Tomorrow marks the 5th year anniversary of UFC 100. It remains to date the highest selling PPV in MMA history, the biggest show that UFC has ever put on, and arguably the top-to-bottom deepest card they’ve produced. The historical significance and quality of the show is something that seems untouchable given the irreplaceable star power of Brock Lesnar and Georges St-Pierre, combined with the UFC’s drastic increase in events but a decrease in PPV blockbusters.
A total of 22 fighters competed on the card, with many of the prelim fighters turning into future champions or top 10 contenders. Let’s take a look at what has become of each man since July 11th, 2009:
Main Card Winners
Brock Lesnar: As it turned out, Lesnar would win just one more fight in his career, as two bouts with diverticulitis drastically changed his life and career. Lesnar retired from MMA after Alistair Overeem TKO’d him at UFC 141. He’s ended The Undertaker’s winning streak at 21 at this year’s Wrestlemania. It is a known fact that this achievement is the equivalent of being a top 6 UFC heavyweight, so it’s a big blow for The Undertaker’s chances at fighting Cain Velasquez in a cross-promotional bout.
Georges St-Pierre: Having hit Thiago Alves with everything except his groin, which was likely healed through the help of this jacuzzi party, the greatest welterweight of all-time defended his belt six more times before announcing a hiatus/semi-retirement from the sport.
Dan Henderson: Hendo opted to sign with Strikeforce after KOing Bisping, and while things started off shakily with a loss to Jake Shields, Dan captured the LHW title, knocked out Fedor, stopped both Klitschko brothers, and put Daniel Ghita to sleep with a spinning hook kick. A knee injury that was controversially blamed on Greg Jackson robbed him of a title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 151, which was then canceled via firing squad. Henderson’s last fight, which was his first after the TRT ban, ended in a near-depressing submission loss to Daniel Cormier. Henderson weighed in a mere 199 pounds the day before the fight, roughly 60 pounds lighter than Gleison Tibau on fight day.
Yoshihiro Akiyama: Sexyama’s first UFC win stands to date as his only one, as injuries and a string of rather difficult match-ups have prevented him from adding to his win total. A shock loss to Chris Leben, who took the fight on about 4 seconds notice, was then followed by a decision loss to Michael Bisping in England. Vitor Belfort knocked him out at UFC 133, and while attempts to get Akiyama to fight Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, and Carlos Condit in a lucrative ladder match fell through, he dropped to welterweight and somehow lost a kickboxing match with Jake Shields. Akiyama is fighting Kyle Noke in September in Japan, and another loss likely sets him up for a big title fight with champion Johny Hendricks.
Jon Fitch: Try as he might, Fitch never did get his rematch/2nd helping of punishment vs. GSP. Johny Hendricks shut his lights out, Demian Maia famously sent him out of the promotion, and he’s now with World Series of Fighting, where he is 2-1 and likely to fight Rousimar Palhares for the welterweight belt.
Main Card Losers
Frank Mir: As if the Lesnar beatdown wasn’t enough, Mir fought for the interim title against Shane Carwin at UFC 11 and was punched in the face for an astonishing 7 hours before Dan Miragliotta threatened to stop the fight. After the 8th hour, Miragliotta called it off. Mir would contend one last time against Junior dos Santos, which predictably ended in a knockout. He’s in the midst of an 0-4 stretch but doesn’t have any plans to retire.
Thiago Alves: His injury history well chronicled, Alves has fought just 6 times in the past 5 years, and his scheduled fight with Jordan Mein was scrapped after he withdrew. Thiago’s sole fight of 2014 was a FOTN decision win over Seth Baczynski.
Michael Bisping: The H-Bomb will live forever in Bisping’s lowlight reel. While he remains a popular figure in the MMA community and has been able to beat most of the opposition in front of him, the losses to Wanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen, and Tim Kennedy all have prevented him from ever receiving a title shot.
Alan Belcher: The controversial loss to Akiyama was Belcher’s last for over 3 years, as he won his next 4 fights before losing decisions to Yushin Okami and Michael Bisping. Unfortunately for Belcher, his career was chopped up with various injuries and health-related issues, most notably his emergency eye surgery after suffering a detached retina in 2010. Belcher is taking time off from the sport, and if he ever returns, it’ll be at 205 lbs.
Paulo Thiago: Aside from a submission win against Mike Swick in 2010, Thiago’s spell as a serious welterweight contender, which was spurred on by his stunning knockout of Josh Koscheck, was over after he received the patented Fitch treatment. He’s 4-6 in his last 10 and his popularity in Brazil is essentially the only reason why he’s still with the promotion.
