Best UFC Events of All Time

While the UFC is the main reason why MMA earned the first spots among many other sports, it still continues to make MMA one of (if not the most) popular combat sports around the world.

From the inauguration of UFC in 1993, it has put on show a multitude of memorable events. On one hand, a group of them were blockbusters with fights featuring the giants like Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jon Jones, and Georges St-Pierre.

On the other side of the coin, although in a group of the events, there was a dearth of big stars, they sprung a great surprise, outstanding action, and last-minute lineup change.

If you are an old school fan or a new one, it makes no difference, you might be certainly aware of what a true joy to behold it is to review the historic moments of these epic UFC events.

So if l were in your shoes, l would not miss the opportunity of going through this engaging ride through UFC history from the last 30 years.

But what has made us select these best UFC events of all time among many other events, is that they are boasted from the elements like being an epic battle, the first bout or even contains some gruesome injuries.

It is notable to suggest that, these are the eventful and fascinating UFC occasions that would live forever in history, so all of them are not necessarily the best fights in the promotion, but if you are interested, you can check out

as well.

The best UFC events of all time ranked!

Here we would feature The 10 Greatest events in UFC history.

UFC 1: The Beginning (1993)

The inaugural UFC event or better say UFC 1 is the indispensable part of

, in as much as it was the main reason for the development of MMA when it was in its infancy.

It was an iconic day for combat sports history, in which eight fighters from across the world, fought against each other in a one-night tournament.

Although there were not any kind of weight classes, dress codes, and complex rules but eye-gouging and similar moves, it was spectacular since it was the first time UFC had ever done something like that.

Amid contenders who were competent in only one martial art like sumo-wrestling and kickboxing, Royce Gracie and BJJ managed to sweep the board to appear on the top while all they had to do was to finish the fights without any judges, and decisions.

Likewise, the very first bout of the event was the encounter between the kickboxer Gerard Gordeau and the sumo wrestler Teila Tuli.

At just the starting moments of the fight, Gordeau stroke a high kick to his opponents face to such an extent that his teeth were flying among the spectators.

Afterwards, although Gordeau managed to reach the finals, when he coped with Royce Gracie, he was handled with an impeccable rear-naked choke, being submitted quite easily under two minutes.

Therefore, while Gracie gained mastery in all of his three fights with submission, he became honoured to not only be the first winner of the first UFC event but also the winner of one of the

Best UFC events of all time

.

UFC 100: Lesnar Vs. Mir 2 (2009)

In Ranking the Top 10 Best UFC Events of All Time, UFC 100 was proved to be by far the highest-sold PPV in the organization’s history with 1.3 million PPV buys.

Being blessed with star powers as the likes of Jim Miller, Mark Coleman, Jon Fitch, Stephan Bonnar and Jon Jones it was no wonder to see some incredibly astonishing fights taking place in the event.

But Jones was a young up-and-coming fighter back then who was competing on his 3rd UFC appearance, while now he has arguably grabbed a spot on our list of

.

To be specific, in the encounter between Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping, Henderson amazingly knocked Bisping out with an insane punch, just to ram him putting all he had when his opponent was already down.

The move was so spectacular that it became a viral GIF and is still considered to be one of the most brutal finishes ever. Besides, in a five-round fight of Georges St-Pierre against Thiago Alves, St-Pierre edged his rival out in order to defend his welterweight title.

Finally, Brock Lesnar got his much-awaited avenge against Frank Mir as he decimated him with a knockout in the second round in their heavyweight title bout so as to make one of the 10 Greatest events in UFC history as impressive as possible.

UFC 129: St-Pierre Vs. Shields (2011)

Being considered as one of the

best UFC events of all time

, UFC 129 in its own time, was one of the most eventful occasions in the promotion’s history living forever in the fans memory.

While the UFC production staff, made the fighters entrance into the Octagon, unforgettable with the use of giant screens over the cage, UFC 129 a the time had turned out to bring the biggest attendance in the UFC’s history.

