UFC - 20 Year Thread

[Egg Shen]

Well, the UFC is 20 years old. I thought a new thread was appropriate to have a bit of a thread to celebrate the occasion.

 

I think it's pretty safe to say that it's been an amazing 20 years, to go from a grim to spectacle to becoming a national recognised sport sitting next to the US's major sports on the biggest sports network in the country whilist also branching out all over the world is remarkable achievment. I've been on board for around 10 of them and it's been an amazing ride.

 

 

Anyway's, fuck that...if you wanna know the story get a hold of the new documentary the UFC has put out (which by all accounts is great!)

 

This thread is to discuss how you got into it? favorite fights? favorite moments? favorite fighters? favorite pictures? worst fights? Anything!

 

Let's talk about it....

 

 

I actually first came to know about the UFC through the cliche starter point of renting UFC 1 (it may have been UFC 2) from the video shop, and even having to get a friends dad to rent it. It must have been around 1995 and i distinctively being very disappointed with it, i expected to see a full on Bloodsport-esque spectacle, instead it was clear then that real fighting wasn't like it was in the movies and that traditional martial arts were generally fairly useless.

 

So the UFC was on my radar from that point on, it was my love of Pro Wrestling that dragged me back in though, it was the Tito/Shamrock fight that did it. I may have been scanning results before that, but it was the wrestling crossover appeal that sucked me in and got me following...i never saw the fight as it happened, but i was shocked that Ken had been totally destroyed. My obsession started at that point and i started buying the official UFC Video's they were releasing over here (UFC 35-38). It was UFC 45 though that i started really cementing myself as a fan (ironically that was the 10th anniversary show). Since i saw that show on next day tape delay i've missed one show (UFC Fight Night 1), and the UFC/MMA has become a pretty part of my life. I fucking love it, here's to the next 10...

[cleslie92]

If you have more time and want a really comprehensive history, check out the Sherdog Rewind podcasts from the past six weeks. Really in depth stuff with Meltzer, Clyde Gentry and others.

[jimufctna24]

how you got into it? - Had some time to kill waiting for the Superbowl in 2005, turned on Bravo and watched UFC 51 on delay. Hooked ever since. Before that I followed it a bit through Power Slam, and watch bits and bobs on Bravo's highlight shows.

 

favorite fights? - Loved Lesnar vs Carwin, just a tremendous emotionally filled spectacle. The story behind the fight was amazing, and the comeback that Lesnar produced had me going batshit. It also occurred during the UFC boom period. Anderson vs Chael 1 is also a fight that had everything, it was compelling and had a great story behind it.

 

For me a fight has to succeed on a spectacle and in-ring level, for me to consider it a all-time favorite.

 

favorite moments? - GSP beating Hughes for the belt was a nice moment. Lesnar beating Mir, in front of a record PPV audience. The first Silva vs Sonnen fight was quite a spectacle also

 

favorite fighters? - If I split into eras

 

2005-2007 - Ortiz , GSP and Liddel

 

2008 -2011 - Brock Lesnar, Chael Sonnen, Machida, Nick Diaz, BJ Penn

 

2012 -2013 - Pettis and Anderson Silva

 

favorite pictures?

 

 

worst fights?

 

The worst fights to me are when there is no comedy value, and you just do not care. I would rather watch a MMA fight that is bad in a funny way like that Russian vs Soa a few months back, than a snoozefest

 

Tim Sylvia vs Jeff Monson was crap on so many levels, so was Sylvia vs Arlovski 3. There is a fight that is worse, but for the life of me I cannot remember who was involved. I am sure someone else will fill in the blanks.

[KingOfMetal]

First heard of it when Ken Shamrock came to WWF and JR plugged a PPV they were having on Raw, think it will have UFC 17 as that was on May15th and Shamrock came in around the end of April time and had an 'exhibition' before facing Vader at IYH:Cold Day In Hell.

 

Can't pick a favourite fight, theres been far too many

 

Worst Fight - always has been, and most likely always be, Gabrial Gonzga vs. Kevin Jordan from UFC 56. A complete snoozfest which featured both fighters getting a bollocking from the ref along the lines "People have paid money for this, do something!"

 

Favourite Moment - Any time someone smashes in Frank Mir's face, but especially when that person was Brock Lesnar

[JNLister]

Like a few people on here, I got into it from UFC 1 which Glen Radford had in his tape trading list a few weeks after the show aired. It was a big deal among the tape trading circuit up to about 1997 (though as late as 95 there were still arguments about whether it was worked, then kind of died away and you'd only see a show now and again. I got back into it when they were doing the Royal Albert Hall show in 2002 and showed archive matches on Sky Sports for several months beforehand.

 

I remember when UFC 1 came out on commercial VHS here it had about three minutes of edits, which was kind of a big deal considering the entire show combined was only about 13 minutes.

 

I also remember learning the rule that if a man's listed martial art consisted of his surname followed "-do", he was going to lose.