Preliminary Card Winners
Mark Coleman. This was the biggest upset of the entire card and for fans of “The Hammer” it was one last chance to rejoice at a Mark Coleman victory. He looked half-dead against a quarter-dead Mauricio Rua earlier that year — his first fight since 2006 — and Stephan Bonnar was all set to be the winner. It turned out to be Coleman’s last win, as Randy Couture choked him out in the main event of UFC 109 and that was all she wrote. Coleman was last seen coaching wrestling on TUF 19 with Team Penn.
Jon Jones. Obviously he’s now the greatest light heavyweight champion in UFC history, but it should be noted that his 2nd round submission win against Jake O’Brien was the last time he was put on a preliminary card. He co-headlined the TUF 10 Finale when he was DQ’d vs. Matt Hamill, headlined the first two Versus shows, put on the main card of UFC 126 against Ryan Bader, and has since been the main event of all of his championship bouts. Jones will rematch Alexander Gustafsson in September.
Jim Miller. The win over Mac Danzig sparked a 7-0 run that was unceremoniously ended by Ben Henderson. Miller has struggled to regain any sustained success, and his back-to-back submissions over Fabricio Camoes and Yancy Medeiros mark his first winning streak since the unbeaten stretch from 2009-2011. His next fight is on July 16th opposite Donald Cerrone in the main event of a Fox Sports 1 show.
Dong Hyun Kim: At the time, beating a welterweight T.J. Grant didn’t mean much, and the Stun Gun of 2009 clearly is not the Stun Gun of 2014. After a little winning streak was stopped by Carlos Condit and then a rib injury ended his fight against Demian Maia in under a minute, Kim has put together a solid winning streak and a win over Tyron Woodley in August is likely to confirm his status as a potential title challenger.
Tom Lawlor: Choking out Dollaway is more or less the highlight of his UFC tenure. He’s 3-4 in his last 7 (although you could argue that the Francis Carmont loss should’ve been a win), and he was forced to pull out of a light heavyweight meeting with the incomparable Ilir Latifi.
Shannon Gugerty: Never won another UFC fight and was bounced after getting choked out by Clay Guida. He’s 3-2 in his post-UFC career and hasn’t fought since 2012.
Preliminary Card Losers
Stephan Bonnar. The loss to Coleman was so bad that if he wasn’t covered by Dana White’s undivided loyalty to TUF 1 guys, particularly Griffin and Bonnar, he’d have probably been cut. After splitting two fights with Krzyzstof Soszynski, Bonnar parlayed a three-fight winning streak into an emergency main event spot against Anderson Silva, who kneed him in the body and won by 1st round TKO. Just months prior to the Silva loss, he was inducted (along with Griffin) into the UFC Hall of Fame. Bonnar retired 2 1/2 weeks after the fight, and then it was revealed in November that he had failed his drug test. His UFC-related appearances have been scarce, and you can now find him in the Titan FC commentary booth.
Jake O’Brien. Of all 22 fighters on the card, he’s the only one who was immediately released and never brought back. He’s 4-1 in his last 5 fights, with the one loss coming to Gegard Mousasi in Japan, but none of his fights are within the past 2 years. Amazingly, he’s still only 29 years old.
Mac Danzig. The TUF 6 winner’s loss to Miller extended his losing streak to 3, but he was spared the ax after he outpointed Justin Buchholz in 2010. Danzig would only win 2 of his final 6 fights before retiring after Joe Lauzon easily won a decision last December. The highlight of Danzig’s UFC career is surely the KO of Joe Stevenson in 2010, which essentially confirmed that Stevenson was well past his best.
T.J. Grant. The Canadian fought 4 more times at welterweight, which included a loss to Ricardo Almeida, before the highly successful drop to lightweight. He hasn’t lost at 155 lbs, but a concussion suffered in training robbed him of a title shot against Ben Henderson, and he’s not fought since. It is unknown whether or not he’ll even fight again, although Grant obviously wants to be a part of the October show in Halifax.
C.B. Dollaway. Believe it or not, Dollaway did win his next 3 fights after Lawlor choked him unconscious, but back-to-back KO defeats to Mark Munoz and Jared Hamman had his UFC position in serious jeopardy. Dollaway is 4-1 in his last 5, with the one loss deemed a really bad decision against Tim Boetsch, and he’s now a top 10 middleweight, which I’m not sure you could’ve projected a few years ago.
Matt Grice. He was released after a 1-3 record with the promotion, but a 4-0 stretch sealed a return to the UFC. A knockout loss to Ricardo Lamas was offset by winning a decision over Leonard Garcia. He took home UFC 157 FOTN honors in an absolute war (but majority decision loss) to Dennis Bermudez. Sadly, Grice was struck in a near-fatal car crash that required part of his skull to be removed. He’s suffered significant memory loss (among other serious injuries) and it is unlikely that he ever fights again. Grice is hoping that he can go back to work in September at his other job as an Oklahoma City police officer.
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