UFC Fights

The short card aspect for UFC1 was very quickly rectified by the time it got to UFC2, No Way Out. This was held on March 11th, 1994 in Mammoth Gardens, Denver, Colorado.

There were two major monster rounds with Johnny Rhodes submitting David Levicki after a gruelling 12 minutes. It was an interesting display, Karate versus Kung Fu and neither looking very effective, who would have thought that Rhodes would later win by rear naked choking the hell out of Fred Ettish after 3 minutes!Although Ken Shamrock wasn’t in this contest, Royce Gracie was and had the chance to walk away with UFC2.

Nothing is ever that easy, if Gracie wanted to win UFC2 then he had 4 fights to win. First off was a relatively short (5 minute) match against Tokyo, Japan’s Minoki Ichihara and his Karate fighting style. Ichihara was very orthodox and straight forward in his attacks and Gracie soon got to grips and choked him out with a lapel choke. Wearing a Karate Gi (pyjama-like outfit) is not a good idea when you are fighting against a Jiu Jitsu power force like Royce Gracie.

Next up, Gracie had to fend off a fighter who became quite a big fighter in Jason Delucia and his Kung Fu fighting sytle. Gracie took the win early after 1 minute with an armbar submission with Delucia tapping out otherwise his arm would have snapped.

After dispatching the Dutchman Remco Pardoel (also Brazillian Jiu Jitsu) Gracie then had Pat Smith to contend with. Smith was also featured in UFC1 but lost to Ken Shamrock and his trademark Heel Hook. Unlikely as it is to Gracie’s style of fighting, he won the fight with strikes and Pat Smith had nothing in his Tae Kwon Do armory to help him, he might as well have learned Tae Bo. With Smith’s submission it gave Royce Gracie a second UFC title.

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