[Egg Shen]

i didnt know UFC 1 was edited, but the original UFC 3 VHS was.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I'm not a huge MMA fan, but I like to keep my hand in. I dont discuss it much on here, because I usually dont stick my head into discussions where I dont know much, so I have a question regarding Listers post. Is that the pattern for a UFC fan? Like how wrestling fans in this country got into WWF in the early 90s when it got popular and then stopped watching and got back into it at Survivor Series 98? Because I remember it how Lister told it. It first got big attention in 97 and then I thought it was finished until they came over for the Albert Hall show in 2002. Ian Freeman battered Frank Mir if I recall. I also remember a mate telling me about the Ultimate Fighter in 2005. He was saying "you have to watch it, one of them called this lad a 'fatherless bastard' and they all started throwing punches".

 

I also remember Tank Abbott's cameo in Friends, and Ross, Joey and the gang making it sound as if death occurred in the UFC on a regular basis.

[wandshogun09]

The worst UFC fight, ever, for me is easily Shamrock vs Severn 2. Sometimes referred to as 'The Detroit Dance'. Thirty minutes of nothing. People who think Jon Fitch is the most boring fighter they've ever seen would probably kill themselves after 10 minutes of this shite.

 

Shamrock vs Gracie 2 isn't much better. And Randy Couture (complete with gay black leggings) vs Maurice Smith is a pile of cack as well. Generally, as you'd expect, the overall skill level has improved massively since then and there's been nothing that bad in the last 10-15 years. But still, the occasional stinker is inevitable. Anyone who's sat through Mir vs Cro Cop, Guida vs Maynard, Lombard vs Boetsch, the Sylvia fights Jim mentioned or MacDonald vs Ellenberger knows what I mean. And who can forget Kalib Starnes running from Nate Quarry for 15 minutes, then claiming he had a broken foot?

 

At least 'fights' like Anderson vs Maia had the slightly redeeming comedy value of Anderson's dancing.

 

Anyway, sod all that negative stuff.

 

Best Fight: There's way too many. Henderson vs Shogun from 2011 is my personal favourite. Just a crazy war of attrition. You've also got Jones vs Gustafsson, Wanderlei vs Stann, Melendez vs Sanchez and Bermudez vs Grice all from this year alone.

 

-Liddell vs Wanderlei (UFC 79 - proper dream fight years in the making and it actually lived up to the hype)

-Nogueira vs Couture (UFC 102 - another UFC vs Pride dream fight. Surpassed all expectations going in. One of the best heavyweight fights in UFC history)

-Edgar vs Maynard 2 & 3 (UFC 125 & 136 - crazy fights, real life Rocky stuff both times)

-Anderson vs Sonnen 1 (UFC 117 - huge fight, insane build up, intense atmosphere, amazing story and twists to the fight)

-Lesnar vs Carwin (UFC 116 - two massive fuckers locking horns and it's Brock so it has the big time buzz)

-Griffin vs Bonnar 1 (TUF 1 Finale - wild brawl that put UFC on the map)

-Couture vs Rizzo 1 (UFC 31 - a Balboa vs Drago like heavyweight war)

-Sanchez vs Guida (TUF 9 Finale - one of the most mental starts to a fight ive ever seen. Plus it's a Sanchez fight. Enough said)

-Huerta vs Guida (TUF 6 Finale - one of my favourite fights ever)

-Quarry vs Credeur (UFC Fight Night - often forgotten because they're not huge names but an absolutely nuts fight)

-Miller vs Lauzon (UFC 155 - bloodbath between two of the most consistently exciting fighters in MMA)

-Hughes vs Trigg 2 (UFC 52 - one round of mayhem and a grudge match that met expectations)

 

I'll stop there. I'm probably forgetting loads but I don't want to turn this into a 50 fight list.

 

Favourite Fighters: Again, too many. Clue is in my user name - it's Wanderlei Silva and Shogun who really hooked me on MMA. Big Nog as well.

 

Just keeping to UFC fighters though, I'll do it by division;

 

Heavyweight - Big Nog, Junior Dos Santos, Josh Barnett

Light Heavyweight - Shogun, Hendo, Rashad Evans, Chael Sonnen

Middleweight - Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva

Welterweight - Carlos Condit, Nick Diaz

Lightweight - Anthony Pettis, BJ Penn, Gilbert Melendez

Featherweight - Conor McGregor, Frankie Edgar, Korean Zombie

Bantamweight - Renan Barao, Brad Pickett

Flyweight - John Lineker

Women - Ronda Rousey, Cat Zingano

 

They're generally the ones I usually root for whoever they're fighting.

 

I got into the UFC late really. I'd always been into martial arts stuff since I was really young. I used to watch Enter The Dragon and Bloodsport to the point my Mom still knows some of the lines to this day. Got into boxing in the Benn vs Eubank era. Started going to a boxing gym as a kid and took up Muay Thai later but never stuck at, and was never particularly very good at either. And of course I always watched wrestling throughout this time.

 

So I don't know why the UFC didn't grab my interest sooner. I knew about it. My cousins even went to the first UK UFC in London in 2002, and I could've gone but I wasn't that arsed at the time. Even Ken Shamrock vs Tito Ortiz didn't pull me in. I was semi interested but still not enough to track down tapes. I just looked up the result on Meltzer's site and saw the photos of Ken's broken face and that was that.

