UFC 34: High Voltage was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship at the MGM Grand Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada on November 2, 2001. The event was seen live on pay per view in the United States, and later released on home video.

The card was headlined by two Championship Bouts, Randy Couture faced Pedro Rizzo for the Heavyweight Title, and Matt Hughes faced Carlos Newton for the Welterweight Title. UFC 34 marked the first appearance of future Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir. It should also be noted, this may have been one of the worst technical broadcasts for the UFC as the commentators could barely be heard, consistently being drowned out by the crowd and ring noise.

Randy Duane Couture (pronounced /koʊˈtʊər/; born June 22, 1963) is an actor, retired American mixed martial artist, collegiate and Greco-Roman wrestler. During his tenures in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Couture became a three-time UFC Heavyweight Champion, two-time UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, an Interim UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, and was the UFC 13 Heavyweight Tournament Winner. Couture is the first fighter to hold two UFC championship titles in two different divisions (heavyweight and light heavyweight). Couture has competed in a record 15 title fights. He holds the most title reigns in the UFC with five. His last fight with Lyoto Machida marked his 24th fight in the UFC, the third most amount of fights in the UFC (Tito Ortiz is first with 26 and Matt Hughes is second with 25). Couture is one of the first members of the UFC Hall of Fame. He is the only person over the age of 40 to have won a UFC championship fight, having done so four times.^{[citation needed]}

Couture was an Olympic wrestling alternate and has lived in Corvallis, Oregon, throughout much of his career, where he served as an assistant wrestling coach and a strength and conditioning coach for Oregon State University. He established Team Quest with Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson, a training camp for fighters, based out of Gresham, Oregon, and headed by coach Robert Folis. In 2005, Couture moved to Las Vegas, where he opened his own extensive chain of gyms under the name Xtreme Couture. He currently trains at his Las Vegas-based gym. Couture partnered with Bas Rutten in the opening of Legends Gym in Hollywood, California.

Pedro Augusto Rizzo (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpedɾu ˈʁizu]; born May 3, 1974) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist and Muay Thai fighter who has competed for the UFC, PRIDE, and Affliction. He holds notable wins over Mark Coleman, Dan Severn, Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Jeff Monson, Gary Goodridge and Ken Shamrock.

Trained by Marco Ruas, Rizzo has adopted Ruas' brutal leg kicks and has developed strong stand up fighting and used this to great effect in the cage. Rizzo is a talented and feared striker in MMA.

Rizzo is a former WVC heavyweight champion and former contender for the UFC heavyweight belt. A stint in PRIDE FC did not go too well for the former UFC Heavyweight title contender, and Rizzo suffered quick losses at the hands of Sergei Kharitonov and Roman Zentsov.

Rizzo returned to his winning ways on the March 9, 2007, when he beat UFC veteran Justin Eilers by unanimous decision at the début show of Art of War Undisputed Arena Fighting Championships, which was held in Dallas, Texas.

Tarec Saffiedine (born September 6, 1986) is a Belgian mixed martial artist of Lebanese descent, who competes in the welterweight division. He has fought in a number of promotions around the world including DREAM in Japan and Strikeforce in the United States.

Saffiedine was born to a Lebanese father, who emigrated to Belgium to study as an ophthalmologist, and Belgian mother. His father was also a Taekwondo practitioner. He grew up in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert in Brussels and played basketball in his youth. Inspired by Japanese comic books, he took up Karate at age 16, and is now a black belt in Shihaishinkai, a style of Karate that includes striking, Judo throws and ground fighting. He also has an amateur kickboxing record of 12-1-1 and later began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai, and then wrestling when he emigrated to the United States. Early in his career he worked a number of jobs including in a restaurant, a cinema and as a gardener and security guard. He received his nickname, "Sponge", from one of his coaches because he learns quickly.

Mark Raymond Fischer (born July 29, 1974 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a former American football center who played in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins. He played college football at Purdue University and was drafted in the fifth round of the 1998 NFL Draft. During the 2000 NFL season, Fischer became the starting center of the Washington Redskins as a result of an injury to Cory Raymer, starting in all 16 games. But the following year, Raymer retrieved his starting position away from him and Fischer never played in the NFL again.