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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief 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.
We'd be remiss in this countdown of cards and fights to UFC 100 to not mention one of the greatest fights to ever take place inside of the Octagon, a fight that took place in Lake Charles, LA, on September 24th, 1999.
Frank Shamrock was the UFC Middleweight Champion, which at that time was the under 200 lb. division. He was to that date the only Champion that division had seen in the UFC, and he was set to take on the brash and dominating "Huntington Beach Bad Boy" himself, Tito Ortiz, at UFC 22.
For the purposes of selling this fight, they played off of Ortiz's growing rivalry with the Lion's Den, the group of fighters run by Ken Shamrock that included Guy Mezger and Jerry Bohlander, fighters who Tito had beaten and disrespected afterwards, drawing the ire of Ken and the team. The reality of the situation was that Frank had left the Lion's Den years before in a contentious split, and was actually coming into his last fight with the UFC win or lose.
This five round title bout was the main event of the second UFC event under the 10-point must system, thus the second card with five minute rounds. It was also a fight with a dramatic size disparity, with Shamrock weighing in fully clothed with items in his pocket to get up to 198 at the weigh-ins and Ortiz cutting a massive amount to get just under the 200 lb. limit. Come fight time it looked like a light heavyweight fighting a welterweight with Ortiz having a substantial height and weight advantage.
The fight itself holds up to this day as on of the best fights ever in the sport, and certainly the best fight of the days before Zuffa purchased the company. The first two rounds were almost mirror images of each other, with Ortiz getting easy takedowns but not being very successful landing anything on a very elusive Shamrock. Shamrock landed some shots when they were on the feet here, but they didn't stay there very long.
The tides began to shift in the third, as up to that point Ortiz had been clearly winning the bout. Shamrock landed many leg kicks before Ortiz again got him down and held him there for a good amount of time. He would land a then legal knee to the head that opened Shamrock up and he would actually grab at the cut to try to split it open more. Shamrock was now bleeding heavily but it was clear Tito was running out of steam.
The fourth round saw Shamrock come out looking very fresh, delivering more kicks that connected with high impact. Ortiz finally got a takedown but was really too tired to do anything with it. In one of the most thrilling finishing sequences to a fight to date, Shamrock transitioned out of his bottom position, with both getting back to their feet, and unleashed a flurry of punches before Tito shot in again. This time, Shamrock grabbed for a guillotine and wrenched it tightly for a few seconds before popping to his feet and slamming Ortiz's head with elbows and hammerfists, causing Ortiz to tap to the strikes and sheer exhaustion of the fight. It was a huge victory for the smaller Shamrock, who would then announce his "retirement" in order to be released by the UFC to pursue more money in Japan.
Jens Pulver, Jeremy Horn, Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes all competed on this card as well. All of them picked up victories except for Pulver, who fought in a two round fight. He won the first round handily and was edged out in the second, leaving the bout a draw despite everyone knowing Pulver won the fight. Liddell and Horn both stopped their opponents while Hughes would take home a decision victory.
When we get big fights like the ones we have coming up on the 11th, we're hoping to see another fight somewhere close to what we got from Shamrock and Ortiz on that September night in 1999. This was a major fight that delivered on every level and absolutely deserves to be remembered on this road to 100.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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