History UsefulNotes / MixedMartialArts

* '''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 a 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.

** Similarly, Demian Maia is one of the most decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners in MMA and has defeated heavier opponents, including UFC heavyweight Gabriel Gonzaga. At one point, he was undefeated at 11-0 under MMA rules and had won 5 straight UFC fights by submission, despite having no striking ability. Then he [[http://i25.tinypic.com/ws0ojc.gif fought]] [[TheMario Nate Marquardt]]...
*** Fortunately this has improved... somewhat, though it remains to be seen if doing so has dulled his jiu-jitsu edge.

** Later taken to a logical extreme by Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Rashad Evans in a conference call, both whom eventually lampshaded how homoerotic their trash talk had become:

** 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 and UFC respectively, and became the victim of English as a Second Language:

* 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]].

** War Machine aka Jon Koppenhaver: Has had multiple legal incidents throughout his career, legally changed his name to "War Machine" (over, of all things, {{TNA}}'s Rhyno using the moniker), ''became a porn star'' and is wanted for assault at a porn industry party in 2009. At one point he was found trying to sell pieces of his kidney and liver, and sperm over eBay. He was also infamous for several... unique rants on [[http://twitter.com/warmachine170 Twitter]] (now "protected"), and most recently was arrested for assault after fighting with bouncers at [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Thrusters Lounge]]...one day after pledging to change his "War Machine" moniker and turn over a new leaf. Despite this, he ''still'' has a fighting career, most recently picking up a submission victory in England.
*** He's currently serving a one year prison sentence for said fight.

* ''{{Redbelt}}'' is a film written and directed by DavidMamet, who practices BJJ but does not follow MMA. Though UFC champ Randy Couture 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.

* Electronic Arts is planning to release 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. The sole exception at this point is Randy Couture, who had a great deal of flexibility as to control of his trademarked image worked into his most recent contract.

* BadassBeard: Kimbo Slice is 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. And Randy Couture grew a variant(a Badass Goatee) before his second fight with Chuck Liddell. He only kept it for that fight, but it made him look much less like your cool uncle and much more like a mean dude who will kick your ass.
* BadassGrandpa: Pretty much why Randy Couture is legendary in the American MMA community.

* BaldOfAwesome: Randy Couture, Fedor Emmelianenko and Anderson Silva.

** In perhaps the greatest example of this trope, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic 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 current champion Randy Couture. After manhandling the kickboxing legend for the majority of the first round, Gonzaga knocked Filipovic out, causing him to (in the words of {{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.

** Bas Rutten is an interesting subversion to the trope. He's one of the greatest champions of the Japanese proto-MMA sport of Pankration, as well as a former UFC heavyweight champion, but retired long before the big MMA boom. In spite of that fact, Rutten's branched out into a wide range of supplementary careers, including coach, color commentator, TV host, and a manager in the IFL promotion. He's appeared in films, video games and his own line of popular self-defense videos. All told, Rutten is one of the most famous and financially successful MMA fighters in the business.

* BlatantLies: Chael Sonnen in the lead-up to UFC 117 is notorious for his rants and comments at Anderson Silva's expense, but several times has made objectively false comments -- for example, claiming that he had never been defeated at middleweight, then claiming that his infamous Twitter account wasn't his (despite having given out the URL in a prior interview), then denying that he'd claimed that Lance Armstrong had "given himself cancer" by abusing performace-enhancing drugs (PEDs)... at which point the radio talk show host played back the actual audio of the interview and Sonnen's voice saying those words. Sonnen's reaction amounted to "that's not me, that's some guy with a Hispanic accent."

* ThePeteBest: Plenty of MMA fighters had their best years before the boom. A few, like Dan "The Beast" Severn and Ken Shamrock, turned to ProfessionalWrestling to make money...something that Dana White would be horrified at should one of his fighters do the same today...and, in fact, the ''inverse'' is happening now, with former pro wrestler Brock Lesnar as one of the top UFC draws, and Bobby Lashley racking up an impressive record in other feds.
** Igor Vovchanchyn is ThePeteBest to Fedor Emelianenko. Vovchanchyn was the first kickboxer to have sustained success against jujitsu artists in the mid 90s and was universally feared as a striker in the late 90s, however, because his success happened in the "Dark Ages" of MMA, only hardcore fans remember him. Emelianenko is very similar to Igor in style, being slightly larger and more well-rounded as a fighter, and has replaced Vovchanchyn as the most successful fighter out of the Ukraine.
** Most MMA fans know Bas Rutten as the awesome english commentator with the funny accent (he's Dutch) from PRIDE. He was also one of the greatest champs in the Japanese Pancrase Society, one of the big forerunners to MMA. His rematch against ([[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x82fw_bas-rutten-vs-masakatsu-funaki_sport Masakatsu Funaki]]) is considered one of the best fights in Pancrase History. Be warned though that the first half of the match is mostly controlled ground game (the rules at the time prevented striking when both fighters were on the ground). He would also shortly become the UFC heavyweight champion; he vacated the title and later retired after severely injuring himself training.

