Fabricio Camoes and Jim Miller will clash in a lightweight bout at UFC 168 while Anderson Silva looks to win the middleweight championship back in the main event facing Chris Weidman on Dec. 28. However, many fans don’t know that Silva’s first tournament win happened on June 25, 1997, when he fought Camoes in Brazil.
Camoes, an 18-year-old jiu-jitsu purple belt under Royler Gracie, was invited to make his MMA debut in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, at Brazilian Freestyle Circuit. Silva would also have his first experience in MMA that same night, and they eventually met in the 176-pound tournament final.
“We traveled 17 hours by bus to get there,” Camoes told MMAFighting.com. “We got there on Thursday, two days before the fight. We had…