it not real?

-I said, "Ken, we've been all through this before,

you know that."

[ Indistinct chatter ]

-It has all the hype and trappings

of a Vegas boxing match...

Smoke, lights, cameras, and women.

-The following night with pay-per-view cameras rolling,

local fight fans trickle into Denver, Colorado's

McNichols Sports Arena

to witness the Ultimate Fighting Championship's

first-ever mixed martial arts tournament.

-There are no rules, no judges' scores,

and no time limits.

-And no how-to manual for the video crew

hired to capture the action

for the pay-per-view audience watching at home.

-There was a chain-link fence,

and, I mean, your normal cameraman on the ground

is just gonna be shooting through a fence all night.

That looks horrible.

They got to get them higher over this barrier.

And that's when I said, "Okay, there's one thing missing,

and that's looking down 'cause guys are gonna be down there."

It was kind of a cool angle.

Nobody had ever used that before.

Are we good? Yeah, he said, "Good."

My name's Mark Lucas,

and I was the first live TV director

of the Ultimate Fighting Championship's

hell of a ride.

I'm a little worried.

I see this almost-empty McNichols Arena,

which is like 18,000 seats.

I think maybe there was 3,000.

And so I had to get all the cameramen.

Don't give me wide shots where you see empty seats.

The arena was so empty, I figured maybe

there's only five people watching on a pay-per-view.

-Please welcome the contestants for the first matchup tonight's

Ultimate Fighting Championship.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-It's a shocking sight...

200-pound French savate champion,

Gerard Gordeau,

facing off against Teila Tuli,

a sumo wrestler twice Gordeau's size.

-420 pounds.

Make room for the giant.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-What follows is a bloody spectacle.

Tuli lowers his head, extends his arms,

and charges him like he's a bull.

-Gerard Gordeau throws a right kick

and it hits Teila flush in the middle of the face.

-What do you think?

That's Gordeau.

-I think that he's missing teeth there.

[ Crowd cheers ]

-And you see one of his teeth come flying out.

-And then he finishes up with the right hand,

which catches him in the eye and bust the eye open.

-And all of a sudden, blood, just tons of blood.

Horrifying. - There's a bit of blood flowing

out and into that eye. - Yes.

-And I said, "Okay, this is real.

This is really real."

-The match has been called.

Gerard Gordeau is the winner.

-I'm back at that point in the dressing area.

Who's back there watching the monitor is Ken Shamrock.

-That kick, there's no way you can believe that.

He turns around, and he looks at me and he nods.

That's when he knew it was a shoot and not a work.

[ Crowd cheering ]

-That was a clear groin shot.

-The second match pitting kickboxer Kevin Rosier

against karate champ Zane Frazier

is also horrifically violent,

but it's the final matches of the quarterfinals

that introduced audiences to the UFC's future superstars.

-Out of the red corner, Royce Gracie.

-Royce Gracie was not a very imposing guy.

I thought, "How long is this guy gonna last?"

-Here it is. There's the grapple.

-And he's on the ground.

-Well, he was like a boa constrictor.

[ Crowd chanting ] - Royce! Royce! Royce!

-And then there was Ken Shamrock.

He was put together like a brick shithouse,

no fat on him.

-I have to admit, he looks pretty fantastic.

-He looked the part, and he could fight.

-There's the tapout right there.

Just too painful.

-I'm like, I'm way up here. [ Laughs ]

I didn't think anybody could beat me.

-Ladies and gentlemen,

our second semifinal match of the evening.

-Now, in the semifinals,

we've got Royce Gracie facing Ken Shamrock.

-I think this will be a very exciting bout.

-Here they go. Look at that.

- Look at that right there. - Leg drop right away.

-Shamrock, in his red Speedos

immediately appears to have the upper hand,

but Gracie, wearing the white gi Shamrock found laughable,

proves he's no joke.

-Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is about weaponizing human body

or in this case, as Royce did,

you can use the fabric of your clothing.

-Here's where the gi comes in, Bill.

Look at that left hand of Royce.

It's grabbing the right gi lapel.

-As he's choking me with his gear,

I'm going like, "Wait a minute. Hold up. What's going on?

I can't wear my wrestling shoes,

but he's choking me with his gi."

