My First Fight: Dennis Hallman

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse Exclusive

This Saturday at UFC 123 in Detroit, welterweight Dennis Hallman faces Karo Parisyan in a battle of two MMA veterans who have 25 years worth of experience between them. For the 34-year-old Hallman, it will be his 62nd pro fight, at least according to one version of his record, though the true number is a little tougher to pin down, even for Hallman. Now, in the second installment of MMA Fighting's new feature (read the first here), Hallman looks back at his initial foray into the sport that would one day become his career.

In the winter of 1995 Dennis Hallman got a strange phone call. He didn't know what to make of it at first, though in retrospect it probably changed the course of his life.

"There was a kid named Bobby Jacobsen who was a couple years older than me, and he was sending videotapes into [MMA organization] Battlecade of himself sparring and fighting and stuff," Hallman remembers. "He got my number from someone in our high school and he called me up and said, 'I want to fight you on tape.' I was like, what? You want to fight me? For what? I don't even know you."

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