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By: Jason Bent, MMATorch Columnist Charles Lewis, Jr. died on March 11, 2009 and was known to all of us as "Mask" of the TapouT crew. His death was a tragedy in much the same way as anyone who dies well before what we consider to be a ripe old age. This tragedy is compounded by the circumstances surrounding his death, and the knowledge that such an event could have been avoided and that this man would still be here today. His contributions to this sport are what I know him for, but for all the good he did for the sport it is a certainty that his value to his family far exceeded that of his efforts to aid the sport of mixed martial arts.
I am not a fan of TapouT merchandise or gear, and never have been. With Affliction as well it is a combination of offensive clothing designs marketed at obnoxious fans, and purchased by that distinctly offensive and obnoxious group of fans that by and large embarrasses us all. With TapouT it has long been the case that a majority of their shirts are bought two sizes too small and worn by bouncers or "tough guys" who seem to imagine that sporting this logo is as if they themselves have been branded with a badge declaring that all men should fear them and every woman should drop her panties at once. So it wasn't necessarily the product that irritated me to no end but rather the consumer. I am, however, a fan of what TapouT represented, and all of the good Mask did for this sport.
MMA fans of any sort are no different than NASCAR fans, in that they like to wear items or in particular the brands represented by their fighter or driver, as a way to both support their favorite as well as to maybe feel a little closer to the sport. This can be noted when you see a 300 lb. man jamming Sbarro down his throat at the mall but sporting a TapouT t-shirt in much the same way that the dirty alcoholic with an unwashed mullet could have been seen wearing a Tide jacket at a NASCAR race. The fat guy sporting TapouT is wearing what his favorite fighters wear, and the unwashed NASCAR fan is certainly not using Tide but wants to show off the insignia because of his love for Ricky Rudd back in the day. These fans and their clothing choices are nothing obnoxious in and of themselves, but it is the toolbags who seem to think wearing TapouT makes them inherently tougher or a better and more knowledgeable fan of MMA that cause bile to back up in our throats.
At the end of the day TapouT became known, and while I can prattle on for hours about all of these orange-tanned, spiked-hair douchebags throwing up devil horns with one hand and holding a red cup with the other, this company and the passion behind it has been nothing but great for our sport that we love.
Charles Lewis loved MMA. He came up with this cool brand name of TapouT, and soon he was selling the t-shirts out of trunks in much the same way that aspiring musicians will peddle CDs in parking lots. Mask was TapouT and TapouT was MMA.
This man did more for this sport and the fighters than just about anyone else, save for Rorion Gracie, Art Davie, Robert Meyrowitz, Dana White and the Fertitta brothers. Sponsoring these fighters, pounding the pavement and promoting his clothing company as well as this sport and its fighters to the public at large were the things he was able to accomplish. You cannot go anywhere without seeing at least something with TapouT emblazoned upon it, and more and more it is becoming common to not only find people who are aware of this very sport but to find hardcore fans who will never miss a UFC pay-per-view. When politicians become elected to office they thank the voters as well as those who worked to get their name out and to draw in those voters; TapouT is responsible for drawing in a large portion of the fans who have voted with their wallets and elected MMA to be on a level equivalent to the other sports widely recognized and considered to be major.
Mask's work was not done there and in fact he had only just begun to get started. Not once was he satisfied enough with success to rest on his laurels, and he was rare in that he seemed to work even harder after reaching some modicum of success than he did upon starting the whole venture to begin with. This is something he was born with and a gift that few men possess. Mask was driven, and even after making his first million was still trying to raise the awareness level of this sport, help the fighters and work on making that second million rather than just kicking up his feet and enjoying the spoils of success. TapouT was not started as a way for a fast buck to be made in much the way that Affliction chose to begin promoting fights. TapouT was a company which was started for every one of the right reasons, and profitability just happened to come as a result of their efforts. Because no one would have started anything to do with MMA when Lewis did if the goal was just to get rich off of it.
The sad thing is that he was able to enjoy some of his riches as he was driving his Ferrari at the time of his ultimate demise. He earned this vehicle with every ounce of blood, sweat and tears he put into TapouT, but the cruelest thing of all is that his life ended just as he had finally realized the financial success after all of those years of hard work and struggling. He had trained all of his adult life for a race, and had won the race, but before he got a chance to reflect back on everything it was ripped away and his life was no more.
