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Name: Amazon.com: Is This Legal?: The Inside Story of The First UFC from the Man Who Created It: 0884935449864: Art Davie, Sean Wheelock: Books
Rating: 4.9 (67 reviews)

Art Davie

Is This Legal?: The Inside Story of The First UFC from the Man Who Created It Hardcover – July 1, 2014

by Art Davie (Author), Sean Wheelock (Author)

67 ratings

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On November 12, 1993, an entirely new sport was unleashed on an unsuspecting viewing public--one that was unlike any other, and one that would come to redefine combat and action sports for a new generation. The sport was mixed martial arts (MMA)--although it hadn't been named that yet--and the event was the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The creation of ad man and serial entrepreneur Art Davie, the UFC entered nearly 90,000 households through pay per view television with an explosion...an explosion of blood--as Dutch karate champion Gerard Gordeau kicked fallen Sumo wrestler Teila Tuli right in the face during the first minute of the opening fight. This shocking scene was only a prelude of what was to come that autumn night in Denver, and worldwide over the next 20 years. Now, for the first time, the true story of how the UFC and the sport of MMA came into existence will be told by the man who started it all. Art Davie is the Dr. James Naismith and Abner Doubleday (with a touch of PT Barnum) of MMA, yet his name is largely unknown. That is, until now. In this vivid and fast-moving, first-person account, Davie tells the story of his creation, which has flourished into the billion-dollar behemoth Ultimate Fighting Championship. Davie's is a tale of perseverance and against-all-odds determination, as he worked tirelessly for four years to see his idea come to brutal fruition, meeting resistance at every single turn. It's also a mash-up of martial arts, celebrity and business culture, involving a highly improbable cast of characters, ranging from Academy Award nominee John Milius, NFL Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, action star Chuck Norris, Brazilian Jiu-Jitusu godfather Rorion Gracie and pay per view pioneer Bob Meyrowitz. Davie's story of how he created the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and thus invented the new sport mixed martial arts, is one for not just fight fans, but for fans of mavericks in business and life, who stop at nothing to fulfill their dreams. Whether you're a hardcore supporter of MMA, or have never watched a bout in your life, you'll be enthralled by Davie's story of ultimate triumph tempered by constant near-disaster. Davie created the sport of the 21st Century, which arrived two decades early and with virtually no fanfare or warning. He started a revolution, and his revolution was televised.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ascend Books
Publication date

July 1, 2014
Dimensions

6.75 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0991275640
ISBN-13

978-0991275649
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Editorial Reviews

Review

I thought I knew just about everything there was to know on the birth of MMA in this country. What I found out in Is This Legal? is that I knew barely anything. Art and Sean have masterfully crafted a fascinating and compelling must-read for anyone who prides themselves on being a combat sports fan. --Kevin Kay, President, Spike TV

This is a must-read for all UFC fans! The Man, the Myth, the Legend, Art Davie tells the true, inside story of how he created the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You will laugh out loud when you discover the human side of how the toughest sport on the planet got it's start! --Tedd Williams, Owner, Gladiator Challenge & UFC Veteran

Is This Legal? is an honest, shocking, enthralling and nostalgic look back at the creation of the modern age of mixed martial arts in the United States. This is all the real stuff that no one gets to see or hear about, when the newest combative sport of MMA was forged, and Art Davie was one of its founding fathers! Thanks goes out to Art for persevering, and giving all professional martial artists a place to ply our wares and test our skills. --Randy Couture, UFC Hall of Famer & Former UFC Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight Champion

