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#6 Kimo Leopoldo
When Kimo Leopoldo debuted in the UFC way back at UFC 3 in 1994, he looked every bit the star. His head covered with a towel, the Hawaiian carried a huge crucifix to the Octagon and essentially appeared to have stepped right off the set of a Jean-Claude Van Damme flick.
Kimo lost his debut fight to Royce Gracie, but despite the defeat, he’d made enough of an impact to be remembered as a legend of the early days of the sport. However, the less said about his choice of tattoos, the better.
Initially, Kimo looked relatively ink-free, simply sporting the word ‘Jesus’ across his abdominal area. But when he returned to the UFC in 2003 after the best part of a decade away, he’d added to his collection of artwork substantially. Kimo now sported wild tribal tattoos across his shoulders and chest – still pretty cool – but he’d also added a map of Hawaii to his body as well.
Unfortunately, whoever decided on the placement of Kimo’s Hawaiian map tattoo made a pretty grave error. They placed half of it directly across the ‘J’ in the older ‘Jesus’ tattoo, making it look like the Hawaiian now had a tattoo reading ‘Esus’ instead – hardly a good look for a fighter known for his overtly religious nature!
#7 Junie Browning
Despite only fighting in the UFC twice, Junie Browning remains one of the most infamous fighters in the promotion’s modern history. His wild reputation of course stemmed from his appearance on Season 8 of The Ultimate Fighter, where he terrorised his housemates with his angry, drunken antics.
Browning’s UFC career saw him defeat David Kaplan by submission before he was defeated by Cole Miller, and that was enough for the promotion to release him from his contract. However, wild behaviour on TUF isn’t the only thing that Browning will be remembered by UFC fans for.
He also sported one of the most questionable tattoos in UFC history – not that it was visible when he was actually fighting – in the form of a hand grenade on his right hand. The obvious suggestion was that Browning had explosive knockout power in his punches, but was that really the case?
In truth, no. Even before arriving in the UFC, Browning had just one knockout victory to his name – and that was via a head kick rather than punches. And even after his UFC career had ended, he struggled to win by KO, instead submitting opponent Scott Cornwell before going on a five-fight slide.
Browning did finally pick up a TKO win via punches in 2016 – but that was almost a decade after we’d seen him first sporting his grenade tattoo! ‘The Lunatic’ hasn’t fought since.
#8 Joe Riggs
Arguably one of the more underrated fighters of the early TUF era of the mid 2000’s, Joe Riggs picked up some impressive wins in the UFC. Some of his victims included Chris Lytle, Nick Diaz and Joe Doerksen.
However, Riggs also sported some of the most hilarious tattoos ever seen in the UFC, too. As we saw in the case of Darren Elkins, it’s often not a good idea to have a nickname tattooed onto your body. Riggs though clearly didn’t get that memo, as he sported his nickname – ‘Diesel’ – in a loud, green font across his stomach.
But that wasn’t the only questionable tattoo sported by Riggs. The Welterweight contender also had a large green tattoo on his arm reading ‘NHB’ – a reference to MMA’s previous moniker of ‘No Holds Barred’, hardly the best image for a sport attempting to break into the mainstream at the point Riggs was in the UFC.
Thankfully, ‘Diesel’ also had a couple of cool tattoos – one of which reads “if you’re not fighting for something, you’re dying for nothing”, a quote he came up with himself. That alone almost makes up for his worse ones.
#9 Christian Morecraft
While it’s highly common to see UFC fighters have their nickname inked onto their body, it’s also almost just as common to see them sporting their surname, too. Quite why this is remains somewhat of a mystery – it’s hardly something anyone is going to forget, after all.
However, we’ve seen fighters such as Frank Mir, Joe Riggs and even Conor McGregor sporting tattoos of their surname. Usually these tattoos are relatively inconspicuous – McGregor’s and Riggs’ names are almost unnoticeable amongst the rest of their artwork – but that wasn’t the same for former UFC fighter Christian Morecraft.
Heavyweight Morecraft, who fought in the UFC on four occasions from 2010 to 2012, had his surname inked across his stomach in a similar fashion to McGregor. However, rather than having the tattoo in a plain-looking font, Morecraft’s was instead written in a gothic font reminiscent of something you’d find on the WordArt options in Microsoft Word 1997.
The fact that Morecraft was hardly the sveltest UFC fighter didn’t help, meaning fans were treated to the gothic-style font stretched across a somewhat flabby stomach. Essentially, this tattoo was a pretty bad look in every possible way, despite being one of the less outlandish ones on this list.
#10 Paulo Filho
We end this list with a fighter who, technically speaking, didn’t actually fight in the UFC. Paulo Filho was undoubtedly good enough to fight in the world’s top MMA promotion in his prime, of course – he had an unbeaten 8-0 record in PRIDE – but instead he moved to the UFC’s sister promotion, the WEC.
However, his tattoos are simply too bizarre and downright terrible to not mention him here. In his PRIDE days, he actually looked quite cool – sporting a pair of pitbull dogs on his stomach and various other random tattoos on his arms. However, during his WEC days, things didn’t go so well for the Brazilian.
Filho became addicted to various substances and washed out of the promotion, becoming a journeyman of sorts in his native Brazil in the process. During these troubled times, to say that he added some questionable artwork to his body would be an understatement.
First came the odd dollar bill piece – complete with a pitbull bursting through – on his chest, and then came the bizarre piece reading ‘REWARD HUNTER’ on his right pectoral muscle. Finally, Filho channelled his inner Mike Tyson – and had a strange tribal piece tattooed onto his face.
He may not have set foot into the UFC’s Octagon, but as far as questionable tattoos in MMA go, Filho is the undisputed champion.
