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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rearnakedchoke.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350: Here Pictured: Demian Maia squeezing Rick Story for some brain juice]]
3
4->''"Fighting is not what we thought it was."''
5-->-- '''Jim Brown''', ''UFC 1''
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7Mixed martial arts is a combat sport that incorporates techniques from a wide range of other combat sports and martial arts styles, with the three basic pillars of the sport being striking, wrestling and submission grappling. Thus, the name "mixed martial arts" refers to the mix of techniques used in competition.
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9UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship (UFC) is by far the most prominent MMA promotion.
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11[[foldercontrol]]
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13[[folder:History]]
14Fighting competitions similar to MMA have existed throughout history, most notably in the Greek Olympic sport Pankration and the ''vale tudo'' scene in 20th century Brazil. The modern sport of mixed martial arts, however, began with the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993. The event was billed as a no-holds-barred tournament straight out of ''Film/{{Bloodsport}}'' to determine in real-life conditions which martial art style was "[[HypotheticalFightDebate the best]]." Could Kung Fu beat Karate? Could boxing beat wrestling? These questions would be answered inside a chain-link enclosed "Octagon". Behind the scenes, however, the event was masterminded by the Gracies, a Brazilian clan of martial artists who had developed a style of submission grappling called UsefulNotes/BrazilianJiuJitsu (BJJ) that they believed could defeat any style. The event was intended to showcase the effectiveness of BJJ.
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17The Gracies entered their youngest and smallest adult member into the tournament, 27-year-old Royce, to prove that BJJ techniques could overpower physically stronger opponents. Royce won the competition easily by tackling his opponents and quickly rolling them into submission holds, forcing them to "tap out" and concede defeat. Most of his opponents were ignorant of submission grappling and could not defend themselves when they were taken to the ground. The statement had been made that the way to win a "real" fistfight was nothing like viewers were expecting.
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20The Ultimate Fighting Championship expanded into a series of events with new and returning fighters. Royce won several more tournaments before the Gracies dropped out of the company. Other fighters rose to prominence by researching previous events to learn which techniques were truly effective in the Octagon and which were not. Over time, fighters learned to cross-train in the most effective styles, studying BJJ as well as wrestling and various striking techniques. Howard Rosenberg, a television critic, coined the term "mixed martial arts" to describe the new hybrid style.
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23The fledgling sport soon faced political opposition for its perceived barbaric nature, and 36 states passed laws banning "no holds barred fighting." As viewership declined due to the restrictions, the company instituted more safety measures to make competition more akin to a combat sport that focused on individual achievement rather than a no-holds-barred contest between styles. It dropped the tournament format, and senior referee John [=McCarthy=] worked with the California and New Jersey State Athletic Boards to draw up a strict rule-set emphasizing fighter safety, which became known as the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.
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26Things started to turn around when the company was bought by the Fertitta brothers, a pair of Las Vegas billionaires. Forming the company Zuffa (Italian for "brawl") with their close friend Dana White, the Fertittas continued the efforts to legitimize the sport. In 2005, they created ''Series/TheUltimateFighter'', an MMA-themed reality competition that put the sport into millions of homes when it was picked up by Creator/{{Spike}} TV. The live season finale featured a now-legendary bout between light heavyweight finalists Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonnar. The bout is often credited as the most significant fight in MMA history and earned the UFC a legion of new fans.
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29In Japan, the sport of MMA took a concurrent but separate evolution, with origins in a form of ProfessionalWrestling called "[[Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation shoot wrestling]]." Shoot wrestlers used a hybrid of submission [[UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling catch wrestling]] techniques and martial arts-based striking in matches similar to MMA, although it was still a [[{{Kayfabe}} work]]. Promotions like Pancrase and Shooto discarded the scripts and were already putting on hybrid fighting shows with real fights by the time the UFC was founded. In 1994, Shooto organized the "Vale Tudo Japan" event, which brought Royce Gracie's older brother Rickson Gracie to Japan. The success of this and following events, as well the concurrent rise of MMA in America, culminated in the creation of PRIDE Fighting Championship (PRIDE FC) on 1997, with the first event seeing a match between Rickson Gracie and shoot-wrestling champion Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada. The promotion was an enormous success, and for several years it helped promote the fledgling sport as the UFC struggled to find its footing. Ultimately, PRIDE was sunk when its ties with the {{yakuza}} came to light, while the UFC reemerged to new success under the Fertittas and absorbed PRIDE in 2007.
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32Now owned by Endeavor, a massive entertainment holding company, the UFC remains the face of modern MMA. Its major rivals inlclude Bellator MMA, a subsidiary of Creator/{{Viacom}}CBS; Professional Fighters League (PFL); the exclusively female Invicta; ONE Championship, headquartered in Singapore and active all over southeast Asia; KSW (Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki; ''Martial Arts Confrontation'') in Poland, known for putting big shows; and RIZIN Fighting Federation in Japan, a revival of PRIDE.
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35One major impact that mixed martial arts has had is the complete [[DiscreditedTrope discrediting]] of SupernaturalMartialArts as a trope in real life, debunking centuries of [[ArtisticLicenseMartialArts false beliefs, claims and outright scams]] of many so-called martial arts masters and self-defense trainers. Mixed martial arts demonstrated the inherent weaknesses in many fighting styles, especially ones which claimed to use things such as {{Pressure Point}}s, KiManipulation, or other incredible feats. The "[=McDojo=]" became an endangered species, and even {{Old Master}}s who felt confident in the invincibility of their generations-old fighting techniques quickly learned that they were no match for a live, resisting opponent.
36[[/folder]]
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38[[folder:Rules]]
39Due to the participation of the Gracies, the first UFC event had its roots in the Brazilian tradition of "vale tudo" (literally, "anything goes"), meaning a fight with hardly any rules at all. Modern MMA, however, is a safety-conscious sport with a large number of rules and regulations. Most promotions operate under the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.
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42Competition features a much wider array of legal techniques than other combat sports, but there are also many fouls and illegal actions. Fighters are generally prohibited from grabbing the cage or ropes as well as their opponent's hair, trunks, and gloves. Fighters cannot strike certain parts of the body, such as the spine, throat, eyes, groin, and the back of the head. Some types of strikes are prohibited, such as headbutts, while others are legal only in certain circumstances. For example, kicking or kneeing the head of a downed opponent is usually illegal in American MMA, but has long been allowed in Japanese MMA. Standard competition lasts for three rounds of five minutes each, with five rounds for most main events and all championship bouts. Judging in America is based on the ten-point must system of boxing.
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45Fights can end by knockout, referee stoppage, or submission. Unlike boxing, the fight does not pause when a combatant falls to the floor. Thus, if a fighter gets knocked down, they must continue to defend themself as their opponent continues to attack them. The referee is vitally important in deciding when a fighter can no longer compete and calling a stop to the fight. For this reason, technical knockouts due to referee stoppage are much more common than a straight KO. If a fighter is not "intelligently defending" themself, even if they are not taking very much damage, the referee can stop the fight in the interest of fighter safety. If a fighter is placed in a submission hold or decides at any time that they wish to surrender, they must "tap out" on the mat or their opponent's body to stop the fight. If the fighter's hands are tied up, they can also verbally submit.
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48Fighters wear small four or five-ounce fingerless gloves that protect their hands but still allow their fingers to grip for various grappling techniques. No shoes or complete foot coverings are allowed. [[note]] (Required safety gear includes mouthpieces, along with athletic cups for men and sports bras for women. Women also have the option of wearing either a halter top or a short-sleeved shirt. Elastic-only knee and ankle wraps are also allowed)[[/note]] Fights take place in a modified boxing ring or cage of various sizes and shapes. The cage is designed with grappling in mind, as it prevents opponents from falling through or getting entangled in the ropes. Almost all American MMA promotions use some version of a cage; in an effort to attain uniformity, the UFC in 2001 began allowing smaller promotions to use the eight-sided cage, though they cannot legally refer to them as an "Octagon". Japanese MMA has traditionally used rings due to the influence of professional wrestling, though cages are gaining popularity in major promotions.
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51Promotions following the Unified Rules use standardized weight classes ranging from Flyweight at 125 lbs up to Super-Heavyweight at over 265 lbs. The UFC hosts fights from all weight classes except Super Heavyweight. Japanese promotions tend to use slightly different classes and names. Competitors must weigh in the day before an event and not exceed their class's maximum weight in order to qualify for the fight. Just like other sports involving weight classes, "weight cutting" is a common tactic to gain a size advantage. Fighters will severely dehydrate themselves in the days leading up to the weigh-in to lower their weight down to the limit, then spend the rest of the day rehydrating back to their normal weight.
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54Rules vary slightly between promotions, but have gradually migrated to coincide with the Unified Rules.
55[[/folder]]
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57[[folder:Competition]]
58Mixed martial arts began as a competition between pure styles and evolved into a hybrid style of the most effective techniques. Three major disciplines have risen to the top as the essential skills for any mixed martial artist:
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60* '''Stand-Up Striking''': All bouts begin with both fighters standing, so it is important for fighters to have at least some knowledge of stand-up technique. Boxing and various forms of kickboxing are popular base disciplines for striking. Muay Thai, or "Thai boxing," is a popular discipline for its use of knees and elbows. However, striking in MMA must be modified from its pure stylistic roots to accommodate the possibility of grappling and takedowns.
61* '''Wrestling''': Wrestling enables fighters to dictate where the fight takes place. Fighters use wrestling to take their opponent to the ground, maintain top position, and resist their opponents' takedowns. Greco-Roman and collegiate freestyle wrestling are popular background disciplines. Wrestling is generally considered the most important pure style for competition, and mixed martial artists with strong wrestling backgrounds are common. Judo is also prized for its effective throws and transitions to grappling.
62* '''Grappling''': When a fight goes to the ground, a strong background in BJJ or other submission grappling style is often necessary to apply or defend against submission holds. Common submissions used in competition include various chokes, armlocks, and leglocks. The predominant art in this field has been Brazilian jiu-jitsu thanks to the UFC and its influences, but it has also seen styles like shoot wrestling, sambo and judo.
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64An MMA bout is a three-dimensional sport that can take place on three different playing fields:
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66* '''On the Feet''': Each fight begins on the feet. While both fighters are separated and standing, fighters can either attempt to strike, attempt to clinch, or attempt a takedown. Due to the threat of kicks, fighters stand farther away from each other than boxers do. Fighters also must stand more flat-footing to maintain their balance should their opponent attempt to shoot in for a takedown attempt. To get his opponent off balance, a fighter will usually set up a takedown by throwing strikes before shooting in.
67* '''In the Clinch''': When two fighters are grappling while standing, they are in the clinch. From here, each fighter can either strike his opponent, try to take him down to the mat, or attempt to push him away and separate. Wrestling is very important in the clinch to maintain your balance and control your opponent. Takedowns from the clinch usually take the form of trips, throws, and slams. Striking from the clinch is called "dirty boxing." The Muay Thai clinch, sometimes called "the plum," in which the back of the opponent's head is controlled with both hands, is often used in conjunction with knee strikes. Fighters in a clinch usually try to take their opponent down to get a dominant position on the ground. It is also possible to place your opponent in a standing submission hold from the clinch.
68* '''On the Mat''': When both fighters are on the ground, the fighter on top is said to have "top position." The fighter in top position must use his submission grappling skills to achieve a dominant position on his opponent and either strike or apply a submission hold. The more dominant his position, the easier it is for him to overcome his opponent's defenses. The fighter on bottom must use his grappling skills to either sweep his opponent and place himself in top position, or he must put himself in the most defensive position he can on the bottom. From the strongest defensive position, called "full guard," the fighter on bottom can threaten with submission holds of his own.
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70There are a number of classic strategies used by fighters to emphasize their strengths or to capitalize on weaknesses in their opponent's game.
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72* '''Sprawl and Brawl''': A fighter with good striking and wrestling will often attempt to use his wrestling to prevent the fight from going to the ground and force his opponent into a striking contest on the feet. Thus, the fighter "sprawls" whenever his opponent shoots in on him, and forces his opponent to "brawl" with him. Fighters often use this strategy to nullify the advantages of a submission specialist. This style was popularized by UFC poster boy Chuck Liddell.
73* '''Ground and Pound''': A strong wrestler will often attempt to take his opponent to the ground and achieve a dominant top position. Rather than attempt submissions, he will focus on ground strikes to inflict damage while his opponent is less able to defend himself. This is an effective strategy to take stand-up strikers out of their game. It is also useful to soften up an opponent and reduce his ability to defend against submissions. However, it can be a risky strategy against quality grapplers who can still threaten submissions from the bottom. The "GNP" style was invented by early MMA pioneer Mark Coleman, but made famous by UFC light heavyweight Tito Ortiz.
74* '''Lay and Pray''': This is a disparaging term for an overly cautious strategy in which the fighter controls his opponent on the ground by maintaining top position, but does not put up significant offense. In effect, the fighter is "laying" on top of his opponent and "praying" that his top position will earn him enough points for a decision victory. However, if a referee believes that the top fighter is not making enough effort to improve his position or to earn a stoppage, he can restart the fighters on their feet. There are disparaging terms for similarly cautious and boring strategies occurring in the standing and clinch phase of MMA; '''Stand and Bland''' for a fighter jabbing his way to a decision (also known as "point fighting"), and '''Wall and Stall''' for a fighter pressing his opponent against the cage but not mounting significant offense.
75* '''Pulling Guard''': When a fighter believes that he has a sizable advantage in the submission game, he may attempt a takedown called "pulling guard," which pulls his opponent to the ground on top of him and into his full guard. While the fighter is giving away top position, he puts himself in a position where he can threaten with submissions or eventually sweep to gain top position. Fighters who wish to avoid a stand-up exchange will sometimes pull guard as a desperation move, accepting the sacrifice of top position in an effort to get the fight to the ground.
76[[/folder]]
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78[[folder:Stigma]]
79Mixed Martial Arts has yet to completely shed its "human cockfighting" reputation. For many tears, MMA was illegal in many US states, and in some western nations, owing to perceptions that the sport is a barbaric freak-show with no rules. Common misconceptions about modern MMA include:
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82"'''There are no rules in mixed martial arts"'''
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85Even the very first UFC events, which were ''billed'' as having "no rules," did in fact have several rules. Combatants had to obey the directions of the referee, and biting and gouging were disallowed. Modern MMA is a fully regulated sport with a long list of rules and prohibitions summarized above. The main difference between MMA and other martial arts is that MMA rules are primarily directed at concerns of combatant safety, rather than limiting the general fighting techniques available to the combatants. Fouling an opponent or failing to obey the rules will result in point deduction or disqualification. Cuts or other injuries that prevent a fighter from adequately defending himself can also cause a stop to a bout for fighter safety. Referees in America work for state athletic commissions and not for the promotion holding the event to maintain their impartiality. Several high-profile bouts have ended by disqualification or no contest due to fouls.
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88'''"Mixed martial artists fight in cages like animals"'''
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91Mixed martial arts bouts are held in either cages or rings depending on the promotion. Cages are more popular in the US due to the influence of the UFC, while rings are more popular in Japan due to the influence of kickboxing and pro wrestling. Cages have a stigma attached to them because they are associated with animal fighting or gladiatorial combat, in which unwilling participants are locked inside an arena and forced to fight. In MMA, however, cages are used because the horizontal ropes of a ring do not effectively prevent grappling opponents from falling out of the arena. Grappling opponents can slip through or become entangled in the ropes, forcing the referee to pause the bout and restart the fighters in the center of the ring. Cages can thus prevent pauses in the action by providing a more effective barrier. Fighters use different tactics depending on the type and shape of the arena. Fans are generally divided as to which arena facilitates more entertaining matches and provides the best visibility.
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94'''"Mixed martial arts is a brutal bloodsport"'''
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97There is no getting around the fact that MMA is a violent combat sport. Many fights have resulted in concussions, bloody gashes and broken bones. There have been three reported deaths at MMA events, though none in any major promotion. Critics decry the sport as barbaric savagery that will corrupt our youth and make society more violent. However, these critics apparently ignore the violence and potential for injuries in other sports such as American football and boxing. Early American football was almost outlawed by President Theodore Roosevelt for its perceived savage nature, yet its current form is considered a hallmark of the nation's culture.[[note]]Pres. Roosevelt had every reason to be concerned - ''19 people'' died playing football in 1905, at a time when far less people were playing it than there are today. Much like MMA football had to make drastic rule changes to avoid being outlawed[[/note]] Ultimately, any strenuous physical contest carries some degree of danger, even benign sports such as running. To be fair to MMA, one must prove that the sport is more violent or dangerous than other mainstream sports by an unacceptable margin.
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100Arguably, mixed martial arts is less violent on average than boxing. Boxing focuses exclusively on striking, while MMA includes the use of wrestling and submission grappling. Like any strenuous physical contest, grappling can result in injury, but it generally causes much less trauma than strikes. Grappling-intensive bouts sometimes end with neither fighter having landed a single significant strike. Furthermore, the striking aspect of MMA is arguably less damaging to fighters over the long term than boxing. Due to the use of smaller gloves, MMA fighters are more likely to be staggered by a single punch, whereas boxers with larger gloves must rely on an accumulation of punches to overwhelm an opponent, resulting in more head trauma overall. Also, MMA fighters are not allowed a knockdown count to recover. If an MMA fighter is ever unable to intelligently defend himself, the fight is immediately ended. Staggered boxers on the other hand are given a chance to regain their feet and continue fighting, resulting in more damage. Overall, boxing is no less violent or dangerous to fighter health than mixed martial arts - if anything, it is more.
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103To say that mixed martial arts is a bad influence on society ignores the fact that aggressive, competitive sports are already thought to have a positive effect on their participants. American public schools offer wrestling and football programs for their students. Outreach programs teach boxing and traditional martial arts to at-risk youths to channel their energies in a positive direction. Advocates for these sports praise their effectiveness in teaching physical fitness, discipline, and healthy competition. Mixed martial arts is simply an amalgamation of sports and disciplines that are already deemed beneficial for the development of our youth.
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106'''"Mixed martial artists are unskilled streetfighters"'''
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109Public perception of the average mixed martial artist is that of a professional bar brawler. Several well-known MMA fighters, such as David "Tank" Abbot and Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson did in fact have a background as actual street fighters but have achieved only limited success in professional competition. In reality, fighters must cross-train extensively in a variety of disciplines to achieve any high-level success in the sport. Common background disciplines include wrestling, UsefulNotes/BrazilianJiuJitsu, boxing, UsefulNotes/{{Kickboxing}}, UsefulNotes/{{Judo}} and UsefulNotes/{{Karate}}. As time went on and the sport grew, the next generation of fighters featured a greater number of purists who began training the sport at a young age rather than transferring in from another discipline.
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112----
113[[folder:Appearances in media]]
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115One can track the changing perspective of mixed martial arts by its portrayal in media, from lurid bloodsport to standard athletic competition.
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117[[AC:{{Advertising}}]]
118* An Italian commercial features an MMA fighter seemingly defeated outside of the cage, expressing shock that something was "so strong." It turns out that he's talking about the Extra Strong Mint Golia candies that he just ate.
119* Anderson Silva is fairly well-known by the mainstream public in Brazil and has been featured in a number of commercials, including a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgQHDJiseQ Burger King ad]] that makes fun of his high-pitched voice.
120* Pride fighters endorsed a number of Japanese products at the height of the promotion's popularity. Many of the commercials, in the true Japanese style, were quite bizarre.
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122[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
123* ''Manga/{{Teppu}}'' is interesting, as it portrays Japanese MMA neutrally and fairly realistically, though the main character's goal is to [[VillainProtagonist beat the eternal smile off her rival's face]].
124* ''Manga/AllRounderMeguru'' is a light-hearted but [[ShownTheirWork impressively realistic]] series about amateur MMA. It follows high-schooler Meguru and his colleagues at the Fighter's Brew gym as they attempt to win the Shooto amateur tournaments in order to become professionals. Besides the realistic fights, the manga also focuses in other aspects of MMA that aren't touched in media: the training, the dieting and the mental and moral struggles
125* ''Manga/HighSchoolExcitingStoryTough'' and ''Anime/ShootfighterTekken'' despite not being all that realistic.
126* ''Manga/{{Shamo}}'' was an interesting but subversive take on combat sports as a whole. Unfortunately the series was discontinued.
127* MMA shows up late in ''Manga/{{Holyland}}''; the final BigBad's CoDragons are both trained in it. While both of them are {{Blood Knight}}s, the older and more experienced of them is portrayed as a WorthyOpponent (though a very ruthless one) while the other is little more than a punk (though a very skilled one).
128* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' has some of the elements, due to the [[AuthorAppeal author being a fan]]. This is especially noted in the fighting style used by ActionGirl Annie, and taught to Eren upon his request. This ends up being extremely significant later on, during [[spoiler: Eren's battles with first Annie, and later Reiner in their Titan forms]]. He also includes a ShoutOut to MMA fighters Yushin Okami and Brock Lesnar in the designs of the Rogue Titan and the Armored Titan, respectively.
129* In ''Anime/TigerMaskW'', King Tiger, one of Tiger's Den top wrestlers, is mentioned to have a MMA background-and shows it in his fight with Tiger Mask (fought under a slight variation of MMA Unified Rules), using way more strikes and a more down-to-earth style than everyone else. While he ends up defeated when Tiger Mask grabs his ankle and [[GameBreakingInjury cripples him with a hold]], he gave him a good run for his money until that crippling hold, and his signature axe kick is used by Tiger Mask to develop the [[FinishingMove Tiger Fang]].
130* ''Anime/VividStrike'', being a SpinOff of the ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' franchise, is basically MMA filtered through a MagicalGirlWarrior lens.
131* ''Manga/KenganAshura'':
132** The primary style of Okubo Naoya is MMA. Naoya is a MMA fighter who started fighting in high school wrestling and amateur boxing, turning him into a JackOfAllStats when he started his MMA carrer. Different from other fighters in the Kengan tournament, he doesn't rely on superhuman abilities, ancient martial arts, or secret techniques, but simply on using all aspects of combat in synthesis: [[BoringButPractical If they want to grapple, he will strike and if they want to strike, he will grapple]]. He's good enough on those fundamentals that his fight against [[TheAce Agito]] goes from an expected CurbStompBattle into going toe-to-toe with Agito, even though he loses at the end.
133** Although Cosmo Imari's primary style is Jiu-Jitsu, he uses a lot of Muay Thai to strike his opponents into opening opportunities for him to grapple, thus making him into an effective MMA fighter, if not specialized in submissions. In the sequel ''Kengan Omega'' he becomes a more well-rounded fighter.
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135[[AC:ComicBooks]]
136* ComicBook/{{Batman}} examples:
137** Barbara Gordon trains in MMA and enters a tournament in ''ComicBook/BatgirlRebirth'' #2.
138** As evidenced [[https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/7/17/3164068/holy-mma-batman-martial-arts-dark-knight-part1 here]], [[https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/7/19/3164241/holy-mma-batman-martial-arts-dark-knight-part2 here]] and [[https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/7/27/3171423/holy-mma-batman-martial-arts-dark-knight-part3 here]], Batman himself is effectively a MMA fighter (and a frighteningly efficient one), especially in the Golden Age stories.
139** Luke Fox, AKA Batwing II, was an MMA fighter for a brief time.
140** [[ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] learned Modern Army Combatives, essentially a militarized version of MMA, as a West Point cadet.
141* Kinju Dayal, the protagonist of ''ComicBook/{{Spiritus}}'', is a female world-champion fighter in the Open Combat Championships, a futuristic MMA organization.
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143[[AC:{{Film}}]]
144* ''Film/NeverBackDown'': An MMA-meets-''Series/TheOC'' style film, portraying a Florida high school where backyard MMA competitions have become fashionable. The film is surprisingly faithful to the actual dynamics of MMA in spite of its silly premise.
145* ''Film/{{Redbelt}}'' portrays an MMA organization as part of its main plot. The film is written and directed by Creator/DavidMamet, who practices BJJ but does not follow MMA. Though UFC champ Creator/RandyCouture appeared in a small acting role, Mamet's MMA consultants had very little involvement in the modern sport, and the film's depiction suffers greatly. The film features an out-of-date and villainized version of the UFC as well as a number of highly implausible plot details.
146* ''Film/Cradle2TheGrave'': Jet Li runs afoul of an underground MMA competition, which features several UFC fighters in cameos.
147* The French film ''Film/District13'' mostly showcases LeParkour and stylized street fighting, but it also pours some MMA spots on its brawls, especially in the deleted scenes and the final duel between the two main characters. Also, one of the villains is shown watching a UFC event featuring David "Tank" Abbot, probably to help portray him as a thug and the world as [[WorldHalfEmpty half empty]] through the sport's bad reputation in Europe.
148* In ''Film/PineappleExpress'', Dale's girlfriend Angie has her motel television tuned to a UFC fight in the foreground as they fight about their relationship over the phone.
149* ''Film/{{Fighting|2009}}'' features a New York underground fighting circuit that is based somewhat on MMA. The main villain of the film seems to be a professional MMA fighter in addition to an underground champ. He posts videos of his seedy MMA fights online, obviously reminiscent of Kimbo Slice's Website/YouTube brawls. The film features former Strikeforce champ Cung Le as the Chinatown fighter.
150* ''Film/{{Warrior}}'' focuses on two brothers who compete in a 16-contestant, single-elimination MMA tournament. The film features a fairly detailed and realistic MMA setting, a number of real MMA personalities in the cast, and even a few {{Expy}}s of some others.
151* Various documentaries about MMA fighters have been made, most of them {{tearjerker}}s.
152** ''Jens Pulver: Driven'' is a documentary about former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver preparing for his fight against Javier Vazquez, and his rough childhood and how his near-poverty forces him to continue fighting long after the sport passed him by.
153** ''The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr'' details the life and career of MMA pioneer Mark Kerr, and his addiction to narcotics spurred by the pain of his many fight injuries. It also details the later career of Mark Coleman, a former UFC heavyweight champion seeking a return to his winning ways in the Japanese PRIDE FC.
154** ''Once I Was A Champion'' is a biography about the late Evan Tanner, former UFC middleweight champion.
