We don’t get many one-night tournaments anymore, at least not with fighters being required to compete three times in one night. World Series of Fighting attempted to revive the 8-man one-night tournament in 2015, but haven’t gone back to it since.
Even Pride realized the chance of injury is too great in such tournaments. For their grand prix style tournaments they would span the tournaments over two nights, with only the semi-finals and finals occurring on the same night. The only exception to this was their 2000 Openweight Grand Prix.
Most of the names mentioned here are pioneers of mixed martial arts, but a couple of names might surprise you.
There are others, but here are the most impressive fighters to ever fight 3 times in one night.
10. Tank Abbott
Tank Abbott fought 3x in one night on two occasions. The first time he did so was his very first time competing in MMA. At UFC 6, Abbott defeated John Matua in the first round of the tournament and then defeated Paul Varelans in the semi-finals. Abbott ran into Oleg Taktarov in the 3rd round however, who choked him out after 17:47.
Abbott would fail to make the finals of the Ultimate Ultimate 95 and UFC 11, but he would fight 3x in one night again at Ultimate Ultimate 96. On that night he beat Cal Worsham in the opening round and then Steve Nelmark in the semi-finals. In the finals however, Don Frye choked him out in just under two minutes.
