Is This Legal
by Art Davie
On November 12, 1993, in Denver, Colorado, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was unleashed on an unsuspecting public, with an explosion-an explosion of blood-as 6-foot-5 Dutch savate champion Gerard Gordeau kicked 420 lb-sumo wrestler Teila Tuli flush in the face less than one minute into the night's opening fight. The creation of ad man and serial entrepreneur Art Davie, the UFC arrived with virtually no warning or fanfare. Yet it was watched live in nearly 90,000 U.S. households through Pay-Per-View television, and instantly redefined action sports for a new generation. The brutal kick delivered by Gordeau not only sent Tuli's tooth flying into the crowd, it knocked the martial arts and combat sports worlds on their asses. With the very first UFC, the new sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) was launched-although it wasn't even called that yet-and fighting would never again be the same. Now, for the first time, the true story of how the Ultimate Fighting Championship came into...