Fighters Not Easy to Find for UFC “Uno”
Published by on January 5th, 2008 in History

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 The first Ultimate Fighting Championship was set for November 12, 1993. And now that they had a date, they needed competitors for the event. One might think that with $50,000 going to the winner, especially for an activity that was not normally associated with big prize money, that would have been an easy task. Such was not the case.

What Art Davie perhaps did not bank on was the fact that martial artists did not necessarily think of themselves as being engaged in a “sport,” but instead a discipline, and not one that was used to facilitate any kind of competition, but as a component to a lifestyle. After all, it was the art of self-defense, not offense. it was not about being aggressive, but being defensive, disciplined, proud. Sure, some of the martial arts practitioners made a living as teachers; in fact, most of them did. But that was the by-product of a passion, and not the chase for the almighty dollar. For some, the whole thing was not that much of a commercial endeavor.

But Davie saw past that, as did his partner in W.O.W. Productions, Rorion Gracie. He knew that once the Ultimate Fighting Championship was exposed to the public and began to take hold, the exposure would be beneficial to the world of martial arts – not just beneficial to Gracie’s Brazilian ju-jitsu culture – and that it would have its effect across the board. There would be viewers who were strictly spectators, without question, but some of them were going to want to be participants, which in turn meant they were going to be customers. Davie, as it turned out, had an unusual amount of insight.

He started to place ads in martial arts magazines. Some of the publications understood what he was trying to accomplish, some of them didn’t. Some of the prospective competitors “got it” and some didn’t. Davie did not meet with immediate success in his recruiting efforts. But he was dogged, sending letters and engaging in other forms of correspondence with just about every recognized martial arts expert he could find.

There are theories as to why some of them didn’t want to be involved, aside from the aforementioned reasons. One of them is that what they were teaching to students, though physical in nature, was still somewhat theoretical, and that when placed into a setting where it was part of a competitive atmosphere, such a thing would be exposed. In other words, they could teach, but maybe they could not “do.” So he had that to deal with. Still, he recognized the light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, it can be argued that Rorion Gracie saw this all along. He had seen his father and uncle competing for years, so this idea was none too unusual for him. And he had seen the Gracie brand of ju-jitsu in action, so there was an awful lot of confidence on his part regarding what the eventual outcome of the UFC would be.

In the end, both Rorion and Art Davie would turn out to be quite prescient.