What was special about UFC 10: The Tournament?

UFC 10: The Tournament was the first time Bruce Buffer announced inside of the octagon for the UFC. It was also the first time Mark Coleman made an appearance in the organization after beating Don Frye to win the event.

Buffer replaced Rich Goins, who returned to announce for the UFC again at UFC 11. Bruce's brother, Michael Buffer, also announced for the organization at UFC 6 and UFC 7.

UFC 10 also marked a return to tournament-format events, instead of the usual individual bouts like we see today. The eventual winner of the tournament, Mark Coleman, won all of his fights via TKO.

Coleman beat Moti Horenstein in the quarterfinals after Horenstein submitted due to strikes two minutes and 43 seconds into the fight. 'The Hammer' next defeated Gary Goodridge, but via an unlikely method, with Goodridge losing via an exhaustion TKO.

This led to Coleman facing one of the biggest names in the organization in the final. He shocked the world by defeating the legendary Don Frye via TKO after 11 minutes of non-stop fighting.

UFC 11 failed to live up to the hype of the previous event, being called incomplete and disorganized by viewers. That was because of the short length of fights and the main event ending with Mark Coleman winning by default after an injury to Scott Ferrozzo.

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Where did UFC 10: The Tournament take place?

UFC 10: The Tournament was held at the Fairgrounds Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. 4,300 fans attended the event live and a further 96,000 bought the pay-per-view at home.

Both of these viewing figures are lower than UFC 9: Shamrock vs. Severn 2, which had 10,000 fans in attendance and also managed to attract 141,000 PPV buys.

Despite the lower viewing numbers, the event still attracted interest and was even featured in a movie. In 1995, an American film called Virtuosity staged a fictional version of the UFC event, which included an appearance from UFC legend Ken Shamrock.

The film made a minor profit and featured household actors such as Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Kelly Lynch. The movie had no financial impact on the UFC, but it might have helped create more buzz for their future events.