* BaldOfAwesome: Randy Couture, Fedor Emmelianenko and Anderson Silva are straight ([[IncrediblyLamePun Sort of]]) examples.

* LightningBruiser

* HateDumb: Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar will always be buried by a percentage of MMA fans thanks to their involvement with WWE. Never mind the fact that Lesnar was a former NCAA Champion and that Lashley was training for the US Olympic team before blowing out his knee.

* BadassBookworm: 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. Rich Franklin is famously a former math teacher with a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and a Master's Degree in Education. Kenny Florian has a B.A. in Communications, Joe Lauzon is a former IT administrator, and Chuck Liddell has a B.A. in Business & Accounting, making him perhaps the world's most badass Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Matt "The Law" Lindland ran for Oregon state representative but lost partially due to his opponent's anti-MMA ads, while Chael Sonnen's candidacy is still ongoing. Shane Carwin is an full-time mechanical 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. And while he's fighting as a first career, Mac Danzig is also a [[http://www.macdanzigphotography.com/ nature photographer]].

* Cung Le has a Sanshou backrgound and used his impressive array of kicks to break Frank Shamrock's arm.

** Most MMA fans know Bas Rutten as the awesome english commentator with the funny accent (he's Dutch) from PRIDE. He was also one of the greatest champs in the Japanese Pancrase Society, one of the big forerunners to MMA. His rematch against ([[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x82fw_bas-rutten-vs-masakatsu-funaki_sport Masakatsu Funaki]]) is considered one of the best fights in Pancrase History. Be warned though that the first 16 minutes or so are mostly controlled ground game (the rules at the time prevented striking when both fighters were on the ground). He would also shortly become the UFC heavyweight champion; he vacated the title and later retired after severely injuring himself training.

* ''Cradle 2 the Grave'': Jet Li runs afoul of an underground MMA competition, which features several UFC fighters in cameos.

* DavidVersusGoliath: Early UFC events were open-weight, sometimes resulting in fighters facing opponents more than 100 lbs heavier then themselves. Japanese promotions love these match-ups, often small Japanese fighters against opponents weighing 300-500 lbs. The trend fell into disuse after the demise of Pride, but was restored for Dream's 2009 "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEmvgU74Nls Super Hulk Tournament]]." Usually the "Goliaths" fare quite poorly due to their often dubious credentials as fighters.

* DavidVersusGoliath: Japanese promotions love these match-ups, often pitting gigantic sumo wrestlers against small Japanese fighters. The trend fell into disuse after the demise of Pride, but was restored for Dream's 2009 "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEmvgU74Nls Super Hulk Tournament]]." Usually the "Goliaths" fare quite poorly due to their often dubious credentials as fighters.
** More generally, the weight-cutting disparity between North America and Japan has led to; also, when it comes to submission grappling both as a separate sport and as part of MMA, skill can trump size ''if'' there's a skill disparity favoring the smaller fighter... but that in high-level MMA and "no-gi" jiu-jitsu, size and strength can more often be a deciding factor, especially in "absolute" openweight bouts. (Apparently technique and skill are more important with a gi, since a grappler can use the opponent's gi to restrain and control his body.)

** 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 by triangle choke -- usually performed from the guard, [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean with one man's legs and pelvis around another man's waist]].

