Art Davie proposed to Ricky Stuart and John Milius an eight-man single-elimination tournament called "War of the Worlds". The tournament was inspired by the Gracies in Action video-series produced by the Gracie family of Brazil which featured Gracie Jiu-Jitsu students defeating martial-arts masters of various disciplines such as karate, kung fu and kickboxing. The tournament would feature martial artists from different disciplines facing each other in no-holds-barred combat to determine the best martial art and would aim to replicate the excitement of the matches Davie had seen on the videos. John Milius, a noted film director and screenwriter, as well as a Gracie student, agreed to act as the event's creative director. Davie drafted the business plan and twenty-eight investors contributed the initial capital to start WOW Promotions with the intent to develop the tournament into a television franchise.
In 1993 WOW Promotions sought a television partner and approached pay-per-view producers TVKO (HBO), SET (Showtime) and Campbell McLaren at the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Both TVKO and SET declined, but SEG–a pioneer in pay-per-view television which had produced such off-beat events as a gender tennis-match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova–became WOW's partner in May 1993. SEG contacted video and film art-director Jason Cusson to design the trademarked "Octagon", a signature piece for the event. Cusson remained the Production Designer through UFC 27. SEG devised the name for the show as The Ultimate Fighting Championship.
WOW Promotions and SEG produced the first event, later called UFC 1, at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993. Art Davie functioned as the show's booker and matchmaker. The show proposed to find an answer for sports fans' questions such as: "Can a wrestler beat a boxer?" As with most martial arts at the time, fighters typically had skills in just one discipline and had little experience against opponents with different skills.
The television broadcast featured kickboxers Patrick Smith and Kevin Rosier, savate fighter Gerard Gordeau, karate expert Zane Frazier, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, sumo wrestler Teila Tuli, boxer Art Jimmerson and 175 lb (79 kg) Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Royce Gracie—younger brother of UFC co-founder Rorion, whom Rorion hand-picked to represent his family in the competition. Royce Gracie's submission skills proved the most effective in the inaugural tournament, earning him the first ever UFC tournament championship after submitting Jimmerson, Shamrock and Gordeau in succession. The show proved extremely successful with 86,592 television subscribers on pay-per-view.
However, the promoters did not intend for the event to become a precursor to a series. "That show was only supposed to be a one-off", eventual UFC president Dana White said. "It did so well on pay-per-view they decided to do another, and another. Never in a million years did these guys think they were creating a sport."
I'm a casual fan even despite my regular interaction in mma-gaf, I'm just saying, 3 cards so close together often kills any major promotion that you can pump into one card, let alone 3. I guess since I'm not watching TUF this season as well I'm not seeing whatever promos they throw on that.