One of the stars of the UFC’s first ever event, Art Jimmerson, has died at 60-years-old. His cause of death has not yet been revealed.
“The UFC family sends its sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Art Jimmerson at this difficult time,” the UFC wrote after his family announced that he’d passed away.
The sad news comes as a shock as just six months ago Jimmerson appeared on a ‘Legends Of UFC 1’ roundtable on the UFC’s official YouTube channel and had appeared to be in good health and good spirits as he reminisced with his fellow competitors about that historic night in Denver on November 12, 1993.
Prior to agreeing to fight at UFC 1, Jimmerson had been enjoying a successful boxing career, having amassed a 29-5 pro-record at the time and riding a 15-fight winning streak that had taken him to No.8 on the IBF Cruiserweight rankings.
Jimmerson infamously turned up for his fight against Royce Gracie wearing one boxing glove, but while that led to much post-fight ridicule the reality was that whether he’d been wearing two gloves, no gloves or a full suit of armor the outcome was likely going to be the same as he had no answer to Gracie’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ability and quickly tapped out while mounted.
Jimmerson’s career never really recovered from that moment, with his long winning streak in the boxing ring coming to an end in his next fight via TKO. He would eventually hang up his gloves in 2002 after suffering nine defeats in a row, with all but one of those having ended inside the distance.
“I love you guys so much,” Jimmerson told his fellow competitors Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Gerard Gordeau, Taylor Wily and Zane Frazier at the ‘Legends of UFC 1’ roundtable last year.
“There will never be another UFC 1. We did something that shocked the world man. We did something that, even to this day, we don’t understand how much our presence in the ring affected the whole sport’s legacy. I mean, we did it.”
