The Worst UFC Events Ever

[Bullock]

from Strictlymma.com

Written by Mark Davies

With the UFC about to put on its second consecutive excellent card, possibly the best two card stretch in UFC history, I thought it would be a nice time to look back at some of the worst fight cards we’ve ever seen from the UFC.

In order to keep this from being a List that features 8 of the first 9 UFCs we are going to adopt a metric approach. Herein are contained the single worst UFC from every 10 shows.



UFC 2

The worst of the worst. Ken Shamrock dropped out with an injury leaving noted elevator fighter Pat Smith as the leading contender to dethrone Royce Gracie. When asked how he was able to get to the finals Pat candidly responded “easy opponents.”

This card featured Ninja Scott Morris, Fred Ettish and Robert Lucarelli. Who is Lucarelli? He is the man who took the worst beating in UFC history (from Orlando Weit). At that time UFC refs couldn’t stop fights and Lucarelli was too dazed to tap. His corner wouldn’t throw in the towel and this is the closest the UFC has ever come to a death.

Royce’s first round opponent tapped before Royce even applied a submission. His second round opponent was a student of the Gracies and Royce broke his arm out of sheer malice.

If you want bad fighters getting hurt this is the card for you. How bad is this card? It features six fighters with career records of 0-1 and three others that never won a fight outside this card. That’s right more than half the fighters on this card would never win again.

UFC 11

This card must hold some kind of UFC record. It’s the only card ever, after UFC 2, where there is only one fighter who could arguably have been ranked in the top 10 of his weight division at any point in history. Mark Coleman fought twice in the heavyweight tournament and then dropped out, denying us the prospect of him kicking the hell out of Tank in the finals.

Who replaced Coleman? Tank clone Scott Ferrozzo. Imagine Tank if he were fatter, more arrogant and a car dealer. That’s Scott Ferrozzo. Their epic battle featured Tank repeatedly pushing Scott into the fence and holding him as their sweatily lubricated bellies rubbed back and forth in a sultry dance of male pulchritude.

Other highlights are UK fighter Robert Berry losing in 90 seconds to submission specialist Roberto Traven who would later lose in 90 seconds to Frank Mir. When you are a submission specialist who gets tapped in 90 seconds then the guys who you tap that quickly must really be bad.

UFC 29

The best matchup on this card was Jeff Monson v Chuck Liddell. The best fight was Tito Ortiz/Yuki Kondo and that fight featured Yuki tapping to a one arm half guillotine with his chin inches from Tito’s arm and his chest.

I am writing this article minutes after I reviewed this card for the history section and I just had to go to fight finder. That’s how forgettable this event was. The only good thing is the Dennis Hallman/Matt Hughes fight and that lasted twenty seconds.

Before the main event Goldberg announced an intermission and I went looking for rat poison. Then I heard them say they were going to show a bonus fight from UFC 28. Maybe since the fight didn’t actually take place on this card it wouldn’t totally blow. Then they announced that they were showing……..Chris Lytle/Ben Earwood. In case you are wondering I never found that rat poison.

UFC 38

In general when the UFC leaves the US they tend to put on a subpar show featuring lousy local fighters. Its no coincidence that 3 of the 7 cards herein took place overseas. Here the subpar locals are James Zikic, Elvis Sinosic (commonwealth), Leigh Remedios, Chris Haseman and Mark Weir.

The only decent match up is Mir/Freeman and that was a fight decided by cardio. Apparently under the assumption that the English can’t recognize quality fighters, Zuffa left all their stars at home. There are some fighters who became stars but none who were big names at the time. The main event of Matt Hughes/Carlos Newton was the closest they came but neither were among the UFC’s top 10 most popular fighters at the time.

UFC 45

This is the best of the worst in that there were several good fights. The 40s were a very good group of cards for the UFC. That said Trigg/Hughes is not a main event and Ricco Rodriguez/Pedro Rizzo, which should have been great, was two guys knowing they were going to get cut and totally phoning it in.

There is a Chris Lytle fight and an epic battle between Cabbage and Tank. Epic in awfulness that is. A useless Lindland/Vitale rematch is on this card also.

UFC 53

For all those fans who thought that Steve Jennum/Harold Howard was the worst main event ever take another look. Kevin Jordan, Bill Mahood and Forrest Griffin were already enough to make this an awful card but a strong main event, coupled with Rich Franklin/Evan Tanner 2 may have been enough to keep it off this list.

