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genuine good guys in mma.

Din Thomas, got to train with him in Orlando back in 00. Was one of the humble and down to earth guys I've met even offer to help me find a job so I could train more.

Alex Caceres, got to train with him in Miami in 2010 was also really cool not as crazy as he was on TUF.

Jose Aldo, I got to meet in Orlando at the Mall the Day after the Hominick fight. He was really nice I think I was the only person who recognized him lol.

Conan Silveira, got to train with at ATT in miami was really cool and a great bjj instructor.

Eddie Alvarez, I got to meet in Miami after the Imada fight. . I was butt hurt cause during the fight my Wife asked "who's this fighting?" And I took my eyes off the fight to explaining to her " Eddie Alvares, the main event and one of my favorite fighters the one I told you about!" And boom I missed him drop Toby and then before I knew it the fight was over RNC. And after the fight she had the nerve to take pics with him. But he was cool.
 
ive met and trained with quite a few

shogun is the nicest by far, he's one of the chillest people I've met, period. fighter or not
 
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Never met either, but I'd assume both are great guys. Forrest does a lot of stuff with charity, and has always been very self deprecating and humble. Also seen videos of Forrest at fan expos and he seems nice, trying to joke all the time.

Franklin is another guy pretty much the same thing, just comes off as a very cool guy.
 
Most elite level fighters tend to be nice guys.

People generally don't get to be elite by being arrogant because being humble means you never stop learning and training. People who thinks they are better than others don't learn.

Also, they are confident in themselves and knows what they can do anyways. Why need to be arrogant? Arrogance is when people who has a status quo to keep and knows they lack the ability to keep it.
 
I don't think there are a whole lot of straight up assholes in mma. Coolest ones I've met were probably Faber, Miguel Torres, Stevenson, and Max Danzig. Only dickhead was Tim Sylvia right before UFC 79. LOL, he was wearing bootcut jeans.
 
machida comes to mind as does georges st pierre - couture kind of has that image, but when you learn more about him, it becomes questionable haha - but hes all class in the media
 
Ha I want to know what happened with Kongo!

Damn it's embarrassing haha. My brother really outdid himself that day. But thanks to him I got to hang out a bunch of times with the Overeem brothers in Holland (both close friends of him), so I owe him I guess :P They are really cool by the way!

With Kongo, it's not very funny, mostly cringe-worthy. But since you shared your experiences with Condit... + your favorite fighters shows that you are a man of taste ;)

Ok this time my brother knew who Kongo was (we lived in France for quite a while, and so he at least knew the french fighters), we were walking by this restaurant with an open "terasse", and we both hesitated to go great him, since he was about to have lunch.
And when he saw us hesitating, talking loudly in French to each other to get his attention and waving, he smiled and waved at us to come.
We shook his hand, I just wanted to say good luck as a fellow countryman and leave quickly. But my brother had other plans (to be fair we had a few beers before so his judgement was a bit clouded), started jokingly (I knew he was joking around, but that might not have been obvious to the others) to tell Kongo (in French obviously) "Ok you worked on you ground game this time hum? Hey, it's serious, your opponent is a rassler, if he shoots at you knee him in the face/balls, and blablabla" and all kind of embarrassing advice, Kongo was smiling politely but his team were completely silent and looking at us with dead serious faces. I got a picture with him and we left quickly, convinced that I couldn't be embarrassed more for the day.

But then there was the Franklin incident, I felt so bad/awkward, I knew of the connection between him and Sylvia since I followed MMA really close, but my brother had no idea. Hence the insensitive comment. >__<

All in all I had a blast, that event was great, thanks to my brother's connections we got perfect seats, the Struve/Denis Stonjic bout was a complete war, everybody was on their feet. Sadly I don't see this fight discussed much on Sherdog, it's a classic for me.


On another note, fairly recently in another country I met Shannon "The cannon" Ritch, and he was amazing.
I know he is a laughing stock on Sherdog, but he is so passionate about MMA, I met him after one of my MMA amateur fights, that I won by Kimura; he congratulated me, told me it was a great fight, and when I told him that I trained for this sub a lot because Sakuraba was my inspiration to start training he was very happy, told me his fight with Saku is his best MMA-related memory, he doesn't care that he lost, at least he fought Sakuraba in PRIDE! We talked about MMA for a while, and then he actually asked me if i'd like to train with him (I already told this story here), but sadly I couldn't go, too bad I wish I could have trained a few times with him, he has so much experience and so many stories to tell it's crazy. We exchanges our facebooks and chat frequently.

Another unpopular fighter (on Sherdog) that I get along very well and trained with a lot of times is Wes Sims, (along with Coleman, Randleman, Ricco, Brandon Lee Hinkle, Baroni etc...)
A loud bunch :D but great guys, I learned so much about wrestling thanks to them. Wes is really funny and chill, and extremely loyal to Coleman. He won his last fight against Ruben Villareal pretty recently, check it on youtube.
 
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Frank Mir was a cool dude when I met him
met Ryan Jimmo a few times when he was fighting in the MFC, also a cool dude
 
The following is the 5 nicest fighters I've meet based on my experience and how they are generally viewed.

