Media Which fighter made you a fan of MMA?

[liljuey]

I had watched some fights with my parents in the late 90's because one of their friends was a big fan of Royce Gracie, but who really got me hooked was Urijah Faber. In 2004, I was at a wrestling camp in squaw valley where he was a counselor and he popped in a video with one of his gladiator challenge fights. He absolutely beat the shit out of the guy. After that moment I was hooked.

 

[evergreenrider]

Gary Goodridge

 

[steemer]

Bucky Barber

 

[MMAcolyte]

Combination of Forrest Griffin, Randy Couture, and Matt Hughes.

 

[Joss]

Igor Vovchanchyn

+ Cro Cop + Fedor

 

[Normot]

Marvin Vettorii

 

[Anewt]

Mark hunt

 

[Bobby Boulders]

Tank Abbott back in the fuckin' cizzut. Little Kid Bobby popped in his Blockbuster rented copy of UFC 6 back in late 1995 and the first fight was a death, and I was hooked.

Still love Tank.

 

[Jokke]

Forrest

 

[elduckareno]

Royce Gracie

 

[Chomsky Honk]

BJ Penn mostly

also

Shogun + other PRIDE stars (Fedor/Nog/CroCop/Wand/Saku/Gomi)
Diaz bros
Chuck
Forrest Griffin + TUF

 

[tritestill]

My friend's mom used to rent UFC all the time on VHS and Vitor, Tank, and Ken stood out from those memories and couldn't really follow like I wanted to during my pubescent and teenage years, outside of VHS tapes. TUF really made things accessible, but would have to be Vitor or Tank.

 

[Kindjal]

Boxing laid the ground work for an interest in combat sports , then watching the last few years of Jean Yves Theriault do his amazing kickboxing destruction of almost everyone he faced with a career 76 fights winning 69 with 61 KO's he was just a natural born fighter who toyed with most of his opponents .

For pure MMA , it seems Royce Gracie was the first name that got me interested (our TV cable provider made MMA fights available at that time) , then the unique George St.Pierre who took a scientific approach to MMA. Hard to believe it is almost 10 years since GSP had his last MMA fight at welterweight and 6 years since he beat Bisping at MW

~ I find it a bit odd that Kick Boxing wasn't better promoted in North America as it definitely was more exciting than boxing and still could greatly increase its viewership numbers .

 

[liner]

Chuck Liddell. Hes also the only fighter I have always rooted for in every fight.

that's an interesting "stat". Bj and Nick Diaz were my favorite fighters and it was my dream match forever. Until they fought and after, I always rooted for each and took their losses hard. Didnt know til they started fighting each other that I was a bigger Diaz fan

 

[balkanbomber85]

None tbh... I watched boxing at the very end of the 90s and beginning of 2000s then I found out about K1 as german sports channels would show their events. I did know about MMA in general and I used to check out fight descriptions and pics on Sherdog at the very beginning of the 2000s but other than that I only watched a few fights which I could borrow from the video store. I mean that was more than 20 years ago. Later then you could also see MMA fights in K1 events and also I got some friends in the army which had downloaded a shitload of fights. From 2004 I got internet at home and could watch fight. In 2005 I created a SD account and started to communicate, however, around 2007 they had a cleansing (or where hacked or whatever) and I lost my account (no I did not get banned) and then created my new account in 2008.

The oldest memory I have from Sherdog is the 2005 PRIDE FC: Total Elimination Absolute Event where I read the play by play thread and a Shermano (I dont know who you where but thanks again my friend) send me the Yvel-Zentsov fight per mail in a zip file and I watched the KO which is until this day one of the best hook KOs of all time.

 

[basedgodfedor]

TUF pen vs pulver and YouTube highlights of Fedor cro cop wand and shogun

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

To expand on my response earlier. I think Pride as a whole got me hooked line and sinker. Fedor was just icing on the cake.

 

[YoyoDS17]

Anderson Silva, hands down!!!

 

[FlyingDeathKick]

Not fighters but probably guys like Jackie chan, Bruce Lee, and Jet Li. Also Goku lol. There wasn't really a specific fighter that made me a fan of MMA, I liked watching it in general but I guess Anderson Silva got me a bit more interested. Before I knew about Silva my favorite fighter was David Loiseau. I started watching the UFC regularly in 2013, not entirely sure why, perhaps I didn't really know about UFC fight nights before then.