Alternate MMA History

we all know there are several events over the past 20 years that have changed the trajectory of the sport we love, what this post will attempt to do is consider what the sport might look like today if several things had played out differently.

Royce Gracie actually fights Harold Howard - ok, yes, technically Harold Howard is the first man to "defeat" Royce Gracie, but lets keep it real, nobody really acknowledges that or acts like he deserves any credit. This is because after being mauled by Kimo, Royce knew he could not continue on in the tournament. But what if Royce had actually chose to fight Howard rather than throw in the towel. Perhaps Royce could have won but I sincerely doubt it. Can you imagine an alternate MMA universe where we would have to possibly respect Howard?? thank god that didn't happen.

There was no time Limit at UFC 5 - the longest fight in UFC history is Ken Shamrock vs Royce Gracie 2, coming in at just over 36 minutes. While there were no judges and most acknowledge Ken would have won had there been, what would have happened if they had allowed the fight to go until there was a victor? Ken himself has said he trained for a 3 hour fight and that his game plan was to stay in the gracie guard and pot shot Gracie for as long as it took, before he finally was exhausted and open for a submission. Could this have happened? Or would Gracie have magically snatched another victory out of the jaws of defeat? Would this fight be remembered better if it had come to a different conclusion rather than a draw? Probably.

Bas Rutten doesn't get injured and fights Frank Shamrock in the UFC - I still wonder who would have won this dream fight between Frank and Bas at their absolute peaks. Oh well  the Pancrase fights will have to do, but Im still bummed we never got to see this in UFC.

Guy Mezger gets the Decision over Sakuraba - In the first Open Pride Grand Prix, everyone wanted to see Sakuraba face off against Royce Gracie, the only problem was to everyone with a brain, it seemed Guy meager had just defeated Sakuraba in the first round of the Grand Prix. Rather than issue the obvious decision, the Pride officials said a 5 minute overtime should be held, even though the signed contracts strictly stipulated no overtimes. I honestly think if Mezger had agreed and fought another 5 minutes, he could have knocked out Sakuraba and they would have likely DQ'd him for something lol. Sakuraba vs Gracie was happening its as simple as that. I always felt bad for Guy, because he deserved the win and the right to fight Royce Gracie. Maybe I'm just a biased Lions Den nut hugger, but I think Guy would have beaten Royce and we may have never gotten one of the modern classics mma fights.

Mayhem Miller Never Steps into the Cage in Nashville - lets keep it real, this is what knocked StrikeForce off of regular t.v. and was the beginning of the end of the company imo. Lets say the infamous brawl never happens and StrikeForce had continued to get their stars like Diaz, Gilbert Milendez, King Mo, etc on regular t.v. more often. People forget what a great card that was (Henderson v Shields, Mousasi vs King Mo, Milendez v Aoki) all that was remembered was the brawl. Maybe SF was always going to end up under Zuffa, but I can't help but think that the brawl in Nashville helped speed up that process and may have even contributed to it.

Rashad Evans Fights Shogun Rua for the Title - its hard to imagine that if Evans hadn't opted to get healthy and wait for his title shot, that Jon Jones title reign surely would not have started as early in his career as it did. I think Evans would have lost to Rua and Jones likely would have ended up getting a title shot sooner rather than later, but its still interesting to think what would have happened if Rua vs Evans had taken place for the title.

These are just a few that I could think of off the top of my head, please add whatever you can think of cause I know there are a ton more.

Cool, reminds me how the Gracie's did a phenomenal job of getting Royce over Ken.

Once they found out who Ken was they were adamant about him not being invited to UFC 1. They knew he was the only threat and wanted it to be all guys Royce could easily defeat, no one with true submission training. SEG got Ken into UFC 1 essentially.

They messed with the tournament seeding daily so nobody but Royce knew who was going to be fight who even up to the day of the fight.

Royce fought the first fight of the night and Ken the fourth. The fifth fight of the night was Ken vs Royce rushing Shamrock form one fight to the next on purpose allowing Gracie the most possible time of any fighter that night to rest between bouts.

Even though they would constantly advertise this as no weapons hand to hand combat, they let Royce use his gi as a choking weapon while barring Ken from wearing his wrestling shoes due to the unfair advantage it would give him.

fast forward to when they would supposedly fight again at UFC 3. For all the talk of the Gracie's being the best in the world, an amateur brute in Leopold gave Royce all he can handle. Royce was so exhausted he quit, wouldn't fight anymore. Meanwhile Ken shouldn't of even competed and by today's standards would not of been licensed to compete because of his blown out knee and broken hand. He trained, fought and won with his blown out knee for the sole purpose of beating Gracie, he was hobbling around all over the place. But Gracie was too tired and quit so he wouldn't have to lose to Ken since it is a given both would easily advance still. With Gracie pulling out Ken was out too, he could care less about beating the other guys, they were jobbers.

UFC 5 was gonna be the fight, nowhere to run or hide, no excuses... Shamrock was saying he was ready and had the strategy to beat Gracie. He was better conditioned and more well rounded, he said he would wear down the weaker Gracie for hours if need be until it was clear who the better fighter was. So... enter a last minute time limit. Even then Gracie Pride almost got the better of Royce as after 30 minutes his brother kept changing the rules calling out "3 more minutes" with Royce looking on angrily. That happened twice, they were the most decisive minutes of the fight with Ken beating on Gracie. After the second overtime was over, Ken looked over to Rorion and yelled "How about three more minutes?". Rorion called the fight a draw and it was over. Ken with his hands up above his head, Royce being carried out of the building by his brothers.

To me, Ken Shamrock will always be the superior mixed martial artist and leading pioneer in MMA and the UFC over Royce Gracie. Easy to rip on him because he is crazy, but unfortunate that he will never get the real recognition he deserves for being the better fighter as he was.

I was so angry after that fight. Ken won it easily. In my opinion Ken Shamrock was the MMA 1990's GOAT.

completely agree gap , great points as well, one of the things that makes his "win" over Gracie was that he beat Bas Rutten via knee bar less than a month before fighting Gracie. Agree as well hit man, From 1995-1996 Ken defeated Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Dan Severn, Oleg Taktarov and owned Royce Gracie in their SuperFight.
definiteily don't think he gets the respect he deserves from the new era ufc fans.

completely agree gap , great points as well, one of the things that makes his "win" over Gracie was that he beat Bas Rutten via knee bar less than a month before fighting Gracie. Agree as well hit man, From 1995-1996 Ken defeated Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Dan Severn, Oleg Taktarov and owned Royce Gracie in their SuperFight.
definiteily don't think he gets the respect he deserves from the new era ufc fans.

Shogun would beat Rashad, gain confidence, remove his ring rust, recover from his knee injury, and go on to being GOAT of MMA

Jon Jones was always going to beat Shogun even if it were Pride Shogun.