155** ''Fightville'' is a behind-the-scenes look at the regional MMA circuit, featuring UFC fighters Dustin Poirier and Tim Credeur.
156** ''Like Water'' is a documentary about then UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva.
157* ''Film/NeverSurrender'' (2009) is a movie about MMA with the gimmick of featuring performances by a who's-who of MMA stars, including GSP, Rampage Jackson, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn and Heath Herring.
158* ''Beatdown'' is a low budget film about cagefighting featuring a supporting performance by UFC fighter Michael Bisping as well as bit parts by Wrestling/BobbyLashley and Heath Herring.
159* In ''Film/AlexCross'', the villain fights in an MMA match to show how brutal and evil he is. The fight takes place in a warehouse, and the shady promoter allows the "champ" to fight an unknown opponent outside of his weight class on a few minutes notice.
160* UFC veteran Seth Petruzelli appears under his nickname of Silverback in ''Film/RockabillyZombieWeekend''. While the character's background was not explored, Seth demonstrates several of his MMA moves and is given a short fight scene against a mob of zombies.
161* ''Film/HereComesTheBoom'' stars Kevin James (a long-time MMA fan) as a 42-year-old high school science teacher (and former collegiate wrestler) who takes up MMA as a means to fund the school's music program. There are several notable MMA cameos, including Chael Sonnen, Creator/JoeRogan and Jason "Mayhem" Miller along with supporting performances by Bas Rutten and Mark [=DellaGrotte=].
162* ''Film/UndisputedIILastManStanding'', starring Michael Jay White and Scott Adkins, features a prison fighting system based in MMA. The fights are portrayed with some realism, albeit in a overtly spectacular choreography. Its sequel, ''Film/UndisputedIIIRedemption'', follows its line, but abandoning the realism to add increasingly crazy martial arts flick stunts to the mix.
163* ''Film/IronMan2'': Tony claims he's using MMA in a sparring match with Happy Hogan. He's supposed to be boxing. Happy retorts that he's just cheating.
164* Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva appear as themselves in ''Tapped Out'', a MMA film whose plot is about as awful as its lead's hilarously bad acting skills, and are arguably the best part of the movie.
165* In ''Film/OngBak'', an [[LowerClassLout obnoxious]] Australian MMA fighter is the first of several national stereotypes to get done over by the hero in an illegal [[FightClubbing fight club]] over the course of the film.
166* ''Film/{{Virtuosity}}'' features a scene set at a UFC event and includes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from MMA pioneer Ken Shamrock. In spite of the ProductPlacement, the portrayal is laughably inaccurate.
167
168[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
169* The reality show ''Series/TheUltimateFighter'' focuses on amateur or small-time professional MMA fighters aspiring to be signed into the UFC. Each season is structured as a tournament between two teams of contestants, each coached by a veteran UFC fighter. A live finale fight card determines the winner of the tournament, who receives a UFC contract. So far, three contestants of the show have gone on to become UFC champions in their weight class, though all lost their first title defense. The popularity of the first season is widely credited as a major factor in pushing the UFC and MMA into the mainstream.
170* ''Iron Ring'' was a reality show on Black Entertainment Television loosely based on ''The Ultimate Fighter''. The show divided its contestants into several teams, each led by a celebrity "coach," most of whom were actually rappers. The show was criticized heavily by the MMA community for the crass way in which the spotlight was placed on the egos of the celebrity coaches rather than the fighters' efforts and for its extremely loose adherence to the rules, conventions, and discipline of professional MMA.
171* ''[=TapouT=]'' was a reality show hosted by the three founders of the [=TapouT=] clothing line, which is a major sponsor of MMA fighters. In each episode, the company founders "Mask," "Skyskrape," and "Punkass" would travel by bus to meet an up-and-coming MMA fighter to sponsor him and follow him through his next fight. Whether the fighter won his bout or not, the [=TapouT=] crew would inevitably applaud his determination and continue to sponsor him. Much of each episode was also dedicated to the hosts' wacky hijinks.
172* ''Series/BullyBeatdown'' was a reality show on MTV hosted by the colorful middleweight fighter Jason "Mayhem" Miller. The premise has one or more bullied individuals getting their revenge on a bully by putting him in a cage against a professional MMA fighter for two rounds, each with the possibility of earning up to $5,000. The first round is grappling only, with the bully losing $1,000 each time he submits. The second round is kickboxing, with the bully losing all $5,000 if he cannot survive the round. All of the bully's losses go to his victim(s). The show is based around the expectation that the bully will get beaten up and humiliated, earning very little money. Mayhem provides over-the-top commentary throughout. The second season added a Daily Show-esque sit-down interview between Mayhem and the bully. The third season included a female bully in one episode and Mayhem himself fighting a bully in another.
173* In an episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica's boyfriend, played by Jon Favreau, dedicates himself to becoming a UFC fighter. David "Tank" Abbot has a cameo as his opponent.
174* In an episode of ''Series/{{Entourage}}'', Johnny Drama inadvertently gets on the bad side of then-UFC champ Chuck Liddell. He attends a UFC fight and is brow-beaten into entering the cage and humiliating himself, but [[spoiler:the whole thing is just a prank by Pauly Shore]].
175* In a second season episode of ''Series/TheFixer'', John Mercer infiltrates a gang of criminals who run underground cage fights. He ultimately enters a lethal cage match himself. The scene is presented as a seedy underworld populated by violent crooks, rather than a legitimate sport.
176* An episode of ''Series/NewsRadio'' had Joe Garelli, played by Creator/JoeRogan, as a UFC combatant, which is particularly [[TheDanza Danza]]-ish due to Rogan's job as color commentator for the UFC. An exciting new style of combat is discovered in this episode: Tickle-style.
177* In the fourth season premiere of ''Series/TrueBlood'', Tara is revealed to have become an amateur mixed martial artist. She fights her lesbian lover in a match and wins via armbar.
178* One episode of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' involved going after a MMA promoter who had doped an up-and-coming fighter who refused to throw his fight.
179* ''Series/DeadliestWarrior'' brought in the famed Chuck Liddell for their first episode to test out the ''cestus'' gauntlets and Roman scissor (basically a half-circle blade on a gauntlet). A season 2 episode brought in Rashad Evans for Alexander the Great's team (against Attila the Hun) to demonstrate the lethal capabilities of Pankration.
180* An episode of ''Series/{{Law and Order}}'' had a case about a murdered MMA fighter (played by Forrest Griffin).
181* The new version of ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' had an MMA themed episode with Chuck Liddell and Bruce Buffer cameos.
182* ''Series/ComicBookMen'' had retired MMA fighter (and now comic book author) Nate Quarry stop by the shop to pimp his comic book, and later invited the boys to his gym where two of his fighters had an impromptu bout dressed up as Jay and Silent Bob.
183* ''Fight Master'' is Bellator's answer to ''The Ultimate Fighter''. It divides 16 fighters into four teams, each headed by a celebrity coach: Randy Couture, Greg Jackson, Frank Shamrock and Joe Warren. It lasted only one season.
184* The ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' episode "Coffin Punch" dealt with whether or not someone could actually, as might be inferred from the title, punch their way out of a coffin. Then-UFC fighter Jon Fitch was featured and was measured as having 1,500 pounds of force (6672 Newtons) in his punches despite lying on his back and having only ''three inches'' of movement.
185* The ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' episode "Hand-To-Hand" has Sam Hanna going undercover at an MMA gym.
186* ''Dana White: Looking For a Fight'' has UFC President Dana White and friends go to different towns, take in the sights, try the food, do different dares, rag on each other, and then attend a local MMA show to scout for new talent.
187
188[[AC:Professional Wrestling]]
189* Many early western MMA fighters moved into professional wrestling because MMA was not paying enough. Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, Don Frye and Tank Abbot are some of the most notable examples. Their personas were based on their MMA background. Some fighters, including Josh Barnett and Don Frye, perform on the Japanese circuit while pursuing MMA at the same time.
190* The Japanese pro-wrestling circuit blurs the line between show matches and legitimate shoot matches, often showing both on the same card. Many Japanese pro-wrestlers, particularly in the days of PRIDE, transitioned into straight MMA fighters. Wrestling legend Antonio Inoki was an early pioneer of MMA with his famous match against Muhammad Ali. The most memorable Japanese wrestler of the modern age is Kazushi Sakuraba, who earned the name "The Gracie Hunter" for besting several Gracie fighters in MMA.
191* Wrestling/TheUndertaker is an MMA fan and has incorporated moves based on real MMA submissions into his arsenal. Both he and Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} have stated in interviews that if MMA had been around (or in Goldberg's case, more popular) when they began their careers, they likely would have gone into it instead of wrestling. The Undertaker's submission move, the Hell's Gate, is a modified version of the MMA gogoplata. He introduced it both as a way to show off his newly trained BJJ skills and as a way to save damage to his knees from his Tombstone finisher.
192* After leaving WWE in 2004, Wrestling/BrockLesnar achieved fame in UFC, winning the Heavyweight title. When he returned to WWE in 2012, he incorporated more MMA moves into his moveset and changed his look, trading in the wrestling trunks for MMA shorts and gloves.
193* Former long-reigning UFC woman's bantamweight champion Rhonda Rousey transitioned into the WWE after the end of her championship run. Her persona is partially based on her reputation as an MMA fighter.
194
195[[AC:WebOriginal]]
196* ''WebVideo/FightingInTheAgeOfLoneliness'' is a documentary about the history of the sport, its origins across a number of martial arts, the early stars and villains, and explains why it became and has remained a part of the cultural touchstone regardless of or because of the parties who make the sport happen, and the forces outside it that give it shape. How a sport about weirdos and creeps can managed to find an audience and find magic, even in a world that feels like it's falling apart at the seams, and how it is slowly begin turned into abland corporate uniformity.
197
198[[AC:WebComics]]
199* ''Webcomic/BigBreak2019'': One of the main characters, Kris, is a former MMA fighter who retired early due to a disastrous match. One of her older sisters is still a fighter.
200
201[[AC:VideoGames]]
202* Several video games have been released under the UFC brand:
203** ''Ultimate Fighting Championship'' was the first UFC game, released in 2000 for the Platform/{{Dreamcast}}, Platform/PlayStation, and Platform/GameBoyColor. The game was publisher Crave Entertainment's first big title and received fairly good reviews.
204** ''UFC: Tapout'' was released for Xbox in 2002. The game received good to fair reviews and inexplicably features rapper Ice-T as an unlockable character. A sequel was released in 2003 with an updated fighter roster, but few other additions.
205** ''UFC Throwdown'' was also released in 2002 for the [=PS2=] and Gamecube. The game features a number of hidden characters, including UFC employees Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, and Bruce Buffer. The late [=TapouT=] clothing line founder and MMA advocate Charles "Mask" Lewis served as a model along with Tito Ortiz on the game's cover.
206** ''UFC Sudden Impact'' was released in 2004 for the [=PS2=]. Published by Global Star Software rather than Crave, it received poor reviews. The cover featured fighter Phil Baroni kneeing Charles "Mask" Lewis and also featured "The Mask" as an unlockable character.
207** ''UFC 2009 Undisputed'' was released in 2009 and published by THQ. It is the first UFC game released after the company's breakout success following ''The Ultimate Fighter'' series and has sold over 1 million units. The game features an extensive roster of UFC fighters, though some had already been cut by the time of the game's release; ''UFC 2010'' came out the next year, but was hurt by lackluster sales. UFC Undisputed 3, which debuted in early 2012, reviewed and sold fairly well, but did not manage to be the big earner that studio THQ needed it to be.
208** At E3 2012, the UFC announced that their relationship with THQ had ended and that the next iteration of a licensed UFC video game would be made by Electronic Arts. ''EA Sports UFC'' was released on June 17, 2014, receiving mixed but mostly positive reviews. The game is perhaps most notable for including Creator/BruceLee as a playable fighter.
209* Electronic Arts released an MMA game prominently featuring the Strikeforce promotion and its associated fighters in direct competition with the UFC's game. UFC President Dana White declared soon after the announcement of the game that he was "at war" with EA, citing their dismissive attitude toward MMA when the UFC approached them to publish ''Undisputed,'' and going so far as to say that any fighter who appeared in the EA game would be blacklisted from the UFC. This proved to be an empty (or more accurately, irrelevant) threat however, given that Zuffa purchased Strikeforce in 2011. Reviews of the game were mixed and it suffered from weak sales.
210* ''Pride FC: Fighting Championships'' for the Playstation 2, released in 2003 by Anchor Inc. and published by Capcom in Japan and THQ in the west. This was PRIDE's only game.
211* Video games featuring MMA fighters:
212** ''VideoGame/BurikiOne'' features tournament in which fighters representing various martial arts and contact sports to determinate which one is the best. TheProtagonist Gai Tendo is a MMA fighter who uses a self-taught style called as "Total Fighting", character which is also based on Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba.
213** Craig Marduk (''VideoGame/Tekken4'')
214** Vanessa Lewis (''[[VideoGame/VirtuaFighter Virtua Fighter 4]]'')
215** Mila (''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive5'').
216** The "3D era" of the Franchise/MortalKombat introduced different "fighting styles" for its characters in the roster. Nightwolf in ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception Deception]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]'' is a Vale Tudo fighter ([[RougeAnglesOfSatin mispelled as "Val Tudo"]]).
217[[/folder]]
218----
219[[folder:Tropes associated with mixed martial arts]]
220
221* ActorAllusion: Wrestling/AntonioInoki's MMA event ''Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye'' is a reference to the famous chant "Ali, boma ye!" ("Ali, kill him!") by crowds in the Congo during Muhammad Ali's match against George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle. Inoki and Ali fought a cross-discipline, proto-MMA match in Japan.
222* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Some fighters have a nickname that alliterates with their full name. Examples: "Magic" Marlon Moraes, Stefan "Skyscraper" Struve, Colby "Chaos" Covington, "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey, Tecia "The Tiny Tornado" Torres.
223* AlwaysSomeoneBetter:
224** Wrestling/KiyoshiTamura to Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba. They came from the UWF International dojo, in which Tamura was Sakuraba's senior and mistreated him. Years after the two had become the top fighters of PRIDE and RINGS, they requested a fight in Dyamite!!, and Tamura won. Fairly speaking, however, Saku was in worse shape during the time of their fight, and has attained much more international fame than Tamura during his career.
225** Chris Weidman had former middleweight champion Anderson Silva's number two times, the second time with a piercing leg kick check that shattered Silva's leg and nearly ended his career.
226** Valentina Shevchenko could make a claim for the most dominant woman in the UFC, defeating all of her opponents without breaking a sweat-- except for Amanda Nunes, the even-more dominant double champion who defeated Valentina not once, but twice, by very close decision.
227** Alexander Gustafsson is a mauler (it even serves as his nickname), but when he comes up against Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, or Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, he is consistently outperformed.
228** Anthony Johnson is a [[OneHitKill knockout specialist]] who could probably render any human being on Earth unconscious with a single well-placed punch, but Daniel Cormier is his kryptonite. Since May 2012, Rumble is 14-2, with both losses coming via submission vs. Cormier.
229** Former two-division champion Daniel Cormier has experienced this in two different weight categories. At light heavyweight, he made three successful title defenses and went 7-0 against all fighters not named Jon Jones. Against Jones, he was 0-2, though one loss was overturned to a no contest. At heavyweight, he is 14-0 against all fighters not named Stipe Miocic, against whom he is 1-2.
230** Former featherweight champion Max Holloway has experienced this from both sides in his career. Against inaugural champion Jose Aldo, considered by many to be the greatest fighter in the history of the featherweight division, he was Jose's worst matchup twice, being able to weather Aldo's power punching and tire him out with volume of strikes, and finish him in the third round both times. He has also been on the receiving end of this in his trilogy with Alexander Volkanovski, going 0-3 in all fights, with only the 2nd fight being close, and with the 3rd fight being a one sided bloody beating over all five rounds.
231** Alex "Poatan" Pereira to Israel Adesanya. Adesanya started as a kickboxing whiz, making a name for himself at the kickboxing circuit until he met Alex Pereira, breaking his 11-fight streak. One year later, Adesanya and Pereira met again, but this time for the Glory of Heroes Middleweight Championship, where Adesanya was knocked out by a destructive left hook. His defeat was so devastating that Adesanya made the full switch to Mixed Martial Arts, where he would amass an impressive 23 victories, with only one loss while attempting to fight at Light Heavyweight. In an interview, when asked about Pereira, Adesanya said ''"At the end of the day no one knows the fuck he is and he's gonna be that guy when I'm world champion. When I'm a legend he's going to be at some pub talking some shit about I beat that guy one time trying to get his dick sucked from a crack-whore or some shit"''. In response, Alex Pereira made his own transition to MMA around 2020 where he quickly proceed to make short work of the division and was matched against Adesanya, who he proceed to defeat Adesanya yet again. It finally took Adesanya his fourth fight in a rematch to defeat Pereira, knocking him out. Though ultimately, Alex Pereira got the last laugh over his rival by not only defeating Jan Blachowicz in his Light Heavyweight debut, but also winning the Light Heavyweight belt and becoming a two-division champion, both things Adesenya failed to do in his career.
232** Adesanya himself is this to former UFC Middleweight Champion Robert Whittaker. It was Adesanya who first took the Middleweight crown from Whittaker in 2019 via KO, and defeated him once again in 2022. Whittaker was otherwise undefeated from June 2014 to July 2023.
233** Flyweight Alexandre Pantoja to Brandon Moreno. Despite Moreno capturing flyweight gold twice in the UFC's first ever title fight quadrilogy and possessing an incredible skillset as a fighter, Pantoja has defeated him every time the two stepped inside an octagon. Their first fight ended in a second round submission victory for Pantoja on the Ultimate Fighter. They would meet again in the promotion in 2018, where Pantoja once again won via unanimous decision. Their third clash was for the flyweight belt in 2022, and despite Moreno showing off an absolutely incredible display of fighting ability, proving just how much he had improved since the first time the two fought, Pantoja snatched both the victory and title away in a split decision.
234* AmazonianBeauty: Creator/RondaRousey and Creator/GinaCarano have both posed for glamour magazines, while Rousey and rival Miesha Tate posed for ESPN's "Body Issue" in successive years (2012 & 2013). Other women who have begun making inroads in this regard include UFC flyweights Andrea Lee and Paige Van Zant.
235* AmbiguouslyBrown: Brendan Schaub's tan complexion and close-cropped hair have gotten him mistaken for a mixed-race black man on occasion, including his castmates on ''The Ultimate Fighter''. In reality, Schaub has entirely European ancestry (English, Italian & German). His last nickname before retiring was "Big Brown."
236* ArtifactTitle:
237** The Blackzilians training camp was so named because all of the founding members were black or Brazilian. The name remained long after the racial makeup of the gym changed. It eventually closed down and rebranded to Sanford MMA.
238** The legendary Brazilian gym ''Chute Boxe'' has two: the first one is the name itself, a calque of "Kick Boxe", as the gym was one of the first Muay Thai gyms in Brazil and the name served to showcase the new fighting style. The second is the "Vale Tudo" shown on the logo and sometimes in the full name, even though the sport evolved to MMA and the term Vale Tudo was mostly abandoned in Brazil. The name remains as a tradition.
239** The American Kickboxing Academy began as a kickboxing training camp before becoming one of the top MMA teams.
240** Pancrase still has "Hybrid Wrestling" on its name and logo as an artifact from its shootwrestling days even though they adopted the unified MMA rules in 2014 and even stopped using the wrestling ring in favor of a octagonal cage.
241** The Ultimate Fighting Championship was designed to be a one-off event that would establish once and for all what fighting style is the best, so the word "ultimate" was meant literally. When the promoters realized they could make more money by putting on more shows and the fighters realized they should use the best techniques from all martial arts instead of begin stuck with rigid fighting styles, the "ultimate" lost its original meaning. However, it can be salvaged by shifting its meaning from "final" to "best". Instead of the final contest of fighting styles, the UFC is now the best contest for fighting.
242** Nick "the Goat" Thompson was originally nicknamed "the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fainting_goat Fainting Goat]]" due to the frequency at which he was knocked out. When he learned better defense and toughened up, his nickname got shortened to just "the Goat", which now has no relevance or meaning.
243* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The UFC likes to show a montage of glamor shots of whatever city is hosting the latest fight card, but they can play fast and loose with reality. At UFC 298, taking place at the Honda Center, they played a montage of seaside sights labeled "Anaheim, CA." The problem is that the footage is from Newport Beach, almost 20 miles south of the landlocked city of Anaheim.
244* AscendedFanboy: Joe Silva was an MMA geek and super-fan before becoming the official matchmaker of the UFC. As such, he was considered the third most powerful figure in the sport before retiring in 2016.
245* AssKicksYou: Mark Hunt once performed the now-famous "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_K26TclcI Atomic Butt Drop]]" on Wanderlei Silva. This move has only been attempted once.
246* AssShove: Known as the "[[UnusualEuphemism oil check]]", the act of shoving one's fingers up their opponent's ass is completely illegal, unanimously considered unethical and generally hilarious. In almost every situation it happened, it happened on accident during grappling exchanges, and normally laughed off in the post fight.
247* AudienceParticipation: A given, since high profile bouts are normally held in front of large crowds, reactions and audience beheaviour may vary depends on where they are from.
248** American audiences tend to encourage American fighters by chanting [[{{Eagleland}} "USA"]] repeatedly when fighting someone from a different nationality.
249** A Brazilian audience will traditionally chant [[GratuitousForeignLanguage "UH, VAI MORRER!"]] when a Brazilian fighter is on the cage, the chant is best translated as [[ImpliedDeathThreat "You're gonna die"]].
250** In Mexico, one can sometimes hear the crowd chanting "Sparring" when a fight seems slow paced or stale.
251** This can generate some funny moments, as evidenced by the time [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rGd0Ri7KE a man yelled]] [[GroinAttack some questionable advice]] during a fight, causing both the fighters to do a [[DoubleTake double take]] [[NotSoAboveItAll and have a laugh]] before continuing.
252** Japanese Audiences tend to be dead silent for most of the bout but explode in noise and cheering when fighters pick up the pace.
253* AwesomeButImpractical: "Low percentage" techniques are usually flashy and can have an awesome result if they land, but probably won't. These usually include spinning backfists or back kicks, roundhouse kicks and similar moves. Nick Diaz famously coined the pejorative "spinning shit."
254* AwesomeMcCoolname: Some fighters are bestowed cool-sounding names at birth, but others choose to change it to [[RuleOfCool sound better]]. One such example is Brazilian UFC fighter ''Johnny Walker'', as this is [[RedBaron actually only his billed name]]. His real name is Walker Johnny de Souza.
255* AxCrazy: Despite how the sport is sometimes portrayed in the mainstream media, most MMA professionals are sane, friendly, reasonable people. However, there are a few notable exceptions in those who are ''completely crazy'' and fight for a living.
256** Allen "Junie" Browning: Junie became famous on season 8 of the Ultimate Fighter for his many, many violent, profanity-laced and alcohol-fueled destructive binges. After being taken to a hospital following an overdose of Klonopin in 2009, Junie proceeded to assault hospital personnel and threaten their families, for which he was released from his UFC contract. Upon his MMA return, he celebrated his win by sexually propositioning every woman in attendance.
257** Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett: As Creator/{{Seanbaby}} wrote on [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-top-eight-oh-shit-moments-in-mma cracked.com]], "'Krazy Horse isn't a cute nickname. Charles Bennett is a legitimate lunatic." Bennett is known for his bizarre and entertaining in-ring antics, his claims that he trains only by playing basketball, and his arrests for drug possession and assault, and actually jumping another fighter backstage at a show.
258** War Machine aka Jon Koppenhaver: Has had multiple legal incidents throughout his career, legally changed his name to "War Machine" (over, of all things, Wrestling/{{TNA}}'s Wrestling/{{Rh|yno}}ino using the moniker), became a porn star and has been in and out of prison since 2009 for various violent crimes. In 2014, he nearly beat his ex-girlfriend to death and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017, with parole not possible until 36 years in (by which time he'll be in his seventies).
259** Viacheslav Datsik. Famous for beating former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski early in Arlovski's career, Datsik went on a losing streak from 2001 to 2003 and then ''disappeared''. He was presumed dead for four years, but then re-emerged in 2007 and robbed a series of mobile phone shops. He was arrested, determined schizophrenic, and locked in a high-security mental institution...from which he escaped by tearing a hole through the chain-link fence ''with his bare hands''. Datsik has since been recaptured, reincarcerated, and presumably kept away from fences. Seanbaby has [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-athletes-who-had-more-crazy-than-talent_p2/ written about]] him too.
260* BadassBoast: At WVC 4, Marco Ruas, said, "If you grapple me, I punch and kick you. If you punch and kick me, I grapple you. There’s no way out." At an age of specialists (strikers with some grappling, or grapplers with some striking) he was recognized for begin one of the very first competitors that was equally skilled with grappling and striking, and was able to seamlessly able to mix both.
261* BeardOfSorrow: Joe Rogan joined a number of other people in growing out their beards for a month to honor the memory of the late Evan Tanner, who occasionally sported a beard. Rogan appeared with the beard at several UFC events.
262* BearsAreBadNews: Khabib Nurmagomedov used to ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjfOeLQG9-M wrestle bears when he was a kid]]''. No wonder why he went undefeated throughout his MMA career.
263* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: There are several instances of a fighter being defeated "at his own game" by someone with a lesser or no reputation for that area of expertise.
264** Carlson Gracie's BJJ black belt Marcus Silveira (later co-founder of American Top Team) was submitted by Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba, a pro wrestler of all people who was almost unknown at that time.
265** Before Sakuraba submitted Silveira, Rumina Sato became the first non-BJJ fighter (specifically a shoot wrestler, just like Saku) to beat a black belt BJJ fighter by submission when he defeated John Lewis with an armbar.
266** Melvin Manhoef was knocked out by a single hard punch from Robbie Lawler who was almost unanimously believed to be his inferior at stand-up striking. During DREAM's 2010 Light Heavyweight Grand Prix semifinals, Manhoef would even be knocked down by his opponent Tatsuya Mizuno, slugged multiple times (while his head was trapped by a turnbuckle pad of all things!)... and ''then'' submitted.
267** Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and his team "read the style" of Lyoto Machida and planned to lead him along in the rematch, pretending to leave an opening in Shogun's defense so that Lyoto would "go aggressive" and run right into Shogun's "ambush" -- a favored tactic of Machida's.
268** Georges St-Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck. GSP had no formal wrestling training prior to entering MMA, while Koscheck was a college wrestling champion. However, GSP steamrolled over Koscheck with startlingly advanced wrestling skill. Since this fight, GSP has based his entire gameplan around dominant wrestling, trains with the Canadian Olympic freestyle wrestling team, and even publicly considered trying out for the 2012 Olympics as one of them.
269** Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović and his deadly left high kick stepped into the Octagon to face giant grappler Gabriel Gonzaga in what many considered a squash match before an anticipated clash between the Croatian and then-champion Creator/RandyCouture. After manhandling the kickboxing legend for the majority of the first round, Gonzaga knocked Filipović out, causing him to (in the words of Creator/{{Seanbaby}}) "ragdoll so hard that his foot was on backwards when he landed". What did he use to find his light switch? Why, a head kick, of course.
270*** In 2004, he was both in the delivering and receiving end of one of these, as Kevin Randleman, a highly skilled wrestler managed to outstrike him and knock him out in less than 2 minutes, then in December, Mirko stepped into the ring with him again in a rematch and proceeded to one up him by choking him out with a standing guillotine, in less than a minute.
271** Paulo Thiago debuted in the UFC as an unknown underdog against the established and highly ranked Josh Koscheck. Thiago won the bout with a one-punch knockout in the first round. After becoming an established and highly ranked fighter in his own right, Thiago faced Siyar Bahadurzada, who was debuting in the UFC as an unknown underdog. Bahadurzada defeated Thiago with a one-punch knockout in the first round.
272** Jon Fitch, known for his polarizing wrestling style, was out-grappled by Demian Maia.
273** Maia himself was later out-grappled by Jake Shields.
274** Dominick Cruz, the long-reigning bantamweight king known for a highly elusive and defensive style, was dethroned at UFC 207 by Cody Garbrandt; who used a highly elusive and defensive style to stymie Cruz and defeat him.
275** Jiri Prochazka, known primarily for his aggressive, unorthodox striking, challenged Glover Teixeira for the UFC Light Heavyweight title in June 2022. Despite Teixeira being his undeniable superior in grappling and Prochazka on the receiving end of some vicious ground-and-pound sequences, the Czech fighter handled himself surprisingly well, and against all odds submitted Teixeira with a rear-naked choke in the final round.
276* TheBerserker: The general demeanor of fighters who like the concept of "stand and bang", which, much like the name implies, consists of standing in front of your opponent and throwing hard shots, relying on your own chin's durability to carry you through any incoming damage. While it sounds good on paper, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome in reality, it has severe drawbacks that rarely make such a style worth the risks]].
277** Wanderlei Silva. Following closely the feral Brazilian school of UsefulNotes/MuayThai, his offensive was based around swarming his opponents with frightening hooks, knees, kicks and being willing to take hits in order to land his. This, though quite effective against Japanese nonstrikers and highly entertaining for the audience, proved to be a liability on his fights against the precise, technically impeccable Mirko Cro Cop, who was able to outstrike him by reading through his frenzy. It got even worse in the UFC, when his chin started fading after years of constant punishment.
278** Cody Garbrandt has suffered tremendously for his inability to control himself, showing the tendency to lapse into a berserker-like fury when hit cleanly, all 3 of his losses knockout losses can be attributed to abandoning his impressive defensive game after being tagged, then eating a hard shot that puts him out cold.
279** Francis N'gannou used to heavily rely on the terrifying power of his punches and overwhelming his opponent, with his fight against Jairzinho Rozenstruik being a great example, as Francis ate a few punches as he stormed into range to KO Jairzinho with a hook. He has since adopted a more patient and deliberate style
280* BewareTheNiceOnes:
281** George St-Pierre is one of the nicest, most polite fighters in the history of the sport while being consistently considered the most dominant champion to ever rule the UFC's Welterweight Division.
282** Original TUF winner Forrest Griffin is not only a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] DeadpanSnarker, but usually comes across as just this kind of goofy dude. But in his autobiography ''Got Fight?'', his friend John revealed that while he, Forrest, and a third annoying guy were watching a movie, Forrest got pissed that the third guy wouldn't stop talking, so he had the guy pass him a lighter and then held the burning lighter under his own arm ''until he had given himself a second-degree burn'' just to freak the guy into shutting up.
283** Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson is widely considered to be the nicest, calmest, most positive person in the modern MMA scene, while also being one of the most technically flawless strikers to ever grace the welterweight division. He is aware of his reputation and admits his only moments of true rage are when playing video games.
284** Mirko "cro-cop" Filipovic has collected a veritable treasure trove of stories and anecdotes along his very long career which involve him playing pranks and jokes on fighters and work colleagues, which range from some light [[{{Troll}} trolling]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BrpvaJOa-I such as stealing Joe Rogan's ride]] to ridiculously elaborate and over the top practical jokes. He was also a notoriously violent fighter when in the cage, on top of having done a stint in a Croatian [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous antiterrorism unit]] in the tail end of the [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars Yugoslav Wars]].
285* BewareTheSillyOnes:
286** Many were astounded at first by Dricus du Plessis's UFC career. The South African seemed plodding, awkward, and prone to gassing in almost all of his fights. But his rise through the rankings included a brutal beatdown and submission of Darren Till, a forced towel-throw against Derek Brunson, and most shockingly a TKO defeat of Robert Whittaker, who many considered to be the easy favorite and arguably the best middleweight behind Israel Adesanya. This culminated in du Plessis beating Sean Strickland, then middleweight champion in a close fight to win the Middleweight Championship. Even before coming to the UFC, du Plessis was known for his knockout win against KSW champion Roberto Soldic, considered of the best non-UFC fighters at the time.
287* BigFun: Derrick Lewis can easily pass for a huge ScaryBlackMan. But he is mostly loved by the fanbase for his permanent goofiness and dedication to not taking things seriously.
288-->'''Lewis''': I don't stay in the gym all day like just about all my opponents do, y'know, I stay about 30 minutes - 35 minutes and 5 minutes on my phone posting memes.
289* TheBigGuy: Stefan "the Skyscraper" Struve is most known for being 7 feet tall and pretty much outranging every opponent he ever fought. Strangely enough, however, he used his prodigious size mostly for his grappling, with most of his striking being powerful short ranged punches like hooks and uppercuts.
290* BigGuyRodeo: Sometimes happened in Japanese promotions when giant fighters face smaller ones, and the smaller one goes for a rear naked choke. Most famous was the case between Carlos Newton and K-1 giant Jean Riviere at Newton's debut.
291* BlatantLies:
292** A big part of Chael Sonnen's schtick is making ridiculous claims that are obviously bogus. He claimed that he had never been defeated at middleweight, then claimed that his infamous Twitter account wasn't his, despite having given out the URL in a prior interview. After denying that he'd claimed that Lance Armstrong "gave himself cancer" by abusing performance-enhancing drugs. a radio host played him back audio of him making the claim. Undeterred, Sonnen denied that it was his voice.
293** Yoshihiro "Sexyama" Akiyama denied having used body lotion to oil himself before his fight with Sakuraba. Pre-fight footage showed Akiyama applying not one, but ''six bottles'' of lotion to his body. His response? [[ImplausibleDeniability The lotion's purpose was not to gain an unfair advantage but to treat his dry skin]].
294** A common occurence in the early days of MMA, particularly in the UFC, was fighters claiming to have absurd win-loss records while having little to no experience in combat sports, some of those include:
295*** When entering UFC 1 Patrick Smith claimed to be undefeated at 250 fights, despite having no experience in cagefighting and being defeated twice in his boxing career that year alone.
296*** In UFC 8, puerto rican Thomas Ramirez claimed to be sitting at an unbelievable 200 wins 0 losses record, only to get knocked out in 8 seconds by Don Frye. Turns out Ramirez was just a cab driver.
297** A common target for mockery within the community is the sheer absurdity of claims some fighters make when being caught abusing Performance Enhancers.
298*** Anderson Silva blamed one of his PED test failures on foot cream.
299*** Jon Jones claimed one of his (several) drug test failures came from, not taking Performance Enhancing Drugs, but from tainted off brand male sexual enhancements, cue MemeticMutation and now "dick pills" is an euphemism for steroids.
300*** Chael Sonnen made an absurd case in front of an athletic comission for being on testosterone replacement therapy without a medical exemption to do so, making claims such as never going through puberty.
301* BloodLust: The Brazilian fighter aptly nicknamed as Marcelo Tigre was known for licking his own blood during the matches. Not only that, but he supposedly drank bull's blood before the matches, being that the secret of his strength according to him.
302* BloodSport: Mixed martial arts is often called a "blood sport" even by respectable media in order to sensationalize it, despite the fact that mainstream sports like boxing could also be characterized as such.
303* {{Bookends}}: Khabib Nurmagomedov began his career by putting an opponent to sleep with a triangle choke, 27 fights and wins later, he announced his retirement after pulling the same technique on Justin Gaethje, ending his legendary career still undefeated and almost unanimously regarded as the most dominant reigning champion in the sport.
304* BoringButPractical:
305** The use of wrestling to control your opponent is a vital component of MMA. Some fights are decided almost completely by positioning and control rather than damaging offense, making wrestling specialists very effective but often boring to watch. In MMA parlance, this is known as "Lay-and-Pray" (Lay on the ground and Pray you get the decision).
306** Low kicks. Kicking the legs doesn't look very flashy or impressive from an outside view, but they can severely affect the opponents ability to move, kick, do proper footwork, or even punch and the pain is just unberable. Fighters have left the cage in stretchers after recieving so many leg kicks and there have been cases of fighters getting kocked out and begin unable to fight due accumulated damage.
307** Japanese fighter Sanae Kikuta, whose grappling style often feature extensive control and lay and pray before making any advance, was in-universe called the most boring fighter in Japan during his public feud against Wrestling/AlexanderOtsuka.
308** Georges St-Pierre is sometimes criticized for using tactics that turn every fight into a lopsided decision victory. Whether it's using his wrestling to control opponents or his jab to stay out of harm's way, GSP's style is undeniably effective, but doesn't always make for much drama.
309** Jon Fitch has been derided for his conservative, "grinding" style of fighting, which usually resulted in decisions. Dana White made his displeasure in Fitch's style public and withheld a title shot from him until he won eight fights in a row.
310** Ben "Funky" Askren was a rising star in North America, reigning supreme as Bellator's welterweight champion for 3 years before attempting to move to the UFC. Despite his skills, he was rejected by UFC's president Dana White because he was "too boring" due to his wrestling focused strategy. In response, Askren signed with ONE Championship, capturing their Welterweight belt within a year, holding it [[CurbStompBattle with a series of curbstomps]] (and one unfortunate no contest) before retiring for the first time in 2017. His unretirement to compete in the UFC was less than fruitful, however.
311** Alexander Volkanovski garnered this reputation initially compared to the previous featherweight champions, Aldo with his leg kicks, McGregor with his knockouts and Holloway with his record breaking volume striking, by having a style which planned on neutralising his opponent and preventing them from ever getting going, through feints, jabs, low kicks and wrestling to win on points. Only after a very dicey moment where he escaped two tight submissions and followed up with ruthless ground and pound, as well as rapid technical boxing improvements that have led to very violent, one sided fights, has this reputation left.
312** Israel Adesanya has recently gained this reputation during his later championship reign, being accused of using only "jabs, feints and low kicks", to outpoint his opponents in fairly tepid fights while rarely pushing for a fight to go beyond this stage. Most noticeably being his fights with Yoel Romero, where both spent minutes staring at each other (though Yoel contributed to this near stalemate), and the fight with Jared Cannonier, where the most memorable part of the fight has been described as his walkout to The Undertaker theme. He retained his belt until losing it to Alex Pereira after fighting too safely, and then knocked Pereira out in a rematch knowing he'd have to finish him.
313* BreakingTheFourthWall: Some fighters occasionally mug to the audience in the middle of a fight. Fan reaction is generally mixed. People seem to like Jason "Mayhem" Miller's [[VSign V-signs]] to the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL5DhoY0TVE&t=8m30s camera]], but ''hated'' when Wrestling/BrockLesnar mimed lassoing a prone Heath Herring.
314* BrokenAce: This is a sadly common element in MMA, where "aces" or top fighters are pushed to fight the best of their promotions through grueling schedules, which consequently makes their careers end falling off the scale due to injuries and wear-out.
315** Pancrase founders Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki and Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki suffered from this. After years of ignoring injuries and facing opponents frequently much younger and/or from weight classes above, they both retired from competition turned into shells of themselves.
316** Before his car accident, Hayato Sakurai was considered one of the greatest fighters of his time, excelling both in stand-up and ground fighting, and being possibly the best fighter ever produced by the Shooto dojo. After the accident, physical and psychological problems from his earlier career come to trouble him and he found himself struggling against very minor opponents.
317** Ben Askren was one of the top grapplers in the world in his prime, fighting in Bellator and ONE Championship for most of his career, habitually ragdolling opponents with his wrestling skills and battering them to a pulp on the ground. He came out of retirement at the age of 37 to try a UFC run; after 1 win and 2 consecutive losses, it came out that his lackluster performances were due to severe hip problems, stemming from his wrestling days, that caused pain and greatly limited his once impressive physical prowess.
318** Lightweight pioneer Jens Pulver holds the distinction of stopping a prime BJ Penn on his fast track to championship and being a dominant champion in the early days of the lightweight division in the UFC. After leaving the organization for better prospects outside, his once serviceable chin was worn out by knockout losses, severely diminishing his ability to fight effectively.
319** BJ Penn was a BJJ ace and a powerful striker with an enviable physical prowess, losing only to the very best opposition available. However, age, years of substance abuse, hard partying and the grueling training regimen inherent to a mixed martial artist caught up to him, landing him on possibly the worst run in the UFC history, with 9 losses, 1 win and 1 draw in ten years.
320** Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba still occasionally competes in submission grappling despite being in his 50s. Fans sometimes even joke that at this point he is held together by cigarettes, booze and the ridiculous amounts of tape he habitually wears around his joints.
321** Lightweight Tony Ferguson tragically appears to be undergoing this process. The former Interim Lightweight Champion was once known for his over-the-top fighting style and 12-fight win streak, often brought up as the dream matchup for the dominant Khabib Nurmagomedov. Since a brutal beatdown from Justin Gaethje, Ferguson has been on a six-fight losing skid, suffering grievous submission attempts and being knocked out cold for the first time ever in his career.
322* BullyingADragon: Just about every MMA fighter has an anecdote of some random bully picking a fight with them and losing. Perhaps the most epic tale is the one told by former WEC Featherweight Champion Urijah Faber [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQLg7Kc8So about his trip to Bali]], in which a whole pack of Balinese gangsters [[ZergRush swarmed him]] after watching him beat down one of their own in a streetfight. Faber summarizes the episode: "It takes more than twelve Balinese with weapons to kill the California Kid."
323** [[WildSamoan Mark Hunt]]'s autobiography includes a story of how him, Ray Sepp and Jeromé le Banner, all huge heavyweight fighters out having a night on the town getting harassed by Japanese street thugs. The resulting fight was actually fairly harmless, but the three of them spent the rest of the night laughing their asses off over the idea that someone out there was actually stupid enough to try and mug a group of friendly heavyweight Kickboxers (To make matters worse, Jeromé was also a pro wrestler, boxer and a 4th Dan Judo Black belt).
324** In the leadup to his fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor Mcgregor [[RefugeInAudacity threw a lifting trolly through Khabib's teams' bus window and injuring some of his friends in the process, insulted his religion and called his wife a "towel" to his face multiple times at press conferences]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma In retaliation, once Khabib got Conor on the ground in round 4, he decided a rear-naked choke was too nice and began crucible choking Conor]] ''[[FacialHorror by the jaw and was seconds away from breaking it]]'' when Conor's tapping got the referee to pull the still enraged Khabib off of him. [[OneManArmy Whereupon a taunt from Conor's corner then made Khabib jump the fence and fight Conor's coaches next]]. While both parties arguably went too far especially in the aftermath, the ratio of fuck around to find out was ''really'' something The Notorious should've kept track of.
325* BunnyEarsLawyer: Rousimar Palhares is pretty much a mix of this, Cloud Cuckoolander and ''possibly'' Crazy Awesome, seeing as he's notorious for two things: [[SignatureMove horrifying leglocks]], and horrifying mental lapses in competition! (Fortunately, so far as anyone knows this is strictly in competition, which keeps him from qualifying as AxCrazy.)
326* ButNotTooWhite: Featherweight Erik Koch was noticeable for his unusually white skin before getting a sponsorship deal with a tanning company and sporting an unnatural orange complexion.
327* CameBackStrong: It's not unheard of for fighters to have their career basically killed due to bad performances but coming back better due to fixing holes in their game and reinventing themselves as better.
328** Maurice Smith was looking like he would be a sad story of a pioneer that couldnt adapt from his kickboxing base and developing acceptable grappling, with a horrible record of 3 wins and 6 losses, Smith began training with expert grappler Frank Shamrock and developed into an early example of a true mixed martial artist, he went on to become a UFC heavyweight champion by negating Mark Coleman's grappling prowess and retired with an even record.
329** Anthony Johnson's career seemed to be going downhill after a lackluster run in the UFC as a welterweight, being cut after repeatedly failing to make weight. Johnson then decided to move up 2 divisions and compete as a light-heavyweight, which allowed him to develop as one of the greatest power punchers in the sport, he returned to the UFC 2 years after being cut and quickly became one of the most feared men in his division.
330** Vicente Luque had a rough beginning to his career, getting into the UFC with a middling 7-5-1 record and losing his debut, before developing his kickboxing skills to near perfection and demolishing most of the opposition put in front of him, with his only losses since his UFC debut coming from two of the best in his division in Stephen Thompson and Leon Edwards.
331** Mark Hunt had perhaps the best career resurrection in MMA. After the UFC acquired Hunt's contract while he was on a five-fight losing streak, they offered to buy him out of the contract and let him quietly go away with an easy paycheck. Hunt refused and insisted on taking fights. In spite of losing his first UFC fight and extending his losing streak to six, he then proceeded to go on spree of walk-off knockouts and epic wars, quickly becoming a fan favorite. By the time he retired, he had headlined seven UFC cards and even challenged for the interim title.
332** Jan Blachowicz had a pretty good run in the polish national scene, being a dominant force in KSW and getting crowned winner in several tournaments before securing his UFC contract in 2014. While his debut went smoothly, securing a one sided TKO win over Ilir Latifi, he proceeded to lose 4 of his next 5 fights and being relegated to the lower end of the division. He then went on a tear through the division, swiftly rising up the ranks of the division and cementing his status as a dominant champion by defending his belt from then-undefeated middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and taking his unbeaten status in the process.
333** Charles Oliveira came into the UFC as a young BJJ ace with a good record, however, it soon became apparent that, while he was large for featherweight, his lack of cardio and striking skills meant that he would outclass lower tier fighters, only to lose handily to experienced and high-end opposition. 7 years, a move to lightweight and some serious striking improvements later, Charles began a winning streak of epic proportions which culminated with him achieving a DarkHorseVictory in the division's post Khabib Nurmagomedov race to the title by becoming champion in 2021. On top of his status as champion, he also owns the records for most submissions and finishes in company history.
334* CarpetOfVirility: Most MMA fighters shave their chests, but a few have proudly sported their chest hair.
335** Forest Griffin always sports chest hair, which is rather appropriate when combined with his monkey-like face.
336** Simple country boy Matt Hughes never does something as sissified as shave his chest.
337** Dave "Pee-wee" Herman usually shaves his body hair, but for his fight with Stephan Struve he chose not only to let it grow out in all its splendor but to dye it ''black''.
338** Brian Ebersole shaves his chest hair into an arrow pointing to his chin, giving his opponents a target. He was never knocked out in almost 70 fights.
339** Matt Brown's lack of concern for his chest hair fits with his no-nonsense personality and fighting style.
340** Michael Bisping rose to fame with a hairy chest and shaved head, then suddenly grew a head of hair and shaved his chest.
341* CatchPhrase:
342** Perhaps the most famous in MMA history (at least from a fighter) is Mirko Cro Cop's [[BadassBoast description of the damage his head kicks can cause]]: "Right leg, hospital; left leg, cemetery."
343** Bruce Buffer announces main-event fights by preceeding them with a [[LargeHam loud, enthusiastic]] "IT'S... TIME!"
344** Max Holloway's penchant for saying "It is what it is" during interviews quickly earned meme status.
345* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Despite sometimes looking like being able to perform acts that may look superhuman, your average top tier fighter's training regimen tends to be fairly mundane. Weight training, punching bags and running are among the most commonly used methods.
346** Rich Franklin had huge success in the early days of the UFC middleweight division despite not being a particularly technically impressive fighter. His recipe for success was simply a sensible strength and conditioning training regimen that was actually geared towards improving his physical performance.
347** Nick and Nate Diaz maintain their nigh superhuman stamina by running marathons and triathlons on a regular basis.
348* CloudCuckoolander:
349** Pretty much what UFC middleweight Rousimar Palhares is known for, even more than his successes, particularly where he seemed to suffer brain farts in two fights, one that almost decided the fight and one that did:
350*** When Nate Marquardt slipped out of a leglock attempt by the supine Palhares, for some reason Palhares turned his head towards the referee to complain that Marquardt might be "greasing" (oiling himself up to defeat grappling). Unfortunately, Palhares turning his attention away from his opponent violated the referee's pre-fight instruction to "defend yourself at all times," and Marquardt promptly punished this by grounding-and-pounding Palhares to a TKO.
351*** When Palhares dropped Dan Miller with a head kick to the chin, he promptly went for ground-and-pound against his turtled-up opponent, landing several heavy-looking punches... then got up to raise his arms in seeming victory, walk away and climb the cage to celebrate, only for the referee to tell him that the fight had ''not'' been stopped and that he was to come back down and continue fighting -- after which Palhares himself was crumpled by a left hand from Miller and almost TKO'd himself!
352** Due to his fervent religious beliefs and some amusingly belligerent post-fight interviews, Vitor Belfort has developed this kind of reputation in recent years.
353** The famous vale tudo fighter Rei Zulu was known for many things, none of them particularly sane. He did acrobatics and silly faces every time he got into the ring, claimed to eat only molten iron, and gave interviews which would have made Wrestling/UltimateWarrior seem articulate. He also notoriously lacked any martial arts training, and he claimed to represent a style created by himself called "Tarracá" which was based around wrestling and mocking his opponents.
354* CocaPepsiInc: The UFC has bought out and absorbed almost all of its main competitors.
355** In 2007, they bought their largest rival ever, Pride FC, and planned to run it as the UFC's wing in Japan, but discovered that the brand had been tainted by Yakuza ties. Instead, the UFC liquidated the company and brought over most of its best fighters to the UFC.
356** The WEC was bought out and run for several years as a separate promotion, housing the best fighters of the weight classes that the UFC did not promote as well as serving as a B-league for higher weight classes. It was eventually folded and its fighters absorbed by the UFC. The champions of WEC's lighter weight classes that had not existed in the UFC were immediately crowned UFC champions of those divisions.
357** Strikeforce was acquired by the UFC and run for a short time as a separate promotion. In spite of claims by the UFC that they would do this for the foreseeable future, no one was exactly surprised when Strikeforce was soon after absorbed into the UFC.
358* ConfusionFu:
359** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYE-mAXQ71I Genki Sudo's]] main tactic while on the feet, included turning his back, waving his arms in silly poses and literally ''[[DanceBattler dancing]]'' around his opponent. His fighting style can be summarized as 8% ridiculous dancing around, 1% spinning backfists, 1% flying triangle chokes and 90% ''amazing'' grappling skill.
360** During his short career, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f_6L9MopnM Shigeyuki Umeki]] was an even weirder example. His fighting style was based around resembling a stoned monkey, swinging apathetically his arms toward his opponent and feinting kicks with equal nonchalance, then surprising him with quick rolling takedowns.
361** Tony Ferguson in the UFC, with his habit of rolling mid fight (both in cases of UnnecessaryCombatRoll and RollingAttack), tendency to throw spinning elbow strikes and off balance haymakers.
362* {{Contortionist}}: Many fighters can demonstrate flexibility that would shock most bystanders. BJ Penn was noted for being able to, without using his hands, lift his leg up and loop his foot behind his head, though he lost the ability to perform this feat later in life. Flexibility is often vital for submission defence, allowing fighters to contort their limbs to ridiculous angles to escape a hold, as former WEC and UFC lightweight champion Ben Henderson has proven time and again.
363* ConstantlyChangingName: Henri Hooft's Florida based MMA gym has constantly changed its name over the years as a result of him finding new sponsors and funders who want to put their names on his gym. His gym has gone by many names including Combat Club, Hard Knocks 365, Sanford MMA (after Sanford Health sponsored and helped open a new training facility and health clinic) and currently Kill Cliff Fight Club after the energy drink and CBD company obtained naming rights to the gym.
364* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Many people incorrectly refer to MMA as "ultimate fighting" and the athletes as "ultimate fighters." The UFC probably appreciates this and encourages it with the name of its reality show, ''Series/TheUltimateFighter''.
365* CreatorsPet:
366** Chael Sonnen got a lot of leeway in the UFC spite of numerous stains on his career due to his preternatural ability to hype fights. He was, for all intents and purposes, commission-shopped (fighting in a non-commission state while pending a license hearing in Nevada) following a suspension for steroids after his first bout with Anderson Silva, retained in the UFC despite a felony money laundering conviction and having his suspension decreased by lying his ass off at his first hearing, and received a lucrative spot as an ''Ultimate Fighter'' coach and next opponent for light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, despite not having fought at 205 in eight years.
