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The UFC returns to the UK this weekend for UFC Fight Night 147: Till vs. Masvidal, and with plenty of exciting-sounding fights up and down the card, the fans attending in London will be hoping to see something special. If history is anything to go by, the odds of something big going down seem pretty good, as over the years, the UFC’s UK shows have provided plenty of memorable moments.
From the promotion’s debut at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2002 to their return to the country in Manchester in 2007, all the way through to their most recent visit to Liverpool in May 2018, UK fans have witnessed emotional, violent and wild incidents inside the Octagon – and here are 10 of the best.
#10: Manuwa sparks out Anderson – UFC Fight Night 107 – 03/18/2017
The UFC’s visit to London in March 2017 for Fight Night 107 didn’t exactly come with a lot of fanfare – a perceived weak card on paper was met with apathy from the fans in the UK as well as worldwide, particularly when the main event was announced – a Light-Heavyweight fight between semi-contenders Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson.
Thankfully though, the show was hugely exciting – far better in execution than it sounded on paper – and in the main event, London’s own Manuwa delivered one of the best knockouts of the year to send the fans in attendance home happy. Anderson came in as the prohibitive favourite, largely due to his vaunted wrestling game, but Manuwa shut that down inside a round – and then shut Anderson’s lights off with a vicious left hook.
The knockout remains arguably Manuwa’s best victory in his 11-fight UFC career, and the quality of the show as a whole reaffirmed Dana White’s belief that fans can’t judge a show on paper.
#9: Penn claims Lightweight gold – UFC 80 – 01/19/2008
While UFC title fights in the UK are rare these days, back in 2008 they were more common and so the UFC’s only visit to Newcastle was headlined by a fight for the then-vacant Lightweight title between BJ Penn and Joe Stevenson. Already considered a pound-for-pound great, Penn had won the Welterweight title in 2004 but had lost in his first opportunity to capture Lightweight gold in 2002 by coming up short against Jens Pulver.
Here though, he would not come up short at all. Stevenson was simply outclassed, dropped in the opening seconds of the fight before an elbow from Penn opened up a deep cut on his forehead. ‘Joe Daddy’ survived until the second round, but ‘The Prodigy’ was relentless and eventually forced him to submit with a rear naked choke.
It was the culmination of Penn’s journey to UFC Lightweight gold, and to make the moment even more memorable, he infamously used his post-fight promo to tell former champion Sean Sherk that he was a dead man. The fight was one of the most famous title fights of 2008, and remains one of the UFC’s most memorable moments in the UK.
#8: Condit KO’s Hardy – UFC 120 – 10/16/2010
In 2010, the stock of Dan ‘The Outlaw’ Hardy couldn’t have been much higher. The Nottingham-born Welterweight had failed in his quest to capture UFC gold from Georges St-Pierre early in that year, but he’d put up a tremendous fight against the great champion and had become a huge star thanks to the ‘Prime Time’ series on Spike TV dedicated to building the pay-per-view. By the time October’s UFC 120 headed to London, he was arguably a bigger superstar in the UK than even Michael Bisping.
Unfortunately for Hardy, it wasn’t the triumphant homecoming that he’d have hoped it would be. Faced with former WEC Welterweight champion Carlos Condit, Hardy was promising a knockout for the ages – only it turned out to be him on the receiving end. Midway through the first round, both men threw left hooks at one another – but Condit’s arrived first, dropping Hardy, and some follow-up punches left him senseless, stunning the crowd into silence.
It was a gutting moment for Hardy and for his legions of fans, although ‘The Outlaw’ managed to find some humour in the moment, answering Joe Rogan’s post-fight question about what went wrong by stating simply “I got punched in the face”. This wasn’t a fun moment for UK fans, but it was definitely an unforgettable one.
#7: Freeman’s emotional victory – UFC 38 – 07/13/2002
Before Bisping, Hardy and Till, the UK’s favourite son in the UFC was Ian ‘The Machine’ Freeman. ‘The Machine’ became the first UFC fighter to hail from the UK when he debuted in the promotion way back in 2000 at UFC 24, and so when the UFC announced their debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2002, it was a no-brainer that Freeman would be involved.
