Charles "Mask" Lewis: The Hardest of the Hardcore MMA Fans

by Kid Nate on Mar 14, 2009 11:06 AM EDT in MMA News

Josh Gross has a nice piece about Mask:

Lewis came to represent the hardest of MMA's hardcore fans. As the sport grew, so did the passion of its longtime followers. Few symbolized MMA's raw intensity better than Lewis, whose cultish alter ego "Mask," a fatigue-colored, face-paint-wearing madman with an infectious laugh befitting a well-fed hyena, was impossible to ignore and even harder not to like.

Through his vision and dedication, TapouT came to represent a certain segment of the population. Like Mask, they're people hard to miss. Drive around much these days and you'll invariably see the logo stuck on the back of a tinted window, or stenciled into a raised truck's side panel. Beyond selling a $100 million worth of clothes in stores, such as Champs Sports, Lewis dreamt of MMA taking over the world. It was the kind of honest ambition that made MMA devotees like him almost immediately for a sort of "nothing will stop us from moving forward" idealism that helped deliver MMA from human cockfighting's shadows.

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RIP Mask

I am not trying to be disrespectful here but, I never understood the concept of the tapout boys. I thought that it was too WWE’ish and silly. Seeing them on tv made it hard for me to convince my family and friends that MMA was not pro wrestling. Also, I hated seeing all the posers wear tapout shirts becuase they thougt it made them look tough. Same with Affliction shirts. The design concepts are really dumb, can’t wait till MMA gear outgrows the whole “goth” look. Hopefully we can have some pro athletic sponsors lik Nike and Asics come on board with MMA.

Again, not trying to disrespect here, just talking. It is terrible that enyone would die in such a grizzly way. Despite that I was never a fan of TAPOUT I can still respect Mask for what he did.

by Bandaka on Mar 14, 2009 11:44 AM EDT reply actions

I'm kind of with you

was never of fan of their schitck but I do understand why they did it — it was very effective branding.
However nothing can take away from Mask’s very real contributions to the sport. the TapouT crew earned their success by getting in early and sticking with it and always made supporting the fighters and the sport their top priority.
RIP

"the spirit of your average dumbass with more overblown rhetoric" OR "the self-appointed savior of MMA"

by Kid Nate on Mar 14, 2009 12:26 PM EDT up reply actions

If all ‘hardcore’ MMA fans spent a fraction of the time and effort Mask did on building the sport and selling it to the casuals, we’d have landed on the fucking moon by now.

by Derek Suboticki on Mar 14, 2009 1:53 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs