The 5 Most Iconic Moments In UK UFC History

Over the last few years, UK MMA has grown immensely, with the likes of Tom Aspinall, Leon Edwards and Paddy Pimblett all making big strides in the UFC.

The company will return to the UK in July with UFC 304 at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester. Despite the MMA faithful chomping at the bit ahead of the promotion’s return to England, a bizarre start time has been revealed ahead of the event.

With two champions in MMA’s biggest organisation, UFC chief Dana White was desperate to head back to England. Speaking on the pay-per-view card, he said: “I’m so excited to get back to Manchester. And no better time than this summer.”

Since the organisation was founded back in 1993, there have been several iconic moments that fans have witnessed involving a fighter from the United Kingdom. Here, we rank the five most iconic moments in UK UFC history.

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5 Michael Bisping Becomes First British UFC Champion

Bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold on short notice

At UFC 199, Michael Bisping became the first ever British UFC champion where he knocked out Luke Rockhold in the first round and became the new middleweight king. In the lead-up to this fight, the Brit constantly talked about destiny and how this was his moment and nothing was going to stop him from winning the belt against Rockhold. Everything was against ‘The Count’ coming into this fight, but he stayed confident and determined.

He was contacted just 17 days out from UFC 199 to see if he would be willing to step in as a replacement for the injured Chris Weidman on short notice and face Rockhold, a man who already had a pretty dominant win over Bisping just under two years prior.

Bisping wasn’t even the first name the promotion contacted once they found out Weidman was out of the bout, it was Jacare Souza whom the UFC wanted to step in and challenge for the title, but Souza rejected the fight leaving it open for the Englishman to swoop in and secure his first shot at a title despite being at the top of two divisions for over a decade.

Bisping spoke following the fight that when he was contacted to take the fight against Rockhold, adrenaline took over and he accepted immediately, but just moments after, he realised at what cost the title shot was coming at. He was not fully prepared, he had not been training, in fact, he was in the process of filming a movie when he got the call, so all the cards were stacked against ‘The Count’ heading into the fight. Bisping pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history where he finished the American in the first round via KO.

This is undoubtedly the most iconic and significant moment in UK UFC history and could be pinpointed as the moment when Brits in the promotion were starting to be taken seriously.

4 Leon Edwards Becomes Welterweight Champion

‘Rocky’ pulled off an incredible KO from the jaws of defeat

At UFC 278, Leon Edwards became just the second-ever British UFC champion when he put Kamaru Usman out cold with a vicious head kick with just 56 seconds remaining in the fight to become the new welterweight conqueror, a belt which he still currently holds almost two years down the line.

‘Rocky’ got a shot at Usman’s welterweight title off the back of a 10-fight unbeaten streak and the biggest win of his career against Nate Diaz at UFC 263.

Edwards was a big underdog coming into this fight. There were a couple of factors as to why he was a large underdog coming into the fight, one being that ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ already had a win over the Brit.

The other was that Usman was showing such huge improvements fight after fight, and he was very quickly, if not already, at GOAT status in the UFC welterweight division.

Up til the fifth round of the fight, many would say that this was a pretty routine performance from Usman, he wanted to grind Edwards out and that is exactly what he was doing. As the fourth round ended, ‘Rocky’ went back to his corner and sat on his stool looking dejected and like he was ready to give up.

However, his head coach, Dave Lovell, wasn’t having any of it. He went on to give Edwards arguably the most iconic between-rounds speech in UFC history where he demanded Edwards to pull through and get the job done.

Edwards would then go on to unleash a brutal head kick on Usman, knocking the ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ out cold to become the new champion in one of the best moments in UFC history.

3 Tom Aspinall Wins Heavyweight Gold at MSG

The Brit defeated knockout artist Sergei Pavlovich

Another iconic moment in UK UFC history is when Tom Aspinall became the interim heavyweight champion at UFC 295 in the ‘world’s most famous arena’, Madison Square Garden. He accepted a fight on short notice against Russian powerhouse Sergei Pavlovich following the cancellation of Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic for the undisputed heavyweight title which was originally scheduled to be the main event of the card, however, a torn pectoral muscle for ‘Bones’ put that fight on ice for the time being.

The fight between Aspinall and Pavlovich started exactly how everyone expected. The two were going forward at each other full throttle trying to take each other’s heads off and even though the fight only lasted just over a minute, the Russian did actually have some success against the Englishman very early on in the fight.

Despite some very early success from Pavlovich, Aspinall’s speed was the game-changer in this fight and the Brit landed a quick one-two on the temple to put the Russian away and become the first Brit to win heavyweight gold in the UFC.

This win for Aspinall should have set him up for a shot at Jon Jones next, but the UFC remain adamant that ‘Bones’ and Miocic will be rescheduled, and the Englishman will fight the winner of that bout for the undisputed title.

If he was to defeat Jones in a future fight, having a win over the undisputed, greatest fighter of all time, could cement Aspinall as the best British fighter ever and one of the best heavyweights to ever compete in the promotion.

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2 Michael Bisping Defeats the Middleweight GOAT in London

‘The Count’ secured a win over one of the ‘Goats’ in 2016

Following a win over Thales Leites in Glasgow in July 2015, Michael Bisping was awarded his dream fight against the greatest middleweight of all time, Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva. The fight would be booked in Bisping’s home country, in London at O2 Arena and despite there being respect between the two fighters, the build-up had a bit of bad blood as ‘The Count’ went off on the Brazilian about his failed drug tests.

The fight was an absolute back-and-forth war where both men dropped each other and the bout ended with Bisping’s face destroyed following a devastating flying knee from Silva despite ‘The Count’s’ mouthpiece not being in at the time and he was clearly distracted.

Bisping looked down and out and the fight looked like it could have been stopped but he regrouped and would go on to fight some of the best rounds of his life and go on to defeat the greatest middleweight of all time in a sensational back-and-forth war.

Outside of his title win, this is definitely the second-biggest win of Bisping’s career as he not only defeated the greatest of all time in his weight class, but it is the victory which got him a shot at the title just several months after.

1 UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall

It was the first-ever UFC event held in the UK

UFC 38: Brawl At The Hall is where it all started for the UFC in the UK. The card was headlined with a fantastic welterweight title fight between reigning champion Matt Hughes against former champion Carlos Newton. The card also featured Englishmen such as Ian Freeman and Mark Weir, who were both successful in their fights.

Brawl At The Hall was held at the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London and was only the fifth country the UFC had ever been to at that point in their history, the others were of course the United States, Japan, Brazil and Puerto Rico. Hughes retained his UFC welterweight title stopping Newton in round four via TKO. Many would argue that this fight is where MMA was brought to the UK and viewed as a legitimate sport and not some barbaric bar fight, which is something the UFC was actually viewed as by many countries and states in America when they first came on to the scene in the nineties and early 2000s.