5 athletes from other sports who fought in MMA

#5 Marius Pudzianowski

Unlike the athletes mentioned in the prior slides, the mighty Pole Pudzianowski actually has a pretty long MMA career at this point – he’s got a 12-5 record (with one no-contest) – and his most recent fight actually came just last week. In fact, he’s been fighting for almost a decade now and has faced off with some pretty famous fighters, too, in the form of Tim Sylvia, Bob Sapp and Rolles Gracie.

It’s not bad when you consider Pudzianowski was never a martial artist in his prior athletic career – in fact, his sport would probably be one of the last that you’d consider as a good background for entry into MMA.

Pudzianowski, for those who aren’t aware, was a former Strongman competitor who won five World’s Strongest Man titles – more than any other competitor. He also won Europe’s Strongest Man six times and has numerous other strongman titles to his name.

At his peak, Pudzianowski was able to bench press 290kg, squat 380kg and deadlift 415kg, insane numbers by anyone’s standards. Unfortunately, while he’s got more wins than losses in MMA, his great strength hasn’t really helped him get to the top level, as his cardio has failed him on numerous occasion as has his lacking ground game.

Still, compared to some of the other athletes from other sports he’s done a lot to be admired. He’s also competed on Poland’s version of Dancing With the Stars, showing that the strongman can seemingly turn his hand to anything and succeed to a degree.

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