UFC 12
UFC 12 was supposed to take place in Niagra Falls, New York in February of 1997, but with the backlash against MMA now having reached fever pitch in the media and political circles, the event was banned there just 24 hours before fight night.
The UFC was now on life support, but it’s owners weren’t willing to throw in the towel and moved the show to the small town of Dothan, Alabama instead.
However, needless to say it had been an extremely costly process for the UFC to move the event to another state on such short notice and though 3,000 fans were in attendance that night, they’d all been given free tickets.
Days afterwards pay-per-view providers like TCI and Time Warner pulled the plug on the UFC, while their events for several years afterwards would be confined to southern U.S. states due to being banned in most other parts of the country, forcing MMA fully into the dark ages.
