| UFC Brazil: Ultimate Brazil | ||||
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| Information | ||||
| Promotion | Ultimate Fighting Championship | |||
| Date | October 16, 1998 | |||
| Venue | Ginasio da Portuguesa | |||
| City | Sao Paulo, Brazil | |||
| Event chronology | ||||
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UFC Brazil: Ultimate Brazil (also known as UFC 17.5) was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship in São Paulo, Brazil on October 16th, 1998. The event was seen on pay per view in the United States and Brazil, and was later released on home video.
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Ultimate Brazil was the first appearance of the UFC in Brazil, and the third UFC event to take place outside of the US. Ultimate Brazil marked the first UFC event (other than UFC 9) to not utilize the tournament format, which aside from UFC 23, was abandoned completely in following events. The event featured the first ever UFC Lightweight Championship fight, as well as a Middleweight Championship fight.
Ultimate Brazil was part one of what the UFC called "The Road To The Heavyweight Title" (not to be confused with the event of the same name), a tournament of sorts, spanning four events, to crown the new UFC Heavyweight Champion following Randy Couture's relinquishing of the belt.
UFC Brazil marked the first appearance of Pedro Rizzo, who would go on to become a top UFC heavyweight contender. The event also featured the first appearance of former PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva.
UFC Brazil caused controversy due to the fact that the Brazilian flag was wrongly represented on the promotional material. The flag is composed of 26 stars in the lower part of the blue circle and one lone star in the top half that symbolizes the state of Pará[1]. On the contrary, the promotional material showed only 25 stars on the bottom half and no star in the top half.