| UFC 18: The Road to the Heavyweight Title | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The poster for UFC 18: The Road to the Heavyweight Title | ||||
| Promotion | Ultimate Fighting Championship | |||
| Date | January 8, 1999 | |||
| Venue | Pontchartrain Center | |||
| City | Kenner, Louisiana | |||
| Event chronology | ||||
| ||||
UFC 18: The Road to the Heavyweight Title was amixed martial arts event held by theUltimate Fighting Championship on January 8, 1999 inKenner, Louisiana. The event was seen live on pay per view in theUnited States, and later released onhome video.[1][2]
The event featured a UFC Lightweight Championship (now known as the Welterweight Championship) bout and six other bouts. UFC 18 was technically part two of what the UFC called "The Road To The Heavyweight Title", a tournament, spanning four events, held to crown the new UFC Heavyweight Champion after the title was vacated byRandy Couture (due to contract disputes).
Part one was held atUFC Brazil, withTsuyoshi Kosaka taking a win to advance to UFC 18. UFC 18 featured the first US appearance of MMA legendBas Rutten, and the first appearance of the lateEvan Tanner, who would go on to become the UFC Middleweight Champion.
UFC 18 marked the first card where the initials "UFC" replaced "The Ultimate Fighting Championship" in the logo and when mentioned by the announcers/commentators. The new logo used the similar character from the old logo (with hands on his hips instead of punching the globe) combined with the letters UFC on the bottom.
| Main Card | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight class | Method | Round | Time | Notes | |||
| Welterweight | Pat Miletich (c) | def. | Jorge Patino | Decision (unanimous) | 21:00 | [a] | |
| Middleweight | Evan Tanner | def. | Darrel Gholar | Submission (rear naked choke) | 7:57 | ||
| Lightweight | Mikey Burnett | def. | Townsend Saunders | Decision (unanimous) | 15:00 | ||
| Middleweight | Tito Ortiz | def. | Jerry Bohlander | TKO (cut) | 14:31 | ||
| Heavyweight | Pedro Rizzo | def. | Mark Coleman | Decision (split) | 15:00 | ||
| Heavyweight | Bas Rutten | def. | Tsuyoshi Kosaka | TKO (punches) | 14:15 | ||
| Alternate bout | |||||||
| Lightweight | Laverne Clark | def. | Frank Caracci | TKO (Submission to strikes) | 6:59 | ||
