One of the more infamous judges through the annals of UFC history has recently thrown a bit of shade at another TKO helmed property. This came from Dave Meltzer who is widely known for his work in the professional wrestling media space and his lengthy tenure overseeing The Wrestling Observer newsletter. The slight dig came during a re-tweet of a Ring Magazine post which was highlighting boxing’s first ever million dollar live gate. The tweet from X account @ringmagazine reads as follows,
“Amazing photo of undisputed heavyweight king Jack Dempsey and light-heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier, readying themselves before the opening bell for their hugely anticipated clash at Boyle’s Thirty Acres in New Jersey in 1921. In one of the biggest fights of all-time, almost 90,000 fans generated the first ever million dollar gate and then watched as “The Manassa Mauler” methodically broke down the Frenchman and won by knockout in round four.”
Retweeting the post and working in a bit of a dig to WWE, Meltzer said,
“Are there any boxing promotions who claim history started in 1984 and all the fights were in smoky bars?”
This is in reference to WWE’s revisionist history regarding how Vince McMahon brought pro wrestling to unseen heights and that the popularity of professional wrestling was negligable prior to McMahon Jr. taking the reigns of the company in ’84.
The connectivity of Dave Meltzer to the UFC in the promotion’s nascent days
Dave Meltzer is one of the longest tenured MMA journalists out there and he was one of only two credentialed reporters that covered the first UFC card in November 1993. It was at UFC 18 though that Meltzer would act as one of the apointed cageside judges as mentioned earlier. The stalwart professional wrestling media member dealt out some verdicts throughout the card that were roundly agreed to but there was one particularly controversial scorecard from that event where Meltzer’s call had many scratching their heads.
This took place in the contest between Mark Coleman and Pedro Rizzo. The vast majority of the observers, including the live fans and UFC broadcast team for the show, felt like ‘The Hammer’ had done enough to defeat ‘The Rock’. But alas, two of the three appointed judges did not share that broader opinion. Meltzer, along with fellow assigned official Eddie Goldman, inexplicably gave the fight to Pedro Rizzo which saw Rizzo emerge with a split decision victory over Coleman.
This was also a high stakes clash that served as the semi-finals for a UFC heavyweight title tournament that was eventually won outright by Bas Rutten.