The UFC will return to Iowa this Saturday night for the first time in nearly 25 years, along with Figure Eredo from UFC Fight Night: Sanhagen vs. Des Moines.
To find the final, ultimate fighting championship to host an event in Hawkeye State, you will need to go back to June 9, 2000. The promotion brings UFC 26 to Cedar Rapids’ Five Seasons Center (now Alliant Energy Powers). And while the event featured a rather notable name in the history of mixed martial arts, this card was a rarely memorable event for a variety of reasons.
Let’s take a look at some of these reasons. Let’s count five crazy facts about the final appearance of the UFC.
5. The event had probably the worst subtitles ever
Today, most UFC events are either numbered or dubbed as Battle Night. However, in the early days, UFC cards regularly have subtitles. Warriors’ Revenge, Judgment Day, Showdown, Collision courseetc. But in the case of UFC 26, the power to decide to go with The ultimate dream field.
Obviously, this was a reference to the 1989 film Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones, filmed and set in Dyersville, Iowa. As a lifelong Iowa state, we can certainly thank the UFC for throwing our biggest claims into promotional material, but that didn’t work, given that the film is baseball and the UFC is about punching people in the face.
4. The first disqualification in UFC history took place in Iowa
Those who look back at the early days of the UFC often see it as an era when promotions had zero rules. But that wasn’t entirely true.
In the third battle on the main card, Amaury Bitetti met Alex Andrade in a middleweight match. For the fight, Andredo chose to wear wrestling shoes, which was allowed at the time, but there was one major warning. The shoe-wearing fighter was not allowed to kick at any point in the fight.
It’s unclear whether Andrade didn’t know the rules or simply didn’t give him Sh*T, but he ended up kicking his opponents multiple times during the match. First came in the opening round when he recorded a bitetti and then landed a soccer kick in the opponent’s face. This led the referee to “big” John McCarthy to pause the match and deduct points from Andrade.
Andredo received another warning after landing a low kick towards the end of the first round. He was eventually disqualified in the second round after throwing a head kick.
3. UFC26 featured the first bantamweight fight in promotion… kind of
Today, the Bantamweight division is one of all the best weight classes in MMA, but was not featured until the summer of 2000.
Before the Ultimate Fighting Championship adopted the MMA unified rules in 2001, the promotion featured three weight classes: heavyweight fighter jets over 200 pounds, middle-class middleweights from 170 to 199 pounds, and lighter weights from 155 to 169 pounds.
The newly created bantamweight division of the UFC 26 was designated a fighter under 155 pounds and officially debuted in the clash between Jens Pulver and João Roque.
The fight itself was largely forgotten when Pulver decided the decisive victory, but Little Evil was a huge success within the Octagon, winning the lightweight title in 2001 and becoming the UFC Hall of Fame in 2023.
2. A joint main event featuring Iowa MMA legend Pat Miletic
Everyone knows the name Pat Millec. Especially the people of Iowa.
As the first ever UFC welterweight champion, “The Croatian Sense” defended his title four times, with the third coming to his hometown against John Alessio. Miletic won the match in the second round and submitted Alessio at the armbar. He will only compete three more times under the UFC banner before moving away from the sport as a competitor.
Aside from his work within the Octagon, Milletsch became one of the biggest names in the early days of MMA through his iconic Milletsch fighting system gym in Bettendorf, Iowa.
Jim has given birth to champions and champions, including Tim Sylvia, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin and Jens Pulver. MFS also created prominent names like “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler, Jeremy Horn and Spencer Fisher.
1. An unforgettable headliner
Their fight is notorious even before Kevin Randleman and Pedro Rizzo stepped into the octagon. It was already booked to get off to UFC 24, but was cancelled after Randleman said he slipped on the pipe during his warm-up and slammed the concrete head.
Ready to go to UFC 26, Randleman successfully defended the UFC Heavyweight Championship against Rizzo in a battle where he saw him dancing around the Octagon more than in actual combat. Randleman and Rizzo have only combined 29 serious strikes through five rounds of events, making it one of the worst battles in UFC history.
Randleman dropped the heavyweight title four months later to Randy Couture and ended the promotion after winning Renato Sobral at UFC 35.
Tragically, Randleman passed away on February 11, 2016 due to complications from pneumonia. He was 44 years old.