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Fighters From Australia
On February 1, 2010, the Ultimate Fighting Championship held its first-ever event in Australia, UFC 110, live from the Acer Arena in Sydney. The event was a sellout, with 17,431 fans in attendance, and a smash success, setting the record for the largest gross total merchandise sales of any UFC event up to that time. The event took advantage of the brewing - some would now say boiling over - popularity of mixed martial arts in Australia, which continues to gather a head of steam. Follow-up promotions such as Impact FC, which held notable events in Sydney and Brisbane in 2010, have also attempted to seize on MMA's growing cache down under.
The number of Australian fighters currently active in major MMA promotions remains small, however. Trailblazer Elvis Sinosic, who lost a bout to Tito Ortiz for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship in 2001, was perhaps the first Aussie of note to compete in top flight cagefighting. Its second wave of fighters is surely led by standout UFC lightweight George Sotiropoulos, who put himself - and Australia - on the map in 2010 with consecutive wins over Joe Stevenson and Kurt Pellegrino. There are surely more greats to come from down under as MMA in Australia continues to take hold.
