(10-08-2015, 04:00 PM)WykdWych Wrote: The fastest growing as well as my favorite most brutal sport in the world one on one fighting and its all very real (*-*)
Quote: Like spectators at a gladiator fight, they were there to witness the highly charged and bizarre spectacle of men bloodying each other in what’s known as mixed martial arts, taking place inside an eight-sided ring surrounded by a chain-link fence. The Ultimate Fighting Championship, a Las Vegas company that started as a smut like fight club that’s now worth maybe $1 billion in 2008 and is drawing competitors like flies to blood. The Fertittas field pleas from private equity and media firms to sell UFC. Those offers, they assert, exceed $1 billion. Not a bad return on investment for something they paid a mere $2 million for in 2001. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0505/080.html/
Dana White during 2014 revealed in a recent interview with Financial Times that UFC is worth something to the tune of $3.5 billion. That's up considerably from the $2 billion Lorenzo Fertitta claimed in a New York Times interview several years ago, suggesting UFC is the most valuable sports franchise on the planet. http://www.mmamania.com/2014/3/25/554452...-times-mma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CKNaSMRVWMembedded
The Hackney Yarborough fight was held in Wilmington, NC. It was held a few years before the UFC bought the promotion. In those days the fights were in a tournament style where the fighters would fight a number of fights that day as the contestants were whittled down to the finals and a champion was named. In this fight Hackney beat on Yarborough's head for quite a while before Big John stopped the fight. Even though he won the fight he was not able to continue in the tournament because he broke his hand.
One of the later fights was between Royce Gracie and Kimo Leopold. To this point Royce was seen as nearly unbeatable. And, indeed, he won this epic battle.
The biggest problem with this type of tournament became apparent soon after this fight. As you can see at the end of the video, Royce (Pronounced Hoyce.) was injured and could not continue in the tournament so an alternate was put in his place. An alternate that had not fought at all in the tournament. The Kimo Gracie fight was a semi-finals fight. The alternate fought one fight against an opponent who had already fought several times and won the championship.
