From MMATorch.com
HISTORY: UFC 100 Countdown - "How we got here" - UFC 52 - Liddell's reign begins with the bright lights shining
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Jul 7, 2008 - 10:09:22 AM
The UFC has been through many ups and downs throughout it's 16 year history. From the beginnings of the sport as "anything goes, which style is better" contests, to the dark ages with little pay-per-view coverage to this booming mega sport garnering millions of dollars in live gates and pay-per-view buys, it's been a long road getting to UFC 100 on July 11th. With this series we will highlight many of the key numbered events, in chronological order, that have led to this historic pay-per-view card. New events will be covered daily as we come up on the July 11th event.
The success of the Ultimate Fighter reality program and the free finale show on Spike TV led UFC 52 to become the largest drawing pay-per-view event in the UFC's history to that point, besting the 260,000 buys done by UFC 5. This show was just a sign of what was to come over the next few years, but it proved the reality show gamble was a great bet and kept Zuffa afloat and on the way to profitability.
This event showed the power twelve weeks of lead up to a fight has, as the main event was the very first coaches fight from the Ultimate Fighter between Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture for the Light Heavyweight Title. It was a rematch from their bout two years earlier, a fight Couture won to claim the first Interim Light Heavyweight Championship the company had created.
The massive success of this pay-per-view, which became the first show to reach 300,000 buys for the UFC, was a direct result of the Ultimate Fighter program. Just looking at the numbers in contrast from their first bout to this one, it's astounding the difference two years and cable television can make. Their first fight brought in 5,517 in paid attendance for a live gate of $645,140, and it drew 48,000 pay-per-view buys. This event brought in 14,274 fans for a live gate of $2,575,450, which also broke the UFC's best live gate by over $1 million dollars.
The fight itself was the coronation of Chuck Liddell as the new era superstar in MMA. Chuck made Couture come in after him and worked the counter punching game before Couture caught an errant finger in the eye. The bout was halted briefly for him to recover, but the fight wouldn't go much longer from there. When they restarted the fight, it was Liddell landing a left hook/huge right hand combination to send Couture to the canvas in the first knockout loss of his career.
It was a quick end to the fight and it immediately launched Chuck Liddell into the stratosphere as the most popular fighter the UFC had ever seen.
Georges St. Pierre returned to the win column after his Title fight loss to Matt Hughes in a unanimous decision win over Jason "Mayhem" Miller. Also picking up a win on the card was current Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Renato "Babalu" Sobral, who submitted Travis Wiuff shortly into the second round of their bout.
But the one fight that really stood out aside from the main event was the other title bout on the card. Matt Hughes had defeated Georges St. Pierre in his last bout near the end of the first round, and he had another one round classic with Frank Trigg on this card. Trigg had Hughes in major trouble very early in the round, landing a ton of punches after an accidental knee to the groin went unseen to put Hughes in a vulnerable position. Trigg would try to get a choke locked in after taking Hughes' back, but Hughes would get out and perform one of the great highlights of his career. He lifted Trigg up onto his shoulder and literally ran him across the cage to slam him to the ground. The ensuing ground assault from Hughes led to an opening and he locked in the rear naked choke for the win with just under a minute left in the round.
More people saw this fight card that had seen any UFC pay-per-view to date, and this show along with the Ultimate Fighter Finale that preceded it brought in a brand new influx of fans to the sport. It's insane to look back and see how 300,000 pay-per-view buys was a smash success for this card and for the UFC, and it's a number now looked at as a disappointment for shows just four years later. This show was almost a make or break show for the UFC, as the success of the TUF experiment was contingent on them being able to make money on this pay-per-view featuring those coaches, and it succeeded at a level that the UFC had never reached to that point. It set the UFC ship in the right direction and here we are days away from the next UFC pay-per-view blockbuster.
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