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Which UFC fighters inspired you growing up?????

Only became a fan when I was 18, but:
JENS Pulver, Frank Shamrock, Wanderlei - all had relatable personal stories, plus Frank's intelligent training was inspiring.
SAKuraba, Genki Sudo - fighters but not afraid of fun and not typical tough guys. Creative and bravely fought or even beat bigger guys. Genki had a bunch of different interests he pursued, which was inspiring to me.
GSP - kind, intelligent, level-headed, was the best, trained hard.
DAN Hardy, Paul Daley - local.
MOUsasi and Fedor - had a plain expression like me.
 
Joe Louis, Tommy Hearns, Mike Stone, Bill Wallace, Benny Urquidez. I was 26 when UFC 1 hit.
 
When I first started watching MMA, it was Kimbo/CroCop/Randy Couture. Kimbo was just a scary guy to me at the time, the fact he just fought guys off the street, I knew nothing about technical fighting but he looked like the ultimate monster.

Then I found guys like CroCop who just LHK'd the biggest guys and beat guys like Bob Sapp or others, with giant tree trunk legs but Cro Cop looked small.

Then Couture same thing watching him beat guys an old guy shouldn't beat.
 
A lot of fighters inspired me, but the first one to really hit home was probably Kevin Randleman. I listened to a great interview he had before fighting (and losing to) Shogun and I went out on a whim (before social media) and sent him an email through his website. At the time, I was a freshmen in college with a torn ACL and meniscus and wanted to try out for the wrestling team the next year as a walk on. He wrote back to me and gave me a ton of encouragement in a couple paragraphs -- it was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. I ended up making the team the following year (and getting 3 more knee operations during my college wrestling career) and it was kinda kickstarted by Randleman taking time out of his day to respond to an impressionable fan in myself. RIP Randleman.
 
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