Tag: UFC 47

UFC Fight Pass therapy: 10 classic events to keep you entertained during the coronavirus shutdown

MMA Junkie’s Simon Head picks out a 10-event UFC Fight Pass watch list to ease your lockdown blues.

With the sporting world at a standstill, resources like UFC Fight Pass are proving essential for MMA fans looking to get their fix during the coronavirus lockdown.

The UFC’s streaming platform’s colossal archive offers a huge range of events to sit back and enjoy. Love the old-school PRIDE shows? They’ve got those. Hankering for the days of the WEC? They’ve got the full archive. And, of course, there’s the entire UFC event archive.

It means you can build a watchlist packed with some of the best MMA you could ever wish to see, and more than enough to last you through the entire coronavirus lockdown.

But if you’re going to dive in, why not dive in with some of the most significant events in UFC history, with maybe a couple of hidden gems thrown in for good measure? Here’s a watchlist to get you started.

****

1. UFC 1

You can’t really start a journey like this anywhere other than at the very beginning.

Put simply, the event is iconic. The school sports hall-like surrounds of the McNichols Sports Arena, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace calling the event the “Ultimate Fighting Challenge,” Teila Tuli’s flying tooth and Art Jimmerson’s one boxing glove will all live long in the memory.

But, of course, UFC 1 was all about one man and one discipline, as a scrawny young sibling of the famed Gracie family stepped into the octagon, beat three men in one night and opened the world’s eyes to the wizardry of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Sure, it was crude – the rules were virtually non-existent back then – but it was the start of what the UFC has grown into today. Such has been the evolution of the sport since then, watching the fuzzy UFC 1 footage now is the MMA equivalent of viewing cave drawings of how man first started using tools. But, crucially, it was both eye-catching and entertaining, and it serves as a handy reminder of just how far the sport has evolved since that day.

If you watch UFC 1, you’ll probably want to watch UFC 2, then 3. But we’ll leave that to your own UFC Fight Pass rabbit hole. Instead, we’re jumping forward.

Next up: The first BIG rivalry in UFC history.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10

Today in MMA History: Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz kick off their legendary trilogy

Relive the first chapter of one of the most memorable rivalries in UFC history.

One of the signature trilogies in mixed martial arts history had its first chapter 16 years ago Thursday.

[autotag]Chuck Liddell[/autotag] and [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag]’s names will forever be linked. Both competitors are in the UFC Hall of Fame. Both held the UFC light heavyweight title. Both were key in helping resurrect MMA in North America from near-death to one of the true cultural phenomenons of the ’00s.

On April 2, 2004, Liddell and Ortiz had the first of their three fights in the main event of UFC 47. A crowd of 11,437 paid a gate of $1.44M at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas to witness the bout.

This was a three-round, non-title fight. Ortiz had been accused of ducking Liddell during his reign as light heavyweight champion. In his previous fight, Ortiz lost his belt to Randy Couture, who was a color commentator at UFC 47.

While he didn’t get a title for his efforts, Liddell did get the satisfaction of a knockout win over his rival at the 0:38 mark of the second round. A year later, Liddell would finish Couture in the second fight of their trilogy to take the 205-pound title.

This set up a lucrative rematch between Liddell and Ortiz. With the duo coaching opposing teams on “The Ultimate Fighter 3” as the buildup, the duo squared off at UFC 66. The company set then-records for gate ($5,397,300) and pay-per-view buys (929,000) as this time Ortiz lasted until the fourth round before getting finished.

The series regrettably had a third chapter in 2018. Both fighters came out of retirement to headline Golden Boy Promotions’ first and, to date, only MMA show, with Ortiz scoring a knockout 4:24 into the opening round.

The first two fights, however, were indisputably electric, milestone nights in MMA history. And now, thanks to the UFC’s YouTube channel, you can relieve the fight that started it all by watching it in full above.

“Today in MMA History” is an MMA Junkie series created in association with MMA History Today, the social media outlet dedicated to reliving “a daily journey through our sport’s history.”

[vertical-gallery id=366108]