-The more that he struggles, the more it starts

to just tighten up and so Ken was in trouble.

-Royce... there's the tap, there's the tap.

-And I tap.

And I remember sitting there going, "I just lost.

I lost to this guy in pajamas." [ Laughs ]

-It's the opening bell of what would be a bitter rivalry

between the two fighters.

Gracie goes on to defeat Gerard Gordeau in the final...

-These Gracies are anacondas.

It's over.

- to become the UFC's first champion,

proving the dominance of his family's fighting style.

Art Davie and his partner, Bob Meyrowitz,

worry their creation hasn't connected with audiences.

Then they hear the pay-per-view numbers.

-$14.95 was the price.

We wound up doing more than 87,000 subscribers

on pay-per-view.

It was stunning.

-It was huge.

-Bob Meyrowitz was a very happy guy.

His gamble paid off.

It was a big success, and right away they knew,

"Oh, we're gonna do another one."

-Four months later, the UFC returns to Colorado,

this time with twice as many fighters.

-People come to see skill.

They come to see courage.

-The fresh roster of contenders aren't the only new faces

appearing in the dreaded octagon.

-Rorion Gracie suggested to me,

"What about 'Big' John McCarthy as the referee?"

-John McCarthy is a Los Angeles police officer

who trains with the Gracies,

but he's hesitant to accept the new job offer.

-I did not want to be a referee, I wanted to fight.

I thought I could do okay with that.

But I love the Gracies, I love the sport,

I love what they were trying to do.

As I was asked to go up and see Art Davie,

he goes, "I need you to start these fights.

I want a statement, and I want a hand signal."

I said, "I got two guys standing inside a cage, one over here,

one over there that want to beat the shit out of each other,

and I'm gonna ask, 'Are you ready'?"

-Are you ready? Are you ready?

"Let's get it on."

And he goes, "That's it. That's exactly what I want."

And I said, "Okay." - Let's get it on!

-I turn to the two at one point, and I say,

"Is he saying, 'Let's get it on'?

That's... ing great. I love this."

And it became his signature thing.

-Let's get it on!

- "UFC 2" is an even bigger success than its predecessor,

more than tripling UFC 1's pay-per-view subscribers.

The event also multiplies the unfettered violence.

-It was the bloodiest.

-The UFC's growing fan base

may be thrilled by the bloodshed,

but McCarthy is left shaken by the events.

-The referee was not supposed to be able to stop the fight.

The fighter will tap out or the corner will throw in the towel.

I had one instance where Scott Morris

was against Pat Smith.

Pat Smith starts to open up and hit him with big elbows.

It cuts him in a couple of places,

and he gets just basically knocked out.

And I'm screaming at the corner, "Throw your towel," you know.

And they looked at me, and they shook their head,

and they threw the towel into the audience.

And you've got a corner that has been told by the fighter,

don't ever throw the towel.

And now the fighter is so hurt that they can't even tap

because they don't have that functionality in their brain,

then someone's gonna get seriously hurt.

- He's out. - He's out.

- My goodness. - That's intense, folks.

-I can't be the guy that stands there

and lets someone get beat to death,

and I do nothing about it.

I said, "When a fighter cannot intelligently defend themselves,

the referee has to be able to have the power

to stop the fight."

-Organizers agree with McCarthy and institute the new rule.

♪♪

-What UFC 2 doesn't deliver

is a rematch between its breakout stars.

-Okay. We're back here with Ken Shamrock.

Ken, when you think about it, it's so far?

-Ken Shamrock is out due to an injury.

-How would you beat Royce next time?

-It's a secret.

-And so Royce Gracie is crowned champion once again.

- Art Davie writing in the name. - But organizers make the promise

of a second cage match between the two fighters

the centerpiece of UFC 3.

-I think Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie's rivalry

was very real.

Everything that they've learned is being brought to this moment

to fight each other in a cage.

-Despite the hype, the rematch doesn't go as planned.

Shamrock is in fighting shape,

and he's even allowed to wear his wrestling shoes.

But then the unthinkable...

-The towel is in, Royce Gracie is out of the competition.

-What a shocker. Unbelievable.

- Gracie drops out mid-way through the tournament.

