4. Brandon Lee
8 months before UFC 1, the son of Bruce Lee was killed while filming “the Crow”.
Lee always intended to follow in his father’s footsteps as an actor but was also a well trained martial artist.
He trained in his father’s Jeet Kune Do, but also in Muay Thai and Shaolin Kung Fu.
At the time of his death Brandon Lee was only 28 years old. Had he not been killed before MMA became popular it would have only been a matter of time before some promoter would have tried to make a dollar off his last name.