About the Author

Art Davie is the creator of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the father of mixed martial arts (MMA). Davie came to sports and entertainment from the advertising agency business. Spectacle and creativity was always a theme in Davie's work. Davie even performed his own stunts in TV commercials. Davie had an epiphany in 1993, and created the television tournament that pitted boxers, wrestlers and martial artists against each other. This was the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the franchise that exploded on Pay-Per-View TV, and two decades later, is still going strong. In addition to being the UFC's founder and creator, Davie co-produced, created personalities, booked, matched fighters and served as the organization's commissioner. In 1998, Davie brought the popular K-1: The New Fighting Sport from Fuji TV in Japan to American television with a show at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The fire to create new TV shows brought him to Mandalay Sports Entertainment in 2003, where he developed pilots, including King of the Streets, a drag-racing reality show; Fight Quest, a mixed-martial arts reality show; and MAGIC (Making a Great Inner City), with Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Davie attended New York Military Academy (where his roommate was Donald Trump), St. John's University and Pace College in New York. After military service, he worked with youth gangs in New York City as a member of the Youth Services Agency - Crisis Task Force. As a United States Marine sergeant, he had top secret clearance, and worked at the Commandant's Communications Center in the Pentagon. He was later awarded the Navy Achievement Medal with combat "V" for his service in Vietnam. Sean Wheelock holds the distinction of being the only person to serve as play-by-play commentator on the FIFA World Cup, Super Bowl, US Open tennis and world championship fights in mixed martial arts. One of the best known American commentators in both MMA and soccer, Wheelock's broadcasting work has taken him to over 25 countries, and dates back to when he was 18 years old. Wheelock is currently the play-by-play commentator for Bellator Fighting Championships, which airs nationally across the United States and Canada on Spike TV, as well as worldwide. He has also called numerous kickboxing and boxing matches for ESPN/ESPN2, Fox Sports International, EuroSport and Metro Sports Television. Wheelock has served as the BBC's North American sports correspondent since 1996. He has called three Super Bowls for the BBC, and hosted their weekly series on the NFL. Wheelock works annually as a commentator at the US Open for the international television broadcast. A lifelong Kansan, Wheelock lives in the Kansas City suburb of Shawnee, Kansas with his wife Kelly, originally of Odiham, Hampshire, England, and their young daughters Ellee and Hadlee.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ascend Books (July 1, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0991275640
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0991275649
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.27 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.75 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #860,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #90 in Mixed Martial Arts
- #121 in Martial Artist Biographies
- #1,858 in Martial Arts (Books)

Customer Reviews:
67 ratings

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Art Davie

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Art Davie is the creator of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the

father of mixed martial arts (MMA). Davie came to sports and

entertainment from the advertising agency business.

Spectacle and creativity was always a theme in Davie's work. Davie even

performed his own stunts in TV commercials. (For a San Diego car

dealership, he jumped from a 10-story building, was set on re, shot with

a .357 magnum, catapulted over a car and suspended from a helicopter.)

Davie had an epiphany in 1993, and created the television tournament

that pitted boxers, wrestlers and martial artists against each other. This

was the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the franchise that exploded on

Pay-Per-View TV, and two decades later, is still going strong. In addition to

being the UFC's founder and creator, Davie co-produced, created

personalities, booked, matched ghters and served as the organization's

commissioner.

In 1998, Davie brought the popular K-1: The New Fighting Sport from

Fuji TV in Japan to American television with a show at the Mirage Hotel &

Casino in Las Vegas. The re to create new TV shows brought him to

Mandalay Sports Entertainment in 2003, where he developed pilots,

including King of the Streets, a drag-racing reality show; Fight Quest, a

mixed-martial arts reality show; and MAGIC (Making a Great Inner City),

with Earvin "Magic" Johnson.

Davie attended New York Military Academy (where his roommate was

Donald Trump), St. John's University and Pace College in New York. After

military service, he worked with youth gangs in New York City as a member

of the Youth Services Agency - Crisis Task Force. As a United States Marine

sergeant, he had a top secret clearance, and worked at the Commandant's

Communications Center in the Pentagon. He was later awarded the Navy

Achievement Medal with combat "V" for his service in Vietnam. In 2018 Davie was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

67 global ratings

5 star		86%
4 star		14%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
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Top reviews from the United States

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John La Rocca

A must read book for any MMA fan.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

I have been looking forward to this book for a very long time. The beginnings of the Ultimate Fighting Championship has always intrigued me. I knew it could not have been an easy road to get a mixed martial arts tournament off the ground. At the end of this book, I was exhausted. I felt like I was right there with Art Davie and feeling every stress and annoyance he would encounter leading up to that historic night on November 12th, 1993 in Denver, Colorado.

