UFC’s first event was sold as cage fighting with no rules at all.
Its first event ran in 1993 billed as “There are no rules,” and Senator John McCain soon branded the whole sport “human cockfighting.” Thirty-six states banned it, and the company nearly went bankrupt. Then the Fertittas and Dana White bought it for about $2 million in 2001, and sold it in 2016 for about $4 billion.
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