UFC 1: November 12, 1993 We've come a long way, baby. The McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, hosted the first ever UFC pay-per-view event on this date 18 years ago. The event was an eight-man elimination tournament for a grand prize of $50,000. It was an open-weight tournament with limited rules that prohibited only gouging and biting, despite the protests of one of the founders who wished for there to be no rules (to be as street as possible). The contestants were: 6'5" Dutch savate and karate master Gerard Gordeau 400-lbs. Samoan-Hawaiian sumo Teila Tuli 6'4" American kickboxer Kevin Rosier 6'6" Kenpo karate fighter Zane Frazier 170-lbs. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Royce Gracie 5'11" American boxer Art Jimmerson, who wore one boxing glove 6'1" American shootfighter Ken Shamrock 6'2" American Hapkido black belt Pat Smith The event was held inside a caged, 8-sided ring named The Octagon. Fencing was preferred to ropes as it kept the fighters from falling out while wrestling or grappling and also allowed fans to see the action inside the ring. Original plans included barbed-wire, an electrified fence, and a moat with crocodiles surrounding the fighting area, but the logistics of that were too outrageous. The winner of the night was Royce Gracie, one of two fighters on the card (with Ken Shamrock) who would eventually be inducted into the UFC's Hall of Fame. Gracie employed his knowledge of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a modified form of Japanese Judo that included ground fighting techniques, to submit all three of his opponents and win the tournament, which was the plan all along. The UFC was actually a showcase for Gracie's BJJ. It was an American pay-per-view version of the longstanding Gracie Challenge, an open-invitation fighting event from Rio, where the Gracie's had taken on all comers from around the globe for decades in an effort to attract attention to their new form of martial arts. On the broadcast the UFC is actually called the Ultimate Fighting Challenge, which was the original name, changed that same night to Championship. Since then the UFC has been killed-off, reborn, sanctioned in nearly every state of the union, and found mainstream status with tonight's network television broadcast on FOX, becoming a multi-billion dollar business in the process. Happy 18th, UFC!
