UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan
| UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
A poster or logo for UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan.
|
||||
| Information | ||||
| Promotion | Ultimate Fighting Championship | |||
| Date | December 21, 1997 | |||
| Venue | Yokohama Arena | |||
| City | Yokohama, Japan | |||
| Attendance | 5,000 | |||
| Event chronology | ||||
|
||||
UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan (also known as UFC Ultimate Japan or UFC 15.5) was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on December 21, 1997 in Yokohama, Japan. The event was seen on pay per view in the United States, on cable TV in Japan, and was later released on home video.
The event featured a four-man heavyweight tournament, the first ever UFC Middleweight Championship bout, a Heavyweight Championship bout, a Superfight and an alternate bout. Ultimate Japan 1 featured the first UFC appearance of MMA legends Kazushi Sakuraba and Frank Shamrock.
The event was the first appearance of longtime UFC announcer Mike Goldberg, who replaced Bruce Beck as the play by play announcer. Another notable first was the use of unique entry music for each fighter, though this was not repeated in UFC 16.
In an attempt to gain attention for the Japanese Kingdom Pro Wrestling, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Yoji Anjo signed on to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's Ultimate Japan tournament. As fate would have it, Kanehara was injured in his training for the tournament, and Kazushi Sakuraba wound up as his late hour substitute. The tournament was intended for heavyweights, and Sakuraba, at 183 pounds, was nearly twenty pounds beneath the UFC's 200 pound designation for the weight class. Reporting himself as 203 pounds in order to gain entry, Sakuraba was paired off against the 243 pound Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelt and former Extreme Fighting champion, Marcus Silveira.
...
Wikipedia