3. UFC 9 (may 17th 1996)
This event almost didn’t happen, and many wish it never had. This was during the early days of the UFC when Senator John McCain was trying to get the promotion pulled off of PPV. UFC officials were in court all day, when finally a court ordered that the event could go ahead as planned, but there was going to be some new rules put in place. Those “new rules” clashed with the marketing the UFC was going with at the time of “There are no rules”.
The rules were now that fighters weren’t allowed to punch each other with closed fists, amongst other things that most of the fighters that night promptly ignored. Unfortunately for everyone who was excited about watching Dan Severn vs. Ken Shamrock for the SuperFight title that night, Shamrock and Severn had no interest in breaking a court order and proceeded to dance around each other daintily throughout the main event.
It wouldn’t be long after this that Senator McCain succeeded in getting UFC pulled off PPV.