That is to say, the event had shattered both MMA Attendance and gate records which were $11 million-plus gate revenue. More than 55,000 people filled up the Rogers Centre in Toronto to see the welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre topple Strikeforce champion, Jake Shields, to make his sixth title defence.

Likewise, as part of the co-main event, Jose Aldo, made his UFC debut fight against Mark Hominick, so as to defend his featherweight title via ‘U-Dec' after going through a hard-fought battle.

Besides, in the encounter between Lyoto Machida and Randy Couture who was UFC Hall of Famer fight, Machida landed a stellar karate kick to him, leading him to lose in his final UFC appearance.

There was also some other fights, like the encounter between veteran Vladimir Matyushenko and Jason Brilz, in which Matyushenko scored a 20-second knockout. Or when John Makdessi channelled Shonie Carter with his spinning back fist KO of Kyle Watson.

Finally, Pablo Garza managed to start the night with a flying triangle choke finish of Yves Jabouin, while all of these fights added fuel to make it being included in Ranking the Top 10 Best UFC Events of All Time.

UFC 189: McGregor Vs. Mendes (2015)

Although UFC 189 was set to be headlined by Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor, owing to Aldo’s injury, Chad Mended stepped in and encountered McGregor for the interim lightweight title.

In spite of the fact that this was McGregor biggest challenge throughout all of his career until that time, he ended up knocking his opponent out in the last moments of the second round.

Although it was terrific in its own term, what has made the event become included among The Greatest MMA Events of All Time, is the mind-blowing fight of the co-main event, between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald.

In this fight, which is an indispensable part of the

, the welterweight champion Robbie Lawler stood so long exchanging punches to the end of gaining mastery over MacDonald with a 5th-round knockout in what can be dubbed as a ‘war’ and ‘bloodbath’ to make another successful title defence.

The event also contained two spectacular flying knee knockouts. The first one is between Jeremy Stephens and Dennis Bermudez, and the second, by Thomas Almeida on Brad Pickett.

Finally, as Gunnar Nelson joined with a rear-naked choke over Brandon Thatch,  UFC 189 was inevitably added to the Best UFC events of all time.

UFC 194: Aldo Vs. McGregor (2015)

The entertaining and enjoyable event of UFC 194 is undoubtedly one of the best UFC events of all time.

Following just five months that McGregor claimed the interim title which is elaborated in the previous event, he eventually coped with Jose Aldo in their featherweight title fight during UFC 194.

While the rivalry behind the fight had been anticipated for years, the fight itself did not last more than 13 seconds for McGregor to become the new UFC featherweight champion.

In this event also Luke Rockhold was honoured to be the new Middleweight champion following that he edged out champion Chris Weidman who was unbeaten at the time.

Likewise, the event featured the highly competitive and controversial encounter between Yoel Romero and Jacare Souza as well as dominant endeavours of Demian Maia and Max Holloway so as to make its presence binding in

Ranking the Top 10 Best UFC Events of All Time

.

UFC 200: Tate Vs. Nunes ( 2016)

Although the bout between Conor McGregor and Jon Jones was cancelled, the UFC 200 is still assumed to be one of the most successful PPVs in the promotion's history.

In the main event, Amanda Nunes faced Miesha Tate, and successfully managed to claim the Women’s Bantamweight title via a first-round submission win.

Likewise, Daniel Cormier toppled middleweight legend, Anderson Silva, at the light heavyweight division while Jose Aldo managed to make a stellar performance as he defeated Frankie Edgar via U-Dec so as to claim the featherweight title. Additionally, fans can't get enough of Brock Lesnar UFC return against Mark Hunt.

But even behind the shadow of controversies, fighters like Kelvin Gastelum, Johny Hendricks, TJ Dillashaw, and Jim Miller managed to star in the event to cement its place among the best UFC events of all time.

So notwithstanding its being suffused with controversies, UFC 200 is still marked as one of the biggest, most successful cards in UFC history.

UFC 202: Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor (2016)

As the UFC 202 is the dispensable part of any list of the

Best UFC events of all time,

it featured the second encounter between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor as the main event. It was specifically notable since it had been sold 1.6 million PPVs, being the highest-sold PPV event in UFC history at that time.

