When Campbell McLauren co-founded the Ultimate Fighting Championship, he found himself surrounded by enemies.
Powerful enemies.
CNN and the New York Times denounced the UFC as "human cockfighting." Cable operators faced pressure not to carry the events. Boxing promoters viewed it as a threat. And the late Senator John McCain, the same John McCain who would become the Republican nominee for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, went so far as to urge governors to put McLaren in jail.
Fast forward to today. As the UFC is preparing for a landmark event tied to America's 250th anniversary celebration at the White House, McLaren is reflecting on just how far the sport has come.
“I always believed the UFC would be big, but did I think it was going to end up on the White House lawn celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary? That I did not foresee,” McLaren said.
McLaren talks about this and more in a new podcast series, There Are No Rules with Campbell McLaren, that aims to revisit the formative years of mixed martial arts through the eyes of someone who was there from the beginning.
"The original UFC events were legendary, but the stories behind them are epic and have never been told — until now," said McLaren, who was executive producer for the UFC’s first 12 events.
Beginning June 12, the episodic series will examine each of the first 12 UFC events, with McLaren joined by guests ranging from UFC pioneers to figures connected to the organization's early rise. Among those slated to appear are UFC 1 champion Royce Gracie and filmmaker Christian Gudegast, who is currently developing a film based on the first UFC event.
For McLaren, however, the podcast is about more than nostalgia.
One of his motivations is correcting what he sees as misconceptions surrounding the UFC's origins. Over the years, he said, the story of the organization's creation has often been simplified or rewritten.
"I wanted to set the record straight," McLaren said. "Without me, it wouldn't have been on television."
McLaren readily credits fellow UFC founders Rorion Gracie and Art Davie for their roles in bringing the concept to life. Gracie introduced the world to Brazilian jiu-jitsu through the exploits of his younger brother, Royce, while Davie helped develop and market the original concept. McLaren, a television producer at the time, believes his contribution was recognizing the idea's potential as a televised spectacle.
That spectacle was evident from the opening moments of UFC 1 in November 1993.
The event's first fight pitted Dutch kickboxer Gerard Gordeau against 400-pound sumo wrestler Teila Tuli. When Gordeau knocked out Tuli in less than half a minute, McLaren remembers a mix of excitement and panic.
"We had a three-hour time block," he recalled. "If every fight went 27 seconds, we had a lot of time to fill."
The uncertainty surrounding those early events is one of the reasons McLaren believes fans remain fascinated by them decades later. At the time, there were few rules, no established blueprint, and little consensus on which martial art would prevail. Even many participants didn't know what to expect.
The podcast also promises to explore some of the lesser-known celebrity connections that surrounded the UFC's launch.
McLaren credits future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for suggesting the use of an octagonal fighting area after recalling a scene from a Conan film. He also recalls action star Jean-Claude Van Damme “being very helpful in the beginning” when it came to discussing how certain fighting styles would fare against others.
“I actually asked Van Damme to come to one of our events,” McLaren said. “Van Damme immediately said ‘heck no.’ Are you kidding me? I go to something like that and everybody wants to fight me. I’m not going to that. Are you crazy?’
“And you know what? He was right. If Van Damme had gone to one of our events, every fighter would have wanted a piece of him.”
Other stories involve actor-director Jon Favreau's connection to a UFC-themed episode of Friends, broadcaster Brian Kilmeade's role in the organization's early broadcasts, and Hollywood's growing fascination with the fledgling combat sports property.
"Cool attracts cool," McLaren said. "Everybody got this right away. They'd hear about it and say, 'This is the coolest thing I've ever heard.'"
Yet McLaren acknowledges that the UFC's rise was anything but smooth. He remains convinced that political opposition, particularly from McCain, nearly derailed the organization altogether.
Which is why the UFC's current status still amazes him.
"To go from John McCain calling me a threat to Western civilization to the UFC being on the White House lawn," McLaren said, "that's remarkable."
Whether fans agree with every aspect of McLaren's recollection or not, his podcast arrives at a moment when the UFC has never been more mainstream. What began as an experimental pay-per-view event featuring style-versus-style matchups has evolved into a global sports powerhouse.