367** One could also argue that UFC Women's Champion Creator/RondaRousey has become one of these. Accusation intensified after she was fast-tracked into a fight against the champion, Amanda Nunes, despite coming off a loss against Holly Holm and taking a year off.
368** UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor was obviously a star in the making when the UFC signed him, and it bent over backwards to develop him. He got his shot at the title after beating Dennis Siver (who was 1-1 in his last two fights), and he was heavily pushed as a blue-chip prospect. In spite of his many run-ins with the law and other erratic behavior, the UFC has never gotten close to killing their golden goose. They even let him fight in a co-promoted boxing match with Floyd Mayweather in spite of their history of laughing off the mere hint of co-promotions. Given that Conor has for several years been the UFC's biggest star in the history of its organization, it's easy to see why they've been giving him such leeway.
369** Jon Jones, being perhaps the second biggest male star in the promotion, has earned many instances of preferential treatment, including the relocation of an entire fight card on extremely short notice to dodge commission red tape thanks to his failed drug tests. His many run-ins with the law have, however, certainly done no favors for his relationship with the promotion.
370** Sage Northcut was heavily pushed as a new prospect due to his clean-cut image and personality combined with his chiseled physique and impressive athleticism. In spite of being treated with kid gloves and set against a string of very green opponents, Sage still couldn't rise to the level the promotion needed him to, and he was eventually let go.
371** Phillip "Wrestling/CMPunk" Brooks was transparently brought into the UFC on name recognition alone and given vastly undue promotion. After getting a main card fight against a 2-0 opponent and losing without landing a single strike, Brooks was granted ''another'' main card fight, this time against an 0-1 opponent and still got dominated. At that point, even Dana White had to accept the reality that Brooks didn't belong in the UFC.
372** Michael Chandler became big in Bellator where he was able to hold the lightweight title three times. In 2020 he signed with UFC and in his first event he defeated veteran Dan Hooker easily in one round, was talkative, native english speaker and more promotable, thus he was given the shot to dispute the belt against Charles Oliveira, even though the rest of the lightweight division had a lot of fighters with more bouts waiting for their chance, and Oliveira especially was in the UFC for 11 years coming from an 8-win streak. In the pre-fight interviews, Tony Ferguson called Chandler on having "Dana [[StealthPun White privilege]]".
373** Colby Covington became this after his first title shot. By creating a very offensive, pro-America, pro-Trump persona, Covington quickly became a fighter that fans either liked and agreed with his political stances/enjoyed his persona, or hated and wanted to see him lose, and was therefore heavily promoted. His first title shot was earned with a 7 fight win streak, which he lost in a close war against Usman in 2019. After this he then took one fight a year against past their best fighters (Tyron Woodley in 2020, Jorge Masvidal in 2022, both of whom retired from MMA shortly after) and otherwise sat out until he was given a title fight that he lost. This was most apparent in December 2023 when he inexplicably got a title shot against champion Leon Edwards (who beat Usman twice) while there were other deserving contenders like Belal Muhammad (10 fight undefeated streak) and Shavkat Rakhmonov (undefeated 18-0 fighter with ALL wins being finishes). This culminated in Covington putting on a tepid, timid performance that he lost clearly.
374* {{Crossdresser}}: Pancrase fighter Hikaru Sato usually wears a {{maid}} outfit during his entrance.
375* CurbStompBattle: There have been many examples of a fighter defeating a worthy opponent with unexpected ease. A few examples include:
376** Royce Gracie curbstomped his way through the very first UFC event. Most of his opponents had no idea how to fight his style, and boxer Art Jimmerman gave up without throwing a single strike. Since the first event, Gracie continued to dominate the early events, but he was always considered the favorite. Ironically, he suffered a curbstomp defeat of his own on his return to the UFC against welterweight champ Matt Hughes, who dominated him with superior wrestling coupled with savvy submission defense.
377** Anderson Silva exploded into the UFC after a fairly unexceptional career in other promotions. He dispatched the rugged Chris Leben so ruthlessly in his debut that he was immediately given a title shot. Though many fans didn't think he even deserved the shot, Silva demolished the two-time defending champ Rich Franklin in the first round. Since then, Silva has dispatched a number of other worthy opponents with ease, including a thrashing of Forrest Griffin, in which Silva spent a large portion of the fight taunting Griffin with his hands down before knocking him out with a ''[[CherryTapping backpedaling jab]]''. [[DeadPanSnarker Griffin]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1R50LpFh_M went on to comment on the match]] [[SelfDeprecation on his usual fashion]].
378--->'''Griffin''': I tried to punch him and he literally moved his head outta the way and looked at me like I was stupid for doing it.
379** [[http://www.fightmetric.com/Machida.html Lyoto Machida]] unleashed a series of lopsided victories over quality competition on his run for the light heavyweight title. Machida used a unique and elusive style, which includes a strong base in his family's brand of Shotokan karate, to nullify most opponents' offense and make them look like novices.
380** "Shogun" Rua delivered a curbstomp beating on Machida during their rematch, beating the champ to the punch and knocking him out in three and a half minutes.
381** In 2003, Fedor Emelianenko challenged the then-greatest heavyweight ever in Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira. He was viewed as not standing a chance. He proceeded to spend twenty minutes absolutely torturing Nogueira, assailing him with unbelievably powerful punches. In December of 2004, he did it again, and would have done so in August of 2004 had an accidental cut not stopped the fight early. Fedor went on to crush many more opponents, but was always the clear favorite up until he began fighting for [=StrikeForce=], where after defeating Brett Rogers, he proceeded to lose 3 in a row.
382** Jon Fitch was riding a dominant 8-fight winning streak en route to his title fight against Georges St-Pierre, which turned into [[http://blog.fightmetric.com/2010/08/st-pierre-vs-fitch-fightmetric-report.html the worst beating of his life]]. After a 5-fight undefeated streak, during which he was considered the perennial Number 2 welterweight in the world after GSP, he faced Johnny Hendricks and was knocked out in just 12 seconds.
383** Georges St-Pierre vs. BJ Penn 2 was dubbed a superfight between champions. Many fans thought that Penn stood an excellent chance of being the first fighter to hold two UFC belts simultaneously. Instead, GSP dominated the fight with superior wrestling, and pummeled Penn mercilessly for three rounds until Penn's corner threw in the towel before the fourth bell.
384** The first five title fights of Jon "Bones" Jones's career were against former or current title-holders, and all were one-sided beatings. Of the five opponents, only Vitor Belfort had him momentarily at a disadvantage.
385** On the womens' side, there's Creator/RondaRousey; she won 9 of her 12 fights (1 in King of the Cage, one in Hard Knocks, 4 in Strikeforce, 6 in UFC) in 1 minute, 6 seconds or less. She won her fight vs. Alexis Davis in sixteen seconds, and her match against Cat Zingano, which was hyped up as her toughest challenge yet, lasted all of fourteen seconds, a UFC record for shortest title fight. Her first eight wins all came by armbar submission, leading to the popular slogan "Death. Taxes. Rousey by armbar." In her match against Bethe Correia (which Correia had made rather personal), she exclusively used what everyone considered to be her biggest weakness: striking. The fight was still over in only 34 seconds: Rousey hit a right hook on Correia's face, and Correia's face hit the ground immediately.
386** Rousey herself was on the receiving end of one at UFC 193 by Holly Holm, who was able to easily counter Rousey's aggressive fighting style. The bewildered Rousey had no answer for Holm's tactics and amounted no effective offense before getting knocked out early in the second round. Even worse was her loss to Amanda Nunes. It took Amanda 42 seconds to neutralise all of Ronda's offence and strike back much harder.
387** Conor Mcgregor has dished out a couple of these. His most notable examples are his win over Jose Aldo in 2015 which ended the former champions 10 year unbeaten streak in just 13 seconds and one big punch and his win over Donald Cerrone in 2020, where Cerrone didn't land one strike on Mcgregor in their 40 second bout before it was stopped.
388** Khabib Nurmagomedov's entire career was one long curb-stomp battle. Not only did he win all of his 29 bouts, but all of his victories by decision were unanimous 50-45 (i.e., none of the judges thought he lost a single round) or better. He only lost two rounds in his entire career—one to UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor in October 2018 and one to Justin Gaethje in Khabib's final fight in October 2020. And the latter loss wasn't unanimous; the three judges split their cards 2–1 in Gaethje's favor. Not that it helped either of them, as Khabib tapped [=McGregor=] out in Round 4 and choked Gaethje out in Round 2.
389** Alexander Volkanovski has handed several of these out in his title defences. His best examples were against The Korean Zombie, in which by the 4th round Volkanovski was asking his opponent if he wanted to continue and the stoppage seemed like a mercy stoppage, and Yair Rodriguez, a very dangerous and dynamic striker, who he outwrestled and battered him for 2 round, before hurting and finishing him in the 3rd.
390* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Many fighters, when defending a takedown within reach of the chain-link cage walls, will instinctively grab it to keep from falling, which is illegal in most mainstream promotions.
391* DangerousForbiddenTechnique:
392** Soccer kicks are considered the most dangerous technique in MMA and are outlawed in most western promotions. As the name implies, they involve kicking a downed opponent's head like a soccer ball, which can lead to either broken facial bones, or, the main reason it was outlawed, severe neck injuries from the whiplash.
393** The heel hook has been banned in some minor promotions because it can cause long-lasting and career-ending damage to the victim's legs. In major promotions, it is much more rare because it is easily countered, but fighters who are able to use it effectively are greatly feared.
394* DavidVersusGoliath: Early UFC events were open-weight, sometimes resulting in fighters facing opponents more than 100 lb (45 kg) heavier then themselves. Japanese promotions love these match-ups, often pitting small Japanese fighters against opponents weighing 300-500 lb. The trend fell into disuse after the demise of Pride, but was restored for Dream's 2009 "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEmvgU74Nls Super Hulk Tournament]]." Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa, one of the smaller fighters, won the tournament. Usually the "Goliaths" fare quite poorly due to their often dubious credentials as fighters.
395** 5'10'' Heavyweight Mark Hunt fought nearly 7-foot tall Stefan Struve in 2013. Despite the height and a 10 inch reach advantage over the Samoan, Hunt shattered Struve's jaw with a cinder block of a left and won via TKO.
396* DeadpanSnarker:
397** Forrest Griffin is prone to this in his interviews, though Amir Sadollah gave him a run for his money. An "Inside The Octagon" mini-show that reunited them (Sadollah was a member of Griffin's team on the seventh season of ''The Ultimate Fighter'') showcased both men snarking their way through the entire segment.
398** Power-puncher Derrick Lewis tends to fall on this territory during many of his interviews.
399--> Whenever I watch Curtis fights I believe he's one of the best strikers in the UFC. Hey... I'm uh... going for the takedown, right off the bat, 'cause I don't want no part in his striking game because I don't wanna get knocked out, y'know. I gotta go for the wrestling and hold and just hope the ref keeps us there. Y'all don't believe nothing I say. It's pitiful.
400* DeathGlare: Very common in staredowns to psych out one's opponent.
401* DeathOfAThousandCuts:
402** Nick and Nate Diaz are known for their unique and effective style of boxing, which involves a high volume of low-power punches to wear their opponents down. The style is sometimes called the "Stockton Slap".
403** There is also the old tactic called "Sinapismo" by Hélio Gracie, which consisted in raining short heel kicks from the guard onto the opponent's back and kidneys to force him to move position and make a mistake.
404** Max Holloway holds the UFC record for highest number of significant strikes in the promotion's history. Although Holloway is not known for possessing noticeable knockout power, that is cold comfort to opponents on the receiving end of his relentless rain of fists. Calvin Kattar was unfortunate enough to experience this in 2021, where he was ground down by a blistering storm of punches over the course of five rounds despite not being KO'd.
405* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: Due to the nature of the sport, upsets in MMA are more common than in boxing. All "undefeatable" fighters are just one mistake away from getting knocked out or tapping out, or at the very least losing their "invincible aura".
406** The Gracie family cultivated an invincible aura during the early years of MMA that was particularly pronounced in America, where they were most famous for Royce Gracie's undefeated streak. That image was permanently shattered when four members of the Gracie clan (including Royce) were beaten by Japanese grappler and former pro-wrestler Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba. Sakuraba was later dubbed "The Gracie Hunter".
407** BJ Penn was the first American to ever win a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world title, and came into the UFC's at the time new lightweight division with a well-deserved amount of hype for his grappling abilities. He then proceeded to shock everyone by showcasing incredible speed and striking skills in his first three fights, culminating in an 11-second knockout of highly-regarded Caol Uno and getting a shot at the title held by Jens Pulver, with people acting as though he'd already won. Pulver, however, had other ideas, and after losing the first two rounds of their fight, used his own speed, boxing, and wrestling to win a majority decision.
408** Matt Hughes was the most dominant UFC champ in history until his rematch with Georges St-Pierre, who stopped him in the second round with surprising ease.
409** After winning the championship, St-Pierre was considered undefeatable. In his first title defense, he faced Matt Serra, a journeyman whose career had fizzled out before winning a "comeback" title shot through the ''The Ultimate Fighter'' reality show. Everyone expected GSP to run straight through Serra. Early in the first round, however, Serra landed a hard punch just behind St-Pierre's ear, taking away his equilibrium. Serra swarmed in with more punches until the overwhelmed GSP was forced to tap out due to strikes. It remains the biggest upset in UFC history.
410** The trope was subverted by the first Machida vs. Shogun fight. Although Lyoto Machida was considered an unbeatable enigma coming into his first title defense as light heavyweight champion, many spectators and commentators gave the decision victory to Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. The judges, however, awarded Machida a controversial unanimous decision victory. Machida's air of invincibility had nonetheless been cracked, and he fittingly lost the rematch to Shogun by first-round KO.
411** BJ Penn was considered unbeatable at lightweight once he took the UFC championship, steamrolling over all title contenders with ease. Then came Frank Edgar, a 6 to 1 underdog who was thought to lack a single competitive advantage over the champion. Edgar proceeded to pepper Penn with punches and frustrate him with movement and feints to take a somewhat unpopular unanimous decision victory. In their rematch, Edgar took a decisive decision victory.
412** Fedor Emelianenko was long considered the best MMA fighter in the world. However, when he to knocked down the underdog Fabricio Werdum and rushed in for the kill, Werdum took advantage of Fedor's overconfidence and snapped on a triangle choke with armbar -- ending a 9.5 year-long, 28-fight undefeated streak.
413** Anderson Silva's tactics finally backfired on July 6, 2013. Having spent the majority of the first round being controlled on the ground by wrestling-based Chris Weidman, Silva began his standard practice of dodging Weidman's blows and keeping his hands down. Weidman took advantage of a hole in Silva's defense; instead of following a right straight with a left hook, Weidman threw a right backfist, causing Silva to lean directly into the follow-up left hook. He dropped and was finished in seconds. This ended Silva's record-setting 6.5-year, 10-fight title reign and 16-fight UFC undefeated streak.
414** UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Creator/RondaRousey gained a reputation for steamrolling all competition. After winning the Strikeforce championship, she defended her unified title seven times. When she was scheduled to fight Holly Holm, her last four challengers had lasted a total of 130 seconds against her. In spite of being a 12-to-1 favorite against Holm, Rousey was thoroughly dismantled by Holm's striking and eventually knocked unconscious in the second round.
415** Jose Aldo's decade-long reign at featherweight division ended by the hands of rising Irish star UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor within 13 seconds after the match started.
416** Before her match against Amanda Nunes at UFC 232 in late 2018, Cris Cyborg hadn't lost an MMA bout since ''2005'', usually curbstomping her opponents. Nunes proceeded to pummel her and score a knockout less than a minute into the fight.
417** Middleweight phenom Israel Adesanya seemed unstoppable after running through the division with his only issues coming from his interim title win against Kelvin Gastelum. He decided to move up to light heavyweight to capture a second title, only to be defeated by the aging polish Champion Jan Blachowicz, who surprisingly outclassed Adesanya thoroughly for 25 minutes by outstriking him for 3 rounds, then dominating him on the ground for the next 2. Adesanya took it in stride and returned to middleweight to defend his title not long after.
418** Demetrious Johnson is a former UFC Flyweight champ, beating out all in the division outside of Henry Cejudo by a split decision. He was traded to One Championship where he manages to be #1 in the flyweight division within a year. He gets knocked out for the first time in his MMA career by ONE’s flyweight champion Adriano Moraes by a grounded knee, which would be illegal by UFC rules where he was comfortable with but not ONE championship.
419** Kamaru Usman began his UFC career at 5-1, before going on a 15 fight run in which he dominated almost every opponent, capturing and retaining the welterweight championship belt, and putting him as potentially the fighter who could usurp GSP as the divisions best welterweight. In a fight where he was going to tie Anderson Silva's 16 fight UFC undefeated streak against Leon Edwards, with one minute left in the fight Usman was clearly dominating, Edwards set up a high kick that knocked Usman out cold, ending both the streak and claiming the belt.
420* DefeatMeansFriendship: It's very common for fighters to embrace and congratulate each other after the bout is over, even after heated exchanges leading up to the fight. Former opponents have sometimes invited each other to train at each other's camps. Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar are frequently brought out to make appearances together, and though many thought he was joking about the possibility, Bonnar named his son Griffin Bonnar.
421** After taking a nuclear left hand from Alex Pereira to lose the match by knockout, Sean Strickland chose to train alongside the Brazilian contender. After Strickland beat Israel Adesanya to become the Middleweight Champion, now-Light Heavyweight Pereira (who had previously suffered a devastating knockout loss against his historical rival Adesanya and had entertained the idea of a third fight at Middleweight to settle the score) dismissed the possibility of moving down, claiming that Strickland was his friend and that he had no interest in fighting him. When Strickland faced his first title defence against du Plessis, Pereira joined him in his corner in spite not originally being on the corner list.
422* {{Defictionalization}}:
423** Remember the original ''Film/TheKarateKid''? Lyoto Machida knocked out Creator/RandyCouture at UFC 129 with an honest-to-goodness [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_JMkptIuko crane kick]].
424** "The Octagon" arena was inspired by the 1980 Creator/ChuckNorris ninja film ''Film/TheOctagon''.
425* {{Determinator}}:
426** This is quickly becoming [[http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Scott-Smith-2578 Scott Smith's]] calling card. His wins against Cung Le and Benji Radach both came late in the last round on one big punch, after having been dominated the rest of the fight. The best example is his amazing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5nZwNyI5U win against Pete Sell]] (at :33).
427** Also applies to [[ImplacableMan Kazushi Sakuraba]]. As an MMA legend with a reputation for winning against [[DavidVersusGoliath daunting odds]], exciting comeback wins, and being a national hero of Japan, referees sometimes give Sakuraba a bit ''too'' much leeway in letting him continue fighting. Observers will note that in his fights against [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbh7i_sakuraba-vs-smirnovas Kestutis Smirnovas]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K29R5N12KRs Zaleg Galesic]], [[FanNickname Saku]] appears to be knocked ''completely out'' at least once. However, the referee let the match continue and Sakuraba won both fights. Sakuraba's history of [[http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Sakuraba-Out-with-Brain-Circulatory-Condition-5718 brain-related injury]] leads to the frightening question of how long he can continue to be a {{Determinator}}.
428** Sakuraba's trainer Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada and the rest of Japanese pro wrestlers turned MMA fighters. Despite knowing that their age and lack of training would make them easy prey, they fought tirelessly [[HopelessWar against clearly superior fighters]] to live up their [[JapaneseSpirit fighting spirit]], and although they had little success, they were a vital point in the development of the modern mixed martial arts.
429** Urijah Faber pretty much is the Determinator King of North America for his second fight vs. Mike Brown, for the WEC featherweight championship. There's been more than one fight where a fighter suffered a broken hand, but Faber on the other hand (unfortunate pun) lost BOTH of his hands... instead of immediately surrendering or the fight being stopped by the officials though, he chose to fight on for the remainder of the 25 minutes with elbows, kicks and knees. While he still lost by unanimous decision, it's pretty much American MMA's biggest known case of this.
430** Former Lightweight Champion Frankie Edgar is especially known for fighting back from the brink of defeat through sheer grit and heart.
431* DisproportionateRetribution: After the main event of ''Strikeforce: Nashville'', card, Jason "Mayhem" Miller gained access to the cage and interrupted the post-fight interview of victorious middleweight champion Jake Shields to demand a rematch. Shields and his cornerman Gilbert Melendez pushed Miller away, but their infamously pugnacious teammate Nick Diaz threw a punch, prompting Shields' entire team to swarm Miller and pummel him with punches and soccer kicks.
432* TheDreaded: Being a sport full of scary individuals, the most fearsome among them truly stand out.
433** Tony Ferguson, [[RedBaron also known]] as "El Cucuy" (loosely translated: "The Boogeyman"), has a reputation of monstrous brutality and a Franchise/{{Terminator}}-like ability to eat damage from anyone and continue marching forward. The only fighter to knock Ferguson out is Justin Gaethje, and Ferguson was still standing when it happened.
434** Francis Ngannou and Cris Cyborg will elicit responses of shock from the media if any fighter calls them out specifically because of how dangerous they are and the ease with which they knock their opponents out.
435** Olympic wrestling silver medalist and professional pummeler Yoel Romero is widely considered the one man nobody in the division ever wants to fight due to his [[HeroicBuild greek god-like physique]], his [[MadeOfIron ridiculous durability]] and viciousness as a fighter.
436** Ryan Hall's mild personality and slight physical build may not look intimidating, however, his top level grappling and calculating fighting style make him a nightmare matchup to pretty much anyone, this led to him being slated by one of his trainers as "the most avoided man in the game".
437* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
438** The UFC was barely recognizable in its earliest forms, existing as a series of one-day elimination tournaments between practitioners of various traditional martial arts. It was more similar to the brazilian ''Vale Tudo'' sport (Also referred as ''No Holds Barred'', or ''NHB'', in the early UFC era), with almost no rules[[labelnote:Note]]The only rules were: No biting, no eye-gouging and no fish-hooking[[/labelnote]], no weight classes, victory only by submission or knockout (in fact, until UFC 3 ''there was no ref stoppage'') and the fighters could bring any kind of gear, such as martial arts keikogis (full or only pants), wrestling shoes, singlets and t-shirts, with some even choosing if they wanted to wear gloves or not. Over the course of several years, it evolved into its more modern form of an MMA combat sport promotion.
439** Japanese MMA was a little different, it had two promotions that predated the UFC: Shooto and Pancrase. The latter looked basically professional wrestling if the matches weren't scripted: fighters wore colored thigh-high boots, fought in a three-roped pro wrestling-style ring, fought bareknuckle and had a ruleset with open palm strikes to the head only, no ground-and-pound and wrestlers (yes, ''wrestlers'', they were officially called "Hybrid Wrestlers") could hold the ropes to break submissions. Shooto on the other hand, looked uncannily similar in technical terms to modern MMA—with well-rounded fighters who could both strike and grapple—but the rules were still a little different and fighters wore pro wrestling spats. Both Shooto and Pancrase eventually envolved into modern MMA.
440** It's very strange seeing old promo clips of Chael Sonnen when he was an anonymous and humble WEC fighter with a WellDoneSonGuy backstory. After entering the UFC, he began to talk more trash and quickly transitioned into the larger-than-life braggart and quipster we know today.
441* TheEeyore:
442** Nick Diaz, despite a three-year winning streak, is known for his stubbornly dour and pessimistic personality. After an impressive stoppage of Paul Daley, his only reaction was to speculate that Strikeforce was trying to get rid of him and would likely punish him for some imagined grievance. After dominating the legendary BJ Penn into semi-retirement and earning more than a quarter-million dollar paycheck, Diaz spent the post-fight interview complaining about his [[WrestlingDoesntPay living conditions]], [[BullyingADragon being forced to fight BJ Penn]] and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking his gloves not fitting]].
443** Former UFC welterweight champion Tyrone Woodley's popularity has suffered from him constantly complaining to the press and social media about his career and his treatment from the UFC.
444* EmbarrassingNickname:
445** Nick "The Goat" Thompson was originally nicknamed "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fainting_goat the Fainting Goat]]" due to his tendency to get knocked out. Once he got more experience and increased his toughness, the name got shortened to "The Goat", which [[ArtifactTitle has no meaning]].
446** Yoshihiro Akiyama was nicknamed "Sexyama" by internet fans due to his modeling and fashionable lifestyle. He found the nickname embarrassing, but eventually embraced it.
447** Seth Petruzelli claimed that his nickname "The Silverback" is a reference to the fact that silverback gorillas have the smallest penis-to-body-mass ratio in the animal kingdom.
448* EndOfAnEra: MMA history is sometimes divided by "ages" and their end can sometimes be noticed by the slow changes to the sport.
449** The end of the golden age of Japanese MMA happened during the slow collapse of PRIDE, when it was bought out by the UFC and several scandals emerged about the company's less than legal practices.
450** The "dark age" of the UFC refers to the times where the sport was struggling for recognition in the US and several states had outright banned it. The dark age ended with a long period of rule standardisation and popularity growth.
451** We may be seeing a case of this right now, as the sport reached new heights in audience due to the immense popularity of UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor, some fans have dubbed the current time period "The Mcgregor Era", marked by an increase in bold, attention seeking, trash talking young talent, it can be argued that this age is almost running its course, as plenty of the fighters that encapsulated it, like TJ Dillashaw, Kevin Lee, Colby Covington and even its namesake, have either fallen from grace or embraced a more toned down approach to fight promotion.
452** With Volkanovski's loss of his featherweight title to Ilia Topuria in February 2024, it marks the end of the reigns of the crop of 2019 champions (Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski) who went on to have dominant reigns for many years and defend their titles 5+ times, establishing themselves as some of the very best in their division's history, and into a time where almost all the champions seem to have a loose grasp on their titles. At the time of Volk losing his featherweight title, the role of longest reigning champion falls to Leon Edwards, crowned in August 2022 with at the time only 2 title defences.
453* EnsembleDarkHorse: Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba was just another mid-tier professional wrestler when he entered the Pride Fighting Championships, being overshadowed by his superstar mentor Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada. However, Sakuraba quickly distinguished himself as one of the few pro wrestlers who could actually fight. He quickly became Pride's biggest Japanese star.
