Jon “Bones” Jones steps into the Octagon (hopefully) this weekend for UFC 152 and to celebrate we’re looking at the top five UFC bad boys.
Jon “Bones” Jones will face Brazilian Victor Belfort having refused to fight Chael Sonnen at UFC 151 after the withdrawal of Dan Henderson due to injury. This forced the cancellation of the card and generally pissed off out-of-pocket fighters and fans.
Some people have begun to call the mercurial and talented Jones the latest in a long line of UFC badboys. Pretty soon after he became the first mixed martial artist to sign a global commercial deal with Nike he was caught drunk driving and a lot of people think his attitude smacks of arrogance.
At the same time those criticisms may be overegged after all Jones did stop a little old lady getting robbed before winning his light-heavyweight title at UFC 128.
As the latest UFC badboy looks to equal the record for the number of consecutive defences of the light-heavyweight title, we take a look back at the biggest badboys in the organisations history.
Tito Ortiz
Okay the recently retired hall-of-famer had taken to calling himself the “People’s Champion” towards the end of his career, but to many he’s still the “Huntington Beach Badboy.”
JOE spoke to him about his reputation ahead of his final bout in the Octagon.
In fairness like Muhammad Ali, his trash-talking and skill brought the sport to a new level.
Here he is pissing off eternal rival Ken Shamrock:
We spoke to Tito a while back about the trash-talking but here’s the moment fellow hall-of-famer Randy Couture decided that the badboy needed to be taught a hilarious lesson:
Brock Lesnar
The former WWE star (he’s since returned to that company) became heavyweight UFC champion, but was never loved by MMA aficionados due to his pro-wrestling background. At his best though he was a beast.
En-route to the heavyweight title he avenged an early loss to Frank Mir, afterwards he insulted the UFC’s sponsor Bud Light and said he might “get on” his wife, former WWE wrestler Sable to celebrate…probably not the most gracious winner…
Chael Sonnen
Many say this guy has trash-talked his way into title positions and he was the man Jones declined to fight as a replacement for Henderson. You can’t really deny this guy has skills to backup his trash-talking, the worry is that he takes it too far at times. ESPN’s Ben Blackmore says the difference between him and former arch-rival Anderson Silva is that between “a great martial artist and a good cagefighter.”
The point wasn’t about ability, it was that Sonnen acts in an undignified way at times. Here’s a collection of some of his hilarious quotes.
And here’s that moment in the summer when Silva got payback for all Sonnen’s jibes.
Tank Abbot
Yes this is the guy that appeared on the sitcom Friends and beat up Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man and Monica’s billionaire boyfriend.
He looks the part of a biker badboy and lived it as well, he grew up in Huntington Beach in Califronia where he fought in bars…way to live up to the stereotype Tank…
This quote gives you a measure of his attitude to fighting: “I said I just got out of jail for beating somebody up, in fact, a cop’s son. Isn’t this supposed to be about fighting? And they said, yeah, but you’ve got to have some kind of a black belt or something. And I said that’s not what I’m about. I’m about fighting in the streets.”
He was one of the most notable figures from the early UFC but as time wore on he couldn’t compete with elite athletes.
He even lost to Kimbo is this abomination of a fight:
Kimbo Slice
After a career in which he worked as a bodyguard for a porn company and had a conviction for having a concealed weapon, Kimbo made a name for himself fighting in peoples’ back-gardens and in unsanctioned streetfights. (Of which he only lost one.)
After that illustrious career he entered into mainstream MMA and fought and lost one fight in the UFC. He also lost as the franchise fighter to an unheralded replacement, Seth Petruzelli, on an EliteXC card (CBS’s attempt at MMA) and probably ended that organisation’s chance at being a success.
Not many people were sorry to see his career go down the toilet as he gave people who looked down on the sport ammo to fire at it.
Ironically despite being one of the most well-known fighters in the world, he’s not that good a fighter and despite being a bona-fide street brawler he comes across as a nice guy.
Here he is getting knocked the f**k out by Petruzelli:
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