What Brought UFC to the Mainstream?

In 1991 an advertising executive named Art Davie was assigned the job of researching a relatively underground form of combat known as mixed-martial arts for a client. While conducting his research Davie met and befriended a jiu-jitsu trainer in Torrance, Califofrnia named Rorion Gracie who, along with his family, had a long and successful history in the sport, mainly competing in Vale Tudo tournaments in Brazil. A year later Davie, who had since become a student of Rorion and his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu style, approached his mentor and John Milius, a film director and screenwriter who also happened to be training in Rorion Gracie's dojo, about an 8-man single elimination tournament the he dubbed "War of the Worlds". The basic premise was simple: a single night mixed-martial arts tournament featuring fighters from around the world who specialized in different forms of combat facing each other in no holds barred combat to decide which style and fighter was the best in the world. The concept was so original and interesting that the trio had little trouble putting together a group of investors and getting the newly rechristened Ultimate Fighting Championship greenlight and scheduled for a pay-per-view debut of November 12, 1992.

In the months leading to the show the three men went through bios of hundreds of fighters from around the world before finally settling on the 8-men and styles they felt they wanted to test in their innagural show. They choose two kickboxers in Kevin Smith and Patrick Rosier, savate blackbelt Gerard Gordeau, karate expert Zane Frazier, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, sumo champion Teila Tuli, and professional boxer Art Jimmerson. The 8th spot was given to Rorion's son Royce Gracie, the man he thought would best represent the family developed style of Brazalian Jiu-Jitsu.

The initial tagline of "There are NO rules" was somewhat misleading. There were actually a few rules put in place to protect the combatants. Biting and eye gouging were both outlawed while hair pulling, groin strikes, and headbutts, while still legal, were frowned upon. The fact that the initial concept didn't include weight limits also drew some controversy. It was not at all uncommon to see 300 pound weight differences between opponents. This, however, didn't hurt the sport because the 170-lb Royce Gracie, who went on to win the first tournament, easily dispatched larger opponents, helping to legitimize the sport in the process.

The initial pay-per-view and resulting video sales were a immediate success, based largely on its realism and the fact that it received large amounts of coverage in the press. However, the coverage in the press, though it proved to be beneficial to the UFC's popularity, was mostly negative, drawing criticism for it's violence. Then Arizona Senator John McCain led many letter writing campaigns which succeeded in getting UFC and other mixed-martial arts events being banned in many US states, as well as getting the pay-per-views thrown off various cable companies, most notably the national powerhouse Viewer's Choice.

In response to these actions, the UFC, now soley-owned by Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), decided to work alongside various state athletic commissons which proved to strengthen the sport by eliminating the more controversial aspects of the matches while keeping the core of striking and grappling intact. Weight classes were introduced at UFC 12 to even the playing field and gloves were made mandatory at UFC 14, allowing the fighters to hit harder with protected hands. UFC 15 added more rules to protect the fighters by barring hair pulling, headbutts, and groin strikes, as well as deeming other areas of the body "off limits" such as the back of the head and neck, as well as various pressure points. Kicks to a downed opponent and small-joint manipulation were made illegal as well. With 5-minute rounds being introduced at UFC 21, the sport took another step towards public acceptance, allowing a sort of bell-to-bell controlled chaos as opposed to the previous "fight until there is a winner" format.

In late 2000 the UFC began to have some trouble securing the rights for home video releases and even more trouble being granted sanctions in the US, causing SEG to near bankruptcy. In November of 2000 the UFC had its first sanctioned event in the US in the state of New Jersey but it was a little to late. In January of 2001 the rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship were sold to Zuffa Inc, a partnership between Station Casino executives Frank and Lorenzo Ferttita and boxing promoter Dana White. This partnership would prove to be just what the UFC needed.

Using Lorenzo Ferttita's connections to the Nevade State Athletic Commission (he had served on the board), the UFC was able to secure sanctioning in the "boxing capital of the world", Las Vegas. Zuffa's connections also managed to bring the UFC back to pay-per-view starting with UFC 32, after having been viewed only by live audiences and limited video releases since 1997. The UFC's boom period had begun.

