THE CANADIAN PRESS
It’s down to the last two World Extreme Cagefighting cards, which is one more than Reed Harris ever thought he would stage when he dreamed up the MMA organization more than a decade ago.
At the time Harris co-founded the WEC with Scott Adams, the plan didn’t extend past WEC 1.
Back in 1999, Harris was serving as a judge at a California MMA card when he ran into the marketing director of the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in Leemore, Calif., who said he was there to check it out because they were thinking of putting on a show.
A fan of the sport, Harris had wanted to get into it. Here was his chance.
So he walked over to Adams, a fighter and trainer he knew who was a partner in Chuck Liddell’s gym in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and said: "If I introduce you to this guy, who I knew and he didn’t, would he be my partner? And he said ‘Sure.’
"And that’s how it started."
Harris estimates it took eight meetings and 18 months to eventually get that first show off the ground.
"Because a lot of people back then were very nervous about MMA," Harris told The Canadian Press.
"But we persevered, we kept going back," he added. "We kept showing them why this was a good idea. Finally they agreed to let us do one show. So literally our goal was to do one show and that was it.
"WEC 1: Prince of Pain" took place June 30, 2001, with UFC and Pride veteran Dan (The Beast) Severn winning the main event by unanimous decision over Travis Fulton.
More than nine years and 50 shows later, the WEC is still going strong but the end is near.
WEC 52, set for Thursday in Las Vegas, and WEC 53, scheduled for Dec. 16 in Glendale, Ariz., mark the organization’s swan song before being folded into the UFC.
Harris, the WEC’s general manager, is taking on a new as-yet unannounced role with the UFC following the merger.
The UFC bought the WEC in December 2006, eventually focusing it on lighter weight classes. Late last month, UFC president Dana White announced that the WEC would be absorbed by its parent company, with the UFC taking over its featherweight and bantamweight divisions while WEC lightweights joined the UFC 155-pound fold.
"In my wildest dreams, I would have never imagined that, first of all, we were going to be purchased by the UFC and, second of all, that these divisions that I’ve built would end up being part of what I think is going to be the biggest sports company in the world," Harris said.
"And that will always be that way. Every time I go to these shows and watch these lighter weight guys, I know I had something to do with that, not just me but the entire staff here at WEC. We worked our tails off to run this thing."
Liddell, who went on to become an icon of the sport, was to play a key part in the WEC’s beginnings.
Harris, a California real estate developer, found himself spending time in San Luis Obispo because of a land deal. He had been teaching taekwondo in central California and wanted to continue training.
So he looked in the phone book and found a gym called SLO Kickboxing. It was Liddell’s gym.
He soon developed a healthy respect for the MMA fighters and their skills, started judging at MMA cards and thinking more and more about the sport.
"I saw an opportunity," he said. "I knew that if people saw what I saw when I watched, it would become popular. Because I just love watching fights and at the end of the night you really knew who the toughest guy was in MMA."
Harris also like the work ethic and respect he saw in the sport.
"I soon found out that even though these guys were very, very good fighters and very tough, they all had a lot of honour. And at the end of the night they would shake hands and go out. And I liked that aspect of the sport."
The Tachi casino interest was the opening he needed.
Harris, Adams and Melissa Henricks, who still works at the WEC, put on that first show.
There were 10 fights on the card, featuring such fighters as Leonard Garcia, Seth Petruzelli and Gan McGee.
Liddell, who was out of contract with the UFC, had been due to headline. But White and the Fertitta brothers had recently bought the UFC and wanted the Iceman back.
"And because we worked with him and we were friends with him, we knew it was better for him to fight for UFC than to fight for us," said Harris. "So we allowed him to get out of that contract, so we had to bring in a big name. So we went out and got Dan Severn."
Severn, one of the sport’s first stars, did the trick.
"My No. 1 memory is I was standing on the stage and looking out over this huge crowd — I think we had almost 4,000 people because Dan Severn was a draw, he was a big name back then — and the (casino) entertainment director walking up to me and saying I want to talk to you about doing the next show," said Harris.
"Then we started thinking about it as a business."
Despite the skeleton staff, the first show went well. As did subsequent efforts, despite the occasional hiccup.
Harris remembers one early show when his chequebook went missing.
"So I went to the cage in the casino and withdrew I think $60,000 cash and went and paid the fighters all cash," he recalled. "Because back then, the No. 1 concern of the fighters was they weren’t going to get paid.
"Every show we did, whether we made money or lost money, we always paid everybody. Which was one of the reasons why when Dana and Lorenzo and Frank (Fertitta) looked at buying us, we had no skeletons in our closet. The fighters all said positive things about us."
So did the athletic commission, said Harris.
