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[TibBo]

It probably didn’t help that it’s terrible and a huge downgrade from the previous logo. I actually forgot it existed until you posted this

[jimufctna24]

13 hours ago, TibBo said:

It probably didn’t help that it’s terrible and a huge downgrade from the previous logo. I actually forgot it existed until you posted this

It's not surprising that that you forgot the logo existed. 

The UFC used that logo between 1999 and 2001, during the time when the sport in the US was banned in the vast majority of states and major cable operators. Therefore, their shows played out in front of crowds barely reaching four figures, in arenas in the middle of nowhere, and in front of tiny PPV audiences. 

It's actually an interesting period to look back on today, and there were some talented and interesting fighters who competed during that period, but it isn't a period that anyone is especially familiar with for obvious reasons. When the history of the UFC is told it usually rightfully starts with discussing Royce, Ken, Abbot, etc, briefly acknowledges the challenges the company faced during the late 1990s/2000 dark period, but then skips to discussing the Zuffa sale, TUF, etc.  I haven't seen a lot of shows from the dark period myself. Although being the idiot teenager I was, I did buy a VHS copy of this shitshow from that period - UFC 27 - Wikipedia

Here's the video game the logo appeared in btw:

 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I think 99-01 is a lot of old school fans blind spot when it comes to the UFC. There’s a few shows from that period that I’ve never got around to seeing and nothing on those cards sounds like essential viewing so chances are I’ll never get around to it. There are a couple of bright spots from those dark years. The main one for me being Frank Shamrock vs Tito Ortiz from UFC 22 in September 99. But yeah, there’s a lot of shite on those cards as well. It did pick up with the Zuffa takeover in early 2001, to be fair. UFC 31 is one of the first really great shows top to bottom with the Couture vs Rizzo five round war in the main event, Carlos Newton subbing Pat Miletich with a headlock, Shonie Carter’s spinning backfist KO over Matt Serra in the dying seconds of a fight Serra was ahead in, Chuck Liddell getting his first real significant win twatting Kevin Randleman early and a young BJ Penn making his MMA debut on the prelims. 

[jimufctna24]

2 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah I think 99-01 is a lot of old school fans blind spot when it comes to the UFC. There’s a few shows from that period that I’ve never got around to seeing and nothing on those cards sounds like essential viewing so chances are I’ll never get around to it. There are a couple of bright spots from those dark years. The main one for me being Frank Shamrock vs Tito Ortiz from UFC 22 in September 99.  But yeah, there’s a lot of shite on those cards as well.

Aye, the UFC probably will not want to acknowledge that era too much either, given management's (mostly Dana's) hatred of Couture, Frank Shamrock, and Ortiz. 

2 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

It did pick up with the Zuffa takeover in early 2001, to be fair. UFC 31 is one of the first really great shows top to bottom with the Couture vs Rizzo five round war in the main event, Carlos Newton subbing Pat Miletich with a headlock, Shonie Carter’s spinning backfist KO over Matt Serra in the dying seconds of a fight Serra was ahead in, Chuck Liddell getting his first real significant win twatting Kevin Randleman early and a young BJ Penn making his MMA debut on the prelims. 

Indeed. 

The early Zuffa shows were helped by New Jersey and Nevada legalising MMA, which enabled them to hold events in arenas used for basketball/boxing, rather than random and low-rent arenas in the middle of nowhere.  A lot of the Vegas and Jersey venues were also twinned with well-known casino resorts. In turn, the production values improved greatly. As did the quality of the fighters on the card somewhat. (note: SEG had actually already held a successful UFC show in New Jersey just before they sold up to Zuffa)

That said, the Zuffa experiment looked to have failed by the time 2004 rolled around. PPV buys actually steadily increased a bit between 2001 and 2004, but name fighters were departing in their droves (Penn, Ricco, Pulver, Lindland, Rizzo, Bustamante, etc) and from what I recall the company was still bleeding money (edit: 40 million dollars apparently). Obviously, TUF then became a success thanks to Joe Silva/Spike TV, and the promotion also became a monster on PPV (UFC 52 was their highest buyrate since 1996 and the best gate they had done up until that point). 

Edited June 22 by jimufctna24

[Egg Shen]

Yeah, its a blind spot for me, everything between id say UFC 15 upto UFC 34 are shows ive never seen in full.

[jimufctna24]

9 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

Yeah, its a blind spot for me, everything between id say UFC 15 upto UFC 34 are shows ive never seen in full.

It also didn't help that SEG didn't release UFC 22-29 on home video and were not shown on UK TV as far as I am aware. Thus, the only way international fans at the time could see those shows at the time was through tape trading online, or through internet savvy tape traders who owned VHS stalls/stores. My MMA DVD supplier owned a VHS stall in the early 2000s in Manchester City Centre where he flogged VHS copies of these forgotten events among other pro wrestling and MMA stuff (he was the same dude who sold me a leftover copy of UFC 27 in the mid-2000s after he moved his business from a stall to a store). 

I think it was you (Ebb) who mentioned on here years ago that the UFC was actually bigger in the UK than some remember in the early Zuffa era (pre-TUF). I can kinda understand what you were getting at. Once Zuffa bought the UFC. they started releasing their shows again on VHS and DVD, and by 2003 I recall these releases were very visible in mainstream stores like HMV and MVC. I'm not going to claim that the UFC was mainstream in the UK in those days, but it certainly had more media exposure than for example any non-WWE pro wrestling promotion.