After they exchanged an awful lot of punches and clinches so as to leave each other in a bloody mess in a hard-fought five-round battle, McGregor gained victory with a majority decision.

While the fight is deemed to be the best fight of the card, it was the only bout on the main card that that was led to a decision. Likewise, Anthony Rumble Johnson managed to beat Glover Teixeira just in 13 seconds of the co-main event.

Among the other fights, one can suggest that Donald Cerrone successfully scored a massive head kick KO over Rick Story, while Mike Perry knocked Hyun Gyu Lim out and Tim Means knocked out Sabah Homasi as well.

UFC 205: Alvarez Vs. McGregor (2016)

After that MMA became legalized in New York, the first UFC event in history that occurred at Madison Square Garden was UFC 205.

As it was consisted of three title fights and being headlined with the names of Conor McGregor and Eddie Alvarez, 1.3 million PPV buyers got their money’s worth, as a result, it is of little wonder to see it among

The 10 Greatest events in UFC history.

That is to say, McGregor who was a Featherweight champion back then, knocked the Lightweight champ Alvarez in the 2nd round, becoming the first warrior in UFC history to hold belts from two different categories at the same time.

Likewise in the co-main event, Tyron Woodley managed to retain his welterweight belt against Wonderboy Thompson with a majority draw.

Not to mention that Joanna Jędrzejczyk toppled Karolina Kowalkiewicz in an insane five-round battle so as to defend her strawweight belt one more time, giving her opponent her first career defeat.

Moreover, Yoel Romero managed to knock out Chris Weidman with a flying knee, while Frankie Edgar, Jeremy Stephens, and Khabib Nurmagomedov contested on the preliminary card.

UFC 217: Bisping Vs. St-Pierre (2017)

Being only the second event in the organization's history to take place at the Madison Square Garden, UFC 217 was specifically noticeable.

This was due to the fact that the former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, after four years of absence came back to fight against Middleweight champion, Michael Bisping for the middleweight belt.

While St-Pierre incredibly won the insane fight with a rear-naked choke that was ended up to submission in the Third Round, to take the belt from his opponent, two other new champions were also crowned in the event, to seal it a spot as

The Greatest MMA Events of All Time

.

The other two new champions were TJ Dillashaw who knocked out Cody Garbrandt to claim the bantamweight title in the co-main event, after a big quarrel and media trash talk as well as Rose Namajunas who knocked out Joanna Jedrzejczyk to gain the Women’s Strawweight title handling her the first loss of her career.

These all have made the event terrifically impressive while the latter one is also included among

Moreover, Ricardo Ramos beat Alemann Zahabi with a spinning back elbow knockout in the first fight of the evening while the giants like Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, Jorge Masvidal, Paulo Costa, Johny Hendricks, Curtis Blaydes, Aleksei Oleinik and Ovince St. Preux were the ones who also starred in the event.

UFC 229: Khabib Vs. McGregor (2018)

There is not any Event on the earth so far to be spectacular enough to exceed a higher place than UFC 229 on the list of the best UFC events of all time, in as much as it was “the fight of all fights” between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor and sold a record-breaking 2.4 million PPVs, generating the highest-ever live gate of $17.2  million, being considered as the highest-sold PPV UFC event.

Although it was not that much competitive as it was expected to be, since Khabib established complete dominance submitting his opponent in the fourth round with a rear-naked choke; after the fight he jumped into the cage and engaged in a quarrel with members of McGregor’s team so as to make the event full of war, chaos, and action.

However, there were some other jaw-dropping fights included in the card as well, yet they were overshadowed by the brawl of the main event while it saw both Khabib and McGregor being fined half a million dollars apiece.

Just consider the fight of Tony Ferguson against Anthony Pettis that became the Fight of the Year candidate although it did not take a long time due to a doctor stoppage when Pettis's hand was broken during the fight.

Likewise in the fight of Derrick Lewis against Alexander Volkov, Lewis eventually managed to score a knockout when just ten seconds were remained before the end of the fight, while he was about to lose the fight up to that moment so as to make the event as illustrious as possible.

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