Mma's Early Years: Ufc 23 In 1999

By Author: Jamie Grimes
Total Articles: 381
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While the UFC was seen by many to be a very primitive organization in its founding, the UFC was starting to grow into something much more by 1999. The UFC was known for its great fighters and was emerging as one of the highest levels of fighting in the world. Fighters employed various levels of strength, skill, speed and technique to beat their opponents.

The UFC had an event in Japan once before, but in 1999 the UFC would hold UFC 23 in Japan once again. This event was known as Ultimate Japan. While in years past the UFC had tournament in almost every event, they had gone away from the tournament format for a while. The UFC would bring back the tournament format for this event and they would name a UFC Japan Champion. There would be 4 Japanese fighters chosen to square off for the title of the best ultimate fighter in Japan.

The timing of this tournament was great as mixed martial arts was becoming more and more popular in Japan. The PRIDE fighting championship had really taken off in Japan and there was a great market for viewers in Japan at that time.

Not only would the UFC have the UFC Japan Champion ...
... declared, but there would be another fight to determine who the overall UFC Champion would be in the Heavyweight Class.

The Heavyweight Championship bout was between Kevin Randleman and Pete Williams. The fight would go into the 5th round before Randleman was declared the champion by unanimous decision for the UFC Heavyweight title. There was no champion coming into the match and the title was vacant.

The Japanese tournament feature Katsuhisa Fujii against Masutatsu Yano and Kenichi Yamamoto against Daiju Takase. The first fight was won by Fujii in round 2. Fujii managed to win the match by way of TKO over Yano.

The 2nd fight was won by Yamamoto. He was declared the winner by way of decision in the 3rd round of fighting. He would go on to face Fujii in the finals of the tournament.

The finals of the tournament would not last very long as Fujii was unable to get away from Yamamoto and lost by way of submission in the first round. The match lasted only 4 minutes and 15 seconds and Yamamoto was named UFC Japan Champion with his impressive victory over his Japanese opponent.

The other fight in the event was a win by Pedro Rizzo over Tsuyoshi Kosaka. Rizzo won by TKO in the third round of the fight. The referee was forced to stop the fight because of strikes.

This was a very successful event in Japan and it was the first time that Japan had a tournament-style format in their event for the first time since UFC 17. The UFC continued to grow with its success in Japan and was beginning to look like an organization that could become even more popular with time. By spreading out to places like Japan the UFC was enabling itself to become a worldwide organization.

AUTHOR:-
Jamie Grimes writes reviews on various sporting events including the online sportsbook. In this piece of write up, the author highlights one of the most popular sports MMA and MMA betting tips. The author also takes the readers opinion on how mixed martial arts betting online occurs.