Unfortunately, at the age of 35, it seemed that Freeman’s prime had been and gone by the time the show rolled around. Freeman hadn’t fought for a year prior to the fight and faced with unbeaten young gun Frank Mir, he looked overmatched. And to make matters worse, his father was in hospital at the time, dying of cancer.
It turned out that all the emotional upheaval simply drove Freeman on. When Mir attempted an early leglock, Freeman simply battered the younger man with brutal ground-and-pound, hammering him with punches and elbows until his spirit was completely broken.
When the referee called a halt to the fight with 25 seconds remaining in the first round, the crowd went wild, as ‘The Machine’ had pulled off a huge upset. And to make things more emotional, Freeman then dedicated the fight to his father – who unbeknownst to him, had actually passed away the day before.
#6: Hardy wins his title shot – UFC 105 – 11/14/2009
November 2009’s UFC 105 felt like a watershed moment for MMA in the UK; the show was the first following the successful UK vs. USA season of The Ultimate Fighter, and new UK-based fighters like Ross Pearson, Nick Osipczak and Andre Winner made their post-TUF debuts here, winning their fights in impressive fashion.
The night’s biggest winner, though, was Dan Hardy. Initially pegged to face Dong Hyun Kim, when the Korean picked up an injury, top contender Mike Swick stepped in to replace him – meaning the winner of the fight would be in line for a shot at UFC Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. Suddenly, the stakes were incredibly high for ‘The Outlaw’, who came into the fight as an underdog despite being 3-0 in the UFC.
When it came to crunch time though, Hardy delivered in spades. Swick was stunned by a left hand from ‘The Outlaw’ in an early exchange and never really recovered, and the Nottingham-based fighter comfortably outpointed the American to become the first fighter from the UK to challenge for a UFC title. On a big night for UK MMA, this was the clear high point.
#5: The UFC vs. PRIDE unification match – UFC 75 – 09/08/2007
The biggest news story in the MMA world in 2007 was the UFC’s purchase of their biggest rival promotion, Japan’s PRIDE FC. While the buyout didn’t exactly run smoothly, most of PRIDE’s top fighters made their way to the Octagon and in September of that year, the UFC booked a title unification fight between UFC Light-Heavyweight champion Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and his PRIDE counterpart, Dan Henderson.
It came as a massive surprise though to find out that the fight was booked as the main event of the UFC’s second show that year to take place in the UK, their first one in London since their debut there in 2002. While US fans were disappointed to see the fight take place on foreign soil, it was a dramatic way to show fans in the UK that the promotion was serious about pushing their product there.
The fight turned out to be a tremendous one; in a back-and-forth five round instant classic, ‘Rampage’ was able to outpoint Henderson to become the first ever unified UFC and PRIDE champion. The fans in attendance were wowed, and a slice of MMA history was made, on UK soil nonetheless.
#4: Bisping’s title defence against Henderson – UFC 204 – 10/08/2016
The most successful UFC fighter to hail from the UK, Michael Bisping’s long career appeared to be nearing its end in 2016, but the story of ‘The Count’ still had one final twist. Stepping in on late notice to replace Chris Weidman in a Middleweight title fight against champion Luke Rockhold – who’d comfortably beaten Bisping in 2014 – the Brit pulled off one of the UFC’s all-time great upsets to knock Rockhold out and capture the title, becoming the first fighter from the UK to hold UFC gold.
It was a no-brainer to book his first title defense in the UK, and so 4 months after his big title win, Bisping was matched with his greatest rival, Dan Henderson – the man who handed him an unforgettable knockout loss at UFC 100 in 2009 – with his title on the line. With the show airing on pay-per-view in the US, 16,000 fans packed the Manchester Arena and waited until around 5:30am for their hero to enter the Octagon.
And despite being hurt badly in the first and second rounds, Bisping repaid them with a classic performance, as he gutted it out and showed incredible toughness to outwork Henderson over five rounds, retaining his title in a unanimous decision. It was one of the greatest moments of Bisping’s career – and turned out to be his final UFC victory too, as he retired after two consecutive losses a year later.
