June 25, 2018
By Ryan Porzl
With the UFC about to celebrate it's 25th Anniversary, it's obvious they've been around for a long time which means thousands of fighters have fought in it's octagon. However, many fighters never fought there and in some cases, some of those fighters were sometimes a win or successful contract negotiation away from going to the UFC but it didn't happen. Here now is a look at some well known and/or legendary fighters who were on the verge of going to the UFC before it went up in smoke.
Rickson Gracie- This one is well documented for the most part. As is well known these days, when the UFC was first created, it was pretty much a commercial for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a platform to showcase it's supposed superiority. Due to this as well as one of the co-founders of the UFC being Gracie family member Rorian Gracie, it was clear someone from the Gracie family would participate. As the story goes, co-creator Art Davie either wanted or at least assumed Rickson, considered the best of MMA's royal family, would be the Gracie representative but Rorian instead picked their younger brother Royce supposedly due to Royce being a better pick to show the benefits of BJJ given he's much smaller and not as athletic. Davie would later claim a reason was because Rorian and Rickson weren't getting along as well as money as a reason why Royce, instead of Rickson was chosen. According to Davie, Rickson was approached by the family to participate in UFC 4 after Royce was forced to withdraw from the UFC 3 tournament due to exhaustion but he apparently wanted too much money and it never came to be with Royce instead returning and winning the tournament. The Gracies eventually pulled out of the UFC after UFC 5 in April 1995 which pretty much ended any chance of Rickson fighting there. Rickson eventually spent the remainder of his MMA career in Japan winning the 1995 Vale Tudo Japan tournament and then main eventing PRIDE's 1 & 4 shows against wrestling legend Nobuhiko Takada before finishing his career in 2000 with a win over the legendary Masakatsu Funaki at C2K: Coliseum on May 26, 2000.
Igor Vovchanchyn- Vovchanchyn is one of MMA's greatest fighters especially in the early years of the sport dominating in Eastern Europe and the Middle East before eventually achieving world wide fame in Brazil's WVC and Japan's PRIDE. What a lot of people may not know, Vovchanchyn nearly found his way into the world famous octagon during his travels. In 1996, UFC's then parent company Semaphore Entertainment Group would begin putting together the tournament for UFC 11 which was set for September 20th and among the fighters they wanted to participate was Ice Cold himself and even reached out for him to enter. Unfortunately, the deal fell through due to visa issues and The Ukrainian Freight Train reportedly not happy with the offer so it never happened. By all accounts, Vovchanchyn was never offered or came close to fighting in the UFC again which wouldn't be surprising given the promotion and the sport went underground in America for years afterward and likely wouldn't be able to afford him while Vovchanchyn was likely enjoying a lucrative run in PRIDE. Vovchanchyn eventually went back to Europe then to WVC where he won the WVC 4 Tournament and then to PRIDE where he became the runner up of the 2000 PRIDE Openweight Grand Prix and ultimately finished his career in 2005.
Hiromitsu Kanehara- Unlike most of the other fighters on this list, Kanehara nearly went to the UFC before he even fought in MMA. The Smiley Killer was originally set to compete for UFC at UFC Ultimate Japan in 1997 along with fellow pro wrestler Yoji Anjo with the two entering the Ultimate Japan Heavyweight Tournament as representatives of the Japanese promotion Kingdom. However, Kanehara was injured leading up to the show and would be replaced by the then unknown fellow Kingdom wrestler Kazushi Sakuraba who, despite being 20 pounds lighter than the heavyweight limit and having to lie about his weight, ended up winning it and would go on to have one of the greatest careers in Mixed Martial Arts history. Kanehara would eventually enter MMA by competing in Fighting Network RINGS from 1998-2002 and racked up a 15-9-1 record while doing decent in tournaments and scoring wins over Jeremy Horn, Valentijn Overeem, Alexandre Ferreira, & Dave Menne. Afterwards, he became a journeyman competing in PRIDE (where he challenged Wanderlei Silva for the PRIDE World Middleweight Championship), Pancrase, & DEEP where his career nosedived going 4-18-4 before retiring in 2013.