-He threw in the towel, and said he was exhausted,

like his body was exhausted.

-Royce was hurt big time for him not to get in the fight.

-To me, I thought that was chicken.

Everybody's exhausted.

I'm exhausted, I'm hurt.

When he backed out of the fight,

I say I'm not going into the finals,

because I wanted Royce, and I made no bones about it.

I said, "I want Royce."

-His father's there, Bob Shamrock.

And he says to him,

"You're walking away from $60,000."

Ken said, "I'm going home."

He walked out,

but it allowed the feud to continue between

Royce and Shamrock.

♪♪

-The following year, it finally happens.

It will be their bloodiest battle yet.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

But waiting in the wings is a man who threatens

to put a chokehold on the UFC itself.

-Sooner or later someone's gonna get very badly injured.

-At least seven people are dead after a suspected car bomb.

-A lot of blood gushing from the man's head.

-Boxes with human body parts.

-There's a saying in American newsrooms,

if it bleeds, it leads.

And in the early '90s, bloody confrontations

consume television news. [ Gunfire ]

From the mayhem of the Gulf War...

-Chaos in downtown Oklahoma City.

- to the breathless coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing,

broadcasters seem intent on satisfying

their viewers' fascination with extreme violence.

It's against this backdrop

that the Ultimate Fighting Championship

emerges as must-see TV for bloodthirsty audiences.

- Why're you here, man? - To see blood.

Blood. - Break his legs!

-They got the blood going now.

The blood is flowing.

-After four blood-soaked tournaments,

organizers are lighting up the octagon

for their most anticipated fight ever,

a rematch between their two biggest stars,

Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie.

-The match you've all been waiting for.

♪♪

-It's called a superfight, a face off between two fighters

that exists outside of the evening's regular tournaments.

-And here we go.

-But in order to keep the broadcast

within the two-hour pay-per-view window,

a new rule is once again being added at the last minute.

-It has a 30-minute time limit.

-Shamrock and Gracie are two of the UFC's toughest fighters,

but neither one of them can land a definitive blow

to turn the fight in their favor.

-These two are so good we might have another long bout

right here.

-The fight ended up going 31 minutes.

And I stop the fight, give them a minute's rest,

then put them back for a five-minute overtime.

- Let's get it on! - Five-minute OT under way.

-Ken landed one punch that, you know,

it puffed up Royce's eyes, cut him and stuff.

-He nailed Gracie.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

-It looks like Shamrock

is finally besting his longtime foe,

which will make the grappler the first Superfight Champion

in UFC history.

-All right, pull it apart, pull it apart.

Pull it apart. - And that is the end

of the superfight.

-But it isn't meant to be.

-It was a draw.

[ Crowd booing ]

-And the crowd does not like it at all.

-It was a draw, that's the way it is.

-The crowd is treating Shamrock as though he's the winner.

-I just had fought Royce to a so-called "draw"

after he was beat up to snot.

Why aren't you labeling me the champion?

The Gracies, who were instrumental

in creating the no rules UFC,

are equally upset after the superfight.

-Rorion said, "Oh, we can't fight with time limits.

We're gonna get out of this now,"

and he pulls Royce out of the UFC.

-Shortly after the Gracies exit the Fighting League,

a Republican senator from Arizona

embarks on a crusade to destroy the UFC forever.

-We would prevent such matches between animals.

I'm not sure why you can argue

that we would allow such things between human beings.

-He'd written a letter to all 50 governors in which he said,

"Please do not let this come to your state.

This is human cockfighting."

-We expect certain standards of behavior in our society,

and this is clearly in gross violation of that.

-I really noticed it when John McCain

debated Bob Meyrowitz on CNN.

-The fact is that nobody has been injured, seriously injured,

doing this Ultimate Fighting Championship.

-36 states have already outlawed them.

It won't be long before all 50 do.

-Community outrage has led to it being banned

in North Carolina, banned in Mississippi.

-All of these states were starting to come up

with ways of trying to stop the events

and so we were ending up in court.

-The UFC finds itself fighting a battle for survival,

and Art Davie can't see a path

to victory for the brutal sport he helped create.

-I saw where we were going.

Maybe we would be banned, maybe McCain would win.

