The first time Jeff Sherwood saw Lewis he was standing behind a small folding card table at a 1998 Kage Kombat event in San Pedro, Calif. On the table were two piles of Tapout T-shirts, both the same style in a different color. They might as well have been a wide selection of fine Italian silk dress shirts in every shade possible -- that is how much effort the energetic Lewis put into presenting his wares to customers.

Sherwood, the founder of a small MMA Web site called Sherdog.com, was also banking on the future popularity of a sport still invisible to the rest of the world. Lewis felt an instant camaraderie with a believer as willing to hedge his bets on MMA as he was.

As both men’s businesses slowly grew, Lewis would often visit Sherwood at his tiny Huntington Beach warehouse. Lewis had the uncanny ability to get the soft-spoken Sherwood to talk about himself, something Lewis probably picked up from one of his favorite books, Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Lewis knew better than anyone that “a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Placing his attention on the other person left less time for the mysterious Lewis to talk about himself, but Sherwood easily saw an acute business mind before him.

“Sometimes we’d go to eat and Charles would just look around, taking everything in, pointing out to me what the restaurant could do better to get more customers,” said Sherwood. “He would make lists right there.”

Many times, Sherwood would open his front door to find Lewis on the step, a cardboard box in his hands full to the brim with Tapout shirts and hats for the family. Fearful the clothing company would go out of business, Sherwood finally told Lewis to stop giving away his merchandise for free. Lewis would have none of it. It’s as if he knew each item he gave away would come back tenfold later down the line. He was right.

Sherwood watched as the Tapout Crew sold their shirts out of their trunks, sometimes on the side of a dusty road a few miles out from the venue when promoters kicked them off the property. Car trunks graduated to a van, and then a trailer. By 2005 and thousands of picture poses later, Tapout was ready to make its move. They paid a handsome fee to be featured on the first season of the UFC’s reality TV series “The Ultimate Fighter” on Spike TV.

It’s a gamble that Caldwell doesn’t regret.

“The day after ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ debuted, it literally shut down our Web site,” said Caldwell. “Our web guy told me we were getting 3,000 orders an hour. It was definitely a turning point.”

Tapout’s rise coincided with the boom that the UFC and other MMA organizations enjoyed in 2006, leading Caldwell and Lewis to open their doors for expansion with additional business partners. The co-founding team still holds a majority stake in the business, said Caldwell, which recorded $100 million in sales in 2008.

In June 2007, the trio debuted their “Tapout” reality TV series on the Versus channel, where the crew toured the nation to scout out promising up-and-comers to don their brand.

Lewis’ vision always reached past the clothing line. The company had begun expansion of its warehouse in Grand Terrace, Calif., into the Tapout Compound, where Lewis hoped visitors could experience the brand beyond the shirts on their backs.

In the last two weeks, Lewis had finished refurbishing his new office on the compound. Caldwell said Lewis referred to the sanctuary as “Superman’s lair meets the Knights of the Round Table.” The all-white office was fitted with shattered-glass windows and scattered with glass stalactites reminiscent of the Man of Steel’s Fortress of Solitude. In the middle, Lewis had insisted on a round table in place of a standard rectangular conference table, complete with high-backed, throne-like chairs. Caldwell said Lewis felt any businessman that sat down with them there should feel like an equal.

In recent days, the white office has been covered with colorful bouquets of flowers. Well-wishers have also left pictures, posters and other keepsakes outside the Tapout Compound’s gates, much like the shrine that has appeared at the crash site on Jamboree Road some 50 miles away.

On the first night the world went without Lewis, Scrape brought 50 candles to the site and lit them around the cement base that once supported the pole that his big brother’s car struck. Scrape returned to the site the next evening, and then the next, commiserating with fans that had congregated around the makeshift memorial. Each day, a few more added items appeared, including signed flags, T-shirts, hats, flowers, cards, pictures, posters, stuffed animals, and even a homemade model of the UFC Octagon complete with Tapout logo. Each brought a sense of meaning to the spot where Lewis drew his last breath.

By the weekend, a steady line of visitors could be observed paying their respects at the site. Most were the young Tapout aficionados, but there were just as many parents with their children and middle-aged couples.

It’s obvious Lewis touched the lives of many, which is what Caldwell thinks his dear departed friend would have wanted most of all.

“The older I get, the more I realize that possessions aren’t anything and it’s the friendships and contacts you make in this world and the relationships you build,’ said McCarthy, who wore the Tapout logo on his referee uniform in the early days to support the young entrepreneurs. “That’s what makes life special. Knowing Charles Lewis, he made life special. He was fun to be around and he was an innovator in the way he decided to run his company and product. He was always for the fighters and the sport.”

At Lewis’ last stand, a poster has been gently placed on the sidewalk. It reads, in Lewis’ own words:

Life is full of influences; It's your application that sets you apart. That's something I wrote to myself and completely believe in. You can't be scared to set out to do something in life because you believe it may be similar to something, or because you don't know the clear cut path on how you're going to accomplish your goal or dream! Just take a step towards your belief daily - fearlessly, wholeheartedly, digging and dreaming within yourself, believing that as you push on through sacrifice, you will one day stand alone on top of a hill that you created that now encourages and inspires others to chase their dream. Knowing that through tenacity and patience anything can be achieved.