454* EveryYearTheyFizzleOut:
455** Chael Sonnen came in second place in a national wrestling competition and has been stopped in three championship fights that he was in the process of winning.
456** Kenny Florian has fought well enough to earn ''four'' UFC title shots, but lost in every attempt.
457** Michael Bisping lost three Middleweight title eliminators. However, in 2016 he stepped in on short notice as a substitute to fight for the title against Luke Rockhold and pulled one of the biggest upsets in MMA history.
458** At one stretch, Uriah Faber went 10-0 in non-title bouts and 0-6 in title bouts.
459** Joseph Benavidez is a particularly bad case of this, despite being a perennial contender in the Bantamweight and Flyweight divisions in the WEC and UFC, he has gone 0-5 in his attempts to capture gold.
460** Demian Maia is agreed to be one of the best ground-fighters of all the UFC, if not in MMA, and has been fighting since 2001. Despite begin a submission machine, he was never able to capture a title, losing both fights for the middleweight title and walterweight title.
461** UFC Light Heavyweight Dominick Reyes suffered an especially harsh, accelerated variant of this. He first lost to then-champion Jon Jones in a highly controversial decision which left many believing Reyes had won. When given a second chance to claim the throne against Jan Blachowicz, Reyes was beaten down to lose in the second round by technical knockout. The door had not closed for Reyes just yet, as his match with newcomer Jiri Prochazka held the promise of a title shot against the victor of Blachowicz vs Teixeira. Despite giving an incredible performance and wobbling Prochazka a number of times, the Czech ate everything Reyes had and returned fire viciously before knocking out Reyes cold with a spinning elbow, once more in round two.
462** Colby Covington is known for his wrestling ability and cardio and regarded as one of the best welterweights in the UFC, but is 0-3 for all his title fights (validity of these title shots aside).
463* FakeUltimateHero:
464** Japanese wrestler-turned-fighter Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada is a tragic example. He started as a massively popular [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestler]] in the [[WorkedShoot shoot wrestling era]], but was forced to venture into MMA due to its increasing influence in Japan. The age-worn and inexperienced Takada was chosen by PRIDE Fighting Championships as its top fighter and set against top competition, such as against the legendary Rickson Gracie. He was easily crushed, but the promotion tried to keep milking his popularity by giving him worked fights pushing the narrative that he was Japan's top fighter. When it became clear that it just wasn't working, Takada stepped down and [[PassingTheTorch passed the torch]] to his trainee Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba, who really could fight.
465** Bart Vale hyped himself in United States as an invincible [[AllAmericanFace All American]] MMA hero through his pro wrestling career in Japan, going so far as introducing himself as "the man who beat Ken Shamrock" due to one worked KO over him in the Fujiwara Gumi promotion. His actual MMA career was short and almost devoid of wins.
466* FanNickname:
467** Many fighters adopt a nickname that is coined by friends, family, and trainers, but sometimes the fans themselves coin them. Examples include Sean "The Muscle Shark" Sherk, [[Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba]], and Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović. Examples that are not officially adopted are often mocking names or simple abbreviations of the fighter's name. Sometimes a fighter's signature move receives a fan nickname.
468*** Alistair Overeem gained the nickname "Ubereem" to signify the ridiculously muscled physique that he developed after moving up to the heavyweight weight class. Later in his career, as his chin began to deteriorate, he adopted a more defensive style, being very careful to protect his chin and pick his shots. Fans responded by nicknaming this incarnation of Alistair Overeem as "Econoreem". His latest form takes an approach similar to "Econoreem" but adds slick takedowns and fight ending ground and pound, a tactic favoured by smart, aging veterans of the sport as a result, fans christened him "Vetereem"
469*** Wrestling/BrockLesnar is often called "Cock Chesnar" to mock the extremely phallic tattoo he sports on his chest.
470*** "Cup" Chieck Kongo is so called due to the number of times he "cup checked" his opponent Mirko Cro Cop with illegal groin strikes.
471*** Sakuraba is often called "Saku" by fans who are pressed for time.
472*** Georges "Rush" St-Pierre is almost always referred to as GSP rather than by any part of his name or even his official nickname.
473*** Mirko Cro Cop's infamous left high kicks are often abbreviated "LHK", which in turn has migrated onto others' use of the same technique.
474*** James Thompson's tradition of charging at his opponent at the instant of the first bell is called "Gong and Dash."
475*** Yoshihiro Akiyama, known for his modeling and fashionable lifestyle, is called "Sexyama" by fans. Akiyama stated that the name embarrassed him at first, but he now likes it.
476*** Rousimar Palhares' official nickname is "''Toquinho''" ("little tree stump"), but he's often referred to as "[[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxvxmlNU6E1qezk61o2_400.jpg Paul Harris]]" due to the pronunciation of his surname.
477*** Twins Antônio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira and Antônio Rogério "Minotoro" Nogueira are called "Big Nog" and "Little Nog" respectively.
478*** Stipe Miocic is sometimes referred to as "Stiopic". The nickname stuck after Joey Diaz mixed up his first and last names when talking about him in a podcast with [[Creator/JoeRogan Joe Rogan]].
479*** Robert "The Reaper" Whittaker is often affectionately referred to as "Bobby Knuckles" after an MMA podcast kept using it until commentator Jon Anik mentioned it in one of Whittaker's fights. Whittaker initially preferred his chosen nickname but has since embraced the fan nickname.
480** UFC announcer Bruce Buffer's habit of suddenly whipping around 180 degrees to point to the fighter he's announcing has been dubbed the "Buffer One-Eighty". To commemorate UFC 100, fans convinced Buffer to do a special "Buffer Three-Sixty" when announcing the title fight, in which Buffer jumped up and spun in a complete circle.
481** Dana White is often called the Baldfather (referencing ''Film/TheGodfather'') and Uncle Dana (referencing [[Series/TheAddamsFamily Uncle Fester]]) by fight fans. It's not particularly affectionate.
482* FightClubbing:
483** "Smokers" are private, unsanctioned boxing and MMA events set up between gyms so that inexperienced fighters can get some ring experience before going into their first sanctioned bout. Kimbo Slice also made a name for himself in backyard boxing matches before transitioning into a professional MMA fighter.
484** ''Rio Heroes'' was a Brazilian "promotion" formed as a Vale Tudo underground event and maybe the last to have actual no-rule Vale Tudo/No Holds Barred, running from 2007 to 2008. One of their most famous fights was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6L5RTUL-yw a man vs woman]]. They were notable to blur the line between competition and pure fight club by holding their "events" in gyms, having nothing resembling official sanction, having their events in secret locations and some of their early events weren't even in a cage or ring, but in a training mat. They ended up inspiring a TV series made by Fox Brazil.
485* EyeScream: There is a running problem with fighters accidentally poking each others' eyes in competition, which is an illegal move.
486* FoeRomanceSubtext:
487** Grappling in MMA is often disparaged as "a bunch of hugging and kissing." However, even fans will admit that some ground positions can look a little peculiar (in other words, they can resemble sexual positions). Don't tell that to an MMA fighter, though. Some fighters don't have a sense of humor about it, but others joke, "It's not gay if there's no eye contact."
488** Later taken to a logical extreme by Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Rashad Evans in a conference call for their UFC 114 main-event clash, both of whom eventually lampshaded how homoerotic their trash talk had become:
489--->'''Rampage:''' I bet you'd get an [expletive] from that.
490--->'''Rashad:''' I probably will. But it'll be okay, 'cause it'll be in your mouth.
491** Or this classic moment when Wanderlei Silva entered the cage to hype his upcoming UFC 79 fight with Chuck Liddell, a dream match between the iconic light heavyweights of PRIDE fand UFC respectively, and became the victim of English as a Second Language:
492--->'''Wanderlei:''' I want to fuck Chuck -- fight Chuck!
493** UFC middleweight almost-champion Chael Sonnen is infamous for an old promo he filmed for [=BoDog=] seeming to disparage the guard position and implicitly jiu-jitsu where he declared, "some people subscribe to that theory, but I'm a Republican and we don't do that." Ironic considering that not only are eight of his eleven losses by submission, but four of those were from the guard, by triangle choke -- performed with one man's legs and pelvis around another man's head and neck.
494* FreudianTrio: The three main Wrestling/AntonioInoki trainees, who basically created the Japanese MMA, fit this trop to a T. Wrestling/AkiraMaeda is the Id (emotional and instinctual, known for his impulsiveness), Wrestling/Satoru Sayama is the Superego (cold and intellectual, known to be rather underhanded) and Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada is the Ego (balanced and level-headed).
495* FriendlyEnemy: It's not unheard of for fighters to have a healthy respect towards each other even when scheduled to fight each other. For example, [[NiceGuy Georges St-Pierre]] said he liked Michael Bisping during the promotion for their fight for the middleweight title, including one occasion where the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYN94fzcJE4 two ran into each other in a bathroom and laughed about the media circus and Bisping's choice of car]].
496* FunnyBackgroundEvent: During UFC 182, two of Joe Rogan's male comedian friends sitting at cageside waited until they were visible in the background of a fight and then made out.
497* FunWithAcronyms: Universal Fighting-Arts Organization (UFO), a MMA and pro wrestling company founded by Wrestling/AntonioInoki.
498* GenderBlenderName:
499** Rumina Sato's first name is rather female-sounding in Japan, which he has recalled as an embarrassing thing for him.
500** Dana is a gender-neutral name, but more commonly applied to women than men. Dana White never attempted to go by Dan or Dane, and no one makes fun of it.
501* GeniusBruiser: There are a significant number of MMA fighters who are actually fighting for a living as a ''second'' career, with some pretty intellectual first ones.
502** Rich Franklin is famously a former math teacher with a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and a Master's Degree in Education.
503** Matt "The Law" Lindland ran for Oregon state representative but lost partially due to his opponent's anti-MMA ads.
504** Chael Sonnen also ran for state representative. More infamously, he took part in a money laundering scheme as a real estate agent while also fighting professionally.
505** Shane Carwin is a full-time engineer and showed up to work as usual at 9:00 a.m. on March 29, 2010... two days ''after'' he won the UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship.
506** [[NotThatKindOfDoctor Dr.]] Rosi Sexton holds a 13-5 win record after retirement and a Ph.D. in theoretical computer science.
507** Nick "The Goat" Thompson achieved his J.D. in Law and became a practicing attorney while amassing more than 50 fights across almost every major fighting promotion.
508** Julia Avila is a geologist who considers MMA to be a "side gig".
509** Scottish grappling expert Paul "Bearjew" Craig had a long career as a teacher specializing in vocational training prior to starting out his MMA career.
510* GentleGiant:
511** Former UFC heavyweight fighter Shane Carwin is a ''big'' dude, and most of his 12 wins were extremely short and extremely brutal. Outside of the cage, he has been consistently described by all the fans that have met him as kind, personable and quite possibly the nicest fighter to have been in the UFC.
512** Heavyweight fighter and former ''TUF'' contestant Justin Wren spends a lot of time in the Congo working to free Pygmies from slavery. He's almost twice the height of the Pygmies and about three times the weight.
513* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Although Gerard Gordeau is despised by the international MMA community for his dirty tactics, he is a well-known and respected fighter in Japan, having worked in a variety of pro wrestling promotions. He even served as Wrestling/KazuyukiFujita's striking coach.
514* GimmickMatches: Various promotions have staged tag-team MMA fights. They feature a dynamic right out from pro wrestling, with a legal fighter inside the ring and another one waiting outside, with the teammates switching places upon a legal tag. After the first fighteris eliminated, the other member of his team is obliged to face both opponents in back-to-back rounds.
515* GlasgowGrin: UFC Featherweight champ José Aldo received a partial one in a childhood accident. Though healed, the scar is easily noticeable, attributing to his nickname: [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Scarface.]]
516* GlassCannon: Several examples in mixed martial arts, including fighters that have devastating offense but a weak chin, or fighters with ludicrously brilliant skill in one area... and [[MinMaxing none in any other]], in which case it also overlaps with CripplingOverspecialization.
517** Shinya Aoki is one of the most brilliant no-gi grapplers on the planet, but he reacts to punches as though they were illegal and has very limited striking skills.
518** Wrestling/BobSapp has enough strength to pick up a 260-pound man ''literally'' off the mat and piledrive him violently to the ground. He racked up a number of impressive kickboxing wins with his sheer size and power. However, Sapp is also infamous for his glass chin, laughably little technique, and especially for his lack of heart.
519** Johnny Walker became infamous for this. Out of all of the 23 fights in his record, only ''five'' went past round one. He either completely destroys his opponent or gets destroyed in the first round.
520** Melvin Manhoef, a Dutch kickboxer, has truly horrifying punching power. He was the first man to ever knock out Mark Hunt, who was famous for shrugging off career-ending strikes to his presumably [[MadeOfIron granite-filled head]]. Manhoef delivered [[http://i40.tinypic.com/14muw47.jpg the KO]] while ''[[ArtisticLicenseMartialArts moving backwards]].'' Unfortunately, even though he's fought at the highest levels of kickboxing and MMA and can put together beautiful offensive combinations, Manhoef's strike ''defense'' is quite lacking, and he has been knocked out by mid-level fighters far more often than an elite striker should. More saliently, his grappling skills are pure garbage. For MMA professionals, fighting Manhoef can either end in Melvin decapitating you with a punch, or with him meekly tapping out 15 seconds after the fight hits the mat.
521** Many fighters like Melvin Guillard and Houston Alexander have decent striking, scary power and very spotty submission defense and grappling skill. Stand with them and they're likely to hurt you, take them down and they'll play you the three-tap symphony.
522** Chins get weaker over time due to an accumulation of damage over the course of a fighting career. Veteran fighters who still possess a lot of offensive skill can eventually become glass cannons due to brittle chins brought about by age. Chuck Liddell is perhaps the highest-profile example. After a long reign as the UFC's most marketable champion, he suffered a string of knockout losses that put an end to his career.
523** Former UFC Heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski is infamous for accusations of a glass chin. He has been knocked out in several fights that he was winning with his excellent speed and boxing technique. Arlovski himself insists that his chin is strong, using the hard shots he took from Travis Fulton as evidence.
524** Wrestling/BrockLesnar was famous for his impressive speed despite his herculean strength. Though he could take a beating, he never learned to stay composed when getting punched in the face. He tended to wince away and crumple after a solid shot.
525** K-1 Heavyweight Grand Prix Champion and former Strikeforce and Dream Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem was, in his prime, [[TheBigGuy incredibly large]] and [[HeroicBuild incredibly buff looking]] man with some of the most brutal striking in the sport and a very good grappling game all of which is offset by poor stamina, defense, and a very glassy chin. [[StrongerWithAge Ironically, after slimming down in his late 30s, Overeem seemingly fixed all those issues]].
526** Charles Oliveira is a locomotive of destruction in both the stand-up and submissions, holding the UFC record for most finishes in the promotion's history. That being said, his striking defense is more vulnerable, and the lightweight contender has been dropped even in fights that he ultimately won. His fight against Justin Gaethje in 2022 is a prominent example, with both fighters dropping and wobbling each other in an electrifying one-round fight before Oliveira seized victory by rear-naked choke.
527* GoodOldFisticuffs: MMA is generally regarded as having demystified martial arts and helped strip away the exotic, flashy moves that proved ineffective in competition. Today, MMA has generally homogenized into a core set of simple, effective moves. However, many fighters avert the trope by successfully applying exotic or flashy moves into their arsenal:
528** Lyoto Machida's signature stand-up style is greatly influenced by his family's brand of Shotokan UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} as well as his sumo background.
529** Katsunori Kikuno is a Japanese fighter noted for use of techniques from his Kyokushin UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} background in the ring, typified by signature "crescent" kicks to the body (particularly towards the liver) and head.
530** Yves Edwards vs. Josh Thomson ended with both famously using exotic techniques -- a flying kick and a spinning backfist -- against each other simultaneously.
531** Jon "Bones" Jones is noted for his use of spinning back elbows and eye-popping throws. He claims he doesn't use them to be flashy, they're just part of his style... learned through Website/YouTube.
532** After watching ''Film/OngBak'', Anderson Silva suddenly wanted to win a fight by leading reverse elbow. His coaches completely shot this down, so he practiced the technique privately with his wife. Come his fight with Tony Fryklund, that's ''exactly'' how Silva [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s6rF0gId4E won]].
533** Cung Le has a sanshou background and used his impressive array of kicks to break Frank Shamrock's arm.
534** Anthony Pettis is well known for his acrobatic attacks. He won the final WEC Lightweight Championship by running up the side of the cage, springing off, and delivering a flying kick to the face of Benson Henderson, flooring him.
535** Marcus "Lelo" Aurelio has become to UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} what Machida is to the UsefulNotes/{{Karate}}, and is known for using numerous UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} moves in his fights.
536** UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor is known for his flashy stand-up style involving lots of exotic kicks and punches taken from all sorts of styles. Combined with his high level ringcraft, he puts unrelenting pressure upon his opponents and immobilizes them until his straight left knocks them out.
537** Yair Rodriguez wields an arsenal of creative, eye-catching strikes that he has put to good use throughout his career, with highlights such as his fights against Alex Caceres and Andre Fili. Perhaps the most incredible, however, was his Hail Mary knockout of The Korean Zombie. Certain to lose a decision and with seconds left in the final round, Yair baited his foe into advancing, ducked, and threw a back elbow from ''beneath'' The Korean Zombie, who faceplanted right before the final horn blew.
538* GratuitousSpanish: The Spanish and Portuguese languages are extremely prevalent in MMA, given that many Spanish/South American fighters don't speak English, and thus will address their corner, the media, and their opponents in their native tongue. Some fighters also have non-English nicknames, such as Tony "El Cucuy" ("The Mexican Boogeyman") Ferguson, Jessica "Bate Estaca" ("Piledriver") Andrade, and Chris "El Guapo" ("The Handsome One") Gutierrez.
539* TheGreatestStyle: The Gracie family co-founded the UFC with the intention of showcasing the effectiveness of their Brazilian jiu-jitsu style. The first few UFC events were billed as "style versus style" events, with each fighter representing a specific martial art. Their scheme worked and helped BJJ schools far and wide. Ironically, as fighters began to incorporate grappling techniques into their skill sets, it became clear that no single style held all the answers, necessitating a new hybrid style that was ultimately dubbed "mixed martial arts."
540* GroinAttack: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdS7GOjbNIo This video]] is titled "UFC 4 - Keith Hackney VS Joe Son (20 Punches to the groin)". If you just watched that clip and have sympathy for Joe Son's groin, don't. He had to give up MMA to become a full time prison inmate after being convicted in 2011 of participating in a gang rape back in 1990 (that clip is from 1994) and was sentenced to a term of 7 years to life. He was later convicted of killing his cellmate and was given an additional 27 years.
541* HandicappedBadass: While being in peak physical condition is advisable (if not downright a requirement) to compete, it's not unheard of for fighters to compete despite having severe physical handicaps.
542** Nick Newell is a submission expert with congenital amputation on his left arm, which ends right below his elbow. He amassed an impressive 11-0 record before his first loss to none other then Justin Gaethje.
543** Tra Telligman managed to have a pretty respectable career, despite having lost his right lung and the majority of his right pectoral muscles to a childhood car crash.
544** During Vale Tudo Japan 1995, Yuki Nakai was left blind on his right eye for the rest of his life after getting his eye gouged by Gerard Gordeau in a fight he would go on to win. He still went on to submit Craig Pittman the same night. It's worth noting that while Nakai is a lightweight, both the opponents he beat in the tournament were very big heavyweights. While he retired after the tournament, he still competed in submission grappling for several years afterwards.
545** Dominick Cruz managed to take TJ Dillashaw to a decision, which he won, despite suffering from plantar fascia tendinitis, which made it painful for him to even walk.
546** Stefan Struve fought for years before discovering he had a leaking aortic valve and an overly large heart. Both conditions are seriously detrimental to an athlete's performance and overall health, and yet Struve refused to stop fighting.
547** Michael Bisping lost most of one of his right eye's functionality after Vitor Belfort [=KOd=] him with a head kick, causing retinal displacement. He still went on to take the UFC Middleweight belt, with only his left eye functioning properly and would later replace his right eye with a glass prosthetic.
548** In his first title defence against Ciryl Gane, Francis Ngannou was suffering injuries to both knees, inhibiting his ability to use his trademark power. After losing two rounds, Ngannou shocked everyone by employing a grappling skillset to control the rest of the fight and win by unanimous decision.
549* HardWorkHardlyWorks:
550** Karo Parisyan developed a reputation for being lazy and coasting through fights on natural talent rather than training to improve his technique and conditioning. It caught up with him. His career is peppered with flashes of brilliance as well as disappointment.
551-->"My worst enemy has always been that '''I've been too talented to train''', and now it's catching up with me. I gotta start training or those guys will start catching up with me."
552** It was also constantly invoked by Pedro Otavio, who was infamous for claiming that he didn't train for any of his matches.
553* HarsherInHindsight: Josh "The Fluke" Grispi was a 14-1 contender when he entered the UFC, but then suffered four straight losses in one of the biggest flame-outs in UFC history, making his ironic nickname depressingly appropriate.
554* HeroicBSOD:
555** Yoji Anjo had one after being brutally beaten by Rickson Gracie in their infamous challenge fight, in which he was representing his boss and long time friend Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada. Feeling he had failed him, Anjo sank into a depression and [[DrivenToSuicide even considered suicide]], but ultimately learnt to [[GallowsHumor endure his sorrows with laughs]] and formed the Golden Cups comedy stable in UWF International. Years after, Takada himself welcomed him back to the MMA for a last fight against Ryan Gracie, Rickson's relative.
556** In a milder example, Anderson Silva became depressed after being soundly defeated by underdog Daiju Takase and thought about quitting MMA, but his friend Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira [[ThePowerOfFriendship convinced him to keep on fighting]].
557** Creator/JoeRogan [[https://tenor.com/view/joe-rogan-shocked-gif-7924646 seemed to be going through one]] after witnessing the [[CurbstompBattle one sided beatdown that was Ronda Rousey's fight with Holly Holm]].
558* HitAndRunTactics: Dominick Cruz and Frankie Edgar are known for their use of high-volume striking combined with a great deal of lateral movement to pick apart their opponents and avoid counters.
559* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Fighters will occasionally knock themselves out when taking down or slamming their opponent. Some noteworthy examples include:
560** Mark Kerr crashed his own head against the mat while taking down Yoshihisa Yamamoto, who took the advantage and pounded him for the win. Japanese media even developed the running joke that Yamamoto had managed to pull a real DDT.
561** Matt Lindland famously knocked himself out during a takedown attempt of Falaniko Vitale.
562** When Gray Maynard slammed Rob Emerson during their fight, Emerson hit his tailbone and Maynard hit his head. Neither fighter was able to continue, so the fight was ruled a No Contest.
563* HopeSpot:
564** Tony Ferguson in UFC 274 against Michael Chandler, at that point he was past his peak, he was 38 years old and had a 3-loss streak. Round one was a good showing from him, some fans say they saw a little bit of Tony in his prime in that round. 17 seconds into the second he was knocked out by a front kick to the chin by Chandler.
565** To Conor Mcgregor fans, the third round of his fight VS Khabib Nurmagamedov. Conor, after being beaten up and tired out badly in round 2, outboxed Khabib by a small margin, stuffed every attempt to take the fight to the ground and actually won the round against the Russian, making it the first round Khabib had ever lost. However, in round 4, Khabib landed a takedown and the fight was a foregone conclusion from there.
566* ImplacableMan:
567** Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba's epic 90-minute fight with Royce Gracie, which he won after Gracie threw in the towel due to exhaustion and accumulated damage. If that wasn't enough, Sakuraba faced a second opponent on the same night, Igor Vovchanchyn, a feared striker who was much heavier and better rested. Sakuraba went the distance for another 20 minutes, fighting Vovchanchyn to a draw, before Sakuraba declined to enter a tie-breaker round.
568** In his title defenses against Gray Maynard, Frankie Edgar has earned a reputation for this trope, despite being undersized, Edgar would keep coming forward and putting up the offence while being hit strikes that would put pretty much anyone else down, managing to score a draw in their second first title fight and a spectacular knockout late in their second.
569* InsistentTerminology: Many fighters from Japan, most notoriously Sakuraba and Minowaman, tend to call themselves as "wrestlers" as opposed to "fighters" due to the wrestling heritage of their MMA styles. Similarly, Pancrase used to call its workers "hybrid wrestlers" while Shooto called its [[ShapedLikeItself simply as "Shootists"]]. This is sometimes taken up to eleven in some minor MMA leagues, in which rear naked chokes are called "sleeper holds" and kimuras "double wrist locks". These are actual terms for the moves in UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling, but are very rare to use nowadays.
570* InterchangeableAsianCultures: Chris Leben's back tattoo is commonly described as a samurai, but it's actually a Mongolian warrior. He's given up correcting people.
571* InsultBackfire: José Landi-Jons, infamous for taunting his opponents with obscene poses and sexualized during his matches, once tried that against Medjidov Abdoulnassya, only for the latter to smile and putting a face of "want more."
572* InvincibleHero:
573** Georges St-Pierre is one of the longest-reigning UFC champions ever, but his cautious, cerebral style earned him criticism for being "boring". A typical GSP bout will have the champion thoroughly outclass his opponent for five rounds without ever being put in danger and without coming very close to finishing his opponent either.
574** Former flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson set the record for most title defenses as a mind-boggling 11, which has been partly to blame for his lack of mainstream popularity. His wins were so dominant that the fights weren't particularly noteworthy or exciting. When he eventually lost his title to Henry Cejudo, some commentators thought that it would bring some life back into the flyweight division and help Johnson's career long-term.
575** Jon Jones, as of late 2020, is 26-1 with 1 no contest, and the sole loss on his record came via disqualification as he blasted his opponent, Matt Hamill, with elbows from the top-mount position. He was the first fighter to defeat Daniel Cormier, and did so a second time before the decision was reversed after Jones tested positive for performance enhancers. With the only blemishes being a self-inflicted loss in a fight he thoroughly dominated and problems with illegal substances, Jones has proven himself essentially unbeatable for his entire career.
