2000 in Sports - Mixed Martial Arts

Mixed Martial Arts

The following is a list of major noteworthy MMA events during 2000 in chronological order.

Date Event Alternate Name/s Location Attendance PPV Buyrate Notes
January 30 Pride Grand Prix 2000 Opening Round Tokyo, Japan 48,316 Opening Round to Pride GP 2000 openweight tournament.

The event featured Royce Gracie in his first fight since April 1995.

March 10 UFC 24: First Defense Lake Charles, Louisiana, US The event was originally scheduled to have a title fight between Kevin Randleman and Pedro Rizzo.

However this postponed due to a concussion Randleman suffered before the fight.
This event featured, Dan Severn as a referee for the preliminary bouts.

April 14 UFC 25: Ultimate Japan 3 Tokyo, Japan This event was held to determine the new light heavyweight champion following Frank Shamrock's retirement from the UFC.
May 1 Pride Grand Prix 2000 Finals Tokyo, Japan 38,429 Mark Coleman becomes the Pride 2000 openweight Grand Prix champion.

The event featured a highly anticipated match between Royce Gracie against Kazushi Sakuraba.

June 4 Pride 9: New Blood Nagoya, Japan Matt Serra was to fight on this card, but his opponent, Johil de Oliveira, was injured by a pyrotechnics explosion at the event.
June 9 UFC 26: Ultimate Field Of Dreams Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US This event featured the first UFC "bantamweight" bout as defined as 155lbs.
August 27 Pride 10: Return of the Warriors Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan 35,000
September 22 UFC 27: Ultimate Bad Boyz New Orleans, Louisiana, US UFC veteran Frank Shamrock replaced Jeff Blatnick in the announcers booth for this event.
October 31 Pride 11: Battle of the Rising Sun Osaka, Japan 13,500
November 17 UFC 28: High Stakes Atlantic City, New Jersey, US UFC rule change, New Jersey SACB becomes the first state to regulate MMA in the USA. Uses newly written Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.

This event held the first and only UFC super heavyweight bout.

December 9 Pride 12: Cold Fury Saitama, Japan 26,882
December 16 UFC 29: Defense of the Belts Tokyo, Japan 1,414 This was the last UFC event held by SEG. Because in January 2001, SEG sold the UFC to current owners Zuffa LLC.

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