Before UFC 229: A look at 7 of the biggest UFC shows of all time

#3: 100 – 07/11/2009 – Las Vegas, Nevada

Brock Lesnar's win over Frank Mir at UFC 100 marked the peak of his stardom

Why was it a big show?

After plenty of success following the TUF boom, the UFC somehow managed to become even bigger in 2008 thanks in part to the signing of former WWE champion Brock Lesnar, who brought even more new fans to the sport and ended the year as the new Heavyweight champion.

His first challenger was to be interim champion – and the man who defeated Lesnar in his UFC debut – Frank Mir, and the stars aligned to make the fight in time for UFC 100, a show Dana White and company had already decided was going to be a massive one.

To stack the show even further, the promotion added a Welterweight title fight between Georges St-Pierre – the second-biggest star on the roster behind Lesnar – and Thiago Alves, as well as a major grudge match between Middleweights Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping. Essentially, the UFC had never put on a show quite this big before.

What happened?

The show shattered the UFC’s record buyrate by drawing a monster 1.6m pay-per-view buys, and Lesnar went above and beyond all expectations by smashing Mir to pieces in the second round before cutting one of the most memorable promos in MMA history. Henderson meanwhile delivered one of the all-time great knockouts, leaving Bisping looking like a corpse following a big right hook.

Outside of those two fights though, the show was largely unmemorable – St-Pierre outpointed Alves in a pedestrian fight and many people forget that the 5th fight on the main card was a dull Jon Fitch showcase. Of course, UFC 100 was a massive financial success for the company and made Lesnar into an untouchable, Tyson-esque figure for a time, but it probably wasn’t top three in 2009 in terms of show quality. You can’t argue with that buyrate, though.

Success rating: ****