At first I thought it would be a hit piece from how Art Davie opened up about "telling the truth" about how the UFC was created. It ended not being a hit piece at all, but a in detail look on how it all started. I loved every page of this book. Starting my own pro wrestling promotion Premier back in January of 2013, it was overwhelming task. So going on Art Davie's journey of making his vision of various disciplines of combat sports coming together to see who in fact was truly the best, was an inspiration and motivated me even more to continue my company forward to the success I envision it.

My favorite chapters are the ones featuring the talent of the first ever tournament, from the chapter of trying to sign eight fighters to the chapter of going over the rules with the fighters the night before the event. Though Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock became MMA legends, most of the fighters in the first ever tournament have long been forgotten today, well other then maybe Art Jimmerson, the boxer who wore one boxing glove on his left hand into the cage. These forgotten fighters are remembered here and you get to know them. A guy like the huge sumo wrestler from Hawaii, Telia Tuli might be looked at as the fat guy who was crushed in the first ever UFC fight, but after reading this book, I felt myself wishing he had succeeded in this tournament, at least past the first round. You can tell Art Davie truly had an appreciation of the big Hawaiian, especially after the fighters rules meeting the night before the event.

Art Davie's dealings with the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG) was laid out in great detail. I won't give anything away, but I nearly had an anxiety attack as dealings with Davie's W.O.W Promotions and SEG negotiations kept going back and forth, and timing of when everything was finalized would make your mouth drop as mine sure did.

The book also details Art Davie and Rorion Gracie's relationship. It is a beautiful story of friendship and trust. What made what became the UFC was Rorion's trust in Art Davie. Rorion let Davie take control and rarely interfered in the negotiations. If Rorion Gracie wanted to be hands on everything when it came to the Ultimate Fighter, then the UFC probably would have never gotten off the ground.

This book also took my down memory lane as well. I was a sophomore at Santa Teresa High School in San Jose, California. I was always hanging out at my friend Greg Martin's big two story house over by the hills in south San Jose. We would hang out and watch all kinds of Pay Per View events at his house since his Dad's cable box somehow got every PPV event for free. We kept seeing advertising for The Ultimate Fighter Championship and the tag about this being no rules and real. I was a huge pro wrestling fan, though I did not compare this event to that. It was more of the excitement of the movie Bloodsport featuring Jean Claude Van-Damme coming to life. The day of the event, Greg and I ordered two large pizzas and sat back to watch all the chaos. Greg cheered on his pick Gerard Gordeau as the European Kickboxer came off as a bad ass to him. I went with Ken Shamrock since I was a huge pro wrestling fan and Shamrock looked like a bad ass to me. Weird thing is this was not the first time I have seen Ken Shamrock. First time I saw Ken Shamrock was when he was wrestling for George Scott's South Atlantic Pro Wrestling company as Vince Torelli out of the Carolinas as their TV came on Sports Channel America here in San Jose. However, I did not put the two and two together until years later.

We yelled and screamed the entire two hour event. Both of our guys lost to the "little guy in the gi", Royce Gracie. From this point on we both were hooked and hoped for the second event. After a few events, Greg moved on to other interests, but I continued to watch every event until I would lose interest when UFC was banned from PPV. This book not only brought back a great memory from my youth, but now I have a much more appreciation for that first event.

For any true MMA fan, this is a must read book. It is a quick and easy read, but also very detailed. The UFC holds over 50 events a year now and holds events all over the world. But, without the vision and desire of Art Davie, we may never have the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. Do yourself a favor and pick up your copy today.