So I figured, let me get out now while the getting is good.

-After the UFC's fifth tournament,

Davie decides to sell his share to his co-founder,

Semaphore CEO Bob Meyrowitz.

But first, Davie needs to convince his partner,

Rorion Gracie.

-Rorion was very upset.

He didn't really want to sell.

And I said, "We should sell. It's the right thing."

So Bob made me a seven-figure offer for Wild Promotions,

and it was a good seven-figure offer.

♪♪

And I said yes.

Two weeks later, I get a call from Bob Meyrowitz and he says,

"I don't know how to put together the fights.

I need to have you still be the booker, the matchmaker."

I became the Ultimate Fighting Commissioner,

-The greatest martial arts competition in the world,

the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

-Now just an employee

of the organization he helped create,

Davie sees his worst fears realized.

-The judge said, "Your show's gonna get shut down."

♪♪

-Is it a thrilling sport or a killing sport?

- Man-to-man blood combat. - It is called

Ultimate Fighting.

-By the late '90s, the UFC is more often

making news for its battles

outside of the company's famous octagon.

-Is Jack Kevorkian the referee?

It's just a tacky, disgusting kind of way to make money.

-The owner is in a constant state of damage control

as he's forced to find ways to appease state regulators.

-Anyone who thinks they can tell us a way to make this

a better, safer sport,

we're happy to have it.

♪♪

-All that drama, all that controversy

got in the way of me focusing on going out there

and doing my job.

-Ken Shamrock is the UFC's highest paid fighter.

But as he struggles to maintain his spot

at the top of the UFC's roster,

he also finds ways to deal with the stress.

-I did abuse drugs.

I did do that stuff.

I wanted to be able to kill the pain,

I wanted to have a good time,

and I didn't want to think about anything.

-I got to tell you something about mixed martial arts.

It's a very hard sport.

If you add that also the pressures of being a celebrity,

quite frankly, some of them crack up.

-We all go out and fight and then we would club it.

And you get in those clubs, alcohol make people brave.

And with my face, my name, guys would want to fight me.

The one guy who hit me in the back with a bat

and I just react.

I turn around and hit him, bam.

Hit him in the temple and blinded him.

There was another time I put a dude in a coma,

shoved his cheekbone up into his brain,

put him in a coma.

I must have had two $300,000 in lawsuits,

paying attorneys to defend me.

And I got to a point where I just I decided

I wasn't going to clubs anymore.

If I was gonna do something, it was gonna get my house.

-The UFC has a run in of its own,

this time with lawmakers in New York State

who threaten to deliver a death blow to the organization.

-We were scheduled to do UFC 12.

We had already sold several thousand tickets.

-The state of New York all of a sudden starts saying,

you got to follow what we want.

And the UFC goes back to court saying, "We can't do this."

-Among the new rules proposed by the state,

a requirement that the 32-foot octagon

be widened to a minimum of 40 feet in diameter.

There's no time to rebuild,

and floor seats around the stage are already sold out.

-With a sold out show set for tonight in Niagara Falls,

promoters filed a $32 million lawsuit against the state,

arguing such rules would have a catastrophic effect on business.

-The judge in the end is saying, "Look, they're saying

these are what our rules are.

If you want to follow the rules,

you can put on your show.

If you don't follow them,

your show's gonna get shut down."

-Semaphore Entertainment's last-minute appeal

in federal court is thrown out.

♪♪

And after all the work to create the league, the broken bones,

the blood on the canvas, it looks like the final bell

is being run for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

-We had to leave in the middle of the night

because the court had shut us down.

-There's got to be a law against that.

All of a sudden, they come in after you've already spent

all of that money and then tell you, "No, you can't be here."

-Can you imagine all the people, all the cameras, the cage,

the people who sell the T-shirts,

everything canceled. The show's over.

[ Lights click off ]

When you're part of a team that feels like a family,

where all of us together are creating this thing

that's a very special period.

It emboldens and strengthens you

as a human, as a team, as individuals,

and it strengthened the UFC.

These fighters, this is what they needed.

This is who they were, their purpose.

They needed the producers.

They needed the cameras, the referee.

Everybody needed each other.

And so we're gonna go put a show on somewhere else.

The show must go on.

♪♪