UFC's greatest hits: the early days

The first in a three-part series chronicling the 15 greatest moments in UFC history as the company celebrates its 15th anniversary.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship debuted in Nov. 1993 in Denver, and nobody, neither the promoters nor the participants, had any idea what they were getting into.

Seconds into the first match, Gerard Gordeau, a kickboxer bouncer from The Netherlands who was more famous as a sometimes pro wrestler in Japan, literally kicked the teeth right out of the mouth of Teila Tuli, billed as a 420-pound sumo wrestler. That show created UFC’s first two stars, Royce Gracie, who won the eight-man tournament, and Ken Shamrock, who went on to become one of the most important people in the development of the sport.

Since then, the UFC has been on a 15-year-ride of cult popularity, public misunderstanding, near death, and a resurrection to the extent it is the biggest thing on pay-per-view in North America.

There have been 119 shows, all over the world. In recent years, it has set gate and merchandise records in many venues.

Yet, it is still banned in New York and Toronto, and on an international level, a lot of the media still react like the U.S. media in the 1990s, seeing it as something they simply can't accept as a sport.

Here’s a look at five of what were not necessarily the best matches, but were the most memorable matches of the early years, before the Fertitta brothers purchased the company and president Dana White put his distinct stamp on the product.

Sept. 9, 1994: Royce Gracie’s first real challenge

After winning seven fights in a row, in two tournaments, with seeming ease, the skinny Brazilian in a bathrobe had shocked the world. He had broken down every premonition of what would happen in a fight where any style was legal and was a one-man commercial for the wonders of his fighting system, billed as Gracie jiu-jitsu.

At UFC 3 in Charlotte, Kimo Leopoldo, a muscular Hawaiian who outweighed Gracie by nearly 60 pounds, looked to be victim No. 8. But unlike his previous foes, Gracie struggled to get his foe to the ground, and had to resort to moves like hair pulling and knees to the groin, both legal at the time.

After 4:40, Leopoldo gassed out and submitted to an armbar. Gracie had prevailed once again, but the beating he took forced him to withdraw from the tournament, and it became the most talked about battle up to that point.

April 7, 1995: The first Superfight

Gracie and Ken Shamrock had become the company's two biggest draws when they were set to meet to crown UFC’s first singles champion at UFC 5.

Instead of going through a tournament, they were put in a main event, and it drew 260,000 buys on PPV, an MMA record that stood for 10 years.

The match itself was terrible. Shamrock took Gracie down and held him there. There were no referee-ordered stand-ups in those days. Gracie couldn’t get up, and couldn’t come close on any submissions, mostly doing kidney kicks. There were no rounds, so after 30:00 of relentless inaction, it was over and they went into an overtime.

Shamrock caught Gracie with a huge right, busting him open, and they went right back to the same ground position. This time Shamrock was more aggressive with head-butts. At 36:06, the fight was called off because their three-hour allotment of television time was running out.

There were no judges in those days, and it was ruled a draw. Today, it would be considered a horrible fight. The match left bitterness on both sides and fans debated for years on who would win a rematch, which many promoters tried to put together but Gracie never accepted. Gracie stayed out of the octagon for the next 11 years, claiming time limits worked against him, but time limits were necessary for a pay-per-view product.

July 14, 1995: The next superstar

David "Tank" Abbott, with his goatee and sinister look, burst into UFC by knocking out a huge Samoan, John Matua, in seconds, and then making fun of Matua as he went into convulsions at UFC 6 in Casper, Wyoming. He went to the finals of the tournament, where he lost a dramatic battle to Russian Oleg Taktarov via choke in 17:47.

Still, even in losing, Abbott was a winner with the fans. He would brag that he was fine while Taktarov, who looked like death warmed over due to dehydration after a long battle in the high altitude, had to be hospitalized.

A tremendous talker and self-promoter, Abbott was 9-14 in his MMA career, and never beat a name fighter. But he commanded six-figure paydays right until the end, in February, when he was obliterated in 43 seconds by Kimbo Slice in Showtime’s all-time most watched bout.

July 27, 1997: Striking conclusion

By 1997, the nearly five-year-old sport had been dominated by ground fighters Gracie, Shamrock and Dan Severn. But with all of them gone, the new sensation was Mark "The Hammer" Coleman, a powerhouse former Olympic wrestler who had beaten Seven to become the UFC heavyweight champion.

At UFC 14, he was to face Maurice Smith, a legendary kickboxer in the ‘80s who figured to be past his prime and would easily be taken down and mauled, as all kickboxers, boxers and karate fighters up to that point had been. He had been champion in the rival Extreme Fighting Championship, but that group’s heavyweight division had nobody close to Coleman’s level. This so-called dream match of two champions was thought to be a foregone conclusion.

But Smith and trainer Frank Shamrock came up with a game plan. In what was a sport built on aggression, they did the new style of rope-a-dope, waiting and defending on the ground and waiting for Coleman to tire. After about 12:00, Coleman was spent, Smith spent the next nine minutes picking the exhausted Coleman apart, and Smith became the first man from a striking background to become a UFC champion.

Smith's title reign only lasted five months. Another wrestler provided the counter to Smith's winning strategy to where he could take him down at will, and this wrestler never gassed. His name was Randy Couture.

Sept. 24, 1999: The next stage

Smith was a striker who learned to defend on the ground. But the first true triple threat combining striking, grappling, and most of all conditioning, was Ken Shamrock’s adopted brother and former protege, Frank Shamrock.

Shamrock was brought in as cannon fodder for Olympic gold medalist Kevin Jackson, for whom the company created an under-200 pound weight class to showcase.

Shamrock beat Jackson with an armbar in 14 seconds, and spent the next two years as the top star in UFC.

At UFC 22, he faced Tito Ortiz for the middleweight (now light heavyweight) title in the last truly memorable fight of the early era.

Ortiz, who weighed in at 199, was up to 217 pounds by fight time, while Shamrock was 192 pounds, weighing in fully clothed and holding a book. The two appeared to be what today would be considered two weight classes apart.

Ortiz took Shamrock down with ease and tried ground and pound, while Shamrock, from his back, kept up a fast pace designed to tire. Unlike with Smith, whose game plan was to relax and not lose until Coleman tired, Shamrock kept moving on his back to make Ortiz work even faster.

Even though Ortiz won the first three rounds on the judges’ cards, thus almost guaranteeing him a decision, it was clear at the end of the third round that Shamrock was still fresh and Ortiz was struggling. Still, Ortiz got the takedown in round four and was en route to taking another round on the scorecards. Suddenly, late in the round, Shamrock exploded from his back, grabbed a guillotine to suck more air out of Ortiz, and finished him with strikes in what up to that point was the best comeback finish in UFC history.

Shamrock, the best all-around fighter UFC had seen up to that point, and arguably its best talker, was seen by almost nobody in his prime years. By this point, almost no cable companies carried UFC. Any real money in the sport was in Japan. Gracie, by this time, hadn’t fought in four years. Ken Shamrock was a successful pro wrestler in WWF, while Severn and Abbott were also pro wrestling. Both were not as successful as Shamrock, but in the case of Abbott, like always, he came in with a great contract and made a lot of money at it. Smith and Coleman were fighting in Japan, where the sport was a few months away from becoming a phenomenon. UFC appeared to be limping to a very quiet death.