A Call to MMA Entrepreneurs: The Passing of Charles Lewis, Jr.
The biggest name in mixed martial arts apparel came from a license plate.
By now, you’ve probably read extensively about Charles Lewis, Jr. and his amazing story. Charles had no shortage of friends, partners, and fans, and his tragic passing has brought many of them out to help share it. Paying tribute to the man that called himself “Mask” has been done by far better writers and far closer acquaintances than me over the last few weeks, so I won’t tarnish the eloquence and insight of those tributes with my own.
What I will do is share a few parts of Mask’s story that I have found personally inspirational.
The name “Tapout” came from a vanity license plate Charles Lewis procured for his car. Working as a sheriff in San Bernadino County, Lewis found a love of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts in a geographical hotbed for the sport, Southern California. He took a liking to the term “Tapout,” which ended up on the back of his car, and later printed on a t-shirt. Believing he wasn’t the only person who wanted to wear his love of MMA on his chest, he launched Tapout in 1997 along with Dan “Punk Ass” Caldwell with little funds and big dreams.
The company spent its early years in what was truly the ground floor of a sport that looked like it may be stuck there indefinitely. Political backlash brought legal hurdles for the sport at every turn, and MMA’s early decision to market the violent aspects of the sport had come back to haunt them. Getting on television now seemed miles away, as promoters were getting arrested in the United States and Canada for merely attempting to promote events. The opportunities for a dedicated MMA apparel company were laughable.
But Charles believed in what he was doing. More importantly, he believed that he could do it. Where most entrepreneurs would have been daunted by a difficult market and limited resources, Charles embraced the challenge. Drawing on an endless amount of energy, he traveled the show circuit and set up his table to sell Tapout shirts. Identifying the need to establish an identity, he adopted the “Mask” persona and began sporting the outrageous costumes and makeup we’ve all grown accustomed to seeing him in.
But beneath the character was a true visionary. He looked different than every other fan at the arena, but he knew they shared something very important in common:
The desire to express that they were a part of mixed martial arts, and were proud of it.
Charles also identified and embraced what truly brought his company to the next level: fighter sponsorships. When sponsors were afraid to even be associated with MMA, let alone eager to commit advertising dollars, Tapout provided a broad network of fighters with sponsorships to supplement what were unfortunately meager purses. The fighters never forgot what Tapout did for them. Most importantly, the fans grew eager to share the logo they saw on their favorite fighters’ shorts.
When the tides began to turn for MMA, Charles’ years of dedication began to pay dividends. With regulation and legalization came a sense of victory, but the unity forged out of necessity in times of challenge remained with the MMA community. Tapout was the company that was on the scene first, and Charles was the entrepreneur that never doubted its potential. By 2005, Charles and Tapout were featured prominently as a sponsor of UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter. T-Shirts began flying off the shelves, and the rest, they say, is history.
That I focused on the early, more challenging days of Tapout and “Mask” is no mistake. What sets Charles Lewis apart, and what inspires me, is that he had an endless amount of energy and an unwavering belief in the potential of his enterprise even in the darkest of times.
While many saw a man in makeup and army fatigues selling t-shirts to fans of an illegal sport and immediately dismissed him as a lunatic, Charles was in fact a rare visionary. Only today can the average person see what Charles saw when he looked at his license plate so many years ago.
The most interesting thing about Charles Lewis is not what he was, it’s what he wasn’t. Charles wasn’t a Harvard MBA, he wasn’t an heir to an apparel company, and he wasn’t a retired athlete with money and time to burn. Charles was a working-class guy with an extraordinary dream, and the will to make that dream come true. In an age where corporations grow seemingly larger and more distant from the working class by the day, Charles turned an idea into a multimillion dollar apparel company in just over a decade.
Charles Lewis’ greatest gift to the MMA community was not cool t-shirts, fighter sponsorships, or a reality TV show. His greatest gift to us was making the dream accessible.
What enabled Charles Lewis to achieve the seemingly impossible? The same principles that build the great fighters that Tapout sponsors: Vision, work-ethic, and unwavering belief of purpose. As much as I’d like to, I can’t honestly look inside the cage today and convince myself that I can be heavyweight champion one day. The natural talent and athleticism required to be a top fighter makes it inaccessible to all but a very select few. But Charles Lewis took traits that lie inside all of us and made his own dreams become a reality. And that is something that is available to everyone.
Do you have what it takes to be the next visionary, to take the next Tapout from a license plate to a movement? What Charles stood for is inside us all. He showed us that it’s never too late, too early, too difficult, or too expensive to chase a dream you truly believe in. I don’t know if I will ever find the enthusiasm, energy, and determination Charles tapped into every day until his death to take Tapout to the top, but I thank him for showing me that its possible.
Truly inspirational!
Thank you.