Matt Bevan

Gourdeau then broke his own hand by punching Tulli in the eye.

That fight was over, but Godot fought two more times that night with that broken hand and Tully's teeth still stuck in his foot.

In Godot's next MMA appearance, he gouged Japanese fighter Yuki Nakai's right eye and punched him in the head over and over while he was on the ground.

Nakai somehow ended up winning that fight.

Mackay fought two more times that night before retiring from the sport.

He was permanently blind in his right eye from Gordo's gouging, but he hid that fact for years to try and protect MMA's reputation.

When Senator John McCain heard about the incredible level of violence in MMA...

He was horrified.

This, to him, was miles away from good old fashioned boxing.

Now it's worth noting that cockfighting, as in two roosters fighting each other in a pit, was still legal in McCain's home state of Arizona at the time.

But he was determined that this new sport, known as mixed martial arts, should be banned.

But how can a US Senator get a sport banned?

Well, sports organizations need two things, venues to hold their events in and lucrative broadcast agreements.

And John McCain was determined to cut the UFC's access to both of those things.

From the 1980s onwards, combat sports tended to make their money through pay-per-view agreements with cable TV networks.

If McCain could cut off the UFC's access to venues and pay-per-view money, he could kill the sport.

So he began sending letters to every state governor in the country and asked them to ban it.

He encouraged major cable operators to ban the UFC from their networks as well.

By 1997, the UFC was struggling.

36 states refused to allow the UFC to fight there, including the traditional homes of big combat sports events like Nevada, California, and New York.