6 people found this helpful

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Thomas Padgett

Is This Legal? My take

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

If you are new to the MMA world, this book is a great description of the "wild west" atmosphere of the early days. If you are an "old-timer" like myself, you will enjoy the fact that this book is loaded with nostalgia, and the weirdest trivia (i.e., "one-glove" Jimmerson forgot to bring his glove, and they had to go to a local sporting goods store to buy a set off the shelf).

Also, Davie names names of the well-known fighters of the day that refused to compete in the event, and the many, many rejections from traditional martial arts organizations (wonder if they knew something?).

Although the sport has evolved by leaps and bounds, to the point that today's competitors are professional athletes, there was a rawness, a purity about those old days that I miss. Don't get me wrong; the sport had to evolve, and I'm not dissatisfied about the direction it went. But the old days were special. Not before or since have I ever been as excited about a sporting event as I was in those days, dialing the 900 numbers (remember them?) to get the latest updates, since the only news was the martial arts magazines that were published so infrequently.

No matter what, the book is a great read.

2 people found this helpful

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Wendy E Rowe

... -- but I finished reading it because it's a great story. Art Davie has written an interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 12, 2014

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I started reading this book because my martial arts instructor Jason DeLucia is in it -- but I finished reading it because it's a great story. Art Davie has written an interesting, informative, entertaining account of the beginnings of the UFC, from a perspective only he can give since he was there from the very start. His writing captures personalities more than typical histories do, so you feel like you know the people he's writing about. Art Davie explains -- in vivid and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny detail -- what it took to bring UFC from an idea to a full-fledged business, with all the sales pitches and negotiations and compromises and deals and setbacks and triumphs and sleepless nights along the way. If you've ever had a dream and wanted to turn it into a business, this story will help you believe it can be done. If you're looking for a good read with colorful true-life characters (if you read it to any kids, you might want to skip a word or two since real-life characters use real-life language), you'll find that this is one of the most engaging histories around. And of course, if you're interested in the UFC, it's a must-read and a fun one.

2 people found this helpful

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Lisa Webb

is one of the best MMA books I have read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

"Is This Legal" by Art Davie, with Sean Wheelock, is one of the best MMA books I have read. Fans of MMA today would do well to go back and read about the UFC origins. Watching UFC 1 compared to a UFC Fight Night today is a spectacle in and of itself. Davie's book does an excellent job giving a behind the scenes look at getting the event off the ground and the obstacles they faced. Also, getting to know the story on the UFC 1 fighters brings the event to a whole other level. A lot of sports are so old it is difficult to be aware of all the history. With MMA being a young sport, fans have an excellent opportunity to be educated on the originators and founders of their favorite sport. Art and Sean share a frank portrayal of the those involved in the foundation of the sport. The interwoven stories of patience and risk to get this sport off the ground are not only informative and groundbreaking, but hilarious at times. Thank you for the book!

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Lavie Margolin

Buy it for the behind the scenes info- not fight descriptions

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 20, 2014

Verified Purchase

If you are looking for a long, drawn out recap of every fight at UFC 1, this is not the book for you. This book was much more than that. It was a rare business look behind the scenes of the UFC. I'd read a lot about the history of the UFC and I learned a ton more here. Art didn't try to make himself out to be a star or a genius, he told a candid, vivid account of the news. The only thing curious here that did not seem to belong, was Mr. Davie's account of the women he met along the way- was it really necessary to read how hot he considered his neighbor or secretary to be?

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mr Graham

Great read. A must read especially for fans of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 15, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great read.

A must read especially for fans of the old era UFC.
This is a really detailed account of the start of the UFC and the very first event by the man who more or less created the UFC, Art Davie.

I hope there is a follow up to this book as I suspect that would be just as good. A+

SHAWN POP

As a huge fan of the early UFCs I loved this. A really detailed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

As a huge fan of the early UFCs I loved this. A really detailed, no holds barred account from the horse's mouth. I recently started collecting the UFC dvds from the start, but must confess that only the first ten have that raw, brutal and unique feel. This was before all the sponsors and big $$$ became involved. I would love a follow up book on UFC 2