| UFC 28: High Stakes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The poster for UFC 28: High Stakes | ||||
| Promotion | Ultimate Fighting Championship | |||
| Date | November 17, 2000 | |||
| Venue | Mark G. Etess Arena | |||
| City | Atlantic City,New Jersey | |||
| Event chronology | ||||
| ||||
UFC 28: High Stakes was amixed martial arts event held by theUltimate Fighting Championship on November 17, 2000 at theMark G. Etess Arena inAtlantic City, New Jersey.
UFC 28 marked the firstUFC event to be sanctioned by theNew Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB). The NJSACB had begun to allow Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) promoters to conduct events in the state upon review of the promoter's rules and regulations in September 2000.[1] The NJSACB's observation of these first few sanctioned events led to the establishment of their own official set of rules and regulations, the "Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts", in April 2001.[1] The NJSACB's unified rules would become the de facto set of rules for professional MMA in North America as more and more U.S. states used them to sanction the sport.[1]
As the event was held inNew Jersey, it was the firstUFC event to be held in a northern state sinceUFC 7. Under the sanctioned rules, this was the first event requiring competitors to wear trunks, gloves (and no other attire).[2] The sanctioned rules also introduced new strict weight classes, resulting in the first and onlyUFCSuper Heavyweight bout ever, betweenJosh Barnett andGan McGee.[3] The firstUFCBantamweight bout took place atUFC 26 in June 2000.
The event was headlined by the return of formerHeavyweight ChampionRandy Couture, who had relinquished his title in 1998 to return to competitive wrestling and because of contract disputes—and he regained his championship belt by defeatingKevin Randleman. UFC 28 also featured the firstUFC appearances ofAndrei Arlovski,Renato "Babalu" Sobral,Chris Lytle,Josh Barnett, andGan McGee, and the sole appearances ofAlex Stiebling, Ben Earwood,Aaron Brink, andMatt Hughes's twin brother,Mark Hughes.
While there were 5,000 tickets sold -- a sellout -- the event had a smallpay-per-view reach.[2] UFC 28 was the sixth straightUFC event to never see home video orDVD release, as their parent company SEG was nearing bankruptcy. UFC 28 was the lastUFC event held by SEG in theUS, and followingUFC 29 inJapan, SEG sold theUFC toZuffa LLC.
| Main Card | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight class | Method | Round | Time | Notes | |||
| Heavyweight | Randy Couture | def. | Kevin Randleman (c) | TKO (punches) | 3 | 4:13 | [a] |
| Heavyweight | Renato Sobral | def. | Maurice Smith | Decision (majority) | 3 | 5:00 | |
| Super Heavyweight | Josh Barnett | def. | Gan McGee | TKO (punches) | 2 | 4:34 | |
| Heavyweight | Andrei Arlovski | def. | Aaron Brink | Submission (armbar) | 1 | 0:55 | |
| Bantamweight | Jens Pulver | def. | John Lewis | KO (punch) | 1 | 0:15 | |
| Preliminary Card | |||||||
| Middleweight | Mark Hughes | def. | Alex Stiebling | Decision (unanimous) | 2 | 5:00 | [b] |
| Lightweight | Ben Earwood | def. | Chris Lytle | Decision (unanimous) | 2 | 5:00 | [c] |
The following fighters were honored in the October 2011 book titledUFC Encyclopedia.[4]
