MMA MUSEUM

03/31/2025

11/18/2023

November 12, 1993 Gerard Gordeau vs Taylor Wily at the Ultimate Fighting Championship 1. This was the first fight of the night and the first ever fight in the UFC. Before this, nobody really knew what to expect. Taylor rushed Gordeau and fell down. Gordeau side stepped and kicked a downed Taylor knocking his tooth through the fence. The doctor stopped the fight and The rest was history. Gordeau would make it to the finals only to loose by submission to Royce Gracie.

01/31/2018

No fancy weights or UFC gyms in those days.

Royce Gracie trains in his Garage in Los Angeles before UFC 3. It was so simple back in those days. No fancy weights, UFC gyms, or expensive machines.

04/20/2017

Night of Champions pay-per-view poster. This was the first ppv to not feature an event from SEG. This "greatest fights" collection also featured the Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn title fight as a bonus, which actually took place at UFC 17. SEG was under legal and ppv preasure and in jepardy of cancelling the planned July show. Instead of taking a chance on a cancelation, the decision was made to air the "Night of Champions" ppv at a lower rate instead. This bought time for SEG to get the ppv situation under control and plan the next show in Brazil.

04/18/2017

Kazushi Sakuraba sits in the octagon as a protest for Big John McCarthys early stoppage at UFC Japan on December 21, 1997 against Marcus Connan Silveira. Sakuraba lied on his application to get into the heavyweight(over 200 pounds) tournament as a replacement from a drop out. Because Tank Abbott could not advance, Sakuraba would fight Silveria in the finals where he would win by armbar. At 183 pounds Sakuraba won the heavyweight tournament and would never fight in the UFC ever again.

04/17/2017

Who wins?

UFC 19 the fight that never happened. This was a fight I wanted to see! Tank Abbott vs Gary Goodridge was set for UFC 19 and Tank fell out. Andre Roberts stepped in last minute to fight Gary. Who do you think would have won?

04/16/2017

Old school

04/15/2017

Royce Gracie, Rickson Gracie, Allan Goes, and Joe Moreira in California at a jiu jitsu tournament. At the time of this photo it had been about 2 months since Royce fought Ken Shamrock at UFC 5, a month or so after Rickson fought in the Vale Tudo Japan 1995, less than a month after Allan Goes fought Frank Shamrock in Pancrase and approx. 8 months before Moreira would fight Paul Varelans at UFC 8 in Puerto Rico. Old school vale tudo guys right here!!

05/22/2016

Vale Tudo!

04/27/2016

Mark Coleman ends up in North/South position and drops BIG knees to Igor Vovchanchyns head in the finals of the Pride Grand Prix 2000. The fight would be stopped at the 3 minute mark declaring Coleman the winner of the 16 man tournament on May 1, 2000. Coleman had beat Masaaki Satake in the openning round on January 30, 2000 at a prior show. In the May event Coleman would fight Akira Shoji, Kazuyuki Fujita, and Igor Vovchanchyn to become Champion.

04/26/2016

Candid photos of all fighters and people in the business.

04/25/2016

David 'Tank' Abbott. A legendary street brawler who crashed the party at UFC 6 and went on to become one of the many cast of characters in the early days of mma. Tank became a crowd favorite for his style and brutality in and out of the cage.