5 weakest UFC pay-per-view cards of all time
One of Dana White’s old adages – although I don’t know the exact quote – is that fans should never judge a UFC card before it’s happened. His argument, I guess, is that you don’t necessarily need big-name fighters to create a great, action-packed show, and that shows stacked with big stars don’t always turn out to be the best shows in execution.
That’s true to an extent, but of course, on the flipside of the argument, the UFC markets itself as the promotion where the best fight the best – and thus if they’re producing a show that doesn’t feature at least one or two of the best fighters in the world, then something’s very wrong.
That becomes even truer when the shows in question are on pay-per-view – meaning fans in the US have to pay a substantial amount of money to watch them.
While the following 5 pay-per-view shows saw mixed results in terms of the action that went down in the Octagon, they’re probably the worst cards that the UFC have ever put together – on paper, at least.
#1 UFC 55: Fury – 10/07/2005
The UFC was on a pretty hot streak in 2005 following the promotion’s explosion in popularity thanks to the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter that aired in the early part of the year. But at the time, the promotion’s roster wasn’t anywhere near as packed as it is today, and so after blockbuster shows in the first half of the year, we were always due for a stinker at some point.
That stinker turned out to be UFC 55, which took place in October from Uncasville, Connecticut. The main event – a UFC Heavyweight title match between Andrei Arlovski and Paul Buentello – sounded fun, but the rest of the card was simply a hot mess.
A hastily-put together Fight Night card just days before the show meant that the pay-per-view lost its co-main event – Evan Tanner vs. David Loiseau – and a Heavyweight fight between Brandon Vera and Fabiano Scherner was also moved onto that card.
In the end, a weird fight between TUF champion Forrest Griffin and Aussie veteran Elvis Sinosic was placed as the co-headliner, and the rest of the pay-per-view featured Renato Sobral vs. a pre-fame Chael Sonnen, Joe Riggs vs. Chris Lytle, and debutant Branden Lee Hinkle against cop-turned-streetfighter Sean Gannon - hardly a night of fights to get fans’ pulses racing.
In the end, UFC 55 wasn’t outright terrible – most of the fights delivered some solid action – but the card stands as a testament to the UFC’s relatively thin roster at the time – a roster that would quickly expand a year later.