Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a sport filled with contrasting personalities, good, bad and weird. Now although MMA may be perceived as a ‘macho’ sport, it does have its fair share of comedic-errors and goof-ups.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has had its fair share of unintentionally hilarious fighters. MMA fans have witnessed a large number of stumbles and fumbles of several top UFC stars. These goof-ups range from absurd excuses to flat-out dumb behaviour. A few glaring examples of such UFC gems, have made our list.
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(Disclaimer: This article is meant in jest, and is in no way intended to hurt the feelings of anyone)
#5 Diego Sanchez
What better fighter to start our list than the ‘Nightmare’ himself! Yes! Yes! Yes! For the uninitiated on this chant, the well-known Daniel Bryan ‘Yes! Chant’ in pro-wrestling is in fact borrowed from MMA’s own Diego Sanchez.
In preparation for his top contender Lightweight bout against Joe Stevenson at UFC 95 back in 2009, Sanchez worked with ‘mental coach’ Tony Robbins to psyche himself up for his fight. It worked against Stevenson.
And after that fight, Sanchez continued using this chant in several fights that followed, with the intensity of the chant increasing each time. Not a great idea to spend all that energy considering the fact that you have an entire cage-fight ahead of you.
Nevertheless, the Yes! Chant’ has made Sanchez the butt of jokes and internet MMA memes for a long time now. Sanchez claims to be able to extract ‘energy’ from a lightning storm and also is a self-proclaimed ‘Zen-Master’.
Besides, Sanchez resorted to his screaming ways in the middle of his fight against Paulo Thiago at UFC 121; screaming at the top of his lungs every time he slammed Thiago to the mat. As if the screaming isn’t strenuous enough, Sanchez also has the habit of swinging punches at the air and mindlessly running into the fists of his opponents, as evidenced in his fight against Myles Jury.
Sanchez went on to place the entire blame of his loss to Jury on the beef tartare and raw quail eggs that he had consumed before the fight. He got enraged when MMA pundits pointed out that it was his bad striking technique and not bad beef that made him lose.
Now that question that arises is- Is Sanchez delusional about his striking skills?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
#4 Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson is one of the best Light Heavyweight fighters to have ever competed inside the Octagon. He is also one of the best at making excuses, after a loss inside the Octagon or outside it.
In 2008, Jackson was involved in an epic car chase from Newport Beach California to Costa Mesa. This incident involved him ramming his monster truck into a few other vehicles, and with a gigantic photo of himself plastered all over the truck, he became a laughing stock in the MMA community for his carelessness.
Back in 2008 he blamed this incident on his lack of sleep and food. However, in 2014 he changed his story once again and claimed that his car-chase was in fact a heroic attempt on his part to save his suicidal friend.
A friend that he vaguely refers to as ‘Brian’ who was later revealed to be a stable guy with a normal life.
‘Heroic car-chase to save a suicidal friend who is later revealed to be a completely normal and happy person’- now where have we heard such an absurd story before? (Hint- Cue Seinfeld Season 4, Episode 4, The Ticket). Newman claims in court that he drove like a maniac to save his suicidal friend Kramer. Yes, sounds about right.
Besides, who can ever forget Rampage’s claims against ‘The Japanese room service’, after his PRIDE FC loss to Kazushi Sakuraba in 2001. Yes, he actually claimed that the Japanese hotel patrons drugged him before his fight against Sakuraba, although Rampage had no evidence of the said ‘drugging’ and appeared to be his normal self in the ring.
Well, that’s Rampage for you.
#3 Nick Diaz
An MMA list on all things dumb is incomplete without a Diaz brother. Nick Diaz is a grappling savant and a great boxer. He is also the undisputed king at making excuses. Prior to his UFC 158 fight against Georges St. Pierre, Diaz and his camp claimed that GSP was on steroids.
Furthermore, after losing a decision to GSP, Diaz went on to claim that the Quebec Athletic Commission in Canada sanctioned the fight even though GSP missed weight. What makes this claim absurd is that GSP weighed in front of several hundreds of people present at the weigh-ins, apart from the Commission officials.
Add to this the ‘Strikeforce’ brawl. Nick Diaz plus Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller equals mayhem and all-around madness. Nick, Nate Diaz, Jake Shields and the rest of the ‘Scrap Pack’ had no business beating up someone on national TV.