Charles Lewis, Jr. did not have to die. He didn't have cancer, nor was he diagnosed with full blown AIDS, and he didn't get blown up over in Iraq while serving our country. He died because of negligence. Pure, utter negligence; and this is just as sad as his actual death. Right now we do not know as a fact if Lewis was racing his Ferrari against Jeffrey Kirby's Porsche, but one would have to imagine that since both were traveling at a high rate of speed at 1am and both were traveling the same direction that it was not exactly just a coincidence for the vehicles to be so close to each other. Because in my estimation if they were not racing, the Porsche would have pulled far ahead of the Ferrari and the vehicles would not have been next to each other and both traveling at the high rate of speed. I cannot pass judgment on this without having knowledge of what truly went down, but this is my speculation on the events. If we are to presume Lewis to be without guilt and cast all of the blame on Mr. Kirby it still goes down as a death due to negligence, and again could have been avoided.
Drinking and driving do not go together. We have seen the ads of two glasses clinking together with sounds of an automobile crash as M.A.D.D. tries to hammer the point home and every kid that has attended a prom has heard the speeches about not mixing alcohol and driving. Sadly, no one has ever gotten the point; it is 2009 and we still have deaths due to drinking and driving on a regular basis.
I am not against drugs or alcohol. In fact I am actually for both, and am not necessarily bothered if someone wants to sit in the comfort of their own home and smoke marijuana, drink gin or snort a line of cocaine. If we took all of the drugs and alcohol off of the planet we would all collectively still find a way to get high. Some folks might eat ice cream too fast and get a brain freeze, others may huff cans of Reddi-Whip like nervous little fourteen year old boys and others might just spin around in a circle on their front lawn until the collapse in hopes of just escaping reality for one moment. I don't care where you shove your show or what you smoke, snort or inject into it as long as you are not going to be on the road and driving a vehicle alongside me, performing surgery under the influence or anything that requires your full mental capacity. I have no problem if the kid who flips my pizza has smoked a couple of bowls earlier that day, because flipping my pizza is not exactly something that is life or death and this young man poses less of a problem to all of us than the businessman who just left happy hour after imbibing twelve martinis and is trying to navigate his S-class Mercedes from the bar to his home successfully.
I am not against chasing thrills and racing, either. We as a society love things that go fast. I happen to love fast cars, fast food and fast women, which does in part at least explain why I have a fatty liver and cheer a negative blood test as if I just won the lottery. I am all for folks going to the local drag strip and testing their Ford Mustang against the other guy's Chevrolet Camaro just as much as two guys with tricked out Honda's can and should be able to do the same thing. I am against these folks engaging in these activities on the highways, and have a huge problem with some jackoff who has a coffee can sized exhaust on his Civic to go with a spoiler that looks like an old analog antenna from the roof of a Super 8 and is choosing to reenact his favorite scene from "The Fast and Furious" alongside me on I-95 on a Wednesday night. You don't even need alcohol or drugs to make street racers dangerous; and many of these boy racers will ignorantly declare they are a skilled driver but the landscape is littered with countless rides that have been totaled due to their attempt at drifting on a local highway or road.
Sadly in the case of "Mask" it is clear that both high rates of speed and alcohol have contributed to his demise and this is pathetic. Deaths like this are avoidable, and his family should not be having to mourn his loss due to poor decisions such as drinking and driving or street racing. Mr. Kirby could be completely responsible for this accident, and this is again just as pathetic as once more it is a man who chose to consume alcohol and drive in an unsafe manner which could be the guilty party and the reason behind this tragedy. Until more information gets released all we can do is speculate, but based on the information presented it would appear that Mr. Kirby is to blame here and his actions are just what are deplorable and should be considered inexcusable in 2009.
Reckless driving is as inexcusable as driving under the influence, and this is why I have been so firmly against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson having been treated as if he just made a minor mistake and then getting off without any form of punishment whatsoever. The amount of community service that "Rampage" was ordered to perform is of an amount that has been asked of a teenager who has spray painted curse words on the sides of buildings, and what is scary is that without any repercussions, we could see this happening again to Jackson if he once again loses a fight and some sleep.
