Filed under: UFC, FanHouse Exclusive
If you ask Art Jimmerson now, he’ll admit that he never thought the UFC would still be around nearly two decades from the night he stepped into the Octagon for the first and last time. He certainly never thought that, seventeen years after his short, but memorable bout with Royce Gracie at UFC 1, he’d be teaching boxing at a UFC gym in Rosemead, Calif.
And yet here he is, now 47 years old and retired from boxing, sitting on some heavy bags next to a cage not so unlike the one he saw for the first time, along with the American public, in November of 1993.
“I remember my manager told me, ‘Man this thing ain’t going anywhere. It’s too far out there.’ That’s how it seemed at the time, but now look at it,” he says and gestures at the expansive gym around him. “Who knew, right?”
Not Jimmerson. Not back then. He was a former Golden Gloves champion riding a 15-fight win streak. He’d had nearly 30 fights as a pro, and his career seemed like it was finally on the verge of taking off. Fighting a bunch of karate teachers and toughmen in front of a couple thousand people in Denver sounded like a relatively easy night of work.