Near the end of the first round, Stephan Bonnar landed a furious blow that made a clean, surgical cut across the bridge of Forrest Griffin’s nose. Griffin, a rising star in the world of mixed martial arts, had a 9-2 record and a fearsome reputation: in a 2003 bout he knocked out an opponent with his one good arm after having broken the other moments earlier. Now the blood poured out, rendering his face a late Jackson Pollock. It’s the kind of cut that ends most MMA bouts, but Griffin just smiled as a doctor wiped the wound clean, then jumped right back into the action.
The UFC is now the world’s biggest MMA association. Its fights still air on pay-per-view, where they draw hundreds of thousands of viewers. But recently the sport has entered the mainstream media with its own reality series, The Ultimate Fighter, on the cable channel Spike TV. The first 13 episodes ran from January to April. By the end of the season it was attracting two million viewers per week. The show’s second season begins Monday, August 22.
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There are three ways to end a UFC fight: a knockout, a decision from the judges, or a tapout, when one fighter, stuck helplessly in his opponent’s grip, taps the ground (or anything he can reach) to indicate surrender. The maximum duration for most fights is 15 minutes–three 5-minute rounds (title fights include a fourth round). At the end of the third round it’s up to the judges to decide whose performance was better–who landed the most direct hits, who was more aggressive, and whose hits, kicks, jabs, and takedowns were most effective, among other criteria.
As Bonnar and Griffin pounded away, the announcer told the 2.6 million viewers that this was the greatest UFC bout ever. As the first UFC event to air on regular cable TV, it also turned out to be the most watched fight in the history of the sport.
In such a small world, opponents in any fight are likely to know each other; many have even trained together. When the final bell rang on Bonnar and Griffin’s match, the fighters embraced. After the judges announced their decision, they embraced. After the awards were presented, they embraced. And at the end of the night they shared an ambulance to the emergency room. “We’d been through an ordeal together,” says Griffin, “and that does help you build a little bit of a bond.”
He got a bachelor’s degree in 2000; the next year he moved to Chicago to take the gig at the Multiplex, where he quickly grew frustrated with the solipsism of his workouts. “I asked myself, What the hell am I doing this for?” he says. “I felt like something was missing.” Soon he was studying jujitsu with Carlson Gracie, uncle of Rorion and Royce, at the Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in the Old Town Fitplex, which is owned by the Multiplex.
That fight taught Bonnar an important lesson: “You’ve got to train for your opponents.” After that he made a point of learning his competitors’ strengths and training in their specialties, even if meant traveling to find a suitable coach (“It’s hard to find southpaw Thai boxers with good skills in Chicago”).
