Cody Donovan spent more than three months in preparation for his most recent fight. And when the day came to step into the Ring of Fire, the biggest mixed martial arts event in Colorado, Donovan stayed on his feet about as long as a cowboy rides a bucking bull. Isaac Diamondes knocked him out in eight seconds. One right cross in the middle of the ring and the fight was over.
“I didn’t even see the punch,” Donovan recalled.
Some fighters with Donovan’s aspirations would be heartbroken. First time in the Ring of Fire, first chance to prove himself and he doesn’t even land a punch.
But in mixed martial arts, one punch can’t break a career. And at the rate the sport is growing, there will be plenty of chances to make it to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the organization that has established itself as the NFL of mixed martial arts with its recent acquisition of its main competition, Pride Fighting Championship.
UFC controls a sport ascending into mainstream acceptance. Its big events regularly attract crowds of 15,000 or more, with gates averaging from $2 million to $3 million. Its Spike TV telecasts have been popular in the male 18-34 demographic most passionate about MMA, and its Jan. 25 telecast earned the top ratings in its time slot for that age group. Its next big attraction, UFC 73: Stacked, comes Saturday night in Sacramento. Ask UFC officials about the surge in popularity and they mention one major turning point, the introduction of unified rules by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board in 2000, which they believed legitimized the sport. At about the same time, UFC began a more modernized business approach to promoting and marketing its sport. Mixed martial arts got a huge boost in 2005 when the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” a reality show, debuted on Spike TV.
Sport has primal appeal
“There’s something primal about it,” Donovan said. “You see someone putting it all on the line, and you want to do it.”
The rules changes helped the UFC shed its original image – the no-holds-barred, “who cares if I kick him in the groin” format from UFC 1, held at Denver’s McNichols Sports Arena in 1993. Back then, the UFC chose Denver because Colorado lacked a boxing commission to impose safety rules, and in ensuing years more states took the welcome mat off the stoop.
No rules, no place to fight, no place to make money. That’s all changed.
“We run to regulation, not away from it,” said Marc Ratner, UFC’s vice president of government and regulatory affairs. “We’re not going anywhere unless there’s an athletic commission to sanction the fight.”
Some embrace the UFC’s new safety-first image. Others need convincing.
“As the sport develops, many less-gifted individuals will start competing without proper fitness training or skill development,” USA Boxing chairman Thomas Virgets said in an e-mail. “That is when you are going to see significant catastrophic injuries.”
Even in its rough-and-tumble days, however, the UFC has never had a fatality, a track record professional boxing can’t claim.
And as for the concerns about improper skill development, there are plenty of places for inexperienced fighters to cut their teeth, especially in Colorado. The Ring of Fire event at the Broomfield Event Center in April drew a capacity crowd of more than 5,000 spectators, event manager Cindy Logan said. Even smaller events such as Kick Down 38, which filled the Aspen Ballroom at the Red Lion Inn on Friday, drew their fair share of fans looking for something boxing doesn’t always offer: swift resolution.
None of the 13 fights at the Kick Down went the full three or five rounds, and nine fights ended in the first round. With wrestling, Brazilian jiujitsu (a martial art focused on grappling), boxing and kickboxing rolled into one, a fighter can’t wait around to take his shot.
“There are so many ways to win in this sport,” Brad Himmelman, a 37-year-old from Commerce City, said at Kick Down 38. “You almost never see a boring fight.”
The sport’s popularity in the Denver area has grown to the point that UFC officials are trying to schedule an event at the Pepsi Center early next year, UFC president Dana White said.
Colorado interest soaring
The rise of mixed martial arts has also changed the way the Colorado State Boxing Commission does business. Established in July 2000, 75 percent of the commission’s original work focused on boxing, the other 25 percent on mixed martial arts. Seven years later, the commission’s responsibilities have flip-flopped, director Josef Mason said. The commission used to license 50 fighters per year. These days, Mason said, it’s more like 250.
Meaning there are plenty of guys such as Donovan, 24, with eyes fixed on a career in the UFC, which gets about 250 tapes a month from prospective fighters.
“Two hundred thirty of them are nuts,” White said. “Dudes in their basements, karate-chopping boards and headbutting walls, guys lighting themselves on fire.”
Guys who wouldn’t have made it into the original UFC.
Hundreds more, however, are joining a local gym and training for events like the Kick Down. And then there are guys such as Donovan, who is working toward a degree in media arts and animation at the Art Institute of Colorado.
