The UFC returns to Iowa for the first time in nearly 25 years this Saturday night with UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs. Figueiredo in Des Moines.
To find the last time Ultimate Fighting Championship held an event in the Hawkeye State, you’d have to go all the way back to June 9, 2000, when the promotion brought UFC 26 to the Five Seasons Center (now The Alliant Energy PowerHouse) in Cedar Rapids. And while the event featured some pretty notable names in the history of mixed martial arts, the card was a largely forgettable affair for a variety of reasons.
Let’s take a look at some of those reasons, counting down five crazy facts about the UFC’s last appearance in the state I call home.
5. The event had perhaps the worst subtitle of all time
Nowadays, most UFC events are either numbered or just dubbed Fight Night. But in the early days, UFC cards would regularly have a subtitle like, Revenge of the Warriors, Judgment Day, Showdown, Collision Course, etc. But for UFC 26, the powers that be decided to go with Ultimate Field of Dreams.
Obviously, this was a reference to the 1989 film Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones, which was filmed and set in Dyersville, Iowa. As a lifelong Iowan, I can certainly appreciate the UFC attempting to throw our biggest claim to fame into the promotional materials, but considering the film was about baseball and the UFC is about punching people in the face, it just didn’t work.
4. The first-ever disqualification in UFC history happened in Iowa
Those who look back on the early days of the UFC often see it as a time when the promotion had zero rules. However, that was not entirely true.
In the third fight of the main card, Amaury Bitetti met Alex Andrade in a middleweight bout. For the fight, Andrade opted to wear wrestling shoes, which were allowed at the time, but with one major caveat. A fighter wearing shoes was not permitted to kick at any point during the fight.
It’s unclear if Andrade wasn’t aware of the rule or simply didn’t give a sh*t, but he ended up kicking his opponent multiple times throughout the bout. The first came in the opening round when he clocked Bitetti and then proceeded to land a soccer kick to his opponent’s face. That prompted referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy to pause the bout and deduct a point from Andrade.
Andrade received another warning after landing a low kick towards the end of the first round. He was finally disqualified in the second round after throwing a head kick.
3. UFC 26 featured the promotion’s first-ever bantamweight fight … Sort of
Today, the bantamweight division is one of the premier weight classes in all of MMA, but it wasn’t introduced until the summer of 2000. And even then, it was nothing like the division we all know and love now.
Before the Ultimate Fighting Championship adopted the Unified Rules of MMA in 2001, the promotion featured three weight classes: heavyweight for fighters over 200 pounds, middleweight for those between 170 and 199 pounds, and lightweight for fighters weighing between 155 and 169 pounds.
The newly created bantamweight division for UFC 26 was designated for fighters below 155 pounds and officially debuted via a clash between Jens Pulver and João Roque.
The fight itself was largely forgettable with Pulver scoring a decision victory, but ‘Little Evil’ would go on to find significant success inside the Octagon, winning the lightweight title in 2001 and being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2023.
2. The co-main event featured Iowa MMA legend Pat Miletich
Everyone knows the name Pat Miletch. Especially those in Iowa.
As the first-ever UFC welterweight champion, the ‘Croatian Sensation’ defended his title four times, the third of which came in his home state against John Alessio. Miletich won the bout in the second round, submitting Alessio via an armbar. He would only fight three more times under the UFC banner before largely walking away from the sport as a competitor.
Aside from his work inside the Octagon, Miletch became one of the biggest names in the early days of MMA via his iconic Miletich Fighting Systems gym in Bettendorf, Iowa.
The gym produced champion and champions, including Tim Sylvia, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin, and Jens Pulver. MFS also churned out notable names like ‘Ruthless’ Robbie Lawler, Jeremy Horn, and Spencer Fisher.
1. A forgettable headliner
Even before Kevin Randleman and Pedro Rizzo stepped inside the Octagon, their fight was notorious. Mostly because it had already been booked to go down at UFC 24, but was cancelled after Randleman allegedly slipped on a pipe while warming up, hitting his head on the concrete.
Ready to go at UFC 26, Randleman successfully defended the UFC heavyweight championship against Rizzo in a fight that saw more dancing around the Octagon than actual fighting. Randleman and Rizzo only landed a combined 29 significant strikes throughout the five-round affair, making it one of the worst fights in UFC history.
Randleman dropped the heavyweight title to Randy Couture four months later and exited the promotion following a win over Renato Sobral at UFC 35.
Tragically, Randleman passed away on February 11, 2016, due to complications from pneumonia. He was 44.
