Look at that tooth fly! The Birth of MMA
the first televised fight between the 6’5”, 220lb. Dutch savate expert and karate master Gerard Gordeau and his opponent Teila Tuli, the 6’2”, Samoan sumo wrestler from Honolulu, Hawaii who weighed in well over 450lbs.
Before the Ultimate Fighting Championship hosted its very first event at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993, no one could have predicted how the show was to play out. Especially the first televised fight between the 6’5, 220lb. Dutch savate expert and karate master Gerard Gordeau and his opponent Teila Tuli, the 6’2, Samoan sumo wrestler from Honolulu, Hawaii who weighed in well over 450lbs.
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Even before the fight began, you could cut the tension with a knife at McNichols arena, as the vast majority of the spectators in attendance had never seen anything resembling what would later become professional mixed martial arts, and were excited by the consideration of all the possible situations and outcomes that could occur in a no rules or no holds barred competitive fight.
It’s probably safe to say that no one watching that night, either in the crowd or at home on pay-per-view closed circuit television was sitting there expecting things to go down quite like they did that evening. The bell rang and Gordeau and Tuli met in the center of the cage. After briefly circling each other, Tuli bum-rushed his faster and more athletic opponent. Considering Gordeau’s background in savate and karate, both martial arts that are based in standing strikes, Tuli didn’t have the worst game plan in the world. Unfortunately, he did have the world’s first tooth to ever so gloriously fly from the UFC’s now long storied Octagon.
Gordeau easily circled away and was able to shake off the attempted takedown, which left the sumo specialist Tuli in a precarious position down on one knee. Immediately identifying the opportunity, Gordeau unleashed a vicious kick to Tuli’s face, which extracted one of the Hawaiian’s chompers so brutally, it would make even the most sadistic dentist blush. Before Tuli’s tooth even landed on the floor of the McNichols Sports Arena, Gordeau followed up his now famous kick with a right hand, causing referee Joao Alberto Berreto to call a stop to the fight.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s First Televised Match:
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