5 stars who you might not know who tried MMA

#5 Shinsuke Nakamura

WWE superstar Shinsuke Nakamura put together a 3-1 record in MMA in the early 2000's

Plenty of pro-wrestlers have dabbled in MMA over the years – and vice versa of course – to varying degrees of success. Everyone knows about Brock Lesnar and CM Punk, who both fought in the UFC, and longtime fans would definitely remember UFC star Ken Shamrock’s run in WWE in the late 1990’s.

Far less well known though is the fact that current WWE superstar Shinsuke Nakamura competed in MMA in the early 2000’s and actually did pretty well for himself, putting together a record of 3-1 with one No Contest. At the time of his debut in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2002, MMA crossovers were far more common and he fought his first professional fight just months after making his NJPW debut.

That fight wasn’t successful as he was submitted by Daniel Gracie, but following this, he defeated PRIDE veteran Jan Njorte by guillotine choke, then went over to Brazil to fight in the inaugural Jungle Fight show, where he submitted the largely unknown Shane Eitner. His third win came over highly ranked K-1 kickboxer Alexey Ignashov, again via submission.

Rather than continue with his burgeoning MMA career though, Nakamura decided to stick to pro-wrestling and by the early 2010’s he was one of the biggest and most recognisable stars in NJPW and across the world. 2016 saw him sign with WWE and the rest is history – he won the 2018 Royal Rumble and will compete for the WWE Heavyweight title at Wrestlemania 34 – but unfortunately, his semi-successful run in MMA seems to have been consigned to history too.