Cung Le vs Scott Smith 1

This will have to go down as one of my favourite fights of all time. Before going into MMA and winning the Strikeforce middleweight title off Frank Shamrock, Le had an undefeated professional Sanshou and kickboxing record (16-0 Sanshou and 17-0 in kickboxing). As a professional I have never seen him lose a fight ever. He went on to go undefeated in Strikeforce before he had to vacate his title to go into acting. After almost 2 years he returned to Strikeforce to face Scott Smith.

Scott Smith was known for his hands of steel and as the comeback kid, had some of the most incredible fights in history with his come from behind wins. He was done for good and came back to win fights against Benji Radach, and Pete Sell in spectacular fashion.

He was now up against his greatest challenge in Cung Le the hometown favourite and making his long awaited return to MMA. Just a classic, I love this fight so much and had me totally jumping out of my seat.

Classic: Royce Gracie vs. Kimo

watching old Royce Gracie fights always puts a smile on my face. He was the reason that got me into MMA. I remember watching UFC 1 on ppv at home and watched in awe as he beat up 3 guys in one night in a tournament without weight classes. Beating up monsters like Ken Shamrock that night.

matt lindland vs kevin casey
if you are a fan of how to fight black people when you are unathletic white dude. matt lindland is the master and shows it in this fight.

http://fightnext.com/video/W462XXDS1...vs-Kevin-Casey

just your usual unathletic olympic silver medalist

Obviously

haha I was just about to post this but it's pretty obvious someone would. Never gets old.

+1

sucks that he couldn't continue afterwards

Amazing how good Gomi was back then, now he's a complete shell

I can't see flash files on my phone so I can't see which videos have already been posted so some may be repeats:

Start with some recent ones - Shogun vs Hendo, Brandao vs Bermudez, Chandler vs Alvarez

Then:

Gomi vs Kawajiri

Sakuraba vs Royce (duh)

Bas Rutten vs Funaki

Frank Shamrock vs Tito

Yuki Nakai vs Gerard Gordeau (Nakai was outweighed by probably 80 pounds and Gordeau blinded him in one eye permanently with illegal eye gouge early in the fight - he had to retire after that night but has gone on to be one of the major forces in japanese BJJ most notably instructing Shinya Aoki - Nakai won in like the 6th round then won another fight later in the night vs a guy who outweighed him by 100 pounds then got into the ring with Rickson for the tourney final)


Rumina Sato vs Caol Uno

Lion Takeshi vs Hiroyuke Abe

Nobuhiro Obiya vs Milton Vieira

Fedor vs Cro Cop, Cro Cop vs Big Nog, Big Nog vs Fedor, Big Nog vs Sylvia, Big Nog vs Couture

Couture vs Liddell 1

Wanderlei vs Rampage 2

Misaki vs Jorge Santiago




I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of major ones but those were the first that came to me at the moment

Sad no one has mentioned the most imporant MMA match of all time.

Trying to find a good link for Bonnar and Griffin TUF 1 fight video.

http://www.mma-core.com/videos/_Forr...e?vid=10001572

There ya go.

Bob Sapp vs Minotauro? Shogun vs Hendo? Leonard Garcia vs The Korean Zombie

Lon and Norman in the commentry both! haha

Griffin vs Bonnar was absolutely mediocre. It is so insanely overhyped...

Doesn't change the fact that it's the most important match in the history of the sport.

And I certainly wouldn't ever call it mediocre. It was an awesome fight.

Can someone find a video of the Bader Brilz fight. Or even just the KO?

Don't think it's an all time great fight or anything. Just couldn't find a better place to ask. Been searching for at least 15 minutes now.

Importance BEFORE the fight can make it interesting for me, like Sakuraba vs Royce in that it's actually quite boring to sit down and watch the whole fight in its 90 minute entirety, but what made it great was the backstory and the history. Griffin vs Bonnar became important afterwards so I don't have the same interest in it. I don't know if that makes any logical sense, oh well.

I only started watching MMA in late 2005 so maybe the whole reason I got into it was because that fight gave it so much of a boost and as a result I ended up seeing it on TV as it became more and more prominent. But that doesn't change the fact that at the time it was two solid but not spectacular fighters who put on a scrappy but sloppy fight... if I was watching TV right now and it came on, I would change the channel. I found Bonnar's last fight vs Kingsbury more interesting than the TUF 1 Finale fight, his ground game is far more refined than his boxing

gracie v. sakuraba:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNJQCGru3lA

what was so important about it?

As someone who was followed MMA prior to TUF 1, I was watching that night and knew going in how important that night was. You can say Griffin vs Bonnar became important later but the fact was the entire night was so crucial for UFC and Griffin vs Bonnar was the sole reason that led to the MMA boom.

UFC was on the verge of folding with staggering losses to Zuffa, (a recorded 34 million). Stars like Ken Shamrock had quit the UFC to join WWF to make more money. At the TUF finale, Spike officials were in the audience and there was no guarantee at the time that they were going to renew TUF and put UFC on tv again for the following season (they were probably going to get it, but there was no guarantee at that point). Zuffa was banking everything they got on that night.

As a side note, many MMA fans may not know this. Before UFC went on Spike with their reality series TUF, Spike contacted Vince Macmahon and asked if it was okay for Spike to start showing UFC on the station. At that time WWE was Spike's flagship program so Vince had to pull to squash the idea of UFC coming on Spike. Vince not seeing UFC as competition at the time and not having the foresight to see what UFC would've become okayed the project. So Vince actually had a hand indirectly in helping the MMA boom

Joe Rogan even said after the match "and thank you Spike for having the balls to put this on TV". It was huge for UFC. After Senator Mccain led a campaign to ban UFC calling it "human cockfighting" UFC had a hard time getting on cable TV and PPV. Many states banned "no holds barred" fighting. UFC had so much riding on this event. The main event was Ken Shamrock vs Rich Franklin (originally Tito Ortiz but Tito left after a contract dispute), and also the finals between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

For many people this would've been their first time watching live MMA on TV and it was an increbible fight with Griffin and Bonnar beating each other for 3 straight rounds. The rating kept going up for Spike as the fight went on as people were calling their friends and telling them about the incredible fight. Dana White was so overjoyed he offered both Griffin the winner and Bonnar who lost the fight a UFC contract. The Spike officials loved the event and right there offered a renewal for TUF on Spike and thus the relationship started between UFC and Spike.

Dana White has stated many times how important that fight between Bonnar and Griffin was to the company and how important Spike was to them for mainstream emergence. You will also never see Dana say a bad word about Vince Macmahon and many times now they've gotten together to talk about business together.

http://www.mmashareforum.com/serious...lz-t48515.html

Great write up 4th. Agree with everything and couldn't have said it better myself.

Also thanks for the link.