Valentine’s Day 2012 is not a day that my wife wants to remember. Instead of roses and a box of chocolates on our kitchen counter, she found a Best Buy receipt for UFC Undisputed 3. Maybe I’m a terrible husband, but I simply couldn’t wait any longer than necessary to rip open my fresh copy of the game and start soccer kicking all of my friends on Xbox Live.
PRIDE mode with Bas Rutten and The Fight Professor on commentary was an awesome touch that made me feel warm and nostalgic all at once. Playing multi-player mode on my couch was a blast until my buddy Jeff asked “Who is Bas Rutten?”
I understand that MMA didn’t break into the mainstream until the inaugural Ultimate Fighter Finale, and by that point, guys like Bas Rutten, Frank Shamrock and Don Frye were well out of the spotlight. However, thinking about Bas Rutten’s premature retirement has always made me wonder about the fights that we could have seen if the last generation of fighters stepped into the cage of current MMA elite.
With that, I decided to let the fantasy bookings run wild. Could you imagine if fighters like Bas Rutten and Ken Shamrock could have avoided the sands of time, and competing in their physical primes against the best that MMA has to offer? What about fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Wanderlei Silva, whose physical primes have passed them, but are still active?
Here is a look at 25 fights that the world will never see, but we wish we could.