Add to this the fact that the person getting mugged was ‘Mayhem’ Miller, and you have an even bigger mess on your hands. Apart from the occasional brawl outside the Octagon, Diaz also has a habit of flunking his fight week drug tests for Marijuana; that leads him to lose thousands of dollars in the process.
Losing thousands of hard-earned dollars, just because you can’t lay down the pipe for a week sounds like something only the Diaz bros would do.
#2 Johny ‘Big Rigg’ Hendricks
Johny Hendricks is a smart man. He was a good amateur wrestler and went on to win the UFC Welterweight title. He got a chance to live the ‘good life’. And the good life caught up to him. He invested a lot of money in his (now closed) Bigg Rigg Steakhouse and went on to eat steak after steak, in the lead-up to his fights. Bad idea!
Hendricks missed weight for his October 2015 fight against Tyron Woodley (he blamed that on deer meat), he missed weight again for his UFC 200 fight against Kelvin Gastelum. Hendricks came in at 173.5 pounds (2.5 pounds overweight) for his non-title match-up against Neil Magny. He had previously suffered a close call at UFC 171 against Robbie Lawler.
What’s hilarious is that Hendricks is a man who boasts about his fitness in the lead-up to every fight and then blames his weight issues for every bad weight-cut or bad performance that he has. Hendricks has blamed his bad weight-cuts for his poor showings against Lawler and Gastelum.
Most recently Hendricks challenged the media members present at a UFC 206 pre-fight press conference, to a weight-cutting challenge. And then, he himself went on to badly miss weight for his fight on the same card.
From maintaining a steady diet of deer meat, steaks and bacon while cutting weight; to challenging common persons on weight-cutting and failing to himself make weight as a professional. Johny Hendricks bags the number 2 (no pun intended) spot on our list with pride.
#1 Tito Ortiz
This brings us to the king of our list and the Sensei of stupidity. Wait! It’s a bird! No, it’s a dragon! Not really. It is the ‘Master with the Cracked Skull’ Tito Ortiz.
Ortiz is one of the best 205-pound fighters to have competed inside the Octagon, but he is also a caricature of a person and a master at making post-fight excuses. Ortiz lost a five round decision in his rematch against Forrest Griffin at UFC 106.
It was a good fight and a good display of heart by Ortiz. However, in the post-fight Octagon interview, Ortiz went on to blame his loss on a herniated disc and...Wait for it...the ‘Cracked Skull’. Yes, Tito Ortiz’s cracked skull is now a part of MMA and combat sports folklore.
MMA fans have been talking about Ortiz’s mythical cracked skull ever since UFC 106, and will continue their quest to understand it, for years to come.
Chuck ‘The Iceman’ Lidell knocked out Tito Ortiz twice, at UFC 47 and UFC 66. However, that has never stopped Ortiz from trash-talking his former-friend Lidell. Ortiz has claimed for years that inspite of being knocked out twice by Lidell, he is a better fighter than the ‘Iceman’.
Ortiz’s level of delusion is otherworldly and despite being beaten soundly on multiple occasions, he continues to sound off on his opponents using his wonderful trash-talking skills. Tito’s trash-talking skills are something to behold. From being schooled by the Randy Coutures and the Chuck Lidells of the world, Ortiz has now moved on to being mocked on live TV by Chael Sonnen.
Although Ortiz beat Sonnen come fight night, Sonnen made a mockery of Ortiz on several occasions in the build-up to their Bellator 170 main event match-up.
The best way to describe Ortiz is in his own words- ‘This guy is from real.’ No Tito. He isn’t ‘from’ real. He is ‘for’ real. And as far as Ortiz’s cracked skull is concerned, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) has confirmed that neither did Ortiz have a herniated disc nor a ‘cracked skull’ after his fight at UFC 106.
So the guy is ‘from’ real, but Tito’s cracked skull sure as hell isn’t.
From deer meat, to too much weed; the Octagon has it all. From Sanchez’s eccentric yoga ideas to Rampage’s conspiracy theories, MMA has different types and levels of ‘dumb’. This is what makes MMA so unpredictable and the UFC so entertaining. That said, I issue an open challenge to the you, the reader, to find another MMA fighter capable of dethroning The Master with the Cracked Skull from his throne of ‘dumb’.
In case you have someone in mind, do chime in with your comments.
