Issue 042
October 2008
Entering the arena is no easy task. Every corner turned leads onto more fans, desperate to get close, for a photo, a shared word, a chance to say “Do you know who I saw?” to their friends. Security does their best to clear a path and, once the gauntlet of well-wishers has been run, the seats are finally in view (front row, naturally).
This could quite easily be the kind of thing you would expect the sport’s top fighters to have to go through to take their Octagon-side seats, but far bigger stars than Chuck Liddell or Rampage Jackson are coming onto the scene. Meet the MMA-listers, the celebrities who can’t get enough of the most dynamic sport on the planet.
Almost Famous
Being famous has its perks. Doors that are firmly closed to you or I don’t just open for a celebrity – they don’t even exist. When your status is such that a publicist is the person who books your tickets to shows such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship or an Affliction event, queuing with the everyday folk is simply out of the question. Sitting in the cheap seats isn’t just a joke; it’s plain insulting.
It is increasingly common to see celebrities sat ringside (or as is most often the case, Octagon-side) for major MMA events. As the sport continues to grow, so does the calibre of star in attendance. A few years ago you would be hard pressed to find a low-level musician or a former Playboy Playmate.
Now, Hollywood actors rub shoulders with rock stars, while supermodels compete for attention with the ring girls. MMA is big, it’s sexy, and celebrities are flocking to events as if there were free champagne on tap.
This isn’t a new trend, however. The rich, famous, wealthy and notorious have always been around the fight game, going back to the days of the English royalty attending pre-Queensbury rules prize fights on the heaths outside London.
Gareth A. Davis, a sports writer and journalist for The Daily Telegraph who has covered boxing for fifteen years and co-hosts Setanta’s new MMA programme UFC Ultimate Talk, elaborates. “I think there has always been, historically speaking, a glamour around the visceral sports, the sports of brutal artistry.
“If you look back in time, there’s a link between your heroic figure in the movies and the real quiet man who can go into a ring and stand up to a bully and beat them. But the likes of Jason Statham,
Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, all these people are pretending they can get into the Octagon and do what Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin or Joe Calzaghe does.
“They have an admiration for the people who really do that, and I think they come to admire them close up, if not learn from them.”
The Glitz and Glamour
But fight events, however big they may get, are always going to be associated with hot dogs and cheap beer as opposed to the celebrity-standard champagne and hors d’oeuvres. No matter how mainstream MMA goes, and it’s going there alright, celebrities will always be slumming it in comparison to the red carpet parties and film premieres they are used to.
But there is a grubby glamour associated with fighting that allures and antagonises in equal measure. “If you look back in time at the great fight nights, the big fights nights at Madison Square Garden always attracted glamorous women, but you had Frank Sinatra at ringside,” says Davis. “I think there is a glamour associated with legitimised fighting. I think there always has been. I think it attracts a very interesting group of celebrities, actors, musicians, film stars.”
One person who knows all about the celebrity scene in MMA is Tracy Lee, owner of CombatLifestyle.com. Her website, featuring photographs of fighters’ after-parties and the various goings on in the MMA world, sees her travel to events around the globe, and when she goes to a big event, she’s pretty certain to bump into a celebrity of note.
“I used to see Nicholas Cage at fights, I haven’t seen him for a while, but for a while there I was seeing him consistently,” she says. “Jamie Presley [actress from ‘My Name is Earl’], she dates a pretty big Hollywood DJ, they’re both fight fans, I’ve seen her at fights before. Kevin James [‘King of Queens’] is another celebrity who turns up to a tonne of fights. Wilmer Valderrama and the whole cast of ‘That ‘70’s Show,’ you’d see him and Danny Masterson, those guys are always at fights.”
Tracy explains how, in the world of celebrities, normal rules don’t apply – they don’t just buy a ticket and turn up. “I’m sure they’re being invited. I don’t doubt that at all. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes with PR and celebrities that people don’t even know exists, like that’s how things happen. It’s about getting it out there and putting your product on a celebrity. It could definitely be the UFC putting their product on a celebrity.”
Gareth agrees. As celebrities enjoy the perks of being famous and getting their free front row seats, the promoters benefit from having the star at their event. “Professional fighting has always been built around hype and promotion, and I think with those names being there I think they get special privileges from the promoters to come and sit in certain seats at the front of the house. I think it has a cyclical effect, the crowd sees the celebrities come in to ringside or Octagon-side, people get to see them live and it becomes part of the show and it becomes part of the entertainment.”
Just like you and me
For all their image consultants, coffee enemas, holistic getaways on luxury island retreats, voice coaching, perma-tans and addictions to fame / alcohol / drugs (delete as appropriate) celebrities are, believe it or not, real people. Underneath the botox and designer clothes, they are average Joes who have made it big through a combination of hard work and luck, much like many MMA fighters. And just like you or I, there are plenty of genuine MMA fans in the ranks of the celebrities.
“Some of the celebrities enjoy the fights,” says Tracy. “[It’s] like if you go to a LA Lakers basketball game, and they’ll show any number of celebrities in the crowd. Some of them are personal friends with the fighters and I’ll see them at the after parties.”
