When did you guys started watching MMA?

When did you guys started watching MMA?

  • Total voters
    162
It all started 22 years before UFC was even a thing. It was just 2 guys fighting in a storage unit over a broken piece of soap and thats all she wrote.
 
JKS said:
For me it was 1993 when UFC first started, my dad and his friends would get the PPV. I watched the first few events, rented on VHS and then stopped watching or a few years and then came back around 2003 and been watching since then.
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Pretty much the same here, only I saw the first couple of cards in '96 when my BFF started raving about this new thing called "UFC" saying I had to watch. When I did I...wasn't impressed. Claiming to have no rules but then having rules against eye-gouging, fish hooking, etc. Jim Brown on commentary (as an amateur NFL historian I knew who he was, and I also knew at that time he was a notorious misogynist), some skinny arrogant dude beating everybody only because nobody else even knew what BJJ was, this Ken Shamrock guy being all hyped up but never actually winning anything of substance, and the whole thing coming across as the clownish sideshow it actually was. I figured it was just another fad that wouldn't last.

Then I started watching again in '05 because Griffin-Bonnar, discovered the product had changed to something I liked much more, and have more or less stuck around ever since.
 
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Start of 2007 for me. BJ's TUF season vs Pulver.
 
I got UFC 2 VHS from Blockbuster, rented it and really liked it and have been watching ever since, I was just renting some WWF VHS tapes from Blockbuster and the UFC VHS section was right next to it and it caught my eye, I then went back to the store a week later and rented UFC 1 VHS

Then after about a year I randomly found some bootleg VHS tapes of Ken Shamrock fights before UFC 1 even happened, so I saw MMA before UFC ever existed

I loved UFC up until around UFC 22, then after that UFC went underground and totally dark.. UFC 23-30 was awful and dead sport, then after UFC 30 it picked up again and started to get great.
 
This thread is so cathartic for me knowing there are even more posters here in my age group than I thought <GinJuice>

It also explains all the sane and sensible posts and opinions here lately, as opposed to "hurr durr okay boomer hurr durr".
 
HI SCOTT NEWMAN said:
I got UFC 2 VHS from Blockbuster, rented it and really liked it and have been watching ever since, I was just renting some WWF VHS tapes from Blockbuster and the UFC VHS section was right next to it and it caught my eye, I then went back to the store a week later and rented UFC 1 VHS

Then after about a year I randomly found some bootleg VHS tapes of Ken Shamrock fights before UFC 1 even happened, so I saw MMA before UFC ever existed

I loved UFC up until around UFC 22, then after that UFC went underground and totally dark.. UFC 23-30 was awful and dead sport, then after UFC 30 it picked up again and started to get great.
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You're not kidding, Wikipedia says UFC 30 was the first card since 22 to get a home video release :eek:

I don't regret missing the dark ages.
 
Mask Of Winters said:
You're not kidding, Wikipedia says UFC 30 was the first card since 22 to get a home video release :eek:

I don't regret missing the dark ages.
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Yeah UFC 23-29 was awful and you couldn't watch it for love nor money, they removed it everywhere and it was close to being finished forever. They started to do a lot of UFC events in Japan because in US it was taken off, so hard to watch it. Around that time I started to get into King of the Cage and I really enjoyed that and I used to go to King of the Cage events, the tickets were between $12 - $25

Imagine these days going to a live UFC event with $12 hahahahaha :D :D crazy and sad times we are living in, it would cost $12k just put a K at the end of the 12 lol
 
2003 when I got high speed internet. I can't remember all of the fights which were happening back then. Although, I do remember shortly after I started watching MMA the Randy Couture vs Tito fight happened. I remember watching the promo on the internet where Tito came to an interview with a gift for Randy Couture (a cane for the old man). It was pretty funny, I'll admit. Then Randy literally spanked Tito in round 5 during their fight.
 
2004 or early 2005, one of my friends just sent me a video of a crazy biker looking dude beating the fuck out of people in a cage.....it was Tank Abbott.....a couple of months later I saw a blurry video on google video the first Fedor - Coleman fight, where Fedor submitted him by an armbar from the bottom. But it wasn't really until 2007 when my friend showed me the countdown or early preview video for the unifying title fight Between Rampage Jackson and Dan Henderson, that I really started to get hooked, my friend told me that Hendo was "one of us" (a greco roman wrestler) but who also had incredible power, and showed me the Wanderlei knockout, and after that I was basically hooked on it.

Those where really the good old days, you basically watched the countdown 3 times in anticipation for the fight, the prime time series that they had for the big fights like Brock vs Cain, or Jones vs Evans, Evans vs Jackson, St Pierre vs Penn.....ahhhhh
 
April 2000. A mate hired ufc 1 or 2 (can't remember exactly) on VHS. Hooked ever since.
 
The leadup to TUF Heavyweights but I was looking for MMA on TV anyway and it just so happened to be TUF. The first event I can narrow down to me watching was somewhere between UFC FN Diaz/Guillard to at the very least 100% know I watched not on rerun was FN Jones/Vera. My first PPV was 115.

Just to nitpick though if you can change it, it seems to be a chronological list but UFC 100 should be before Fox.
 
HI SCOTT NEWMAN said:
I got UFC 2 VHS from Blockbuster, rented it and really liked it and have been watching ever since, I was just renting some WWF VHS tapes from Blockbuster and the UFC VHS section was right next to it and it caught my eye, I then went back to the store a week later and rented UFC 1 VHS

Then after about a year I randomly found some bootleg VHS tapes of Ken Shamrock fights before UFC 1 even happened, so I saw MMA before UFC ever existed

I loved UFC up until around UFC 22, then after that UFC went underground and totally dark.. UFC 23-30 was awful and dead sport, then after UFC 30 it picked up again and started to get great.
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The UFC 30s is my favourite era.
 
First event was UFC 81 Mir Lesnar. Instant fan but I was watching some compilation couple of years before that.

Also: 31,7% for UFC 1 <EdgyBrah>
 
Big Tuppy Hole said:
The UFC 30s is my favourite era.
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I loved that era as well, it was so entertaining and so many great fighters, plus you had Pride which was awesome, it was a great time.

I remember I brought UFC 40 PPV for $24.95 and they had 5% off if you booked before the day of the PPV.. so 5% off 24.95 ($23.70)

UFC 40 was brilliant, well worth the money and great event, the prelims were like the main cards of todays PPVs (if not better). They put so much effort into the show, the way it was all set up, the lighting, the promos, the interviews, everything.

Now you have to pay $80 for a UFC PPV and you also need a ESPN+ sub which is $10.99 per month. the price is absurd and ridiculous, its way too expensive.. because UFC does a PPV every single month, its not like a one-off $80 and thats it. $80 if you keep spending it adds up and adds up and adds up and before you know it you have spent tons of money. The price does not reflect a lot of the cards, the cards are nowhere near as stacked and deep as the past.

Good memories brother, great times that era, I miss it
 
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