His day job is instructing and training at High Altitude Martial Arts in Aurora, a gym owned by Nate Marquardt, who is fighting for the UFC middleweight title Saturday night.
And that puts Donovan on Sven Bean’s radar. Bean promotes the Ring of Fire, and UFC officials have called him more than once to find a fighter. Bean gets his fair share of cold calls, but it’s a coach’s recommendation that gets a fighter on Bean’s show.
Fight well in the Ring of Fire, and you might get a UFC contract.
“There’s A-level guys and B-level guys. B-level guys are A-level guys that haven’t gotten the exposure yet,” Bean said. “If a guy has fought for me two or three times, and he’s done pretty well, he’s probably ready for an entry-level fight in the UFC.”
Even after being knocked out, Donovan was scheduled to fight for Bean in a Battlequest event July 21 in Eagle, but an injury during training has forced him to withdraw. It’s going to take a more severe setback for Donovan to turn in his 4-ounce gloves for a computer and a corner office.
“When I think of the money, the fame, it makes me nervous. I don’t want to dwell on anything that takes my eyes off of it,” Donovan said. “I’m going to keep fighting until I get there.”
Staff writer Joel A. Erickson can be reached at 303-954-1033 or jerickson@denverpost.com.
Mixed martial arts
What it is: A discipline that combines principles of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiujitsu and other combat sports into one format.
Fights: Fighters begin upright in a ring as if boxing but can take the fight to the ground at any time.
Length: Most championship bouts are five rounds; regular bouts are three. Rounds can be five or three minutes long.
Ways to end a fight: Knockout, submission (fighter can tap out), referee stoppage, decision (majority, split or unanimous), disqualification, draw, forfeit and no contest.
Equipment: 4- to 6-ounce gloves that are designed to protect the hand, and MMA-approved shorts. Fighters do not wear shoes.
Source: UFC, Colorado State Boxing Commission
UFC Rules: Going from almost none to 31
Nov. 12, 1993, McNichols Arena, Denver
UFC 1: The Beginning
January 2001, Zuffa LLC buys UFC
Official UFC Rules, as established by Nevada State Athletic Commission
Rough sport’s steady gains
Nov. 12, 1993 – UFC 1: The Beginning, held at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, a contest designed to test several martial arts disciplines, including boxing, karate and wrestling. Royce Gracie, a Brazilian jiujitsu master, becomes the first champion.
March 11, 1994 – UFC 2: No Way Out, held at Mammoth Gardens in Denver, the second straight title for Gracie.
Dec. 16, 1995 – UFC: The Ultimate Ultimate – Local and state representatives try to block the UFC event held in Denver, but promoters turn the controversy into advertising and sold out Mammoth Gardens anyway.
July 1, 2000 – The Colorado State Boxing Commission is formed, and begins regulating mixed martial arts under Rule 10.009, which provides for regulation of a combat sport other than boxing or kickboxing if the office of boxing approves the rules prior to the event.
September 2000 – The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board begins allowing mixed martial events to take place upon submission and review of the rules and regulations. Until this point, most MMA events were held in states without an athletic commission.
Jan. 15, 2001 – Zuffa LLC, a company led by owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, acquires the UFC from Semaphore Entertainment Group and names Dana White president.
April 2001 – The Colorado State Boxing Commission supervises its first mixed martial arts event, a Ring of Fire event promoted by Sven Bean.
July 23, 2001 – The Nevada State Athletic Commission approves the current rules governing the UFC.
Jan. 17, 2005 – “The Ultimate Fighter,” a reality series in which the winners receive UFC contracts, debuts, Spike TV.
Oct. 10, 2006 – UFC Fight Night, a two-hour live fight card, draws 4.2 million viewers, including 1.6 million men in the 18-34 age group, more than any show on television, including the MLB playoffs on Fox.
Dec. 30, 2006 – UFC 66: Liddell vs. Ortiz 2 – Light heavyweight star Chuck Liddell knocks out Tito Ortiz for the second time in front of 14,607 people at sold-out MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It grossed a gate of $5.4 million, the largest MMA gate in the history of Nevada.
March 27, 2007 – The UFC acquires its main competition, Pride Fighting Championship, in a multimillion-dollar deal, allowing the UFC to match champions from both leagues.
April 5, 2007 – The premiere of The Ultimate Fighter Season 5 draws more male television viewers ages 18-49 than the Masters and NBA games featuring the Miami Heat vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers and the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Phoenix Suns.