** 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 and UFC respectively:

** Subverted to hell and back by Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen.

** Subverted to hell and back by both Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen ''in the same fight'', when Sonnen ''dominated'' one of the most dominant fighters in the sport with one of the longest win streaks in UFC history, actually getting the better of Silva on the feet (where Silva is legendary) before seeming to brutalize Silva on the ground for most of 23 minutes, setting a [=CompuStrike=] record for most strikes ever landed in a [[spoiler:losing]] fight -- landing just over 80 more than had been landed ''[[BeyondTheImpossible on Silva in all his eleven previous UFC fights combined]]''... then seemingly out of nowhere Silva swung his leg over Sonnen's shoulder and began a triangle choke. While Sonnen swung a leg over in an attempt to force them apart so that Silva couldn't apply the needed pressure, Sonnen left his left arm (held by Silva for the triangle) dangling, so Silva grabbed it and turned the hold into a triangle armbar... and with [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut less than two minutes to go from locking in one of the most dominant performances in UFC history, ''Sonnen taps out]]''.

* HateDumb: Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar will always be buried by a percentage of hardcore MMA fans thanks to their involvement with WWE. Never mind the fact that Lesnar was a former NCAA Champion and that Lashley was training for the US Olympic team before blowing out his knee.

** 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.

* OneOfUs: In addition to being a BadassBookworm, Joe Lauzon ([[http://twitter.com/JoeLauzon twitter link]]) and Roxanne Modafferi are unabashed geeks and gaming enthusiasts. Heavyweight Josh Barnett is a bona-fide Otaku and Japanophile who once vowed to use his prize money to buy a life-size [[FistOfTheNorthStar Kenshiro]] statue, has ''Ai wo Torimodose'' as his entrance music, and once said, "[[FistOfTheNorthStar My Nanto Seiken isn't very good, so I'll keep working hard to be more like Kenshiro]]."
** Carlos Newton named his fight style DragonBall Jitsu.

**Marcus "The Darkness" Jones is a subversion of the trope. Desite being an enormous and incredibly scary-looking man, he's usually a real softy, and likes to talk at length about his cherished flower garden. However, he is prone to emotional outbursts, but rather than frighten his follow TUF 10 castmembers, they branded him with the new nickname "Big Baby."

** Subverted to hell and back by both Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen ''in the same fight'', when Sonnen ''dominated'' one of the most dominant fighters in the sport with one of the longest win streaks in UFC history, actually getting the better of Silva on the feet (where Silva is legendary) before seeming to brutalize Silva on the ground for most of 23 minutes, setting a [=CompuStrike=] record for most strikes ever landed in a [[spoiler:losing]] fight -- landing just over 80 more than had been landed ''[[BeyondTheImpossible on Silva in all his eleven previous UFC fights combined]]''... then seemingly out of nowhere Silva swung his leg over Sonnen's shoulder and began a triangle choke. While Sonnen swung a leg over in an attempt to force them apart so that Silva couldn't apply the needed pressure, Sonnen left his left arm (held by Silva for the triangle) dangling, so Silva grabbed it and turned the hold into a triangle armbar... and with less than two minutes to go, ''Sonnen taps out''.

** UFC middleweight almost-champion Chael Sonnen would become infamous for a history of

* BlatantLies: Chael Sonnen in the lead-up to UFC 117 is notorious for his rants and comments at Anderson Silva's expense, but several times has made objectively false comments -- for example, claiming that he had never been defeated at middleweight, then claiming that his infamous Twitter account wasn't his (despite having given out the URL in a prior interview), then denying that he'd claimed that Lance Armstrong had "given himself cancer" by abusing performace-enhancing drugs (PEDs)...
*BoringInvincibleHero: The UFC occasionally must fight problems with champions who are too dominant and appear to have cleaned out their weight division of worthy challengers. Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre are the two current "undefeatable" champions, with Silva having fought above his weight class in search of new challenges and GSP expected to soon.

* 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, at the very least, losing their "invincible aura."

** 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 Georges St-Pierre 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 St-Pierre was forced to tap out due to strikes.
** 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.

*DefeatMeansFriendship: It's very common for fighters to embrace and congratulate each other after the bout is over. Former opponents will often invite each other to train at each others' camps.

** "Cup" Cheick Kongo is so called due to the number of times he "cup checked" his opponent Mirko Cro Cop with illegal groin strikes.

** 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.

* FingerlessGloves: MMA uses 4-ounce fingerless gloves to accomodate both striking and grappling. There is a running problem with fighters accidentally poking each others' eyes in competition, which is an illegal move.

Mixed 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. The Gracies also appreciate the cage because they ''protect'' fighters from unruly spectators charging into the arena (Helio and Carlos Gracie had quite a few problems with this in the original ''vale tudo'' challenges). 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.

*BadassMustache: Dan Severn sported the original MMA badass mustache, but his protege Don Frye made it a MemeticMutation.