On 11 March 2009, after midnight, Charles ‘Mask’ Lewis was heading home from the gym when his Ferrari was struck by a drunk driver, sending it into a fatal spin.
Mask began with an idea, a car full of t-shirts, and the greatest friend and partner conceivable, Dan ‘Punkass’ Caldwell. Mask slept on couches and lived on hope, and when he made a little money, he sponsored fighters, with every dollar.
Mixed Martial Arts too was once as young, iMask’s words:
“There was nothing that you could put on in that day that meant what we were feeling like. Mixed Martial Arts and fighting didn’t have any identity. You couldn’t put on a uniform and feel the way we felt in the gym. So, just as a need to identify what I was feeling on the inside of myself, so I came up with a T-shirt.”
In 1999 the business grossed $29,000. By 2008, shirts could be purchased in over 20,000 retail stores worldwide, and Tapout grossed a staggering $100,000,000.
Mask is dead and will be mourned forever and ever.
But when you love this sport, you honor Mask. You honor Mask when you train your heart out in the gym, and you understand better than any scholar what Shakespeare meant when he wrote “For he today that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother.”
When this sport fills you with a feeling like no other, you may not have a word for it, but there is one – TapouT.
Charles ‘Mask’ Lewis 1964-2009
May you rest the way you lived, Inyaface
Personal note:
When I was getting ready to compete in my first grappling competition I ordered a Tapout tee shirt to wear the day of. That shirt arrived promptly in the mail and I wrote the folks at Tapout to say thanks and tell them why I had ordered it. I expected either no reply or a generic one at best. I'll never forget what I actually got back in my email inbox...
"Gut those muthafuckers! - Mask"
It was crude, but it was personal and motivating. I took third in my weight class at that tournament.
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