Bibiano Fernandes- For more than a decade, Fernandes has been consistently one of MMA's best bantamweights and probably the best one outside the UFC. After starting in his native Brazil as well as fighting in the United States, Japan, & Canada, Fernandes began to make his name in DREAM over in Japan where he competed from 2009-2012 and became one of their most successful fighters being the inaugural DREAM Featherweight Champion and the only DREAM Bantamweight Champion while having won Grand Prixes for those titles which made him only one of two (the other being Gegard Mousasi) to have held a belt and won a GP in two weight classes. After DREAM closed in 2012, Fernandes was one of the hottest free agents and in need of work so it was no surprise that UFC expressed interest. At first, negotiations went so well that it was announced that Fernandes not only signed a UFC deal but UFC then announced his debut at UFC 149 on July 21, 2012 against Roland Delorme. The fight never happened as the UFC would announce Fernandes pulled out because of injury before Fernandes revealed he never signed a deal and negotiations eventually fell apart with Fernandes instead deciding to sign with ONE Championship. While Fernandes still continues to fight, it seems like he's content at ONE where he has gone on to win both the interim and official bantamweight titles while having held the bantamweight title for nearly five years
Paulo Filho- In his prime, Filho not only seemed like he was destined to eventually make his way to the UFC but some actually thought he'd be the one to end Anderson Silva's legendary dominate run. Filho first started in his native Brazil before eventually making a name for himself in PRIDE becoming one of their top Welterweights (183 pounds) and was a finalist in their 2006 Welterweight Grand Prix before pulling out due to injury. When PRIDE was bought out, Filho was undefeated at 14-0 and was one of the best middleweights in the world. Though he didn't go to the UFC, he was one step closer when he signed with WEC in 2007 shortly after Zuffa bought it. Filho quickly made his mark winning the vacant WEC Middleweight Championship against Joe Doerkson in his debut and then retained against Chael Sonnen. Heading into 2008, Filho was WEC Champion and 16-0 setting himself up for a future UFC gig as Zuffa began absorbing the heavier weight classes by this point. Then, everything fell apart for Ely as he began to struggle with a drug addiction and went to rehab in 2008. Upon his return, Filho made things worse when he failed to make weight for his rematch with Chael Sonnen resulting in their title fight becoming a non title fight and then put on a lackluster performance en route to his first loss. The timing couldn't have been worse as one month later, Zuffa announced they were absorbing the light heavyweight & middleweight divisions but despite still being WEC Middleweight Champion, Filho's contract was not picked up due to his issues and he missed out on the UFC. Sadly, things didn't get better for Filho as he became a journeyman who went 7-5-3 all the while no longer showing the promise he once had and continued to struggle with problems that cost him work as he signed with Bellator only to never fight supposedly due to visa issues, he lost his job in DREAM after no showing DREAM 12, and he was one and done in WSOF after taking a depressing one sided beating against David Branch while doing little to defend himself. Filho eventually retired in 2014 ruling out any possibility of a UFC run. Sherdog's Jack Encarnacao put it best describing Filho as "The poster child for blown potential in MMA".
Satoshi Ishii- Like Kanehara before him, Ishii was another fighter who nearly made his MMA debut in the UFC. Ishii is a gold medalist in judo from the 2008 Olympics and because of this, he became highly in demand from all the major MMA promotions. For DREAM & Sengoku, they had high hopes on Ishii being the new face of Japanese Mixed Martial Arts and would lead the way in revitalizing the sport which went into a severe recession after PRIDE was bought by UFC's then parent company Zuffa in 2007. For the UFC, they had hopes Ishii would become a big enough star to help them finally get a foothold into Japan. After failing to come to terms on a deal with DREAM, Ishii announced in December 2008 that he would go to the UFC and said that was the place he wanted to fight. Ishii would even relocate to Florida to train with American Top Team while his management team began negotiations with Zuffa which indicates he was serious about going. However, Ishii would never sign with the UFC and by June 2009, he decided to sign with Sengoku as Ishii later claimed he was told it probably wouldn't be a good idea to have his first fight in the UFC. Since that time, Ishii has not only not signed with the UFC but his MMA career hasn't gone anywhere near as good as hoped and while he's still fighting, he has an average 16-8-1 record while only having notable wins over washed up talent and having lost to every great fighter he's fought.
Ricardo Arona- Arona is one of the more interesting cases due to him disappearing right when it appeared he was UFC bound. Arona achieved his legend in Japan first for RINGS and then for PRIDE scoring many great wins while becoming RINGS' only Middleweight Champion and won the 2001 Tournament for the championship while also being a runner up in PRIDE's 2005 Middleweight (205 pounds) Grand Prix as well as challenging Wanderlei Silva for the title later. When PRIDE was bought by Zuffa in 2007, it seems like a no brainer for The Brazilian Tiger to be among those who would make the pilgrimage to the Octagon. Of course, not only did it not happen but Arona disappeared from the business afterwards. Arona later claimed he made no attempt to negotiate a UFC deal as he wanted to take a break and recover from injuries. Since then, Arona has reached out a few times and even admitted that he met with Dana White in 2010 thanks to good friend and former Brazilian Top Team teammate Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira but White said he needed another win or two before going to the UFC so nothing came of it. Arona supposedly met with UFC years later but couldn't come to terms on a deal. As of 2018, Arona has only fought once since PRIDE shut down in 2007 which was in 2009 where he scored a win over Marvin Eastman and it seems like he'll never return.
Gina Carano- Before Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano was the poster girl to Women's MMA in America and was bringing it to the spotlight. During her brief career, Carano became a big star that even reached the mainstream which was impressive giving she didn't fight in the UFC. She competed in promotions like EliteXC and Strikeforce before suffering a loss to Cris Cyborg and then left the sport to parlay her popularity into an acting career. In the years since Carano's last fight, Rousey rose and took the popularity of Women's MMA to the next level. To no surprise, when UFC brought women in, both them and Rousey were open to a potential dream fight. Carano was in an interesting situation as she technically was under contract due to Zuffa's purchase of Strikeforce where she had four fights left on her deal so her contract was transferred similar to Mark Hunt going to the UFC due to his old PRIDE contract. By April 2014, the wheels seemed to be in motion as Carano talked about returning to the sport while Rousey would later claim on Joe Rogan's podcast that there were talks of the fight happening at a December 2014 Pay-Per-View. As it turns out, the fight never happened and Dana White would claim in September 2014 that negotiations fell through thus cancelling the fight and Carano's return. Carano still remains under contract but at 36 years old, nearly a decade out of the sport, and Rousey having since retired seems to have closed the door on a Carano UFC run.
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