Dave Meltzer is doing a UFC retrospective of sorts as UFC 100 approaches (even though it is not the centennial show for the organization). In this edition, Meltzer explains what UFC 2 did differently than UFC 1:
The first was the introduction of John McCarthy as the referee. McCarthy did not, however, have any power to stop matches, which included a 21-second massacre by Smith on Scott Morris. McCarthy demanded the power to stop fights going forward and ended up becoming one of the key figures in the evolution of the sport.
The second was that the show drew approximately 100,000 orders on pay-per-view, up from 80,000 for the first show. It made the show profitable, which the first show wasn’t, and suddenly the prospect of UFC as a continuing series garnered momentum.
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