How it All Began
The Ultimate Fighting Championship was the brainchild of Rorion Gracie, an expert in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ). Gracie wanted to promote his family’s martial arts school, which focused solely on techniques that would work in a real fight. Before working on the UFC, the Gracie family had become legendary for “the Gracie Challenge,” an open invitation for experts in any fighting technique to face off against a member of the Gracie family or one of their students in a real fight.
Art Davie (promoter working with the Gracies) pitched the idea of a martial arts tournament to Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). In this tournament, experts in different martial arts disciplines would face off against one another to determine which style was best. The name “The Ultimate Fighting Championship” was coined and on November 12, 1993, the SEG debuted the first UFC event “UFC 1” in Denver Colorado.
The event was in a tournament format and the winner of a match moved up to face another opponent. The tournament featured masters in karate, kickboxing, boxing, jiu-jitsu and even sumo wrestling. Rorion’s younger brother, Royce Gracie, eventually won the tournament after he caught Gerard Gordeau in a rear naked choke in the final bout.
Royce Gracie
The event was a success, and immediately Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG) began to plan more tournaments. They decided to keep the Ultimate Fighting Championship name and would designate almost all future events by numbering them sequentially (UFC 2, UFC 3, UFC 4 and so on).
Early UFC events were very different from modern ones in the following ways:
- There were no weight classes so smaller fighters often found themselves facing much larger opponents. Weight classes were not introduced until the UFC 12 tournament.
- Events were fought in tournament style so fighters would often fight multiple times in one night
- There were no judges
- No limit to the # of rounds – promoters wanted a clear winner to emerge
Over time, the style versus style format faded away. Most fights would end up on the ground. Many of the disciplines represented in early UFC events had no focus or training in ground fighting. Royce Gracie won three of the first four UFC tournaments and proved that a ground game was necessary to be successful. Fighters began to adapt, expanding their repertoire of styles to include elements of wrestling and submissions.
The SEG promoted early UFC events as vicious fights between martial arts experts and promised the fights would end with a clear winner. By advertising the fights as brutal exhibitions of force, they invited scrutiny from critics.
U.S. Senator John McCain was a harsh critic of the UFC and labeled it as “human cockfighting”. He urged state governors and city governments to ban UFC events.
Instead of taking the necessary steps to partner with the sate athletic commissions, the SEG continued to promote the UFC as a primal sport, which enhanced political criticism of it. As a result SEG’s options became more and more limited and they had increased trouble gaining exposure for the sport.
Gradually, the UFC introduced more rules and restrictions, both as a means to appease critics and to shape mixed martial arts into a legitimate sport. However, by this time SEG was in real trouble financially. From UFC 23 to UFC 29, Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG) faced the risk of bankruptcy. By the time the UFC adopted rules established by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, it was too late for SEG to recover.
The New UFC
In 2001 two Dana White called his friend Lorenzo Fertitta and informed him that the SEG was selling the UFC. Lorenzo and his brother Frank formed Zuffa LLC and purchased the UFC from SEG for $2 million. Their next move was to appoint amateur boxer and promoter Dana White as the President of the new UFC. That has proved to be a great move…
UFC Owner Lorenzo Fertitta
Since he took control, Dana White has concentrated on increasing the popularity of the UFC and shedding its historically brutal image. Dana is quick to point out, “At the end of the day, these guys aren’t barbarians the way they were sold early on. These guys are all good guys. They come in to compete to find out who’s the best fighter in the world.” In addition, he’s often quick to point of the fact that there has never been a death in a UFC sanctioned fight.
The UFC’s Reality TV Show “The Ultimate Fighter”
In 2005, Spike TV aired the first season of a reality TV show called “The Ultimate Fighter.” The show shadowed a group of UFC hopefuls as they competed for a UFC contract. The show helped educated viewers about the UFC and it marked the first time viewers could watch a UFC fight on a cable station outside of pay-per-view.
The UFC Today
In 2007 Zuffa announced that they had purchased a competing mixed martial arts organization based out of Japan called “Pride Fighting Championship”. MMA fans look forward to dream matches between the best fighters of Pride and the best from the UFC. Fight fans will soon get to see who really is the best fighter in each weight class.
The UFC headquarters are located in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, the company has recently begun a campaign to hold fights in other states as well as internationally. UFC events can already be seen on television in 170 countries and counting. UFC events are planned for Europe, Japan, Canada and Mexico.
