From GSP and Ronda to Conor and Stylebender

Randy Couture made his UFC debut on May 30, 1997, at UFC 13. UFC held the card in front of just more than 5,000 people in Augusta, Georgia. There was no regulation for the event; the rules changed from card to card to accommodate local fighting commissions or avoid political scorn.

It was a stark contrast to today’s UFC, a glitzy, multibillion-dollar sports promotion that runs massive events worldwide, airs on ESPN and is broadcast to millions of homes via television and pay-per-view.

“I don’t think anybody in those stands knew who was on the card,” Couture said of his debut. “They just wanted to see fights. It was the tractor-pull crowd. It was a little bit different. There were more fights in the stands at UFC 13 than there were in the cage. It was a totally different atmosphere.”

Couture, a multitime UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion and UFC Hall of Famer, said the UFC did not seem like a sport back then. Now, it’s a major league, global sports property that has risen in popularity — and professionalism — over the past three decades. The early UFC cards were kind of an experiment. Most fighters were specialists in just one martial arts discipline, and the entire idea behind the UFC at the time was to figure out which discipline was strongest. What everyone learned, Couture said, was that knowing just one martial art was not enough in a sport that had been dubbed mixed martial arts.

“I came in on the cusp of the end of that first generation of mixed martial artists that were out to prove their fighting style — whatever their background was — was the best fighting style,” Couture said. “I think what we quickly realized was there was no one fighting style in martial arts that encompassed everything you needed to know. And we all started cross-training.”

Couture, a former Olympic wrestler, was the only fighter to dominate three different years: 1997, 2000 and 2003. “The Natural” was the first UFC fighter to win titles in two weight classes, winning…