the event, Abbott met his final adversary in Don Frye himself, with the winner of the fight gaining a title shot against Dan Severn. Despite Frye being a superior wrestler like Severn, Abbott caught him with a hard left jab and dominated the match onwards with wild strikes, appearing as if he could win by KO at any moment. However, by capitalizing on a punch in which Abbott overestimated and slipped down, Frye managed to capture his back and lock a rear naked choke, winning the fight. Abbott claimed he made a mistake by letting Frye got his hooks in, as he would have been planning to use them to snap his ankles. For his part, Frye praised Abbott, going to say the match featured the hardest hits he received in his entire career. Ultimate Ultimate 1996 was the last UFC tournament in which Abbott partook, as around the same time the UFC began switching away from the tournament format. Abbott's fortunes declined with the arrival of better trained mixed martial artists, who posed a much bigger challenge than the previously inconsistent opponents from the earlier UFC events. His debut in this new format was at UFC 13 in May 1997 against Vitor Belfort, whose fast-hitting boxing style had been criticized by Abbott while doing special commentary at UFC 12. Abbott scored an early takedown, but moved back to trade hits with Belfort standing; this proved to be an error, as Vitor immediately overwhelmed him with punches and dropped him to all fours. The Brazilian kept attacking Abbott until the match was stopped. In October 1997, Abbott was contacted to fight in the Japanese Pride 1 event against Kimo Leopoldo, but he was unable to do so, having to be replaced by Dan Severn. Ironically, shortly after Abbott replaced Severn himself with four days notice in a title match for the UFC Heavyweight Championship against Maurice Smith at UFC 15, a circumstance he described as "literally falling off the barstool into the octagon." Trying hard to press the action, Tank shockingly dropped the kickboxing champion with an early shot, but Smith controlled him through his defensive guard and a Kimura attempt. The action was restarted standing, but by this point Abbott was exhausted and offered little resistance to Smith's low kicks, prompting the referee to stop the match. Abbott bounced back from his losses with his performance at the first