“The well-known celebrity figure has picked upon the fact that MMA is hugely growing as a sport and it is the place to be seen,” says Gareth. “But at the same time there are genuine fans of the sport. Chuck Liddell is well known by some of these Hollywood players, but he doesn’t flaunt it.”
For some celebrity fans, the experience of meeting fighters can be a nerve-racking experience, as Adam Sandler found out. The quirky comedian, known for his zany films and loudmouth characters, found himself tongue-tied around Quinton Jackson.
But some, such as ‘King of Queens’ Kevin James, actually make the effort to train in MMA, taking private lessons with icons of the sport such as Randy Couture. Though not all celebrities are as quick to participate in their new favourite sport, many are required to get a taster of what it is like for roles in movies. Paul Walker, star of ‘The Fast and The Furious’ has been spotted at UFCs and trained in MMA for a number of his film roles.
Fighters as celebrities
Liddell’s friendship with Juliette Lewis even fuelled rumours that the two were dating, as she could often be found Octagon-side cheering for ‘The Iceman’. The two had been pictured together a number of times, and Gareth believes that as the status of the fighters grows, so will their appeal to the mass media. “Chuck Liddell has made it into that top echelon in America. I think he is quite loved because he isn’t really a braggart. He’s the everyman, he comes across as incredibly modest.
“He isn’t ‘look at me, look who I am’, I think that was born out at the last Superbowl. A decade earlier he would have been a yellow-coated security guard at the event, and then last year there he was in row three with all the biggest names being asked to stand up in front of 90,000 fans.
“I think the likes of him and Forrest and Rampage, GSP in Canada and BJ Penn in Hawaii, those kind of guys in the top ten in the UFC, I think are going to become household names as the sport grows.
“I think there is a downside, and we’ve just had that with Rampage. He didn’t go off the rails as such, but he wasn’t well after losing to Forrest Griffin. His public life was open to the greatest scrutiny possible.
“What these guys at the top of the sport are going to have to get used to is the greater scrutiny from the tabloid media, the same media which exploits celebrities to sell newspapers. As the sport grows, they’re going to have to get accustomed to that, and I think that might be one of the toughest aspects for these guys as the UFC gets bigger and bigger.”
The voraciousness with which mainstream media goes after celebrities can be fearsome, and though most high-profile MMA fighters are clean living athletes with few skeletons in their closet, you have to wonder how long it will be before the ‘trash rags’ start digging for dirt on your favourite fighters. When it comes, the consequences could be tough to deal with. “Once someone is very big you can’t handle or restrain the forces of the media. When it comes out that the first big UFC name is gay you won’t keep that story,” says Gareth. “Or that someone has pulled a Hugh Grant, caught on Hollywood Boulevard having a Divine Brown moment. I don’t think they’ll be able to control the media.”
A mutually beneficial relationship
Given that celebs are real people, why shouldn’t they want to go see a sporting event live and in the flesh? It certainly beats sitting and watching it at home, especially when you’ve got access to the best seats in the house. It almost makes all the cameras and autographs worth it.
The world of main event boxing was traditionally the draw for
celebrities wanting to pick up some street cred among their fans, and with the growth of the UFC it’s obvious that a sport watched by millions of people in just the right demographic is going to attract your share of A-listers. When a celebrity fan wants to go and see an event like the UFC, you can bet the UFC are more than happy to throw a few tickets their way. With the way the sport is growing, the star power of the celebrities will only increase, and for MMA that is definitely a
good thing.
The most unlikely celebs to be seen at ringside
Nicholas Cage, sat next to Chuck Norris
Cage, a fan of the sport, was seen sitting next to bearded martial arts legend Chuck Norris at a Pride event in Las Vegas.
Mandy Moore
The pop singer and actress idolised by young teens used to go out with rabid MMA fan Wilmer Valderrama, but was spotted going crazy during GSP’s rematch with Matt Serra in Montreal. Does she have a crush on the Canadian champ?
Andrei Agassi and Steffi Graf
The tennis couple were spotted Octagon-side for a UFC event. Agassi seemed to be having a great time, but Graf less so, especially when Agassi pretended to choke her on camera. Hey, keep your business to yourselves, guys!
Celebrities you wouldn’t want to take on in a fight
Jason Statham
Hollywood hard-man Jason Statham never planned to be an actor. After aiming for the Olympics as a high diver, the street wise Londoner trained to be a stuntman and began acting by chance. Since landing roles in films like ‘The Transporter’, ‘Crank’ and ‘Death Race’, Statham learned more than a few moves from MMA guys in the UK and California.
Guy Ritchie
The film director who forever will be tagged as ‘Mr Madonna’, isn’t just a whiz behind the camera – he also holds a brown belt in BJJ under Renzo Gracie and has been a black belt in judo for many years.
Ed O’Neill (Al Bundy)
From 1988 to 1996, Ed O’Neill entertained us as the bumbling shoe salesman Al Bundy in ‘Married With Children’. O’Neill trained with the Gracie family in Torrance, California for 15 years, earning his black belt in 2007.