 

I'd catch the odd fight when the Bravo deal started. I'm sure the first full fight (not that it lasted long) I ever saw was this;

 

Phil Baroni vs Dave Menne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&a...p;v=7sxJYdOeJPY

 

I just though 'FUCK!', and then went on with my day. The pro wrestling fan in me though, I did get a kick out of Baroni's celebration. Jumping onto the fence, flexing and screaming into camera;

 

"I'M THE BEST! I'M THE BEST! I'M THE MAAAN... LINDLAND YOU'RE NEXT! I'M THE BEST EVAH! EVAH!"

 

I saw Genki Sudo after that and thought he was awesome. But the fight that really got me hooked wasn't a UFC fight, it was Wanderlei Silva vs Dan Henderson 1 from Pride 12. I didn't actually see the fight until about four years after it took place, I think I saw it in late 2004ish. But something about that fight really caught on with me and I finally got why my mate loved MMA.

 

Part of it was just the brutality of the fight. The setting in Japan with Pride's pro wrestling style presentation was something I was used to. And the Pride rules blew my mind at the time. I'd never watched the early UFCs at this point. I'd saw a couple of random fights from the 2002-2004 timeframe, and I was used to boxing rules. So when I saw this;

 

 

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Wanderlei Silva just seemed like the scariest, most aggressive savage I'd ever seen. And it wasn't like Hendo seemed like a bum himself. He managed to do this to Wanderlei's face;

 

 

But Wanderlei was like a madman and Hendo couldn't get him to fuck off. He was like a bald, Brazilian Michael Myers. There was no escape.

 

After that I wanted to see more. Sadly we never got Pride here but I made do with the UFC coverage on Bravo. My first full show was UFC 52 in early 2005. Turned out to be a great time to start watching. I got to see Liddell vs Couture 2 and Hughes vs Trigg 2 which were both short and exciting fights. And Bravo were running repeats of TUF 1 so I started watching that.

 

The rest is history. I don't think I've missed one show since off the top of my head.

[Rey_Piste]

i didnt know UFC 1 was edited, but the original UFC 3 VHS was.

I believe that the UFC 1 VHS was edited for the BBFC removing headbutts and blood.

I also remember learning the rule that if a man's listed martial art consisted of his surname followed "-do", he was going to lose.

Joe Son-do is an incredibly effective martial art, just so long as you're facing a woman. Though Joe Son-do is basically just raping the shit out of them.

[Ross18]

This thread and all the other 20 year anniversary things I've been seeing have made me feel a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't get into it sooner. Only really started taking a proper interest at the start of this year. Although spent years telling myself to watch and get into it but just never took the time.

 

Suppose it's better late than never and well this year has been absolutely great as well. So that helps a bit.

[JNLister]

I'm not sure if the dropoff among wrestling fans over here was just a general lack of interest, or if the tape traders were getting it from a source that no longer had access to it on PPV.

[Rey_Piste]

I watched the first 7 or so UFCs on VHS through 94- 96 or so. Myself, a mate and his older used to rent them out from our local video shop whenever they turned up. I still remember we would quite often watch a video then the next morning or early afternoon re-watching it again since a lot of the shows ended up being quite short. I used to love it when I got the phone call there was a new UFC in the video shop, we'd take turns crashing over each other's house to sit up late playing videogames and watching videos most weekends anyway. I stopped watching it for a while Until it started showing up on Bravo during the Ortiz/Liddel era, but it's only really been the past 5 years or so I have been watching it more intently. Partly because a place near me opened up that started doing BJJ, before I quit to go to another gym that did no gi BJJ as well as kickboxing, before moving to my current gym a few years back.

[Stylin_and_Profilin]

I watched the first 7 or so UFCs on VHS through 94- 96 or so. Myself, a mate and his older used to rent them out from our local video shop whenever they turned up.

 

+1 for that.

 

I wouldn't consider myself a massive fan of UFC nowadays but back then the morbid curiosity meant they were a 'must get' at high school. It's hilarious now looking back how much it's aged and how so many chumps there were resembled guys who Jean Claude would have fought in A.W.O.L

 

Did the UK market lose the videos after the first six? I seem to remember them on VHS in Virgin/HMV years ago but can't remember seeing them go beyond the first six events, then i totally lost interest before a few guys at uni were quite into it and i started following again around about the time of Liddel & Ortiz era for a year or two then lost interest all together once more.

 

Watched the documentary Ebb mentioned in first post and it's excellent. Over 90 minutes long and a lot of good interviews and stuff looking back from the beginning.

 

The most ridiculous thing from the earlier UFC's was some of the promos and, equally, the absurd win/loss records guys were claiming to hold.

 

Also, remember 'Big' John Hess from UFC 5 and his hybrid fighting system.

 

[Egg Shen]

Yeh they released the first 6, i think the next official UFC release over here was UFC 35.

[PowerButchi]

Started getting the tapes in the late 90s and used to bum it with much joy, then in the early to mid 00s started to go off it, and now really fucking hate it unless it involves Josh Barnett. Give me Big Jon Hess and his SAFTA over Chael Sonnen and Jon Jones anyday.