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Revisiting the Octagon in UFC Classic Collection: Volumes 5-8
by Reg Seeton
 When Ultimate Fighting caught fire with fight fans in '90s, you didn't have to be a genius to figure out that the fledgling sport of Mixed Martial Arts was going to be a tough sell to the mainstream public. As a diehard boxing fan at the time, the brutality inside the Octagon (in boxing terms, "the ring") was hard to watch. Not only was it new, but also MMA was shockingly violent, bloody, and much more barbaric than what fight fans were used to on Pay Per View. Back then the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was a no-holds-barred event free of time limits and the improved structure around the matches that you see today. Names like Oleg Taktarov, Tank Abbott, Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, and the famous Royce Gracie were the dominant and unstoppable forces in the budding world of UFC.
Ask anyone who was an MMA fan fifteen years ago and they'll tell you how waiting to see Ken Shamrock square off against Royce Gracie for their second battle was equal in anticipation to any match-up of the past five years in the current UFC. Over the past couple of months, Lionsgate has jumped into the DVD Octagon to give fight fans a number of classic match-ups from days gone by, including a four-disc "unrated" set that's arguably the best era of UFC ever in UFC Classic Collection: Volumes 5-8. And for fans of the now aging and legendary Ken Shamrock, the set includes four of his epic battles from the '90s, including the fight that forced the pioneering Royce Gracie into his first retirement.
 In many ways the early days of UFC were better than today yet the '90s almost spelled the demise of the sport in terms of credibility. Sure the fights were raw and explosive, with fighters that were master tacticians in the respective disciplines - be it Tae Kwon Do, Sambo, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Shoot-fighting, Pankratiom, wrestling, and more - but the lack of rules became the UFC's Achilles heel despite also being a big selling point. Was it was cool to watch the no-holds-barred match-ups? Hell, yeah. But when you watch two guys on the ground barely doing anything for over a half-hour, UFC was nothing more than a predictable snoozfest. I still feel sorry for anyone who shelled out money to watch Shamrock vs Gracie 2 on PPV for the 35 minutes of boring non-action. And when a lot more fighters started to take their fight game to the canvas, UFC was on the fast track to obscurity in a hurry. But when the UFC switched ownership and new president Dana White and crew realized MMA needed an extreme makeover to survive, it's been one of the fastest growing sports ever since, with more rules, structure, time limits, and ground breaks to keep people hooked.
 UFC Classic Collection: Volumes 5-8 features some of the best clashes in UFC history, including such epic battles as Dan Severn and Joe Charles, the debut the legendary Tank Abbott against John Matua, the marathon of Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie 2, David Beneteau and Oleg Taktarov, the explosive match-up of Severn versus Shamrock, Don Frye and Thomas Ramirez, and Ken Shamrock versus Kimo, and a few more classic matches. Now that the UFC has transformed its identity since the Wild West days of UFC 5, to look back at the differences between eras is shocking in itself. It makes me wonder how current Heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar would fair against either a Ken Shamrock in his prime or a peak Royce Gracie. Although MMA still has a long way to go to in terms of professional credibility and legitimacy - $500,000 for the Heavyweight champ isn't much - the more responsible it becomes each year the better for the sport. I mean, when you watch any fight from UFC Classic Collection: Volumes 5-8, it's clear the early UFC would have never been accepted by the mainstream over the long term.
As for the extras within the set, each disc features a variety special features that chronicle the history of the UFC with a retrospectives on UFC 5 plus "The Predator and his Prey" with Don Frye, "The Legend in the Making" with Oleg Taktarov, "The King of the Streets" with Marco Ruas, and "David vs Goliath Recap" Scott Peterson of MMA Weekly. With the UFC and MMA on the rise with current stars like Brock Lesnar and George St. Pierre, UFC Classic Collection: Volumes 5-8 is a cool trip down memory lane that, in some ways, is even more explosive than the current UFC.
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