RIP Charles Lewis Jr.: 1963 (or 1964?) - 2009In my twenty-nine years, I haven’t figured out which is worse: saying that big goodbye for the last time without realizing that that’s exactly what it’s going to be, or not getting a chance to say it at all.

It’s not really like it would be any easier as you were looking at the departing for the last time, but there are a lot of us who look back on that last time we said goodbye to someone as something we might’ve done different, or precluded with better actions. Charles Lewis Jr., the founder of one of the most successful and well-known MMA enterprise brands in our history of the sport, presented an energy which brought out that better side in whoever surrounded him, and he did it wherever he went. There won’t be a lot of people who think they will have been able to do it much better the last time they saw Charles, because for so many of them, the experience was undeniably positive, and also unforgettably personal.

The day following the tragic news of Mask’s departure, the best I could find was a vague, unspecific article on the internet about what appeared to be a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, an all-aluminum V12 with a top speed of 205 mph and a price tag of around $300,000, disintegrating upon impact as it slammed into a utility pole traveling southbound on Jamboree Rd. in Newport Beach, near Camelback Street, where the unnamed driver inside was killed. A suspected individual involved in what was believed to be a hit & run accident was being held on one million dollars bail, offering little vindication for what had been claimed in the accident. No immediate confirmation of identity on the deceased. No indication that the taken life of the man driving the car belonged to one of the most iconic and recognizable names in MMA, despite the fact that he’d never stepped into a ring or cage.

Mask: Frontman for an iconic brandWith an enigmatic personality like his, anyone who got to meet him within the last decade of TapouT’s uprising, even if it was meeting him just once, is going to recall that last time they saw Mask, most likely fondly. Many will have a lot of great things to say about him as a person, and who he was to them. No one can deny this man’s contribution to the sport we’ve watched grow since well before its dark days, even throughout a time when MMA couldn’t be found anywhere on the west coast but remote Indian reservations and a few niche websites.

Way back in 2000, a dear friend turned me from K-1 enthusiast into MMA junkie within a series of weeks. He spent days upon days at my apartment in Sherman Oaks, sometimes consecutively (much to my girlfriend’s delight) unloading his tape collection upon me… tape by tape, fight by fight. He took me from caring about guys like Ernesto Hoost, Mark Hunt and Peter Aerts into caring about guys like Tito Ortiz, Wanderlei Silva and Randy Couture. About a year or so later, another friend of mine and I hit Interstate 10 and headed out to the Soboba Indian Reservation for something called King of the Cage.

As we exited and headed down the road on the way to the event, it was hard not to notice the three ridiculously-dressed young men selling t-shirts out of the back of a black van next to a gas station. We stopped, and I figured this shirt they were selling would be a good souvenir: a simple black XL t-shirt with the word “TapouT” neatly curved and all symmetrically shape. To a couple of guys on the side of the road who’d stopped to take interest in their product, Mask acted like he’d made new friends. He actually sounded as though he truly hoped to see us again when he told us he did. You’d never know this mad-man-looking, muscle-bound, camouflage-wearing outcast could be so friendly, compassionate and energetic as well.

Loved his fans: ... particularly those that were cute and blondeThat same friend who drove me to King of the Cage later jacked that same shirt within a month’s time on a return-visit, using some piss-poor excuse that he’d wet his t-shirt while swimming, and somehow needed to wear my TapouT shirt in particular to recover. I’ve yet to see it again, eight years later.

Several times we trekked out to that remote stretch of the 10, where you knew you’d reached your destination when you saw the big, white windmills. For a good couple of years there, every single time we went, the same three guys were out there selling shirts tirelessly. Dusty as hell and dry as a bone was the desert these guys trekked to, without fail, every single time there was an event. They sold their shirts, and Mask never showed up without his face painted. Even better, he always showed up, and he always remembered us.

Some fans expressed and expanded their interest in the sport through talks with like-interested friends, or internet message boards crawling with fans from scattered points of the world. Mask wore our sport on his sleeve, and did it on such a regular basis that those around him couldn’t help but learn about the sport his product sold to so effectively. He made it his day job. The years that Charles Lewis Jr. and partner Dan Caldwell put into representing their product originally, while purveying our sport passionately through a product with appeal, made Mask a face not only for their brand, but for our sport.