As the crowd began to build for the main event the, then-dominat, champ Andre Arlovski stepped into the ring. Bouncing around and demonstrating the agility so rare in a big man, the heavy handed Arlovski looked across the ring and contemplated his opponent. He was a good tactical fighter but much smaller than Andre. Still in all a pretty easy fight. Then Andre realized that his actual opponent was not Pat Miletich but the man standing next to him. What was Justin Eilers doing in the ring for a title fight????? He was coming off a loss to heavyweight sensation…Paul Buentello (hold on let me check my notes, wow it turns out that’s actually correct.) As often happens when a great fighter gets in the ring with a really bad one the really bad one gets hurt. Eilers tore a bunch of stuff in his knee when AA put him down.

Worst main event ever plus lousy undercard equals worst of the 50s.

UFC 60

For this card the UFC brought Royce Gracie back to fight Matt Hughes. As if to avoid obscuring the main event, Zuffa stacked the undercard with one-sided matchups between marginal contenders. Jeremy Horn/Chael Sonnen was the second best match on this card.

Oh and by the way the main event stunk. A washed up fighter taking on the Greatest UFC Champion ever in his prime? Thats a recipe for excitement.

UFC 72

This is the infamous UFC Ireland. The main event was a solid match up between the no.4 and no. 7 Middleweights in the world. It would have made a nice no. 3 fight on a good card. The second main event was an epic struggle between the no. 37 and the no. 92 ranked LHWs in the world. Seriously there is no way Hector Ramirez/Forrest Griffin belongs on the main card of a pay per view.

Add in a mix of lousy local fighters, some lousy UFC regulars and you have a truly hideous abomination of a card. The only consolation is that the originally scheduled card, featuring Martin Kampmann instead of Okami, would have been even worse.

http://www.mma.sensi-tech.co.uk/site...d=125&Itemid=1

[2mcgrath]

yeah they have had some shitty cards as of late,but looks like they are working on the cards to come

[neonatural45]

bullshit where the hell was 61???? and was UFC #10 or #1??

[Bullock]

UFC 61 was worse than 60 IMO.

And 72 is easy b/c that is the only UFC from the 70's.

And I jsut realized it's only the worst 7 UFCs, lol.

[valheruking]

Im not sure 72 should be in the 10 worst UFCs, i've seen some pretty shit old, UFC's.

[neonatural45]

Originally Posted by valheruking

Im not sure 72 should be in the 10 worst UFCs, i've seen some pretty shit old, UFC's.

yah it had Guida/griffen and I didnt find Okami/Franklin boring at all

[matto]

72 from the most recent ufcs.

[drop toe hold]

i really liked ufc 60

Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie Matt Hughes Wins by Referee stoppage at 4:39 in the First Round.
Diego Sanchez vs. John Alessio Diego Sanchez Wins by Unanimous Decision at the end of Third Round.
Mike Swick vs. Joe Riggs Mike Swick Wins by Guillotine Choke at 2:19 in the First Round.
Brandon Vera vs. Assuerio Silva Brandon Vera Wins by Guillotine Choke at 2:39 in the First Round
Melvin Guillard vs. Rick Davis Melvin Guillard Wins by KO at 1:27 in the First Round
Spencer Fisher vs. Matt Wiman Spencer Fisher Wins by KO at 1:43 in the Second Round
Dean Lister vs. Alessio Sakara Dean Lister Wins by Triangle Choke at 2:22 in the First Round.
Jeremy Horn vs. Chael Sonnen Jeremy Horn Wins by Armbar at 1:17 in the Second Round
Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Fabiano Scherner Gabriel Gonzaga Wins by Referee Stoppage at 0:24 in the Second Round

fights may have been one sided but hell only one fight went the distance, and i expect that from diego, plus i loved royce getting his ass kicked, i was hoping for better competition in the main event though

72 did blow though, i hated when the ufc did not have time limits, so fights would go on forever and be boring as hell

[Ramma]

Wow, what a ranty bitch.



Anyway, Bitter Rivals (61) was an awful PPV.. How he could say UFC 60 had a worse main event thatn UFC 61 is beyond me (and this is coming from an Arlovski fan). He made some points, but he seemed more like he was ranting than analyzing

[Buggedoutnicy]

61 was supposed to be good but ended up being terrible

idk why its not in there