The last time Campbell McLaren promoted fights in New York he fled in the early morning to the peanut capital of the world.
Everything about mixed martial arts has changed since McLaren and the UFC chartered a plane on Feb. 7, 1997, that carried besieged executives and hungry fighters to asylum in Alabama.
As day broke over the rural southeastern city of Dothan, Ala., everyone associated with the UFC, which had been driven from Niagara Falls following a judge’s ruling less than 24 hours earlier to effectively block the event, were happy to simply have a chance to put on a show.
UFC 12 may not have gone off as expected but somehow it happened, and ranks among the most important events in the early history of what evolved into the big business of professional mixed martial arts. Nearly 20 years after the incredible relocation of UFC 12, precipitating the sport’s most difficult days in North America, McLaren, a key player behind selling spectacle as sport, remains eager to promote mixed fights.
Especially in the Empire State.
Friday in Verona, N.Y., a month ahead of the $4 billion UFC’s mega-event on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden that marks the official debut of New York State Athletic Commission licensed MMA, McLaren’s upstart promotion, Combate Americas, will produce the first live broadcast of caged bouts from New York since the UFC’s nascency.
“I’m a genius or I answered the phone, it could go either way,” joked McLaren, who received a lucrative site fee from the Turning Stone Resort Casino for the mid-October date. “We lucked into this. We’re very happy to go. And I’m very happy I get to beat the UFC by a month.”
Located on the sovereign land of the Oneida Indian Nation, Turning Stone hosts New York’s first pro MMA event since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill that overturned a ban on the sport in April. The New York State Athletic Commission began regulating MMA in September, however Combate Americas will be aired on UFC Fight Pass and beIN SPORTS’ Spanish language channel without state licensing since tribal lands are sovereign.
For a man who shouldered some of the blame for getting professional MMA banned in New York due partly to the early UFC’s take-no-prisoners marketing, it’s quite a spot.
McLaren, 60, hoped to promote his first event in the Bronx, but rather than working with the newly empowered NYSAC, which has drawn the ire of the combat sports community in New York because of beefed up insurance provisions that critics say makes promoting fights cost prohibitive, McLaren will rely on the Oneida Indian Nation Athletic Commission for sanctioning.
McClaren claimed Combate Americas will follow insurance guidelines used by athletic commissions in California and Nevada.
“We’re not trying to dodge anything,” McLaren said. “I did that before. I ain’t doing that again. This just for us is a great event in a part of New York that doesn’t get a lot of MMA.”
New York fight watchers haven’t been able to watch live MMA outside of the underground or amateur kind since Sept. 8, 1995, when Semaphore Entertainment Group, headed by Bob Meyrowitz, promoted UFC 7, “The Brawl in Buffalo,” in front of more than 10,000 fans at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
McLaren, a top executive with SEG, remembers UFC 7 fondly as the groundbreaking time he witnessed a fighter combine combative arts in a way that resembles the style so prevalent today. Marco Ruas, one of the all-time great Brazilian competitors, blended grappling and striking as well as anyone ever had to that point. He proved the efficacy of mixing techniques by blasting 6-foot-8, 330-pound tough guy Paul Varelans in the finals of an eight-man tournament.
“Not only was New York the place where UFC was born—Park Avenue and 57th Street is where it all started—but I also think the first real MMA fight where we saw the parts mix was in Buffalo for UFC 7,” McLaren said.
The Buffalo card seemed like one SEG could build upon.
SEG’s reputation as a group that implicitly ran from government regulation is belied by its history in New York, which in fact legalized caged combat at the behest of the UFC in 1996 before winds changed under media and political pressures.
Arizona Republican Senator John McCain’s campaign to form a federal boxing commission was in full swing. As an example of why such a thing was needed, he held up SEG’s UFC as what might happen in a lawless situation. Also, the UFC wasn’t the only mixed fighting group around. Based on the early success of the UFC, fledgling competitors soon appeared, most notably Battlecade, backed by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. A press conference in Manhattan led by the magazine publisher’s son, Anthony Guccione, stirred up enough dust for it to land on the desk of New York City mayor Rudolph Guilliani, who took up the issue with fellow Republican, Gov. George Pataki.
In advance of UFC 12 in Niagara Falls the athletic commission changed its rules governing the UFC to the point of making the bouts unrecognizable—and likely much less marketable. A 40-foot cage was mandated. Grappling and chokeholds were outlawed, and boxing gloves and headgear were required.
McLaren called it a “perfect storm” that cost SEG any chance of running a sustainable no-holds-barred fight business in the U.S., and kept UFC out of Madison Square Garden until the state reversed its ban on the sport earlier this year.
“For us it was easier to leave,” McLaren said. “We had been fighting [in the courts] for a while. We were winning some, losing some. It was easier just to pack up and go to Dothan.”
As a result fight fans in Niagara Falls missed out on history: The UFC crowned its first heavyweight champion when Mark “The Hammer” Coleman submitted Dan “The Beast” Severn. It may not the same ring to it, but McLaren is also bringing New York fans a milestone moment on Oct. 14. Combate Americas is set to crown its first titleholder when bantamweights John Castenada and Gustavo Lopez meet in the night’s main event.
What frontiers remain left to conquer for McLaren? There aren’t any reasons to run for the hills, yet he’s looking south.
For a promotion built on courting Hispanic audiences, Mexico awaits.
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