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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.
UFC 28 took place on November 17, 2000 in Atlantic City, NJ, and was an event actually regulated as a sport by the Nevada State Athletic Control Board. Obviously it was the state of New Jersey that ended up assisting in the development and adoption of the Unified Rules for Mixed Martial Arts, and this event gave them a lot of positive footing with the Control Board, eventually leading to those rule changes being implemented.
Now, this event took place while still under the original owners, Semaphore Entertainment Group, and they would hold one more card after this before selling the company to the current owners, Zuffa, headed by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta with minority owner and President Dana White. Still, the prevailing story run by many mainstream outlets that Dana White was the impetus for the rules changes in the sport is summarily false, as the unified rules were put in place before them and opened up the door for them to get into Vegas later on in their ownership.
The event itself featured many fighters who were or are still big stars, including Jens Pulver, Andrei Arlovski, Josh Barnett, Renato "Babalu" Sobral and Randy Couture. Also, on the undercard as well, future Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes' twin brother Mark picked up a victory in his only Octagon appearance.
All of the aforementioned fighters picked up victories on the card, with Pulver knocking out John Lewis in 15 seconds, Arlovski picking up a submission victory in less than a minute himself, and Josh Barnett TKOing Gan McGee before the co-main events of the evening. For both Arlovski and Barnett, it was their UFC debut.
Current Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Renato "Babalu" Sobral defeated former UFC Heavyweight Champion Maurice Smith via unanimous decision and then Randy Couture won the Heavyweight Title for the second time, overpowering Kevin Randleman in the third round and pounded Randleman out. It was the start of the second half of Couture's career at age 37, one that has led to his legendary status in the sport.
But overall the show is important to this road to 100 for it's effect on the New Jersey commission that would implement the Unified Rules. Clearly, without that catalyst to bring this sport to a new level of legitimate competition we may never have seen athletes the likes of Georges St. Pierre competing a milestone event for the UFC.
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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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