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UFC 3

UFC mixed martial arts event in 1994

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ2755941
Source-derived summary

The Ultimate Fighting Championship III (later renamed UFC 3: The American Dream) was a mixed martial arts (MMA) event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on September 9, 1994, at Grady Cole Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. The event was seen live on pay-per-view in the United States, and was later released on home video.

History

UFC 3 used an eight-man tournament format, with the winner receiving $60,000. The tournament had no weight classes or weight limits. Each match had no time limit or rounds; therefore no judges were used for the night. Competitors could only win a match by submission, throwing in the towel, knockout, or referee stoppage. This event marked the first time the referee was given the authority to stop the contest. The referee for the night was once again "Big" John McCarthy.

Replacement fighter Steve Jennum won the tournament by defeating Harold Howard via submission due to strikes, despite only fighting in the finals. Jennum was a replacement for Ken Shamrock, who made it to the finals but withdrew due to injury.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “UFC 3” is uFC mixed martial arts event in 1994. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through mixed, martial and arts, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, mixed, martial and arts is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “uFC mixed martial arts event in 1994” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2755941. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “UFC 3”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow UFC 3 primary sources, UFC 3 archive and mixed research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “UFC 3”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from UFC 3” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.