UFC 1

"The Ultimate Fighting Championship" redirects here. For the organization which promoted the event, see Ultimate Fighting Championship.
UFC 1: The Beginning
VHS Box art for UFC 1
PromotionUltimate Fighting Championship
DateNovember 12, 1993
VenueMcNichols Sports Arena
CityDenver, Colorado
Attendance7,800[1]
Buyrate86,000[2]
Event chronology
UFC 1: The Beginning UFC 2: No Way Out

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (later renamed UFC 1: The Beginning) was the first mixed martial arts event by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), held at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, United States, on November 12, 1993. The event was broadcast live on pay-per-view and later released on home video.[3][4]

Although the event was the lowest profile by the contemporary standards (the venue was less than half-packed, the grand prize of the tournament was as big as a regular sparring partner's biannual salary, major martial arts observers and columnists did not bother to show up, the press neglected the event, Black Belt mentioned it only several months later, big-name fighters turned down the offers to participate or to make a guest appearance in the audience),[5] it pioneered the interstylistic match-ups between the practitioners of different martial arts, and set the pattern for the future sporting events of the kind,[6] and introduced the octagon.

  1. ^ "UFC 1: The Beginning". tapology.com. Retrieved May 28, 2014.
  2. ^ Walter, Donald F. , Jr. Mixed Martial Arts: Ultimate Sport, or Ultimately Illegal? Grapplearts.com. December 8, 2003. Retrieved June 2, 2006.
  3. ^ Rosenberg, Howard (November 15, 1993). "Television: Pay-Per-View Battle, Instead of Being Merely Gory and Funny, Gets Interesting After the First Two Bouts". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
  4. ^ Sandra E. Kessler (1 April 1994). "Shotokan, Taekwondo, and Kung Fu challenge Jujutsu". Black Belt Magazine. Active Interest Media, Inc. Retrieved 6 September 2017 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kessler was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Merlino was invoked but never defined (see the help page).