BJPenn.com's Unofficial Guide to MMA Nicknames – The best and worst | UFC NEWS
Fighters have always carried nicknames. Most of them fit their persona, some do not, and some – well they don’t even make sense. Listed below are some notable fighter nicknames, and I will warn you now that a few of them are terrible.
The ones identified are classified as Great, Good, and Terrible. The criteria was basically how they fit their owner, and the emotions they invoked in comparison. Each one of them was given approximately 3.5 seconds of thought and examination. Agree or disagree here they are.
The Great ones:
Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
“The Prodigy” BJ Penn
Georges “Rush” St-Pierre
Jason “Mayhem” Miller
“Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver
Kasushi “Gracie Hunter” Sakuraba
Ken “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” Shamrock (This was one of the best of all time)
Patrick “The Predator” Cote
“The Filipino Wrecking Machine” Mark Munoz
Maricio “Shogun” Rua
“The Phenom” Vitor Belfort
The Good, and there are a lot of these:
Stephan “The American Psycho” Bonnar
“Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic
Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva
Anderson “The Spider” Silva
David “Tank” Abbott
Chan Sung “The Korean Zombie” Jung
Lyota “The Dragon” Machida
Jens “Lil’ Evil” Pulver
James “The Sandman” Irvin
Roy “Big Country” Nelson
Renato “Babalu” Sobral (Just to hear Buffer say “Babaluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu”)
Randy “The Natural” Couture
“The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz (or as Buffer says “Cheetoh Orcheese”)
Alesio “Legionarius” Sakara
“The All American” Brian Stann
Brandon “The Truth” Vera (There was nothing truthful about his hype)
Josh “The Baby-faced Assassin” Barnett
Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos
Rameau Thierry “The African Assassin” Sokoudjou
Jon “Bones” Jones
The Terribly Terrible:
Clay “The Carpenter” Guida
“The Dean of Mean” Keith Jardine
Marcus “The Irish Hand Grenade” Davis
Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emilianenko (Just does not fit or make sense)
Yoshihiro “Sexyama” Akiyama (It fits him, but this is awful)
Mike “Quick” Swick (Come on, you can’t come up with something better. Wait, there was also the ‘Swickitine’ submission. Nevermind)
Bas “El Guapo” Rutten
Jason “Strange Brew” Thacker
Sean “Muscle Shark” Sherk
Frank “Twinkle Toes” Trigg
David “The Crow” Loiseau (Unless he had face paint on and starred in a movie in place of Brandon Lee – NO)
“The Cat Smasher” Chris Leben (Chris has one of the best and worst on this list)
Brad “The Hillbilly Heartthrob” Imes
“The King of Rock and Rumble” Elvis Sinosic
Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko
Jeremy “Gumby” Horn
Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall
Pat “HD” Barry
“Sugar” Rashad Evans (This flows like a fountain of bricks)
Heath “The Texas Crazy Horse” Herring (This worked in Japan and would kill in pro wrestling)
Rick “The Horror” Story
That’s the list! Agree? Disagree? Did we miss a good one? Great One? Let us know in the comments!
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About the Author
Lead reporter, ring announcer, writer, director, magician, and family man.
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In my book “The Dean of Mean” is one of the great! I really love it
lets not forget about nick “the promise” ring
“filthy” tom lawler
Rousimar “paul harris” palhares
moderately attractive mat wiman was a good one before he changed it
I’m not sure you understand “The Crow”’s referent… Just salute a French flag, and look for a guy named Roland.
WTF? “The Axe Murderer” is clearly top 5 best nicknames.
+1
i prefer “Mad Dog” whatever
actually you are wrong about Fedors nickname. It fits hit entirely, considering he was the last Heavyweight Champion of Pride before they stopped operating. He was the Emperor of that division, too, As he held that title for quite a while. So yeah, He’s the mother ****ing Last Emperor!
+100
Whoever made this list is a clown
How can you leave out the WORST nickname of ALL time???? Kenny “Kenflo” Florian!! It’s like a wack preppy boy gangster name, with some flowriddah thrown in there. Hahaaaaa
Don’t forget about “Kingsbu”
Johnny “Big Rig” Hendricks is pretty bad too.
If you practiced bjj you would know that a “flow” is a series of transitions/submissions in a ground fight. Hense the name “Kenflo”. Don’t b hatin!
dont forget about j-lau for joe lauzon
Lau also happens to be a transition/submission…. Haha nah it isn’t.