Even though the casino was on native land, and as such not subject to existing rules, the WEC did medicals and followed the guidelines.
"So when we eventually did shows under the commission, they respected us for having done that," he said.
Harris recalls making some money on that first card.
"I took it all and put it into the second show. I mean it was minimal but before him (Adams) and I took any money out of it, we always looked at the next event and we were always trying to build it, which meant paying guys more, getting better fights."
"I have certain principles I try to apply to all the businesses that I do," Harris added. "My No. 1 rule was when I did shows was I had the money to pay everybody before I did the show.
"Which we have not seen sometimes in boxing and MMA."
Unlike may other promoters, they also let fighters out of their contract if they had a chance for a bigger, better spotlight.
"We took the opposite approach. We said you know what, if our guys go to UFC, it’s going to make the WEC look better, it’s going to make us look like we’re a professional organization who develops (talent) or is a farm league for the UFC. So any time guys did well and wanted to go, we’d let them go. Plus the thing I had learned from Scott in the gym was that these guys are working so hard to get to that level that you can’t hold them back, it’s just not right."
Harris had seen that commitment firsthand in the gym.
Liddell and Adams knew he was in real estate and approached Harris, who was working out at the gym, for his help in buying some property.
"I said OK. And they told me if you help us do this, we’re going to teach you how to really fight."
Harris kept his end of the bargain and they kept theirs, putting him in a ring with a 145-pounder named Cruz Gomez.
"And they said OK you use your taekwondo and Cruz is going to use his stuff and let’s see what happens. And he came at me, I threw a kick and missed, he took me down and armbarred me in about 15 second.
"And then I thought OK, that was a fluke. Let’s do this again. And the second time, I lasted about three times as long which was about 45 seconds. So then I told them I really wanted to learn this stuff."
The WEC held 24 shows before it was taken over by the UFC, which started to stage cards in Las Vegas and elsewhere rather than Leemore.
Asked if the decision to sell was difficult, Harris replied: "It was and it wasn’t."
"Obviously the guys that were calling me were the UFC, right? So I had a pretty good idea that they would take this thing where they took it. And Dana and I have been friends for a long time. Dana always appreciated what I was doing in that I was trying to run this company, this small MMA company.
"And even though Dana’s very competitive, what people don’t know about him is that he supports a lot of the smaller organizations, he really does. Because he knows we need those."
Harris eventually moved to Vegas and Adams, wanting to stay in San Luis Obispo, parted ways with the organization he helped build.
White gave the WEC a new identity when he closed down weight classes welterweight (170 pounds) and above.
"I argued with Dana about it," said Harris. "He said to me ‘You guys need to come out from underneath our shadow or you’re going to end up being a feeder league.’
"And I didn’t see it. Because I had guys like Carlos Condit, I had guys like Chael Sonnen, Brian Stann, I had some good guys. These guys were guys that I not only liked but I loved watching them fight, so I felt like I was losing something.
Today, the 54-year-old Harris has no problem admitting he was wrong.
"Look what we’ve done with the lighter weight fighters and that’s where we really kind of started to shine. Dana’s got that vision for this sport that no one else has.
"We argued about it but at the end of the day, he’s actually the president of the WEC as well and he made the call and we did it and it worked out great, so cheers to him."
Harris, who is married with two kids, says he looks over his stable of fighters and sees a lot of friends.
"The toughest part about my business truly is seeing the angst they go through when they lose, because I know what kind of people they are and I know how important it is for them to win and I know how hard they work. But it’s part of the game… . Like (former featherweight title-holder) Mike Brown told me one time, the difference between winning and losing is holding your hand an eighth or an inch higher than you were, when you got caught."
Brown won his title by beating WEC poster boy Urijah (The California Kid) Faber. only to lose it to Jose Aldo, the WEC’s current marquee fighter.
Faber, for one, clearly have a soft spot for the WEC. Both have profited from their association.
"This organization has meant a lot to me," said Faber.
"The WEC has been a springboard for MMA, shown some of the best fights on the planet and opened the eyes of America to the lightweight fighters."
Harris wears his emotions on his sleeve when he sees one of his champions beaten.
"Absolutely, I can’t hide that," he said. "That is how I feel but I know that things change, just like we are now as we’re moving into the UFC. Life’s about that and when one door closes, another door opens. And I tell the fighters that.
"I tell them, ‘Look this is a roller-coaster ride and you’re going to have ups and you’re going to have downs.’ One of the things I respect about Urijah Faber is he tells me ‘You know my life isn’t about winning every fight. If it was I would be sad sometimes, right.’ And he says ‘I really am not, I’m a pretty happy guy.’
"And I like that about Urijah. That’s a good way to live your life, you know."
