Issue 110
January 2014
The main man behind the UFC’s flagship promo show, UFC Primetime, sits down with FO and explains how he went from following Floyd Mayweather around Las Vegas to putting the focus on some of the UFC’s biggest stars
LEADING MAN
JASON HEHIR
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Promoting fights in the most effective and imaginable ways possible has always been one of the most important facets of combat sports. Fighters from boxing and more recently MMA have all recognized the importance of verbal theatrics to boost pay-per-view bookings. Of course, the action inside the ring or cage is the thing that keeps fans engrossed, but it’s the pre-fight hype that gets them to hand over their hard-earned cash.
While that hype was relegated to the back pages of newspapers or barbershop conversation in times gone by, modern-day fight fans have the opportunity to follow the biggest fighters during the last few weeks of their contests via in-depth TV and web promo packages. And although these shows have been around for as long as some can remember, one man from Massachusetts was able to change the way they were made significantly.
“At the beginning of my career I worked at HBO sports for seven years and boxing always had the Countdown shows,” explains director of the UFC Primetime series Jason Hehir. “A year before we began the 24/7 shows we revamped Countdown. Rick Bernstein, who is an executive producer at HBO, assigned me the De La Hoya vs. Mayweather show and basically told me to do whatever I wanted with it. So I did.
“For example, they didn’t have narrators before, and they used a lot of highlights which had less of a documentary feel and more of a recap look. De La Hoya and Mayweather is the first time we’d followed fighters around during their camp.
“When 24/7 came along the timing was right; we had the right technology and the right staff and we couldn’t have picked two better characters than Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya to do a four-part series about. Those Countdown promos took us about five to six weeks to put together for a half-hour show. All of a sudden they were asking us to do four half-hour episodes in the same amount of time.”
As he sits in the editing suite, reminiscing about his time on the first couple of 24/7 shows his eyes travel from side to side as he watches the monitors play his latest UFC Primetime series: Georges St Pierre and Johny Hendricks.
Hehir shares with FO that after he’d completed his last 24/7 episode, for Mayweather vs. Hatton, the UFC came calling, wanting the services of himself and his crew to help promote the highly anticipated rematch between GSP and BJ Penn at UFC 94.
While many considered this one of the year’s biggest fights, Hehir admits he had to research who the two champions were.
“I had no idea who GSP and BJ Penn were before I took the job,” he says with a chuckle. “Obviously, I did a lot of research on them but this sport is still so young, so back then when we did the show it was even younger. I was a huge boxing fan but I wasn’t aware of anything in the MMA universe.”
Although he admits he still can’t tell the difference between an “omoplata and a triangle choke,” Hehir’s focus is firmly on the stories of the fighters he and his crew follow. And according to the director, two of the more captivating fighters they’ve tracked recently couldn’t have more opposing personalities.
He explains: “I would love to have done a Primetime for GSP vs. Diaz. We’d already taken a look at both of those characters but I just found the matchup so fascinating. We’re lucky because Georges keeps on evolving as a fighter and as a person. When we first met him he was a bit of a party guy and a little less mature. Now he’s entering the veteran stage of his career, so he’s just got a different mind-set.
“A guy like Mayweather, his personality doesn’t really change over the first few years of 24/7. It doesn’t seem as if his personality has changed now either, from what I’ve seen of the All Access shows on Showtime. There are only so many shots you can do of Floyd throwing money at the camera before it becomes monotonous. With the same Georges in every episode we’d have the same challenges, but luckily he’s evolved.”
He adds: “I’d have to say the most challenging person we’ve ever followed is Nick Diaz. The show involving him might be my favorite too because it felt like a victory that we even got it on the air (laughs). For the first five days we were there we had no contact with him whatsoever. When our cameras were there he wouldn’t even look in our direction.
“He is the truest definition of a fighter I’ve ever come across in boxing or MMA. He dropped out of high school when he was 15 or 16 to become a sparring partner before MMA was MMA, before the UFC was the UFC.
“He got into it because he truly loved to fight, and there’s an animal inside him that needs to fight. Outside of the gym, he’s a docile, quiet guy who smiles a lot. He’s a funny dude who is clearly at ease with his friends and not the guy people think he is.”
As he reclines on his chair, clearly content and satisfied with the most recent Primetime special, Hehir takes a long glaring look at the clock on the wall. After months filming and editing back-to-back episodes he’s able to rest. However, he knows it’s only a matter of time before there’s another Octagon story needing to be told.
