When We Were Bouncers: Ray Sefo

Actor/stuntman/fighter Paul “The Mauler” Lazenby has a tremendous Facebook page – When We Were Bouncers. Each week he presents a crazy new story from former security personnel who went on to become actors, comedians, pro wrestlers, stuntmen, or MMA fighters.

This week Lazenby profiles “Sugar” Ray Sefo. From New Zealand of Samoan extraction, and living in Las Vegas, Sefo has been active in the fight game for 25 years. The eight time K-1 World Grand Prix Finals tournament participant, former professional boxer, and, most recentl,y MMA fighter, currently serves as president of the World Series of Fighting.

Sefo has earned some 30+ wins in combat sports via T/KO; in this interview with Lazenby, he details a professional KO in a different context.

New Year’s Eve 1993… I was running security at a club in Auckland called Customhouse, and it was a very busy night. I think it must have been a full moon because we had five or six major brawls that night.

The first one was with a football team. American football, that is – in New Zealand we call it Gridiron. I got called to the front door after the situation had already started, and there were eight or nine big, monster guys out there. Everybody was well above six foot, the tallest guy must have been six foot ten! A buddy of mine named Machlas, who was himself about six-six, was dealing with the issue, and the six-ten guy was already bleeding from the nose so it was obvious that there were punches thrown before I got there.

I stood between the football team and my guys – I think I had six guys working that night in total – and I said to the giant guy, Listen, let it go. It’s obvious that you’ve already come out second best, and the more you push, the more people are going to get hurt. But the guy started yelling back at me, I don’t give a f— about this guy and so forth, and while he was yelling the blood on his face was spraying at me! So I pushed him back and said, Look, I’m trying to calm the situation down, so why don’t you back off and stop bleeding on me?

I sent Machlas inside in the hope that it would calm the giant guy down, which left me with three bouncers backing me up — keep in mind, all of the bouncers I had working that night were kickboxing champions. I said, Look, if I let you go with Machlas you’re going to come out second best. Leave it alone. And once again he started yelling and spitting blood, and once again I told him, If you don’t stop bleeding on me, I’m going to put you to sleep. So he leaned close and said, Is that right? and BANG, I knocked him out cold.

To get to the front entrance you had to climb three steps, then it flattened out, and then three more steps. We were at the top of that staircase when I hit the guy, and he made it all the way down to the bottom. I don’t think he was badly hurt, but he was definitely snoring. At that point I thought, Okay, now we have to fight all these big guys, but his buddies just looked at their friend and went, Listen, Ray – we’re cool. So, thank God, that one got let go.

Check out www.facebook.com/FamousBouncers for more bouncer stories from stars in a wide variety of pursuits. For UG Blog excerpts for MMA Fighters, check out:

When we Were Bouncers: Big Cat on Don Frye

When We Were Bouncers: Javi and Rose (Meanie Gracies)

When We Were Bouncers: Jason Day

When We Were Bouncers: Jerry Trimble

When We Were Bouncers: Gurdarshan Mangat

When We Were Bouncers: Enson Inoue

When We Were Bouncers: Dean of Mean

When We Were Bouncers: Ragin’ Kajan Johnson

When We Were Bouncers: Aaron Riley

When We Were Bouncers: Tom Erikson

When We Were Bouncers: Paul Cheng

When We Were Bouncers: Shayna Baszler (Not all bouncers are men)