576** Khabib Nurmagomedov retired undefeated at 29-0 without any no-contest marks on his record. Additionally, Khabib only lost ''two rounds'' (one to UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor and the other in his final fight to Justin Gaethje, both fights he won by submission anyway) in his 12-year MMA career. Almost every single fight he was in saw Khabib inevitably take his opponents to the ground with his masterful wrestling and absolutely smash their face into the canvas.
577* IronicNickname: Rob "The Saint" Emerson's nickname became ironic (at least for fans) after it was revealed that he'd once been a gang member who was recorded with a dozen compatriots beating a stranger at a gas station [[ForTheEvulz as entertainment]]. He also slept with Ian [=McCall=]'s wife.
578* LargeHam: Several fighters are known for their hammy behavior out of the ring:
579** Wallid Ismail likes to behave like a 80s pro wrestler when interviewed.
580** Jason "Mayhem" Miller was famous for his flamboyant entrances, often break-dancing to the ring surrounded by models. His behavior landed him a hosting gig on MTV's ''Bully Beatdown'' as well as his share of controversies over the years.
581** "King" Mo Lawal wears regal attire and is surrounded by models during his entrances.
582** The hulking Wrestling/BobSapp often behaves like the living anime character that Japan seems to think he is.
583** A number of MMA commentators have developed a reputation for their hammy styles. Mauro Renallo regularly unleashes a torrent of cheesy, pre-scripted witticisms, while UFC commentator Mike Goldberg can always be counted on to bellow hyperbolic analysis at maximum volume. Michael "The Voice" Schiavello manages to do both at once. Creator/BasRutten generally acts like a hyperactive adolescent.
584* LargeHamAnnouncer: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsU1IJgRAYY Bruce Buffer]] is the current standard, but anything involving MMA Announcing should start with Lenne Hardt, better known as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD9T7uv-Gts PRIDE]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP067ecRj3g Crazy]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=PL9B58DF342D0F9F8B&v=yiBjVrWoJEI#t=44s Lady]].
585* LaserGuidedKarma:
586** Of a sort. Chris Weidman famously defeated Anderson Silva after Silva gruesomely snapped his own shin on a leg kick. Weidman would then do the exact same thing to himself years later in a fight with Uriah Hall. [[note]]For added irony, Uriah Hall's last opponent was Anderson Silva[[/note]]
587** Nadia Kassem faked her glove touch against Ji Yeon Kim and kicked her. Ji responded by knocking her down a few seconds later. Despite that, she still got 20% of Ji Yoen Kim's purse as Kim failed to make weight.
588** In pre-fight trash talk against Dustin Poirier for their third fight, a lot of which was very disrespectful, Conor Mcgregor said Dustin would be going out on a stretcher. After suffering a horrific leg break, Conor was taken out of the Octagon on a stretcher.
589* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Pancrase is mostly remembered for begin one of the earliest MMA promotion, having a rule-set resembling professional wrestling, fighting bareknuckle but allowing only palm-strikes, with fighters wearing thigh-high boots and speedos, fighting in a three-rope ring and an insitence to call itself "Hydrid Wrestling" and its fighters "wrestlers". However, by the 2000s they started to change the rules to approach closer to other MMA promotions, by the 2010s they adopted the Unified Rules and in 2014 they exchanged their iconic ring for a 10-sided cage.
590* LensmanArmsRace: One of the most interesting examples in sports history:
591** Early on, grapplers were able to easily take down and submit/ground-and-pound boxers and UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} fighters, due to them not being trained in ground fighting.
592** The arrival of Igor Vovchanchyn in PRIDE and Chuck Liddel in the UFC reversed the tide. They were strikers who used their wrestling backgrounds to defend takedowns, forcing grapplers into boxing match, essentially [[HoistByHisOwnPetard using grapplers' previous tactic against them]] and paving the way for the future striking aces like Mirko Cro Cop and Anderson Silva.
593** Finally, the surge of JackOfAllStats fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St-Pierre and BJ Penn, trained well in multiple disciplines and capable of finishing the fight from any place, made CripplingOverspecialization pretty much extinct at the top level of the sport.
594* LightningBruiser:
595** The more athletic heavyweight fighters fit this trope. Examples include Alistair Overeem, Wrestling/BrockLesnar, Junior Dos Santos, Cain Velasquez, and Tom Aspinall. Seanbaby says that Lesnar in particular is prone to this, since "He is 300 pounds of muscle, and judging by the way he darts around, I don't think mass and inertia were properly explained to him."
596** John "The Magician" Dodson is one of the few fighters in the nascent flyweight division to possess honest-to-goodness knockout power. It's not surprising when you look at his arms, which seem to be transplants from a welterweight.
597** It's pretty common for fighters in the Light-heavyweight division to be this, the top level talent tends to be leaner than a heavyweight but still carry enough muscle to pack quite a wallop, names such as Lyoto Machida and Anthony "Rumble" Johnson are notable examples.
598** Heavyweight Chris Barnett, a man who, despite not being particularly tall, cuts weight to make the 265 lbs weight limit, got his first UFC win over Gian Villante with an honest to god [[SpectacularSpinning Wheel Kick]], a technique that relies primarily on speed and timing, [[{{Acrofatic}}he then proceeded to do a flip in the octagon while celebrating]].
599* MadeOfIron: Many fighters have been reputed for their iron chins. Some seem impossible to hurt, such as Mark Hunt, Chris Leben, Wesly "Cabbage" Correira, [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/worst-life-ever-the-story-of-kazuyuki-fujitas-skull/ Kazuyuki "Iron Head" Fujita]], and "Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung. Others seem to recover quickly from the very worst shots, such as Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and Nick Diaz. However, all of these fighters have been knocked out due to strikes, leading to the inevitable conclusion that it's better to ''not get hit'' in the first place.
600* ManlyFacialHair:
601** Kimbo Slice was well known for his bushy facial hair. One reporter asked future opponent James Thompson whether it was fair that Thompson had to fight both Kimbo Slice ''and'' his beard at the same time.
602** Evan Tanner sported a mighty beard in his last few fights. When he died, thousands of fans and fighters spent a month growing a beard in tribute (including Joe Rogan).
603** Johny Hendricks, known for his fearsome knockout power, sports an equally fearsome beard.
604** UsefulNotes/ConorMcGregor grew a big, bushy blond beard shortly into his UFC career, and it quickly become the anchor of his signature look.
605** Roy "Big Country" Nelson sports a very long beard that combines with his rat tail for a general "white trash" aesthetic.
606** Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski's thick, black beard is part of his "pitbull" look. In addition, he sports fangs on his mouthpiece and frequently sticks his tongue out like a dog.
607** Wrestling/DanSevern sported the original MMA badass mustache, but his protege Don Frye made it a MemeticMutation.
608** Chuck Liddell's signature look includes a horseshoe mustache.
609** UFC flyweight fighter Ian [=McCall=] has sported a twisty-ended [[http://media.ufc.tv/fighter_images/Ian_McCall/IanMcCall_Headshot2012.png handlebar mustache]] that would make Snidely Whiplash proud.
610* ManlyTears: It's not uncommon for fighters to become overwhelmed with emotion after a fight. Sometimes they simply bawl out of sadness for losing, but other times it's a more respectable, manly sort of crying.
611** Pat Barry began crying after his victory in ''UFC Fight for the Troops'' while explaining that his father was a career soldier.
612** Just about all of the Brazilian fighters in UFC 147 cried after their victories. One even cried on his way ''to'' the Octagon.
613** Akira Shoji, a famously emotional fighter, described himself in an interview as not being able to stop crying ''for hours'' after losing in a poor fashion to Paulo Filho.
614** Khabib Nurmagomedov cried after winning his final fight against Justin Gaethje in October 2020. He later added that his mother did not want him to fight again, as his father and coach died from [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19]] that July, but he decided to take one last fight in his father's memory.
615* MarathonLevel: Royce Gracie was involved the two lenghtiest MMA fights in history, first his fight in UFC 5 against Shamrock, which went for 36 minutes (as to not break the alloted timeslot for the pay-per-view) and resulted in a draw due not having any judges. The second was the legendary match against Sakuraba, which was modified to have unlimited rounds went for ''1 hour and 30 minutes'', which ended by Royce's cornerman throwing the towel after he was unable to walk after fracturing his legs due accumulated leg kicks. His father Hélio Gracie on the other hand, had a fight with his former student Valdermar Santana which went for ''3 hours and 40 minutes'', ending when Hélio was knocked out by a slam followed by a soccer kick.
616* MartialArtsHeadband:
617** Longtime UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre always wore one on his way to the cage to honor his Kyokushin UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} background. Ironically, GSP's striking became famously based on his head-jab, while Kyokushin competition does not include punches to the head.
618** Gilbert Burns wears the Brazilian flag in form of a headband in his way to the octagon.
619* MasterOfNone: Some fighters manage to rise to high levels of success despite not excelling in any particular aspect of the sport.
620** A problem observed in most of the shoot-style pro wrestlers during the PRIDE era was that, while they had been cross-training pioneers for years and knew multiple disciplines like UsefulNotes/MuayThai, UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling, sambo and UsefulNotes/{{Judo}}, they were not proficient in any of them and thus they could not make a difference against their opponents. Sakuraba and Daijiro Matsui finally reverted the trend by focusing in wrestling and anti-game tactics.
621** In an era where almost all MMA fighters transferred into the sport with a solid foundation in another fighting sport, Rich Franklin managed to become the UFC Middleweight Champion despite lacking a pedigree in any other sport. Throughout his career, his game was very well-rounded, but without exceptional skill in any area.
622* McNinja: Early style vs style UFC had a few self-styled ''Ninjutsu'' practicioners. Scott Morris in UFC 2 got a victory in the first round with a Guillotine Choke but in the second round was thrown into the ground by Patrick Smith, who violently rained ground-and-pound strikes on him. His gymmate Steve "Ninja Cop" Jennum was little more sucessful, winning the UFC 3 after Ken Shamrock withdrew due to injuries and entering the finals against Harold Howard, but flopped in his post-UFC 3 career.
623* MeaningfulName: Creator/RandyCouture's surname means "clothing" or "fashion," as in the French ''haute couture''. He started his own clothing line called "Xtreme Couture."
624* MemeticMutation: The MMA community has a surprisingly deep and developed meme culture, based around copypastas, inside jokes and iconic moments.
625** Don Frye's mustache.
626** Mike Goldberg's [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker strange syntax]] and [[{{malaproper}} malapropisms]].
627** Chael Sonnen's MilesGloriosus statements and BlatantLies.
628** Rousimar Palhares' love for [[http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxvxmlNU6E1qezk61o4_500.png destroying limbs]].
629** Georges St-Pierre not being impressed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x2HzpIHo-w with your performance]]. A reference to his statement to Matt Hughes in the Octagon.
630** The "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmUhXSEx78A Just Bleed]]" guy from UFC 15.
631** The near cartoonish nature of [[https://youtu.be/lQSXDhxaAMA Tony Ferguson's strangeness.]].
632** Khabib Nurmagomedov thinks [[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/piz7Tb71xtM/hqdefault.jpg a lot]][[https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--cN4G-dhD--/t_Preview/b_rgb:0f7b47,t_Watermark/c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1537746512/production/designs/3201600_0.jpg of things are]][[https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/82199052/youre-growing-up-this-is-number-1-bullshit.jpg number 1 bullshit]].
633** TJ Dillashaw's steamrolling by Henry Cejudo was made into a meme when Dillashaw claimed he was [[BlatantLies going for a single leg takedown when the fight was stopped]]. Since then, "going for a single leg" became something of a joke term to being knocked out.
634** Henry Cejudo has an Olympic gold medal, [[https://twitter.com/henrycejudo/status/1116391922820685825 and he won't]] [[https://twitter.com/henrycejudo/status/1108562356165066753 let you]] [[http://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/25773451/henry-cejudo-nights-won-gold forget it]].
635** Mark Hunt has made it a habit to have angry outbursts on social media, which are frequently repurposed by the fans for comedic effect.
636** BJJ coach and wannabe fighter Dillon Danis has become widely despised for his SmallNameBigEgo attitude, and general douchebaggery, which led the community to nickname him "Dildo Danis" and mock him relentlessly.
637** Jeff Monson's infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKzh18yGKo0 "You like watching people get fucked for free?"]] promo.
638* {{Metagame}}: Over the course of the sport's history, there has been a LensmanArmsRace over the various styles and how they interact with each other.
639** This also extends to more nuanced technique within MMA as a whole.
640*** For example, the use of the cage in the context of grappling was initially used by wrestlers to prevent BJJ and guard players from throwing up submissions from their backs by pushing them against the fence and restricting room, making their guard ineffective while the wrestler on top got to beat them up.
641*** Then came the meta of using the cage wall to stand up and wrestle off the fence, to the point where some MMA fighters would choose to move themselves to the cage to help them get up.
642*** Following this (particularly the influence of UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov) was wrestling in way which prevented fighters from using the cage to get back up, essentially bringing wrestling and grappling back to the original problem of using the cage wall to restrict movement. Which has led to further developments and so on.
643* MightyGlacier: There are some rare MMA fighters who base their strategy around size and strength, but they often fail in the ring due to lack of flexibility and/or mobility. In general, this is a ill-fated strategy in modern MMA.
644** [[Wrestling/GiantSilva Paulo "Giant" Silva]] was a literal [[TheGiant giant]], endowed with an unusual reach thanks to his long arms. However, he had little success, mostly due to his lack of training.
645** Grand sumo champion Wrestling/{{Akebono}} was a tragic example, both in kickboxing and MMA. His large size didn't save him from a loss-filled record.
646** Emmanuel Yarborough is probably the heaviest MMA fighter ever, although he didn't have much exposure. In his only win, he ''smothered'' shooter Tatsuo Nakano with his enormous belly.
647** Alexandru Lungu, a lumbering superheavyweight judoka who is 5'11 and 350+ pounds, has two recorded victories by "smother choke" and one for ''[[RingOut throwing his opponent out of the ring]]''.
648** In a rare case of a smaller fighter, Chan Sung Jung, better known as "The Korean Zombie", is a ranked UFC featherweight known for his grinding constant pressure fighting and being damn near impossible to knock out.
649* MirrorMatch: Often happens in two situations.
650** A grappler faces a grappler and neither have an advantage, so they stand and strike instead. Some of these fights end up as Fight of the Night winners because of the action. One of the most recent examples is Khamzat Chimaev facing Gilbert Burns in 2022; Chimaev realized within a minute of the fight that wrestling Burns was dangerous because of his jiu-jitsu pedigree, and Burns could not take Chimaev down at all.
651** A striker faces a striker and neither have an advantage, but can't get in range to grapple without getting hit, so very little happens in the fight. When Francis Ngannou faced Derrick Lewis in 2018, the two were known as being knockout artists and fan favorites. In 37 combined fights, a grand total of 5 went to decision. However, the two were only able to stare at each other for long periods during their fight and Lewis won by decision.
652** Sean Strickland and Jared Cannonier are both patient, defense-first pocket boxers who put out a high volume of jabs and one-two combinations. When they faced each other in 2018, the result was a bizarre fight where neither man was able to damage the other in any meaningful way despite throwing over 700 combined strikes and landing about 300 of them. Cannonier won a decision that fans acknowledged was impossible to score. Strickland, who left the fight with no injuries, fought only a month later.
653* MorePopularSpinOff: American Top Team (ATT) is one of the largest and most succesful MMA camps in the world. It started as a North-American version of the Brazilian Top Team (BTT), which at the time (early 2000s) it was one of the top gyms in the world. One of BTT's co-founders, Ricardo Libório, together with former BTT and Carlson Gracie black belt Marcus Silveira and American entrepreneur Dan Lambert decided to found their own version of BTT in the States. Although it should be noted ATT was not an official branch of BTT. In the late 2000s BTT started to lose relevancy as PRIDE closed down most of their fighters went to found their own gyms or join ATT, while ATT became a champion factory and came to dominate the UFC.
654* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong:
655** Fedor Emelianenko's Russian heritage was played up during his heyday, and since then, this seems to be the standard approach used to market up-and-coming Russian fighters. Even before, Igor Vovchancyn and Mirko Cro Cop used to receive the same treatment as ruthless, seemingly invincible fighters from the Eastern bloc.
656** Dagestan, home of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Zabit Magomedsharipov, Muslim Salikhov, and many others, has become a more localized version of this; the region is home to almost 100 ethnic groups, a hotbed for Islamic insurgency (with heavy participation in the UsefulNotes/TheChechnyaWars), and also known for its economically poor population. Combat sports such as wrestling are part of the culture and a way of life; it's telling that about 3/4 of the entries in the Wikipedia page for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_people_from_Dagestan "Notable people from Dagestan"]] are wrestlers, sambists, judokas, kickboxers and MMA fighters.
657* MyNaymeIs: MMA stalwart Travis Wiuff's last name is pronounced the same as "view". Commentators have expressed bafflement at this.
658* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Surinamese heavyweight Jairzinho Rozenstruik is named after Brazilian soccer player Jairzinho, famous for winning the 1970 World Cup. Funny enough, "Jairzinho" is only a nickname, meaning "Little Jair"[[note]]The suffix -inho is a diminutive in portuguese[[/note]], which can cause some strangeness for Brazilian audiences hearing Rozenstruik's name for the first time.
659* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Generally the intention with a fighter's nickname. Some fan favorites include Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Jason "Mayhem" Miller and Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva.
660* NarmCharm:
661** Known for his eccentric training methods (including running up hills and ''chasing airplanes''), his mullet hairdo, and his iconic red speedo briefs, Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa has become a consistent fan-favorite in JMMA who is known for his 80s pro wrestling look and catch-wrestling style finishes. And really, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5978fKG-uw&t=6m28s how can you not love this guy?]]
662** MMA announcer Lenne Hardt has an equally odd and flamboyant announcing style that has endeared her to fans of Japanese MMA.
663* NerdGlasses: Shinya Aoki has myopia and uses glasses in all his public appearances, which has helped him to build his pro wrestling-esque gimmick of a "MMA geek".
664* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Since there were no referee stoppage (at least until UFC 3) and fights lasted much longer (as well, the early alternative name for MMA was ''No Holds Barred'' or NHB), they were very common at the early-era of MMA. One of the most infamous examples is MMA pioneer Patrick "Pat" Smith vs ''ninjutsu'' pratictioneer Scott "The American Ninja" Morris, the fight [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxjJltuUFA lasted 30 seconds as Morris was thrown into the ground and brutally pounded with punches and 12-6 elbows as he was unable to escape.]] To make matters even worse, he was instructed to not tap out by his trainer/cornerman Robert Bussey, whose style Morris was representing, and he also refused to throw the towel in initially (the other way to stop a match since ref stoppages didn't existed) and when Bussey finally threw the towel ''he threw backwards towards the audience'', the match only ended because Pat Smith saw no reason to continue beating Morris down.
665* NoHoldsBarredContest:
666** Vale Tudo ("Anything goes") in Brazil were mixed martial arts exhibitions with almost no rules (there was a lot of variation and inconsistency in the rules). This served the Gracies greatly in a pratical reason as it allowed fighters from different martial arts to fight and they could use their trademark submission style that other martial artists would consider "unfair," while for marketing reasons they could prove as unbeatable in an actual street fight with no rules.
667** Early UFC used a similar model to Vale Tudo on its early competitions, one of the early names for the sport ''was'' "No Holds Barred" (or "NHB"). It was discarded as a name both because it both sounded too extreme and because that with the new rules, some holds were indeed barred.
668* NonchalantDodge: Anderson Silva's trademark, especially against fighters he [[TheLawOfDiminishingDefensiveEffort doesn't consider a challenge]]; where every fighter is taught to return fire whenever possible after forcing an opponent to miss, Silva often evades blows and refuses to counter, leaving the opponent feeling embarrassed. Examples against [[http://mmachronic.com/blog1/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/silvavsfranklin.gif Rich Franklin]], [[http://i53.tinypic.com/zwdwnq.jpg Forrest]] [[http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/790010/2vrveop_jpg.gif Griffin]], and [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rQv9nSn-vEw/TlqMoV9gF2I/AAAAAAAABh4/_Dy6XJsHjOA/s1600/4.gif Yushin Okami]]. Came back to bite him hard when Chris Weidman knocked him out cold [[SubvertedTrope as Silva tried this tactic against him]].
669* NoYou: In a notably non-lame variation of this, Daniel Cormier, upon being told by rival Jon Jones that he looked like a "crackhead in a suit" replied "I might look like a crackhead in a suit, but I never been a crackhead with a suit", alluding to Jones' high profile excessive drug use.
670* NumberedSequels: The UFC popularized this trope when naming its events, and it has become standard for other MMA promotions.
671* OldMaster: Due to MMA being a relatively recent sport, the popular "elderly master" image is not as intuitive to imagine in MMA as it is in traditional martial arts, but there are some figures who definitely fit the trope.
672** The late Hélio Gracie is the biggest example, being the patriarch of the Gracie family and one of the impulsors of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as well as a badass who could roll with much younger guys. He also could be considered one of the first mixed martial artists by creating his famous ''Gracie Challenges'' which he or his family would challenge other martial artists in cross-style matches to promote his own ''Jiu Jitsu'' style, and he would later promote ''Vale Tudo'' in Brazil with the same objective.
673** "Judo" Wrestling/GeneLeBell is revered as one of the first "mixed" martial artists in United States. He trained Creator/BruceLee in grappling and arguably fought in the first televised cross-discipline match in his bout with boxer Milo Savage. His influence on modern MMA includes training former UFC champ Creator/RondaRousey.
674** Jon Bluming, pioneer of UsefulNotes/{{Judo}} and Kyokushin UsefulNotes/{{Karate}}, built the field for MMA in Europe, and has trained several Dutch fighters, among them Creator/BasRutten and Semmy Schilt.
675** Billy Robinson, another UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling master, trained guys like Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba and Josh Barnett.
676** Wrestling/KarlGotch trained many of the people that would basically create MMA in Japan; his students include those below and even Wrestling/GeneLeBell.
677*** Wrestling/AntonioInoki trained guys like Lyoto Machida and Wrestling/KazuyukiFujita and participated in proto-MMA matches, the most infamous against UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli.
678*** Though currently a semi-retired pro wrestler, old Wrestling/YoshiakiFujiwara has trained loads of MMA fighters in Japan like Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki, Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki, etc and is considered probably the biggest authority in UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling nowadays.
679*** Wrestling/SatoruSayama, the original Tiger Mask and founder of the Super Tiger Gym, Shooto and the martial art of Seikendo. While he has directly trained few of the most known (i.e. modern) Shooto fighters, he was the one who taught the instructors who trained them, which makes him an old master to old masters. Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yorinaga Nakamura are his best known Shooto era apprentices. Also, combat wrestling founder Noriaki Kiguchi worked in his gym, and shootboxing pioneer Caesar Takeshi learned grappling from Sayama as well.
680*** Wrestling/AkiraMaeda, founder of Newborn UWF and Fighting Network RINGS and trained many fighters like Wrestling/KiyoshiTamura and Wrestling/TsuyoshiKohsaka.
681* OminousLatinChanting: Early Zuffa broadcasts of the UFC were heavily influenced by ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'' and featured ominous Latin chanting during the opening sequence and each Tale of the Tape. The Tale of the Tape chanting remained long after the gladiator theme was ditched.
682* OneHitKill: One of the single most effective techniques in MMA is a punch or kick to the liver, which if delivered correctly is almost impossible to recover from: the fighter who was hit will most times go down immediately and be unable to defend themselves because of the pain, leading to a TKO. Since most fighters know this, however, and train to protect the liver, it's rare.
683* OneSteveLimit: Manvel Gamburyen was forced to change his nickname, "Pitbull", when he entered the UFC because two other fighters in the organization were already using the nickname, and apparently three was too many.
684* TheOneWhoWearsShoes: Footwear beyond the classic MMA spats or footwraps is commonly forbidden in MMA promotions, but Japan used to have more relaxed rules about it. Due to their pro wrestling ancestry, shoot wrestling companies like Pancrase or RINGS featured fighters wearing brightly colored high boots (which contributed to the re-popularization of the leglocks in their environment), and others like PRIDE and DREAM allowed wrestling shoes. Additionally, the UFC formerly allowed fighters to wear shoes if they chose, but doing so made it illegal for that fighter to utilize kicks of any kind during the fight in question.
685* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Coach Greg Jackson almost always keeps a very light and level tone while instructing his fighters between rounds. When his fighter Carlos Condit was down two rounds and heading into the final third, however, Jackson began screaming and swearing at Condit to get aggressive and knock his opponent out. Condit responded and got the TKO just 7 seconds from the final bell. Later, Jackson calmly explained that he thought Condit needed that kind of encouragement.
686* OralFixation: Former WEC and UFC Lightweight champion Benson Henderson is often seen with a toothpick in his mouth. After his successful title defense against Nate Diaz, it was revealed that he often ''fights with a toothpick hidden in his mouth''.
687* PantyFighter:
688** After decades of "foxy boxing" before it and the "lingerie bowl" in American Football, it was probably inevitable. The Lingerie Fighting Championships [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity purposefully courted this stigma]]. The most practical "fight gear" worn in LFC cages tends to be the "ring gear" of the pro wrestlers they sometimes contract.
689** Dennis Hallman infamously showed up to a UFC bout in a "banana hammock". He claimed it was because he had lost a bet. The mankini left Hallman momentarily exposed mid-fight, and the irate Dana White awarded his opponent a special bonus for finishing Hallman early and getting him off television.
690* ThePeteBest: Plenty of MMA fighters had their best years before the boom.
691** Some early pioneers, such as Wrestling/DanSevern and Wrestling/KenShamrock, left the sport for ProfessionalWrestling to make money, only to return later when MMA paychecks improved.