#3: Till comes home – UFC Fight Night 130 – 05/27/2018
By 2018, the UFC had visited the UK on numerous occasions, putting on multiple shows in London, Manchester and Birmingham and even heading to cities like Glasgow, Newcastle and Nottingham. But despite a rich history in combat sports – most notably boxing – the promotion had never been to Liverpool. That changed last year following the rise of a homegrown Scouse superstar – Darren ‘The Gorilla’ Till.
After destroying longtime Welterweight contender Donald Cerrone in 2017, it was clear that Till had something special, and so the UFC quickly booked its first show in Liverpool in May 2018, and announced a headliner between Till and former UFC title challenger Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson. But despite Thompson’s superior experience and ranking, this was always going to be Till’s night.
The Liverpool crowd were absolutely rabid for their favourite son, practically blowing the roof off the Echo Arena as he emerged to the sounds of Neil Diamond’s classic Sweet Caroline. And Till made good on all of his pre-fight boasts, engaging Thompson in a tactical affair and edging a unanimous decision following a pivotal 5th round knockdown. With both Bisping and Hardy gone, this was Till’s chance to prove that he could hold the mantle for UK MMA going forward, and he took it with both hands.
#2: Gonzaga gives Cro Cop a taste of his own medicine – UFC 70 – 04/21/2007
The UFC hadn’t been to the UK for almost 5 years by the time UFC 70 arrived in April 2007, and so the fans in attendance at Manchester’s MEN Arena were absolutely pumped to see some Octagon action. The night’s most popular fighter was hometown hero Michael Bisping, but there was no doubt that most fans were there to see one man – former PRIDE superstar and feared striker Mirko Cro Cop.
Matched with grappler Gabriel Gonzaga in the show’s main event, the fans were all hoping to see one of Cro Cop’s trademark head kick knockouts, of which he’d delivered so many in the PRIDE ring. Literally nobody expected to see the Croatian handed a taste of his own medicine, and yet that’s exactly what the fans in Manchester were treated to.
Gonzaga managed to take Cro Cop down in the first round and worked him over with elbows, before referee Herb Dean called a stand-up. As the two men circled, ‘Napao’ threw a picture-perfect right head kick that almost decapitated the Croatian legend. The kick sounded like a gunshot and left Cro Cop unconscious for what felt like an age, as the arena was practically stunned into silence.
Over a decade on, the knockout remains one of the UFC’s most memorable finishes of all time, and probably one of the most replayed, too. Gonzaga never produced something quite as dramatic again in his whole career, while Cro Cop was never really the same after it. It was the absolute definition of a memorable moment.
#1: Bisping’s war with Anderson Silva – UFC Fight Night 84 – 02/27/2016
UFC Fight Night 84 was initially supposed to see Michael Bisping taking on Gegard Mousasi, but about two months before the event, the UFC threw everyone a curveball – Bisping would instead face Anderson Silva – the legendary former Middleweight champion and a man who ‘The Count’ had been dying to fight for years. Instantly, the stakes were raised and the show, taking place in London, became a must-see one.
Nobody could’ve expected how good the fight would be, given both men were seen as past their primes in February 2016, with Silva actually returning from a year-long suspension for a positive drug test. For 25 minutes, the two UFC legends went to war; Bisping had Silva hurt in the first round and dropped him in the second, only for Silva to come back and drop Bisping with a flying knee in the third that could’ve ended the fight had the round not ended seconds later. Silva even celebrated prematurely following the shot.
But Bisping survived into the 4th and somehow managed to win the round, despite being a bloody mess at this stage. That left Silva needing a 5th round finish, but despite landing a trademark front kick to the jaw that had Bisping badly hurt, he couldn’t put the gutsy Englishman away , and in the end the judges awarded ‘The Count’ a unanimous decision, giving him the biggest win of his career to that point.
The fight was an all-time classic – arguably the best UFC fight of 2016 – and for the sheer drama it provided, as well as the huge stakes with it being Bisping’s biggest fight to that point, it remains the most memorable moment in the history of the UFC’s shows on UK soil.
