Dana White’s five most important UFC events in history

Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar is arguably the most important single fight within the UFC’s historical past. The sunshine heavyweight ultimate of the primary season of “The Final Fighter” was an absolute thriller of a three-round battle during which each fighters left all the pieces contained in the octagon. It put a bow on the inaugural season of the continued actuality tv collection that’s credited with “saving” the UFC.

The primary UFC combat in ladies’s historical past happened on Feb. 23, 2013, at UFC 157, and it featured the promotion’s biggest-ever feminine star, Ronda Rousey. After saying ladies would by no means compete within the UFC, White modified his tune when then Olympic bronze medalist Rousey got here round, and offered her with the ladies’s bantamweight title at a press convention.

So, the first women’s fight in UFC history was a title combat, and one during which Rousey efficiently defended her title towards Liz Carmouche. Rousey slapped on her signature armbar, sparking a ladies’s revolution within the UFC.

UFC 205 was an extremely historic occasion full of firsts. It was the primary UFC occasion in New York Metropolis and, subsequently, the primary at Madison Sq. Backyard. The occasion hosted three title fights, one other first in promotion historical past.

The headliner? “The Infamous” Conor McGregor entered because the featherweight champion, difficult the light-weight champion, Eddie Alvarez. McGregor effortlessly styled on Alvarez to seize a second title, turning into the primary to carry two UFC titles concurrently. The Irishman was already the most important star within the sport, however the second elevated him to an unmatched stage.

The heated Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov rivalry was lastly settled at UFC 229 on Oct. 6, 2018.

Unhealthy blood boiled between the 2 fighters and their camps within the lead-up to this combat, together with the infamous Brooklyn bus attack headed by McGregor focusing on Nurmagomedov.

A number of months after, when the cage door shut at T-Cell Enviornment in Las Vegas, Nurmagomedov bought the final snicker by submitting McGregor in Spherical 4. Nevertheless, the victorious second wasn’t sufficient to squash the meat. A post-fight brawl instantly adopted the conclusion of the combat, creating one other harmful incident.

It’s no shock that White selected an occasion headlined by two of the most important stars in UFC historical past to make his prime 5.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world in 2020, though the UFC pushed via with occasions in venues with out followers. Nevertheless, on April 23, 2021, the promotion bought out VyStar Veterans Memorial Enviornment in Jacksonville, Fla., turning into the primary occasion to take action because the world started to return to normalcy.

The vitality within the constructing was electrical from the primary combat all the way in which to the principle occasion, which was a welterweight title rematch between Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal headlined the occasion. Usman brutally knocked out Masvidal, capping off the occasion with an unimaginable spotlight.