692** Marco Ruas. He was one of the very first true mixed martial artists, Ruas started with Muay Thai but soon expanded his training Luta Livre submission grappling and became equally skilled in both, he had his first Vale Tudo bout in 1984 where he had a draw with BJJ representative Fernando Pinduka. Even before the first UFC event, he already publicy defended cross-training in many martial arts to be a truly complete fighter, and was billed representing "Vale Tudo", just as modern MMA fighters are announced as "a mixed martial artist". His legendary UFC 7 performance saw him both submitting Larry Cureton with a heel hook and winning the finals against giant Paul Varelans by stomping his feet every time he was clinched against the cage, and brutally and systemically kicking his leg multiple times for thirteen minutes until Varelans was unable to walk and dropped into the ground, both tactics which become mainstreams decades after. Why he isn't more well-remembered? Well, in his first UFC appearence he was already 34, the period most fighters are already past their prime he started his fighting career, and he also was based mostly in Brazil, which difficulted communications, transport and exposure. One of his best students was UFC heavyweight contender Pedro Rizzo which in turn trained featherweight legend José Aldo, both which are known for their brutal leg kicks, all Ruas' legacy.
693** Igor Vovchanchyn is ThePeteBest to fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop. He was the first kickboxer to have sustained success against grappling artists in the mid 90s, was universally feared as a striker in the late 90s, and got a scary number of victories over established names. However, because his success happened in the "Dark Ages" of MMA, only hardcore fans remember him.
694** Jose "Pele" Landi-Jons is a fighter active from the mid-90s to 2013, skilled in UsefulNotes/MuayThai. His body shape and style are both almost identical to that of legendary former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, and in fact he trained Silva at one point and had a real life enmity with him. Almost no one knows who "Pele" is (not the least because his name makes him ThePeteBest in another way), while Silva has had much more success and is regarded as one of the pound-for-pound best fighters in the world.
695** Creator/BasRutten dominated the Pancrase organization, won the UFC heavyweight championship, and retired before MMA ever went mainstream. However, he's made quite a name for himself for his commentary, as well as his infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8mBe0_Ha78 self-defense tapes]].
696** Wallid Ismail was an early BJJ sensation, winning championships and becoming one of the first "professional" BJJ competitors[[note]]In his famous fight against Royce Gracie, he was wearing a [[https://www.bjjee.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/wallid-royce.gif Gi full of sponsored patches]]. He was one of the first to get sponsor money by winning tournaments.[[/note]] In 1992, he dueled and won Ralph Gracie (who was trained specifically to defeat him) in the World Jiu-Jitsu Championships (aka ''Mundials'') and in 1993 he defeated Renzo Gracie, and then challenged Royce Gracie for a fight, which Royce accepted in 1998 under "special conditions" (no time limit or point system, only winning by submission). Ismail would win by choking Royce out with a "Relógio" (or Clock Choke). For that he became known as the "Gracie Hunter" years before Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba. He also became a figure on the early Vale Tudo scene, using the Ground and Pound in 1991 during the ''Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs Luta Livre'', competing in IVC (International Vale Tudo Championship), UFC, PRIDE, at Wrestling/AntonioInoki's UFO, Bom-Ba-Ye and even doing cameos at NJPW, and founded Jungle Fight, Brazil and South America's largest MMA promotion. All of this happened before MMA went mainstream. He did became famous recently for his over-the-top and hilariously translations for the fighters he manages in the UFC.
697** Jens Pulver started fighting in 1999, was the UFC's first ever lightweight championship and, for eight years, was the only person who ever defeated BJ Penn at lightweight. However, when UFC really hit the mainstream Pulver's suspect chin and defensive grappling were used against him multiple times, culminating in a two-year, six-fight losing streak. Unfortunately, most modern fans only remember the tail end of his career, which has consisted of him getting punched out or submitted.
698** Before Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba made a name by hunting down BJJ fighters with his shoot wrestling abilities, fellow shooter Rumina Sato had already achieved that feat in at least two occasions, submitting Ricardo Botelho and John Lewis. However, Sato's lack of exposure (occasioned by his refusal to fight outside of Shooto until he gained a title) made him almost unknown to western audiences.
699* ThePigPen: A very questionable and quite embarrassing technique from the old school days of MMA is using personal hygiene (or lack thereof) as an additional weapon against the opponent. Names like Matt Lindland and Ricardo Morais were infamous for not bathing for days before a fight so that they would nauseate their opponents in grappling exchanges with their miasma, and Minotauro Nogueira once accused the Russian Top Team of doing the same. After Lindland retired, John [=McCarthy=] (who had been subjected to the practice several times while refereeing Lindland's fights) drafted an addendum to the Universal Rules that came to be known as "the Lindland rule", which states that commissioners can force a fighter to shower before a bout if their body odor is deemed excessive.
700* PintsizedPowerhouse:
701** Yuki Nakai was a very small fighter, but he joint-locked his way through the Vale Tudo Japan 1995 tournament against fighters almost twice his size. Unfortunately for him, when he met [[WorthyOpponent Rickson Gracie]] at the finals, he was too battered to give his best.
702** Former UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is 5'10", which is really short for a heavyweight, but he has consistently outwrestled and outstruck opponents with massive reach and size advantages, working his way up to holding both the heavyweight and the lightheavyweight championship belts.
703** Frankie Edgar made it up to becoming the UFC lightweight champion, despite being massively undersized for the division, being easily able to make featherweight and even talking about how he could go to bantamweight, a full 20 pounds lighter than the weight class he ruled over.
704** Arguably the best mixed martial artist ever in terms of skill, power and speed for his size is Demetrious Johnson, a 5'3" flyweight, known for pulling off incredible performances and finishes that wouldn't be out of place in a movie (the most famous example being him throwing Ray Borg up in the air and locking in a tight armbar before he even hit the floor), only losing in his weight class in a controversial decision to Henry Cejudo, another contender for the title of Greatest of All Time.
705** Former UFC Strawweight Champion Jessica Andrade is feared for her one-punch KO power and ferocious slams, despite standing barely over five feet tall.
706** UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski stands at 5'6'' and has almost always been the shorter combatant in all his fights. Yet his speed, technique, and heart have enabled him to maintain the Featherweight crown since 2019, and at one point was in contention for #1 in the UFC's P4P rankings.
707* PoorMansSubstitute: Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba is probably one of the most imitated fighters around.
708** Shungo Oyama was it terms of fighting style and persona, bonus points for being a real Saku fan. He had a couple of victories against Gracies by imitating Saku.
709** Kazushi's long time [[TheLancer Lancer]] Daijiro Matsui has a similar profile. Very much like Saku, Matsui was known for his heart and creativity, as well as will to fight whoever Pride put in front of him.
710** Daiju Takase also imitated Sakuraba for a time, and even wore tights and spats based in Saku's.
711* PowerfulButInaccurate: The Flying Knee, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, is a move that has resulted in numerous brutal knockouts. It is very tough to time correctly, but if a fighter is hit cleanly by one, chances are they aren't getting back up. Jorge Masvidal is responsible for possibly the most famous flying knee finish in the UFC so far.
712* PrimalChestPound: A specialty of UFC Middleweight Robert Whittaker is to beat his chest with his right fist during his pre-fight introduction. It's not uncommon to see him start the first round with a large welt on his left pectoral muscle.
713* ProWrestlingIsReal: A wrong impression of MMA, assumed by uninformed people and in fact marketed as such in some places, is it is just "pro wrestling, only real". It is probably due to the influence of Wrestling/{{WWE}} in the United States over a niche which only recently has started to get claimed by UFC. In Japan, however, this assumption is quite correct, as indigenous MMA came directly from pro wrestling becoming real.
714* PummelDuel:
715** [[https://youtu.be/le69DBh7YwY?t=74 Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama]] spent a good portion of their 2002 Pride FC fight holding on to the other with one hand and throwing rapid-fire punches with the other.
716** [[https://youtu.be/zUnPdfqFvoU The final round of Max Holloway vs Ricardo Lamas at UFC 199]] ended with Holloway pointing to the center of the cage, an invitation to "stand and bang" (i.e, pretty much abandon defense and throw punches as fast and hard as possible) for what would be the last ten seconds of the fight, and that they did.
717* PunchPunchPunchUhOh: Some fighters try to intimidate their opponents by offering "free shots" to their opponents. This is generally considered to be, naturally, a poor tactic.
718** Gary Goodridge was famous for no-selling punches and then taunting his opponents asking them to hit another. It's become HarsherInHindsight due to his onset of pugilistic dementia.
719** Marcelo Tigre was also famous for offering his opponents free leg kicks.
720* PunnyName:
721** Spencer "The King" Fisher's nickname works on its own and also combines with his last name as "The Kingfisher," a bird of prey. He has a bird tattoo on his shoulder.
722** Rick "The Horror" Story's moniker more or less speaks for itself.
723** Andre "Touchy" Fili's (pronounced "Feely") nickname plays on the common phrase as well as his up-close and personal fighting style.
724** Jessica "Evil" Eye, much like many fighters, is ruthless and bloodthirsty in the ring.
725* RageQuit: Coach Wrestling/KenShamrock enforced this on his fighter Guy Mezger in the Pride Grand Prix 2000 Opening Round. Mezger's fight with Kazushi Sakuraba was ruled a draw, requiring both fighters to go to a tiebreaker round. Shamrock believed that a draw was not possible under the rules and that Mezger had clearly won the fight, so he prohibited him from entering the tiebreaker in protest, resulting in a forfeit loss.
726* RagsToRiches: Many professional fighters have used MMA to escape abusive homes/slums, or other poor living conditions:
727** José Aldo: The product of a broken home due to an [[DomesticAbuse abusive alcoholic father]], he was so poor that his fight team allowed him to live in the gym and provided meals because he could not afford food. According to José, he married his wife because her father required it for José to move in with them, as José was living in a slum when they met. He later became the first UFC featherweight champion and is regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
728** Thiago Silva: Left home at 18 because of an abusive father, was homeless for a time and would literally sneak into a supermarket and consume food right there on the spot.
729** Rousimar Palhares: Child laborer on a pig farm who at one point was so impoverished that his family [[OldShame had to eat pig feed]], and although his family was able to eventually put together enough money to send him to Rio de Janeiro at 25, he was ''still'' broke and homeless there at first (living under a bridge) and, like Aldo, was financially supported by his fellow gym members for a time.
730** Charles Oliveira: Born in the ghetto of a poor neighbourhood (a "favela") of Vicente de Carvalho in the tourist city of Guarujá. When he was seven he was diagnosed with heart murmur and a heel disease that prevented him to even walk for a few years, preventing him for following soccer. When he started Jiu-Jitsu he asked the professor for a "scholarship" and had to support himself by selling snacks, he lost his freind which introduced him to BJJ in a shootout when he was 14. When he had his MMA debut, he chose the nickname "Do Bronx", in a free translation, "from the hood", to remeber his roots and struggle. When he won the lightweight belt exclaimed "The Favela Won!".
731** Francis Ngannou is probably the most impressive and exemplifies this trope. He was born at a poor family in rural Cameroon, his parents divorced, he was constantly approached by street gangs, had almost no food and had to work grueling shifts in a sand mine. Tired of his life, Ngannou went to try his luck at Europe and persue his dream of professional boxing. He crossed the Sahara desert on a bike, was apprehended in Marrocco, he was jailed for two months in Spain for illegally crossing the border and when he finally arrived France, he had no money, friends or home and had to live in the streets. He was introduced to an MMA gym who saw his potential and trained him in MMA—a sport that he never had heard of before—at age 27, which is considered very late, and still packed an impressive record which saw him become a knockout machine until he won the UFC Heavyweight belt.
732* RealMenWearPink:
733** Some fighters wear pink as part of their standard uniform. Rich Franklin (honoring the Cincinnati Bengals), Seth Petruzelli (sprayed into his hair) and John Maguire (a self-described "pink belt") are examples.
734** A number of fighters paint their toenails before fights, usually colored a manly black. Frank Trigg, however, usually wore colorful shades, which inspired his nickname "Twinkle Toes".
735* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Not uncommon to be delivered by fighters during verbal exchanges.
736** After knocking out Yoshihiro Akiyama at the Yarennoka! event, Kazuo Misaki took his defeated opponent by the shoulder and chastised him at length for being selfish and fighting only for himself, rather than for the fans. Akiyama listened to the entire speech with surprising humility. Ironically, the fight was later ruled a No Contest due to Misaki's illegal soccer kick.
737-->"Akiyama, you betrayed the trust of so many people and children in the ring, and that's something I cannot forgive you for. But, while I was fighting you tonight, your heart reached me. After tonight, you should fight with sincerity and a deep apology in mind for all that people. Will you accept? Judo is the best! Everybody, Japanese people are strong!"
738** Georges St-Pierre is a master of delivering those when truly annoyed by his opponent, a good example being his verbal dismantling of Josh Koscheck, one of the only fighters to truly get under GSP's skin, prior to their second fight after a reporter asked [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zata4fXAMU if he would rematch Koscheck should he lose]].
739-->"So now I'm fighting Josh Koscheck, I fought him before, and people are saying, the pressure is on you, you're in Montreal, its true, I'm in Montreal, y'know but I'm at my best when fighting in my hometown, but also, if I win against Josh Koscheck when I'm gonna beat him, its gonna be the end of it, its gonna be two times that I beat him, and if he has the same mentality as me, Josh Koscheck is gonna have to reconsider his career because if he wants to be the best and lose two times to me, its gonna take a long time again to go back to the title or maybe never again, he's gonna have to climb up the ladder a long time. So I'm gonna beat him on Saturday and that's gonna be the end of it, and I'm not gonna talk about him for a long long time and I'm gonna feel very happy"
740** Conor Mcgregor's bread and butter trash-talk was giving these to his opponents, talking about what he perceived as their weaknesses and how he would exploit them. In his early career, his analysis' and predictions were uncannily accurate, earning him the nickname "Mystic Mac".
741** Kevin Lee once delivered a joking one to fellow fighter Michael Johnson during a press conference when explaining his decision to stop trash talking his opponents.
742-->"Mike Johnson be here talking about how he might kill a motherfucker. He had 30 fights, lost half of them. Ain't killed a motherfucker yet."
743* RedBaron: Some fighters are known almost exclusively by their nickname rather than their actual name:
744** Antônio "Minotauro" Rodrigo Nogueira is best known by his FanNickname "Big Nog" and his twin brother Antônio "Minotoro" Rogério Nogueira is best known as "Little Nog". Big Nog fights in the heavyweight division, and Little Nog fights in the Light Heavyweight division.
745** David Abbott is billed and referred to almost exclusively as "Tank Abbott".
746** Both winners of the ''[[Series/TheUltimateFighter The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil]]'' season: Rony Mariano Bezerra is billed as "Rony [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]]" and Cezar Ferreira is billed as "Cesar [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen Mutante]]."
747** Croatian antiterrorism officer Mirko Filipović is typically billed and referred to as "Cro Cop" or "Mirko Cro Cop".
748** Quinton Jackson is often referred to as "Rampage Jackson", though his first name is also fairly well known.
749** Daniel Cormier took up the nickname "DC". It's just an abbreviation of his name, but it stuck, and now he's rarely referred to anything but it.
750** In an extreme case of this, Jonathan Koppenhaver legally changed his name to "War Machine", which was his nickname in the cage.
751** Walker Johnny Silva Barra de Souza is simply billed as "Johnny Walker"; this is actually an EnforcedTrope, as it was changed to be a [[AwesomeMcCoolname more memorable and badass name]].
752** Jung Chan-sung is best known as "The Korean Zombie" for his non-stop pressure style, which coupled with his veritable [[MadeOfIron iron chin]], makes his fighting style very zombie-like. Matter of fact, when he main-events a card, it's officially known as "______ vs. The Korean Zombie".
753** Women's featherweight Cris Justino Venâncio is officially announced and referred to as "Cris Cyborg", and often simply "Cyborg".
754** If Donald Cerrone main-events a fight card, it will be known officially as "______ vs. Cowboy".
755*** In a humorous occasion, Cerrone was matched up against Alex Oliveira, a former bull rider who also took the nickname "cowboy", the card was named "UFC Fight Night: Cowboy vs Cowboy".
756* {{Revenge}}: A common motivator for fighters is to avenge personal grievances or previous losses.
757** In 1996, Yoji Anjo had an incident with Wrestling/AkiraMaeda, in which Maeda punched him during a televised debate for disagreeing with him. Three years after, during a Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Japan, Anjo approached Maeda through the crowd and knocked him out with a sucker punch.
758** Kazushi Sakuraba and the Gracie family were locked in a long cycle of revenge for years after the 90 minutes long fight between Sakuraba and Royce Gracie (and his earlier victory against Royler Gracie). The cycle would more or less play out like this: the Gracies would send someone to try and defeat Sakuraba, Sakuraba would beat them, the Gracies swore revenge, rinse and repeat.
759** A partial motivator for Fedor Emelianenko fighting Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović was his desire to avenge his brother Alexander's brutal defeat at the hands of the croatian.
760** Quinton "Rampage" Jackson spent a good chunk of his time trying to avenge his 2003 loss to Wanderlei Silva. His first attempt in 2004 only ended in him being brutalized even worse by Silva, he finally got his revenge 4 years later in 2008 and once more in 2018, evening their score.
761* ReligiousBruiser:
762** Cuban wrestler Yoel Romero, ranked second on the UFC middleweight rankings, is known for [[RealMenLoveJesus being vocal about his religious beliefs]]. This, coupled with his broken English, created some issues for him when he appeared to say "What happened, America? No for gay Jesus!" during a victory speech two days after the U.S. legalized gay marriage. Romero later clarified that he'd said "No ''forget'' Jesus", and denied knowing anything about the gay marriage issue.
763** Early MMA pioneer Kimo Leopoldo was very religious, even carrying a cross to the cage on his first appearance in the UFC.
764* RingOldies: Most fighter regard their late 30s as a good time to retire, since its the time the great majority of them is falling behind the competition in the athleticism department and it becomes harder to compensate with skill and technique, some, however, survive and even thrive in their 40s
765** Ron van Clief is the UrExample for MMA. Coming from a respected acting career in {{Blaxploitation}} and [[MartialArtsMovie Kung Fu movies]], and becoming one of the first and respected black martial artists. The "Black Dragon" entered UFC 4 at ''age 51'', he was able to fight Royce Gracie for four minutes before he was put in a rear-naked choke. He never competed again but still holds the record as the oldest UFC fighter.
766** Creator/RandyCouture fought at the highest levels of the sport into his mid-40s, reigning as UFC heavyweight champion at the age of 45 and winning a non-title bout at the age of 47.
767** Russo-Ukrainian grappling expert Aleksei Oleinik got his shot at the big time in 2016, joining the UFC at the relatively late age of 39. In 2020, at the age of 43, he became the first UFC fighter to win fights in 4 different decades (the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s).
768** Mark Coleman competed in the UFC for the last time in his mid 40s, winning a bout against TUF 1 alumnus Stephan Bonnar in 2009 and participating in a losing bid against fellow old fighter Randy Couture in 2010.
769** Brazilian long runner Glover Teixeira became a mainstay in the Light Heavyweight division's top 5 since joinging the UFC, earning the number 1 contender spot in 2020 after trouncing a series of young contenders up to 15 years younger than him, culminating in him earning the championship belt in 2021 after tapping out Polish champion Jan Blachowicz with a read naked choke, becoming the second oldest champion in UFC history.
770* RivalDojos:
771** Chute Boxe and Brazilian Top Team (BTT), with its heyday in the early 2000s at PRIDE. Chute Boxe was mostly based in a very aggressive UsefulNotes/MuayThai style, using BJJ defensively to sprawn-and-brawl, while BTT was founded by Carlson Gracie's student and had a more well-rounded BJJ-based approach. As the two top gyms in Brazil, they started to export their fighters to Japan where they met at PRIDE, supposedly the rivalry started in a discussion-turned-brawl between Ricardo Arona and Wanderlei Silva at the Tokyo Hilton hotel and it just escalated from there: every match where fighters from both camps met were wars filled with hatred, their corners hurled insults at eachother and security had to be careful to stop any potential brawls. The rivalry mostly died out after the demise of PRIDE in 2007, as most fighters of both camps left to [[StartMyOwn Start Their Own]] gyms.
772** {{Invoked}} by defunct promotion International Fight League (IFL). In order to differentiate from their competitor (the UFC), each IFL card was a showdown between two MMA dojos of at least three fighters, each fighter fighting one match against another in the opposing dojos. The promoters were hoping this would create great rivalries but sadly the IFL went under very soon.
773** American Top Team (ATT) and Blackzillians had a rivalry in the 2010s when several of ATT's coaches and fighters left ATT (or were poached depending on who you ask) and were taken in and funding found for a new gym by then owner Glenn Robinson, also located in Florida where ATT was located. The rivalry was enough that the UFC decided to make a gym vs gym season of The Ultimate Fighter, with the two gyms and their young prospects facing off. Funding issues and the untimely death of owner Glenn Robinson lead to the Blackzillians becoming defunct. Many of the fighters and coaches left and followed coach Henri Hooft, who established his own successful gym, essentially becoming the spiritual successor to the Blackzillians, where the rivalry still continues.
774* SadistTeacher:
775** Pretty common in Japanese MMA. Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki was said to be prone to brutalize Pancrase students just because during their trainings, while Shooto founder and ProfessionalWrestling legend Wrestling/SatoruSayama is notorious for using a shinai stick to "encourage" his students, and Wrestling/AkiraMaeda from RINGS once brutalized his trainee Wataru Sakata in front of the cameras. The three men came from the Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling dojo system, itself extremely brutal and cultlike to the point where at least one trainee has been beaten to death. Or so it is said.
776** Georges Mehdi, the godfather of Brazilian judo and a force of nature in the vale tudo scene, is considered one of the harshest trainers in Brazil. It is known that he makes a free use of the shinai, just like the aforementioned Sayama, and that training with him is a hell. However, he produces extremely tough athletes, and his most famous trainee, Luiz Virgilio de Castro, is a seven times national champion and possibly the only man to school Rickson Gracie in a sparring match.
777* ScaryBlackMan: Several fighters have cultivated this image to increase their profile, whether or not their fighting prowess deserves it:
778** "Big Daddy" Gary Goodridge gained an intimidating reputation in his early Pride fights for yelling at his opponents to hit him and giving them free shots.
779** Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was probably the first MMA fighter to overtly cultivate the trope with a "street thug" persona, which included wearing an industrial chain as a necklace and swearing profusely during interviews. He softened his image somewhat after his religious reawakening, but revived it when feuding with Muhammad "King Mo" Lawal and "Sugar" Rashad Evans, both rival African-American wrestlers.
780** African-American giant Bob Sapp toyed with this trope in Japan, where he seems to be treated like a living anime character.
781** Kimbo Slice's appeal came from his streetfighting roots and scary, grizzled appearance, though in person he had a surprisingly mild personality.
782** Derrick "The Black Beast" Lewis is a large man (he often has to ''cut weight'' in order to make the 265-lb heavyweight limit), is covered in tattoos, and is one of the most powerful punchers to ever step into an MMA ring. Making his goofy and jovial personality outside of competition even more disarming.
783* ShoutOut:
784** The old intro sequence for UFC events features a gladiator rubbing sand into his hands before walking into the arena, an obvious reference to ''Film/{{Gladiator}}''.
785** Many fighters have a shoutout in their nickname:
786*** Ryan "Darth" Bader references [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]].
787*** Dave "Pee-wee" Herman references the [[Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure Paul Reubens character]].
788*** Dustin "[=McLovin=]" Hazlett references the ''Film/{{Superbad}}'' character.
789*** Dustin "Diamond" Poirier's nickname is a reference to actor Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on ''Series/SavedByTheBell''.
790*** 'The Notorious' Conor Mcgregor's nickname is a reference to Notorious B.I.G. The latter half of Conor's walkout music is a song by that artist.
791*** Several fighters have the nickname "ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}".
792*** Demetrious "[[WesternAnimation/MightyMouse Mighty Mouse]]" Johnson earned his nickname based on his small stature and the size/shape of his ears.
793*** Alexander "Drago" Volkov got his nickname from his physical similarities to the famous antagonist of ''Film/RockyIV''.
794* SignatureMove: Some fighters are known for having a really good grasp of a specific technique or are famous for using or inventing them:
795** Mirko "Cro-Cop" Filipović developed a reputation for his head kicks, particularly when thrown with the left.
796** Jason von Flue is famous for creating the von Flue choke, a counterattack for defending from a guillotine choke, the move was later adopted by Ovince St. Preux, who made great use of it in several fights.
797** Bas Rutten's pinpoint accuracy when it came to liver strikes was his trademark in his time fighting in Pancrase.
798** Michael Bisping was jokingly nicknamed "Left Hook Larry" due to using a long range left hook in the end of a combination to drop Luke Rockhold and finish him in their rematch, winning Bisping the UFC middleweight championship.
799** Fighters training under Team Alpha Male have a noticeable tendency to have a sharp overhand punch.
800** Early on his career, José Aldo was well known for having absolutely crippling leg kicks, to the point that, after a 5 rounder against him, notoriously durable Urijah Faber needed crutches to walk due to taking a few too many.
801** Kazushi Sakuraba was well known for his masterful usage of the kimura shoulder lock, which he used as a means to not only finish fights, but also get out of bad positions and bring his opponents down.
802** Former UFC champion and Jiu-Jitsu ace Fabricio Werdum has a particularly slick backtake to armbar transition which he is fond of using.
803** Anthony "Showtime" Pettis' now legendary fight against Benson Henderson saw Pettis run against the cage wall and jump off of it, using the impulse to get some air time and kick Henderson in the head. The kick has been since christened "the Showtime kick".
804** Jéssica "Bate-Estaca" Andrade became known for her ferocious and violent body slams, she even won a belt by knocking Rose Namajunas with a slam from her head straight into the ground. Even her nickname "Bate-Estaca" ("Piledriver") is the portuguese term for body slams.
805** Paul Craig has a tendency to be losing most of the striking exchanges in fights, get ground and pounded, and then lock in a triangle choke. Notably, he did it to Magomed Ankalaev and forced a tap with one second left in the fight, the latter's only career loss.