In the years since the UFC has emerged as MMA’s dominant stateside powerhouse, TapouT’s brand has found its way into major retailers, and is everywhere. That little black van became a 40-foot long trailer with a TapouT logo the size of two stacked Honda Civics, a reality TV show on a major networks, and distribution deals in retail outlets across America into international markets. Charles Lewis’ desert runs turned selling t-shirts out of a black van into $100 million in sales in 2008.

We saw Mask in 2001 when Randy Couture fought Josh Barnett at the MGM Grand in Vegas, on our way through the Casino. In full gear, the entire TapouT crew strolled through. My friend let out a hearty “TAAAAP OUUUUUT!!!!!” that echoed throughout the casino, and managed to draw a couple security guard looks. Mask laughed, bear-hugged him, and talked about the fights with our group for a good couple minutes before he moved onward through free-alcohol-while-gambling land, as did we. It was just like seeing him in the desert… same energy, same passion, same excitement. The guy was a walking one-man party.

Mask helped found a brand that brought awareness, recognition, and a main-stream element to Mixed Martial Arts, while making a lot of friends in the process. From getting our friends into after-parties they didn’t deserve to go to, to the way he treated even the ones who just displayed an interest in his brand within his line of sight, Mask was genuine. The world would be better off if more people carried themselves with the kind of determination, pride and focus Mask did throughout what we’ll remember to be a life that was far too short.

Tragically, one short instance in the still of the night was all it took to relieve him of all of that fortune.

I mentioned I hate goodbyes. I hate untimely goodbyes worst of all.

Mask was 45. Had he lived to see twice that, he would have been set for every year of his life in ways some people will only dream of, thanks to his hard work and dedication to our sport and his brand. He spent his best years backhandedly educating an ever-growing fraction of the world on our sport and its culture, literally out of his vehicle’s cargo bay. The most tragic part of this all is that he won’t be around to see a fraction of the return on the work he put in.

My own parents died at 42 and 47, and it was painful knowing they weren’t going to see their best years, which were still well ahead of them. The remarkable thing about Mask is that he did $100 million in sales the year before he died, and they didn’t. Much of the hardship involved in premature departures of this sort comes in the form of all of the could-have-been thoughts that will collect in the minds of those who love and miss him. Mask was set to live happily ever after, and this was taken from him, as he was taken from us.

My condolences are far reaching, extending in not only empathy for those who lost family in losing Charles, but in sympathy to his friends and colleagues who will surely think about this man intermittently throughout their own remaining days. Mask was the kind of individual whose presence shed light on an atmosphere, and whose environment was made better because he was a part of it.

That which burns as bright also burns fast.

Never forgot where he came from: Always made time for fans and sport enthusiastsThey also say that the good die young. Though I did not know the man as personally as some, and only met him on a couple of occasions, the remarkable effort he put forth to the benefit of our sport, how he affected those close to him, and the fortune all of that afforded him could all easily serve as proof in favor of that adage. Mask was as upstanding and professional as someone in his position, given the return he saw on all those years of work he put in and where it all came from, could possibly be. He was distinguished while maintaining outspoken ethic and outrageous appearance.

Charles Lewis Jr. will be missed by everyone who even met him once, and some who never met him at all. He leaves behind a culture he largely helped to define, a fanbase strongly vested in his product, a family of friends and fans who are saddened to lose an icon they’ve recognized for as long for as the sport’s eruption has been going down, and a sport he contributed to in ways that will resonate for generations to come. The image of his painted, chiseled face, even to those who never got to meet him personally, is etched into our minds forever.



From officials to combatants, personalities in the MMA industry had things to offer about Mask, and his support of our sport and its athletes throughout his years here with us. Thoughts and words as they were offered by nearly twenty men and women who knew or were influenced by Mask can be read here.

A memorial service to honor TapouT founder, Charles "Mask" Lewis Jr., is set for April 14.

"Simply Believe: A Celebration of Charles Mask' Lewis Jr." will take place at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. The memorial service is open to the public.