1. Rich Franklin: Probably the nicest guy the UFC ever had. Good company man and VERY blue collar/down to earth. Everybody else who has meet him has said amazing things about him

2. Guy Mezger: He was robbed of elite/legendary status (should have wins over nog, sakuraba when he was the p4p best fighter on the planet, and Arona) but he still remains extremely humble and nice. Dana has mentioned the Mezger was one of the nicest/humblest fighters he has ever worked for

3. Chad Mendes: Pretty much all of team alpha male are class acts. When I meet Mendes I called his name out (I meet him outside a restaurant) and he came and gave me a bro hug and even told me a story (he was real energized and seem like a natural to the fans). Pretty much everyone has said the same thing about Benavidez and Faber.

4. Stephen Thompson: Wonderboy is by far the least popular but he is a class act. Very religious/down to earth and very humble to his fans. One of the best fighter experiences ive had and he's extremely nice to fans

5. Tito: I put him last because generally speaking he isn't viewed very well. Every single person from the ultimate fighter who was on tito's team (along with fighters who currently train with him or did in the past) have said NOTHING but great things about him. He's one of those rare cases where he's full of himself in the camera but behind the scenes (coaching/candid appearance) he a class act
 
Rashad - He was cordial

Jon Jones - I asked for a pic and he declined saying that he needed to get inside. We were at a local fight event. He had already been taking a lot of pics with people, understandable I guess.

Jon Dodson - I saw him right before seeing Jon Jones. Dodson was cool as shit and took his time to take pics and chat.

James Mcsweeney - wasn't too friendly

Jardine - At the movie theater, took pics and chatted a bit about movies.

Leonard Garcia - Maybe the nicest, coolest fighter I've met.

Damacio Page - Super cool, basically hung out with him at the bar that night.

Shane Carwin - Met him at a signing. Really cool. Took the time for pics and to chat even though there was a line out the door. I got to take a pic with the belt. It's pretty damn heavy.

Joey Rivera - cool dude

George Roop - cool dude. I didnt recognize him at first until Joey Rivera introduced me.

Junie Browning - Was really cool despite his reputation.

Talked to Greg Jackson on the phone - seemed really awesome even over the phone.



One of the benefits of living in Albuquerque
 
Met most of the Miletich fighters in the late 90s/early 00s, as I lived across the river from Bettendorf. Most of them were cool and down to earth, except Hughes who just didn't have much patience for people.

Later moved to Chicago and trained at Chicago Fitness Center, where Shonie Carter worked and trained. He's exactly like you see on TV, always the center of attention by starting crazy discussions. Funny guy and a good coach.
 
Reminds me of video of Wand, they also were trying to say no pictures and move people along, this was pretty awesome i thought
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Wand is awesome! When I went to the Fan Expo last year he was signing with Shogun and I think Machida was coming in to cover Wand. Wand went through the line to leave and started taking pictures with the fans :cool:
 
Damn it's embarrassing haha. My brother really outdid himself that day. But thanks to him I got to hang out a bunch of times with the Overeem brothers in Holland (both close friends of him), so I owe him I guess :P They are really cool by the way!

With Kongo, it's not very funny, mostly cringe-worthy. But since you shared your experiences with Condit... + your favorite fighters shows that you are a man of taste ;)

Ok this time my brother knew who Kongo was (we lived in France for quite a while, and so he at least knew the french fighters), we were walking by this restaurant with an open "terasse", and we both hesitated to go great him, since he was about to have lunch.
And when he saw us hesitating, talking loudly in French to each other to get his attention and waving, he smiled and waved at us to come.
We shook his hand, I just wanted to say good luck as a fellow countryman and leave quickly. But my brother had other plans (to be fair we had a few beers before so his judgement was a bit clouded), started jokingly (I knew he was joking around, but that might not have been obvious to the others) to tell Kongo (in French obviously) "Ok you worked on you ground game this time hum? Hey, it's serious, your opponent is a rassler, if he shoots at you knee him in the face/balls, and blablabla" and all kind of embarrassing advice, Kongo was smiling politely but his team were completely silent and looking at us with dead serious faces. I got a picture with him and we left quickly, convinced that I couldn't be embarrassed more for the day.

But then there was the Franklin incident, I felt so bad/awkward, I knew of the connection between him and Sylvia since I followed MMA really close, but my brother had no idea. Hence the insensitive comment. >__<

All in all I had a blast, that event was great, thanks to my brother's connections we got perfect seats, the Struve/Denis Stonjic bout was a complete war, everybody was on their feet. Sadly I don't see this fight discussed much on Sherdog, it's a classic for me.


On another note, fairly recently in another country I met Shannon "The cannon" Ritch, and he was amazing.
I know he is a laughing stock on Sherdog, but he is so passionate about MMA, I met him after one of my MMA amateur fights, that I won by Kimura; he congratulated me, told me it was a great fight, and when I told him that I trained for this sub a lot because Sakuraba was my inspiration to start training he was very happy, told me his fight with Saku is his best MMA-related memory, he doesn't care that he lost, at least he fought Sakuraba in PRIDE! We talked about MMA for a while, and then he actually asked me if i'd like to train with him (I already told this story here), but sadly I couldn't go, too bad I wish I could have trained a few times with him, he has so much experience and so many stories to tell it's crazy. We exchanges our facebooks and chat frequently.

Another unpopular fighter (on Sherdog) that I get along very well and trained with a lot of times is Wes Sims, (along with Coleman, Randleman, Ricco, Brandon Lee Hinkle, Baroni etc...)
A loud bunch :D but great guys, I learned so much about wrestling thanks to them. Wes is really funny and chill, and extremely loyal to Coleman. He won his last fight against Ruben Villareal pretty recently, check it on youtube.

LOL thats all awesome man! thanks for the share!
 
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