El guapo
Funniest name joe daddeh lol because simply he made mike goldburg call him daddy like a million times while he commentates joes fights
True @ James, the axe murderer should be in the top 5 amongst the greats, that name suited Wanderlei well when he was killing guys in Pride
Also, I can’t believe this one has been missed out but Marco Ruas nickname was one of my fav ‘The King of The Streets’
Sounded awesome when he would get introduced in the Octagon
WOW! Marco Ruas! Haven’t heard that name in a long freakin time!. That dude was beast mode back in the 90s!
how the hell is ‘el guapo’ a bad nickname, especially the way he timed the announcement right in b/w the 90 min royce gracie vs sakuraba match.And a few other good nicks are:
Rich “Ace” Franklin
Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone
“Filthy” Tom Lawlor btw Jason “The Athlete” Macdonald is terrible.
Nice try Ken Shamrock! We all know you wrote this article.
i think the irish hand grenade is epic, one of my faves. i also like the sandman (took my a while to get it though0
Cold steel chuck o niell is also epic
He’s called the janitor because he was whooping all the american wrestlers, and their coach said, you guys suck you all just got beaten by the janitor, because of his appearance and that noone knew who he was
you sure they didnt call him the janitor cause he mopped the floor with them?
what about
dan ‘the police officer’ copp
rodney ‘sho’nuff the master’ wallace
lmao
Never heard of ‘em love the Last Dragon reference though.
The 2 worst are Jason “the athlete” McDonald they are all ****ing athletes
And Johnny “the hater hurter” Reece
Enough said lol
Rich “Ace” Franklin is one the best in my book. Especially since it’s referring to Ace Ventura since he looks like Jim Carrey lolol
Rick ‘The Horror’ Story is great…
How come Diego ‘The Dream’ Sanchez didn’t appear on the bad list?!
There is way too much wrong with these lists to even comment on them
Wow… whoever writes some of these articles should keep their stupid opinions to themselves. Ranking nicknames? Not only do I not agree with 90% of your choices, it’s an utterly childish thing to do for a major mma site… aticles like this are for blogs and chatrooms…. was this just copy and pasted from Sherdogs chatroom or something?
And WTF is so special about the nickname “Rush” ?????
your comment was about as pointless as the list
Whats better than “the axe murderer”?
“The Cat Smasher” Chris Leben
It’s so BAD it’s GOOD. Doesn’t even make any sense unless he’s speaking about a woman nether regions or maybe he actually smashes cats. I’m glad he changed it to the Crippler.
Also Sexyama is a pretty epic name.
Diego sanchez should be on both the best and the worst, “the nightmare” and “the dream”. Chris “the cripler” leben should also be there.
don’t you ever….ever…..ever…….EVER…..disrespect El Guapo…he will smash your liver sir.
WorSt list I have ever seen
I thought dave terrells nickname ‘the soul assassin’ sounds pretty cool, Minotauro (Nogs actually looks a bit like a Minotaur too lol)
Amongst some of the worst gotta be ‘the boogeyman’ Dean lister I mean seriously, WTF
there is a significant lack of love for Uncle Creepy on this list.
rick the horror story is awesome
Jason “Mayhem” Miller obviously has the best nickname…as for Anderson “The Spider” Silva…more like “Spider Monkey” Silva!!…
Just because he’s black he’s a monkey racism haha na dude does have a monkey like movement
Cant believe dude left off, Joe”j-lo” Luazon. Dudes a beast, but his nickname is one of the worst ever
rick the horror story. come on that’s gold . nick the promise ring. what a faggot
How could you miss Joe “J-Lau” Lauzon?
uncle creepy is P4P one of the best nicknames !
Dont forget The American Gangster from WestOregon Chael P Sonnen :p
Chael ‘the franchise’ sonnen
“The Fire Ball Kid” Takanori Gomi!! One of the Great ones
Chael “The Eunuch” Sonnen.
I liked Overeem’s “The Demolition Man”.
Now it appears to be changed to “The Reem”? wtf is a Reem?
Stefan “the Scryscraper” Struve is a good one too.
Jeremy “lil Heathen” Stephens also good.
on the tuf season when jlau was on bj team. bj called him “creepy joe” lmao!!
Hahahahahaha lauzon looks like a nocturnal creature like an ay-ay from madagascar
Rory “Ares” McDonald has to be on the worst list !!!
Travis “hapa ” browne…lil evil jens pulver,smooth Henderson, j-lau,the count,joe daddy, are all pretty gay…I thought the axe murderer should’ve been on the great list.
The polish experiment?
You missed Dean The Boogey man lister. and the korean zombie should be up there with the best
ISABELL