806** Alex Pereira's left hook, which is thrown with such force that it is often a OneHitKill punch, both during his kickboxing and MMA career, and is a technique that he is very good at herding people into with other strikes. He most famously knocked Israel Adesanya with it in their 2nd kickboxing fight, and has used it in MMA to knock out then future middleweight champion Sean Strickland, but also badly hurt Israel Adesanya and Jiri Prochazka before leading to a finish and winning the middleweight and light heavyweight belts shortly after.
807* SignatureScene: Various promotions have a defining fight in their history:
808** UFC: Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar, during the finale of ''The Ultimate Fighter'', season 1. The fight is credited with singlehandedly generating a fanbase for MMA in the United States. Because the fight was more or less a sloppy stand-up brawl, many keyboard warriors will look down their noses on fans who consider it to be one of the "best" MMA fights.
809** WEC: Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis' back-and-forth championship fight, culminating in Pettis' flying kick off the side of the cage. The latter gets extra points for the being the organization's very last fight.
810** Bellator: Pretty much got put on the public eye thanks to Toby Imada performing an inverted triangle choke on a ''standing'' Jorge Masvidal -- it only hit the ground because Masvidal passed out, apparently too confused to tap out.
811* SpectacularSpinning:
812** The spinning backfist is a pretty popular, if not very precise, move today.
813** Sanshou artist Cung Le became famous for his incredible spinning kicks, which were almost out of a kung fu flick. Before him, Bazigit Atajev (another sanshou practitioner) was known to land spinning wheel kicks at will.
814** Edson Barboza is a feared striker with immense power and a long and storied career and employs spinning kicks as a big part of his repertoire; his best-known moment is that one time he landed a pitch perfect wheel kick to the head of Terry Etim, sending him stiff to the ground.
815* SpellMyNameWithAThe: "The" James Krause
816* {{Squick}}:
817** Lyoto Machida's legend is centered around his karate-based style and his overt public allusions to a honorable samurai-like image... but on the Internet, he's also notorious for admitting right before UFC 98 that for health reasons, he drinks his own urine every morning. Worse yet, [[UnfortunateImplications he got it from his dad]]. Over a year after the story broke, people are still joking about it. When pressed by MMA celebrity reporter Ariel Helwani about the now-infamous story days before UFC 113, his dad Yoshizo Machida [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBOZH_j_sI&hd=1 produced his own urine on the spot and drank it on camera]].
818** A series of escalating pranks on ''The Ultimate Fighter'' led to fighters [[RevengeIsADishBestServed contaminating sushi]] with their own bodily fluids.
819** An example that illustrates just how dangerous the sport can be, even today: At Bellator 158 in 2016, Michael Page caught Evangelista Santos with a flying knee counter to the forehead and literally ''caved in his skull''. Picture (fully SFW) [[http://espn.go.com/mma/story/_/id/17094693/evangelista-cyborg-santos-says-suffered-fractured-skull-bellator-158-loss here]].
820** One of the most common techniques for defending from leg kicks is "checking" them, which means blocking the opponent's incoming shinbone with a thicker part of your own shin or the knee, while it is normally only painful for the attacker, a particularly well timed check can cause the opponent's shin to break in half, which causes even the most seasoned spectator to physically cringe from the sight of a leg flapping like a noodle.
821** In the fight that gave us the page's image, Demian Maia caught Rick Story on an incomplete Rear Naked Choke. Maia squeezed and cranked Story's head until his nose started leaking copious amounts of blood due to his nose veins popping from the pressure.
822** At UFC 256, Charles Oliveira caught Tony Ferguson in an armbar. Despite how deep Oliveira locked in the submission attempt, even trapping his opponents hand underneath his arm, Ferguson refused to tap. In the final seconds of the round, Ferguson's arm was ''visibly bending backwards.'' The commentators were left wondering aloud whether Ferguson had broken it.
823* StaredownFaceoff: During the weigh-ins and/or [[MirroredConfrontationShot promotional material]], the two MMA fighters will often get in close and stare each other down for the press. In the ''UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship'', more than once scraps have broken out at the weigh-ins because of forehead shoves, shoulder bumps, or similar early hits.
824* StartMyOwn: Japan is full of examples. In fact, this was the very origin of the Japanese MMA.
825** Wrestling/SatoruSayama left the original Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation to found Shooto, the first MMA company ever. When he departed from Shooto, he was brought to Wrestling/AntonioInoki's Universal Fighting-Arts Organization, but he left again and went to form a martial art of all things, called Seikendo.
826** Wrestling/AkiraMaeda created Fighting Network RINGS after the demise of the Newborn UWF.
827** Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki and Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki left Pro Wrestling Fujiwara-Gumi to do real fighting, creating Pancrase.
828* StealthPun:
829** An advertisement for ''Ultimate Ultimate 1995'', which took place near Christmas, featured a clip of Keith Hackney repeatedly punching Joe Son in the groin over music from Tchaikovsky's ''TheNutcracker''.
830** Toward the end of his career, "The Dean of Mean" Keith Jardine would wear shirts reading "Mean 1", which was a pun on his nickname and "Lean 1" brand protein.
831* StoneWall: A rarity in MMA given how offensively focused of a sport it is. However some fighters are noted either for their incredible toughness or strong emphasis on defence while being lacklustre offensively.
832** Sean "Tarzan" Strickland is an awkward defensive striker who does a lot of things technically incorrect, but through years of nonstop hard sparring, has learned how to be hard to hit as well as outwrestle or hold down, and whose offensive arsenal has been described as just a jab and a straight. A typical winning performance from Strickland usually involves him casually walking his opponent down and peppering them with jabs and straights as they throw everything they can to try and get through his weird defence and get him to back up until they gas. With this awkward style he was able to flummox then Middleweight champion and kickboxing standout Israel Adesanya to a wide decision in a striking-only fight to win the title.
833* StoutStrength: Some heavyweight fighters pack on a surprising amount of fat while still competing at the highest levels.
834** Roy "Big Country" Nelson walks out to Music/WeirdAlYankovic's "Fat" and rubs his enormous belly after wins. In spite of being a top-tier fighter, he was forced to appear on ''Series/TheUltimateFighter'' in order to get into the UFC because Dana White thought that his physique reflected poorly on the sport. Nelson is actually an undersized heavyweight and has come under increasing pressure to drop the weight and move to the light heavyweight division.
835** Fedor Emelianenko was for the better part of a decade the top fighter in the world despite having an unimpressively pudgy physique.
836** Cole Konrad was nicknamed "The Polar Bear" almost certainly due to the thick layer of blubber he sports, but was a two-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion. He retired from MMA with a perfect 9-0 record and as the Bellator heavyweight champion.
837** Daniel Cormier is possibly the greatest fighter that ever lived and is affectionately referred to by the fans as "the daddest man alive" due to looking like your average suburban father. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0CfNA12aFw He has also professed his love for cake and chicken]].
838** Mark Hunt is a short, stocky and flabby heavyweight; he is also credited as having had one of the [[MadeOfIron hardest chins in MMA history]] and having ungodly knockout power.
839* StrangeSyntaxSpeaker: "Often inverted in his syntax is UFC commentator Mike Goldberg, [[VerbalTic Joe]]!" He does it as an apparent tactic to avoid repetition. On rare occasions it rubs off on his partner Joe Rogan.
840* StrongAndSkilled: Any professional MMA fighter is an example. The best and top champions are fighters who are equally parts skilled, strong and fast, while fighters who excel only in strength ([[WeakButSkilled or only in skill!]]) are at a disadvantage.
841* {{Tagline}}:
842** Early UFC had the infamous "It has no rules!" [[note]]Which is not true since it actually had a few limited rules[[/note]]
843** Bruce Buffer's legendary "IIIIIIT'S TIIIIIIMEEE".
844** PRIDE FC had the iconic "PRIDE never dies!". Which is ironic after PRIDE closed its doors. Although it's still MetaphoricallyTrue as PRIDE was succeeded by DREAM and RIZIN.
845* TechnicianVersusPerformer: The Light Heavyweight duel for the belt between Jiri Prochazka and Alex Pereira. Jiri Prochazka, the former champion, is a dynamic martial artist who overwhelms opponents through flashy attacks and unorthodox stances. Former Middleweight champion Alex Pereira, in contrast, is a more grounded, technical striker who holds the honor of being the first two-division Glory kickboxing champion. Pereira the technician prevailed, cutting down Prochazka's agility with swift leg kicks before TKO'ing him by elbows.
846* TemptingFate:
847** During the open workouts for UFC 153, heavyweight Dave "Pee Wee" Herman declared that "''everyone knows jiu-jitsu doesn't work''." Four and a half minutes into the second round, Herman was tapping to an armbar from "Minotauro" Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, who then promptly declared "''Jiu-jitsu does work''".
848** Alistair Overeem showed no respect to "Bigfoot" Silva in the weeks leading up to or during their fight. During the fight, he repeatedly dropped his hands, chin up, without regard for Silva's striking. He ended up on the receiving end of a shocking TKO in the third round after arguably winning the previous two.
849** Anderson Silva repeatedly clowned title contender Chris Weidman by dropping his hands and presenting his chin. When Weidman connected with a glancing blow, Silva theatrically mimed being hurt. Weidman responded with more punches, landing flush on Silva's chin and ending the middleweight champ's record-breaking win streak.
850** The UFC decided to only air a single fight on the card of their network television debut: the title fight between Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. Velasquez was knocked out in 64 seconds, making the entire hour devoted to 1 minute of fighting.
851** UFC Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold showed no respect for the punching power and accuracy of short-notice opponent Michael Bisping (whom he'd defeated by submission in a prior bout), and continually approached Bisping without tucking his chin or moving his head. After a few minutes in which Rockhold showcased his superior kickboxing, Bisping got the timing right and nailed Rockhold with a perfect overhand left which put the champion on the canvas. Bisping swarmed the dazed Rockhold, dropping him again, and then knocking him completely out with a vicious right against the cage just as the referee moved in to stop the fight.
852** The UFC event named "UFC 76: Knockout" ended up having [[{{Irony}} no knockouts whatsoever]].
853** Conor Mcgregor told Dustin Poirier that he'd be leaving on a stretcher after their third fight was over. Due to a leg break, Conor was the one taken out of the Octagon on a stretcher.
854** In 2020, Israel Adesanya was preparing for his first middleweight title defense and talked about how the only fighter who ever knocked him out in his combat sports career - that “he watches all my fights, and every time I fight, like clockwork, he'd try to put something out like, 'I beat this guy.'” That fighter was double champion kickboxer Alex "Poatan" Pereira, who transitioned to MMA full-time in 2020, was signed by the UFC in 2021 and knocked out Adesanya for the middleweight title in his fourth fight with the organization. Adesanya regained the title by knocking Pereira out in a rematch, but Pereira moved up to light heavyweight and won that division's title, something Adesanya had failed to do previously. Additionally, Pereira's title eliminator fights in both divisions were victories over Sean Strickland and Jan Blachowicz, the only other two fighters to beat Adesanya.
855** Adesanya prior to his title fight with Sean Strickland in 2023, which was seen as a "keep busy" fight for Adesanya while number 1 contender Dricus Du Plessis recovered from injury, as one of those title fights that historically always are shock upsets. He referred to the title fight between Luke Rockhold and Michael Bisping and said he would make sure that didn't happen to him. Sure enough, Strickland pulled off a great upset, knocking Adesanya down in the first before winning a wide decision.
856** In the lead up to UFC 298, Alexander Volkanovski toyed around with challenger Ilia Topuria's accusations that the defending Featherweight Champion was too old for the sport, such as cutting a skit poking fun at his age and wearing a stereotypical "old man" outfit to the pre-fight press conference and pretending to doze off like an easily-tired senior citizen. Come fight night however, Volkanovski was knocked out in the second round by a brutal right hand from the younger contender, proving correct once again a long-running "curse" that UFC fighters under 170 lbs and over 35 years of age are almost guaranteed to lose against a younger opponent.
857* TookALevelInBadass: Many fighters with a mediocre start to their careers suddenly turn a corner and become extremely dominant.
858** Anderson Silva was a respected prospect, but his 17-4 record didn't inspire much hooplah when he entered the UFC. Even after he dismantled the gatekeeper Chris Leben, many people felt that his immediate title shot was unearned. However, he completely dismantled the champion and would go on to set records for UFC title defenses and winning streaks over the following years, putting himself on the short list for greatest MMA fighters of all time.
859** After losing to Cat Zingano, Amanda Nunes sat at 9-4 in her MMA record and was not rated terribly highly in a division dominated by stars like Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, and Meisha Tate. However, she managed to put things together in her fight game and, after racking up three consecutive victories, took the title from Meisha Tate as a sizable betting underdog. From that point forward, she completely dominated the Women's Bantamweight division and even took the Women's Featherweight belt to reign as a two-division champion. She is now regarded as the greatest female MMA fighter in history.
860** In 2014, Robert Whitaker was 12-4, having just broken a two-fight losing streak with a decision over the unheralded Michael Rhodes. Looking to energize his staling career, Whittaker moved up a weight class into Middleweight, which suited his frame better, and promptly went on a 9-fight winning streak culminating in a Middleweight championship. He continued fighting at the highest ranks of Middleweight for years afterward, cementing himself as a popular, exciting and talented fighter.
861** Mark Hunt was sitting at a 5-6 record, on a five-fight losing streak when the UFC inherited his contract from PRIDE. Uninterested in promoting him, the UFC offered to simply buy him out of his contract, but Hunt insisted on fighting, even after losing his first UFC fight by submission. From that point forward, however, Hunt started winning fights in dynamic fashion and became famous for his walk-off knockouts, quickly becoming one of the UFC's most beloved and exciting fighters.
862* TookALevelInJerkass: Throughout his early career as a blue-chip prospect, Jon Jones maintained a positive, humble and squeaky-clean public persona. During the lead-up to his fight with Daniel Cormier, however, it became clear that Jones was far more caustic and bullying than he presented to the public, most famously when he was caught sneering, Hey pussy, you still there?" at Cormier when he thought the cameras were off. Since then, Jones has become one of the most vainglorious and toxic trash-talkers in the sport, and his frequent run-ins with the law only exascerbate the matter.
863* TranquilFury:
864** A hallmark of Fedor Emelianenko. Compare his expression while viciously [[http://rolandopastor.com/jqrtqp.gif beating on his opponent]] to being [[http://i43.tinypic.com/2i0tdeq.jpg hit in the face]] to being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdAeDuOBlOs interviewed]]. Commentator Michael Schiavello noted this during one of his interviews with Fedor and called it "terrifying." It's also a [[http://media.gamerevolution.com/images/misc/fedor-emotions.jpg bit of a meme]] amongst MMA fans.
865** Gegard Mousasi tends to look outright bored on his way to the cage, and often even in the middle of a fight.
866** The Canadian Rory [=MacDonald=] is also known for his rather unnerving empty stare, to the point where UFC commentator Joe Rogan once said that the fighter creeps the hell out of him.
867** Alex 'Poatan' Pereira is known for mantaining a beffiting stone-like demeanor in fights, interviews and even in celebrations. Alex himself plays with this for some hilarious ComicallySerious moments in social media posts.
868* TrrrillingRrrs: Pride announcer Lenne Hardt's famously bombastic style involved trilling every R in each fighter's name, often for several seconds at a time.
869* TrueCompanions: Fighters in the same training camp are traditionally expected to refuse to fight each other due to the closeness of their relationships. This has caused some friction between fighters and the organizations that employ them when camp loyalty interferes with matchmaking.
870** A notable subversion came when UFC Light Heavyweight champion Jon Jones readily agreed to fight title contender and campmate Rashad Evans, who took great offense and left the camp.
871** The issue came up again in 2018, when Mike Perry became a part of the Jackson/Winklejohn team. Longtime Jackson/Wink fighter (and potential opponent) Donald Cerrone objected, only for his coach Mike Winklejohn to basically tell him to deal with it and begin training Perry. A frustrated and hurt Cerrone left to start his own gym, and when the fight with Perry finally happened, he utterly dominated the younger fighter before yelling several post-fight insults at Winklejohn.
872* UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny: The whole point. It's called ''Mixed'' Martial Arts for a reason.
873** The first UFC events had this vibe going on, especially since most fights were a style vs style bouts.
874* UnderdogsNeverLose:
875** Underdogs usually lose, but the biggest underdog in the history of MMA actually won. Sokoudjou, a judoka with a 2-1 MMA record, was a -2,500 underdog against Antônio Rogerio Nogueira, which is the highest odds on record in MMA. Sokoudjou knocked Nogueira out with a punch in 23 seconds.
876** Another of the biggest upsets in MMA history was Jose "Pele" Landi-Jons being defeated by Daijiro Matsui. Though a training partner of Kazushi Sakuraba, Matsui was little more than a PRIDE jobber, and everyone thought him to lose against Pele, who was a vale tudo legend and a much better fighter in every field. However, in a mind-bending exhibition of heart, Daijiro countered Pele's offensive through all kinds of improvised techniques and overpowered him with ground and pound, which won the decision for him. Poor Pele probably never see it coming.
877** A legendary underdog was the UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} master Sidney Gonçalves Freitas aka Mestre Hulk in the Desafio Vale Tudo 1995 event. Virtually knowing nothing of MMA or fighting, he managed to defeat two expert grapplers from both the luta livre and the Brazilian jiu-jitsu camps solely thanks to his striking expertise and ended winning the tournament.
878** Sean Strickland was expected to be an easy record-padder for UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya. While Adesanya had been defeated in the past, his losses were to former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jan Blachowicz and famous rival Alex Pereira (which Adesanya avenged with a brutal knockout in their rematch). Strickland, while a top-five middleweight, was an awkward, defensive striker perceived as far inferior in a stand-up fight. To the shock of the audience however, Strickland ''dropped Adesanya late in the first round'' and then executed a defensive, technical masterclass to win the belt via unanimous decision.
879* TheUnfavorite: A sad reality of the prizefighting business is that sometimes, fighters will get screwed by the promotion they fight for if they aren't marketable enough.
880** Top-ranked welterweight Jon Fitch was a long-time unfavorite of the UFC brass for his unpopular grinding style. He had to tie the then-standing record of 8 consecutive victories before being granted a title shot in 2008. In 2013, as the #9 ranked welterweight in the organization (and considered by many the third greatest to ever compete in the division), he was unexpectedly cut after going 1-2-1 in his previous four fights.
881** Despite his massive popularity, Nate Diaz was fighting for a truly abysmal paycheck because, according to UFC president Dana White, he was not a "needle mover". That has since changed.
882** Belal Muhammad is currently ranked third in the UFC Welterweight division as of 2023 and riding a nine-fight win streak. However, his lack of stage presence and history as a relatively unexciting decision fighter has denied him title shot opportunities that he should have long earned by now on paper.
883* UnnecessaryCombatRoll: Doing somersaults and cartwheels to passing the guard or just surprising the downed opponent is a pretty common, if highly risky, practice in Japanese MMA.
884** Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba was the first in doing a cartwheel guard pass. He probably got the inspiration from Wrestling/SatoruSayama, who performed a similar move during a pro wrestling match against Wrestling/AntonioInoki.
885** Unorthodox fighters like Ikuhisa Minowa, Daijiro Matsui or Wrestling/AlexanderOtsuka often pull somersaults against the opponent's guard in a effort to pass it. While a straight front flip is a generally impractical move, there are some successful instances in MMA history, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMSdkNA1C8 this unnamed fighter]] can testify.
886** Marius Zaromskis [[http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh44/mmafreak100/25gwk1t.gif once tried a ''backflip'']] against Seichi Ikemoto (and almost got caught in a leglock).
887** Tony Ferguson subverts this, being [[ConfusionFu Tony]] [[CrazyIsCool Ferguson]], he is one of the few people that can actually pull off effective [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYezFuLpYvc rolls in order to avoid his opponent's wrestling]].
888** In a no-fighting context, Charles Bennett and Wrestling/AlexanderOtsuka often perform a backflip as a victory celebration.
889* TheUnintelligible: Stipe Miocic has a reputation for being difficult to understand due to his tendency to [[MotorMouth talk fast]] and being slightly marble-mouthed.
890* TheUnpronounceable: Fighters with Polish names have this problem.
891** Krzysztof Soszynski. While the spelling borders on self-parody, it's actually not that hard to say: "Kris-Toff Soh-Shin-Skee."
892** Former Women's UFC Strawweight Champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk. Her management even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr3yOkbFAps released an 11-second video]] explaining how to pronounce her name. It's close to Yoanna Yen-Jay-Chick. She often goes by "Joanna Champion" to make it easier for fans.
893* UnusualEuphemism: Fans will sometimes use those for comedic effect or to avoid talking about something directly. Steroids and performance-enhancing drugs are a common target for this, among the terms one can find are: "Açaí" (a fruit consumed in Brazil) for a Brazilian setting, "tainted supplements" for the US and Europe, "Eastern medicine" for Chinese fighters, "dick pills" when concerning Jon Jones specifically, "horse meat" when concerning Alistair Overeem and "sugar water" when referencing Yoel Romero.
894* VerbalTic:
895** Listen, Chael Sonnen wants to make sure you're paying attention.
896** Khabib Nurmagomedov, possibly due to speaking English as a third or fourth language has a few.
897*** He almost exclusively refers to any physical domination over his opponents as "smashing" (pronounced "smesh") them.
898*** Using "This guy" (pronounced [[FunetikAksent "dis guy"]]) when referring to a third person.
899*** Calling men he is friendly with in any capacity "Brother", presumably due to his Dagestani Muslim background where calling your friends as such is common.
900*** In a culmination of all of those, the most Khabib phrase one can hear is "Brother, I smash this guy".
901* VictoryByEndurance: A commn strategy is to use superior wrestling to tire and gas out your opponent, which then you put pressure and knock them out.
902** Before his UFC career, Jiri Prochazka faced future Bellator Light Heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov in the RIZIN Fighting World Grand Prix of 2015. After a high-paced, 10 minute first round, Nemkov was so worn out he could not continue, and Prochazka won via exhaustion TKO.
903* TheWorfEffect: A "gatekeeper" is a dangerous veteran fighter in the middle of the division who is nonetheless not good enough to compete for a championship. They are often paired with up-and-coming prospects as a test of mettle. Beating a gatekeeper will add to a prospect's reputation and build their case for a title shot. Well known "Worfs" throughout the history of the sport include Chris Lytle, Chris Leben, Cheick Kongo, Clay Guida and Donald Cerrone.
904* WeakButSkilled: The reason why Royce was chosen to represent the Gracie family was that his body wasn't that physically imposing, yet he was a very skilled grappler. He would defeat opponents that were double his size (and sometimes [[StrongAndSkilled just as skilled]]) such as Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn.
905* WellDoneSonGuy: A real life positive example in Khabib Nurmagomedov's desire to make his father, combat sambo and freestyle wrestling great Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, proud. Not out of a desire to prove himself, but because of their close relationship, to the point that after Abdulmanap's passing, due to complications during his recovery from COVID-19, Khabib decided to retire from the sport in order to be with his family.
906* WorkedShoot: In the early days of Japanese MMA, the lines between fixed and shoot competition was much blurrier. Japanese promotions were fairly notorious for manipulating the results to establish storylines and build up stars. Often this was done through lopsided matchmaking and questionable judging, but there were also outright works.
907** Wrestling/KenShamrock dropped at least two Pancrase matches: one to drop a title before a UFC tournament, and one to build the popularity of Japanese fighter Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki. Pancrase has been accused of regularly working fights.
908*** Bart Vale used a worked (but impressively realistic for uneducated eyes) victory against Ken Shamrock in the Fujiwara Gumi pro wrestling promotion to promote himself back home in the United States as a "shootfighting" (the term had become popular after Shamrock's participation in the UFC. Vale himself copyrighted the term) and MMA legend. His actual record is a pitiful 1-2.
909** Several of the first PRIDE events were anchored by Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada, a popular Japanese professional wrestler, and his stable of fighters. Unfortunately, Takada's skill in real bouts did not match his popularity, causing PRIDE to set up a worked match with Mark Coleman, a former UFC champion, to boost his drawing power. Coleman did a particularly poor job of selling the work when he jumped ''into'' Takada's guard and allowed himself to be heelhooked.
910** Wrestling/NaoyaOgawa is another PRIDE example. Managed by notorious backstage manipulator Wrestling/AntonioInoki, Ogawa is said to have fought worked bouts again Masaaki Satake and Stefan Leko.
911** The defunct promotion Fighting Network RINGS featured cards that mixed worked pro wrestling bouts with actual MMA bouts, and sometimes the line was blurred. As Japanese pro wrestlers began finding some success in MMA, the focus shifted more toward shoot fights.
912** Anthony Macias allowed himself to be submitted by Oleg Taktarov in UFC 6 because they both had the same manager, who convinced Macias to throw the fight so that Taktarov would be fresh for the final later that day. Humorously, Taktarov was not in on it, and the first thing he did after the fight was to shoot Macias a massive DeathGlare in a mixture of disgust and confusion. Regardless, the 12-second guillotine is still officially the fastest UFC submission on record.
913* WorthyOpponent: Many fighters simply do not like each other, and this shows in heated, emotionally charged pre-fight exchanges, the need for extra security, and sometimes actually coming to blows before two competitors are scheduled to fight. However, many times, after going three or five hard rounds against another human being trying to beat you into unconsciousness, the two fighters appear to gain a measure of respect for one another by the end of the bout, and will shake hands and[=/=]or hugging each other tight while thanking each other for the contest.
914* WrestlerInAllOfUs:
915** A wide range of wrestling moves to be used in actual athletic competition, creating some spectacular matches. Dropkicks, chops and triangle choke-countering powerbombs and piledrivers are the most common ones, but the sport has also seen German suplexes, abdominal stretches, airplane spins, superkicks, elbow drops and even diving attacks.
916** Also [[InvertedTrope inverted]]. Wrestling/MMA crossover stars tend to bring distinctive MMA moves into their wrestling careers, especially submissions holds. Some have even entered the general vocabulary of wrestling, used by performers without any specific connection to MMA, including the Kimura lock, triangle choke, and rear naked choke, to name a few.
917[[/folder]]

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