The success of the UFC under Zuffa was almost instantaneous. They began blitz campaigns in the media and even accepted corporate sponsorship. They were able to secure larger venues such as the Trump Taj Mahal and the MGM Grand Garden Arena, as well as various casinos in Las Vegas. Fox Sports Net offered UFC a deal to showcase a weekly 1-hour greatest bouts show. The biggest news came, however, when it was announced that UFC 40 had drawn 150,000 pay-per-view buys, numbers that hadn't been seen since before the UFC had been "forced' underground in the late '90s.

The realism of the sport was again focused on in the media, this time in a positive light, as an alternative to professional wrestling, who's popularity and ratings had began a downward spiral after the WWE had basically monopolized the mainstream market in America by buying out WCW and ECW. The days of the UFC's octagon being the showcase of out of shape brawlers and men who specialized in only one form of martial arts came to an end as the company began to focus on men who could engage in bouts for 15 to 25 minutes at a time and who used many forms of martial arts, men who truly were mixed-martial artists. Brawlers like Tank Abbott, Mark Coleman, and Kimo Leopoldo began to give way to a new breed of fighter. Freestyle fighters like Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell became as popular as classically trained amateur wrestlers like Matt Hughes and the "old man" of the sport Randy Couture who, at over 40 years old, would become the first man to hold both the UFC Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight Championships.

The pay-per-view numbers continued to grow and in late 2004, Dana White announced that the UFC had struck a deal with Spike TV to bring a reality-based fighting series to the network. In January 2005, the first season of The Ultimate Fighter debuted with an outstanding response from both critics and fans alike. The premise for the show was that 16 men (8 for each weightclass with 2 weightclasses being represented on each season) would live together and fight each other with the winner of each weightclass being awarded a six-figure 3 fight contract with the UFC. The show introduced men who would become the future of the UFC and ended up drawing incredible ratings all season. The season finale, dubbed The Ultimate Finale LIVE, even ended with a suprise twist when, in the light heavyweight finals, both men engaged in such a memorable fight that both the winner (Forrest Griffin) and the loser (Stephan Bonner) were both offered UFC contracts, a feat that would be repeated by Ed Herman and Kendall Groves in the finals of the third season.

Today the UFC's popularity has skyrocketed. The much publicized and hyped rubber match between Randy Couture and UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell drew an estimated 410,000 pay-per-view buys while just 3 months later the match between UFC Hall of Famer and 3-time UFC Tournament champion Royce Gracie and current UFC Middleweight Champion Matt Hughes drew an unprecedented 600,000 buys, even managing to beat our perennial pay-per-view powerhouse WrestleMania. The Ultimate Fighter is gearing up for it's fourth season finale on November 11 with plans for the show to run well into 2008. Spike TV has given the UFC time to hold an average of 2 Ultimate Fight Nights a year, a 3-hour fight event shown live on network television. They also air pre pay-per-view specials on the network as well as video bios on some of the company's more prominent fighters. The third fight between UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock and current UFC megastar Tito Ortiz was shown on Spike TV on October 2 and drew ratings well into the teens. Dana White announced that the UFC plans on running between 20 and 24 shows between pay-per-view and Spike TV in 2007. On December 30, 2006 UFC 66 will be the showcase of what will go down as the biggest match in UFC history to date when Chuck Liddell defends his Light Heavyweight Championship in a bout against longtime rival Tito Ortiz. This will be the the 2nd encounter between the 2 former friends as they met previously with Liddell taking the win. Experts are already predicting that this fight will cause the pay-per-view to draw a bigger buyrate than the previous record set by the Hughes/Gracie fight.

When it first debuted many people criticized the brutality presented by having two men engage in no holds barred fist fighting. Since evolving from an underground no-holds barred "fight club" to what it is today, the UFC has become a worldwide phenomenon and has even managed to push boxing out as the top fighting sport in the US. With it's abundance of high profile fighters and the amazing level of athleticism it showcases there are no signs that the UFC, or mixed-martial arts in general, will slow it's meteroric rise. If the sky truly is the limit then the UFC can only keep climbing.