Thought it may be interesting to do a list of fighters who are currently active who made the earliest appearances in either PRIDE or the UFC. He must have fought in the last year, without declaring his retirement, so no Randy ect. Will edit the list if you guys join in, but I'll start it off, maybe we could do a list of total appearances of any fighter too. In tournaments, each fight = an appearance. Earliest appearance of a currently active fighter (Fought in the last 12 months) UFC Ken Shamrock UFC 1 Dan Severn - UFC 4 Vitor Belfort - UFC 12 Tito Ortiz - UFC 13 Kazushi Sakuraba - UFC Japan Dan Henderson- UFC 17 Carlos Newton UFC 17 Jeremy Horn - UFC 17 Wanderlei Silva - UFC Ultimate Brazil Pedro Rizzo - UFC Ultimate Brazil Kevin Randleman - UFC 19 Andre Arlovski - UFC 28 Josh Barnett - UFC 28 Pride Dan Severn - Pride 1 Kazushi Sakuraba - Pride 2 Carlos Newton - Pride 3 Vitor Belfort - Pride 5 Wanderlei Silva - Pride 7 Dan Henderson - Pride 12 Ken Shamrock -Pride GP 2000 Finals Jeremy Horn - Pride 21 Kevin Randleman - Pride 22 Josh Barnett - Pride 28 Pedro Rizzo - Pride Critical Countdown 2005 Total of any fighter UFC Tito Ortiz - 21 Ken Shamrock - 15 Vitor Belfort- 14 Pedro Rizzo - 14 Andre Arlovski - 14 Dan Severn - 13 Jeremy Horn - 13 Wanderlei Silva - 8 Dan Henderson - 7 Kevin Randleman - 7 Carlos Newton - 7 Josh Barnett - 5 Kazushi Sakuraba - 2 Pride Wanderlei Silva - 28 Kazushi Sakuraba - 27 Dan Henderson - 18 Kevin Randleman - 11 Carlos Newton - 9 Josh Barnett - 9 Vitor Belfort - 5 Ken Shamrock - 4 Dan Severn - 1 Pedro Rizzo - 2 Jeremy Horn - 1
Wanderlai Silva made his debut in 1996 and UFC debut in 98' against... Belfort who made his debut about 20 days before!!!! Lynchburg
Kevin Randleman was really early too... maybe a few days in between Wandy and Vitor in a Vale Tudo fight. He is still active too Lynchburg
Don't know if he has officially retired yet but Ken Shamrock-UFC 1/Pride 2000 GP Finals Fought in the UFC 15 times, Pride 4 times.
BJ Penn is one of the most seasoned ELITE fighters. He has been fighting in the UFC since 2001. I don't know any other ELITE fighters that have been in the spotlight that long.
Apparently he has. Good to see these guys finally retiring, they've been in the game for too long. Goodridge was on something like a 10 fight loss streak.