Charles "Mask" Lewis, Jr. has died, but Quinton "Rampage" Jackson could have died last summer as well along with countless other pedestrians and other motorists who could have been struck by him. The same venom I spew towards Jackson is also set aside for Josh Neer, a fighter who has gained my respect inside of the Octagon but lost every bit of in terms of how I view that which he did on New Year’s Day. Neer could have died as well, and it is also a stark reality that he too could have not only killed himself but others when he chose to drink, drive and then lead police on a chase.
We aren’t going to stop drinking and driving, and this is sad, but it’s a true statement that this is a crime which will continue to be committed. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, which means assholes declaring themselves to be one fifth Irish on their mother’s side and guzzling down gallons of green beer and Guiness while the Dropkick Murphys blare from bar speakers. Most of these folks will drive home intoxicated, and then regale co-workers with tales of debauchery while acting as if not remembering how they got home is something that puts them on the cool list. It doesn’t. I can only hope that the numbers of those who drink and drive shall dwindle, but sadly it appears that no one gets the hint or pays any attention to the pleas of others who shall tell them to hand over the keys and do no such thing.
We are also not going to be able to stop racing on the streets, and so long as there is a passing lane it will be as if every other asshole in a tricked out ride will fancy themselves to be acting out the chase scene from "Bullitt." We can only hope that those who have not been touched by a tragedy in their own home can see a story such as this one involving "Mask" and have it hit home for once and cause them to just let it go. If someone is giving you the stank-eye from their boy racer car, don’t think that you have to race them or else have your wife leave you and the community brand you a pussy for not snapping your neck back and making your tachometer spin like the numbers on Ross Clifton’s scale.
No one can change the world, but we can change ourselves and what we do and as an MMA community; let us look at the tragedies avoided by Jackson and Neer while staring at the stark reality of "Mask"’s tragedy and let us try and do something to avoid this from happening to ourselves along with everyone else. Don’t make the wrong decision and possibly kill someone else’s friend, husband, business partner, and hopefully have enough sense of self to not put that same hurt on your family if you should perish due to gross negligence.
"Mask" is no longer here to do all of the great things he was doing, and it is because of the stupid things that so many of us do.
TapouT will live on, and so too will this sport, but you can better believe that neither will be the same; and both are better for having had "Mask" directly involved in both. "Mask" was a man and it matters not what he did for MMA or that he drove a Ferrari because the same pain is felt when an average person who is a nobody to the public but everything to their loved ones happens to die too soon.
Let us remember "Mask" for all the good he did for this sport and honor the fact that he is a true success story who up until his death was living the dream. We should all hope to be so lucky, but at the same time we should look at how he died and consider ourselves lucky each time that we take the keys from the ignition, unlock our doors and lay our heads down at night.
Please do not drive at unsafe speeds, engage in street racing or drive under the influence of either drugs, alcohol or both. Do this for yourself and your family, but also do it for "Mask" and his family and friends who are forced to bury someone they loved dearly because of such unforgivable behavior. We in the MMA community like to pride ourselves on being a little bit smarter than other communities, and we imagine ourselves to be educated fight fans who are passionate and protective of our sport. How about we also take this stand in our life and ask the same from our friends and neighbors within the community.
Just as there is no one out there who can tell me that they don’t know any better there are folks who will also not be able to tell me that they wouldn’t cry at their best friend’s funeral. So, let us remember Charles "Mask" Lewis, Jr. for what he did for this sport, but as fans of this sport and fellow human beings, let us not forget how he died either.
Remember "Mask" each time you see the TapouT, logo and remember to keep it safe behind the wheel so that life can go on for you and you can finish out your story. "Mask" wasn’t finished yet, and I have yet to meet many a man who could say that they had achieved all that they had ever wanted to. If we take anything away from "Mask," let us try and take his passion and try to find our very own as it applies to our daily life, and let us also take away the knowledge that it could all be ripped away from us in one fatal moment while doing all we can to see to it that this doesn’t happen again.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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