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In the past decade or so, no sport has grown quite as much as MMA. The rise in popularity of the UFC – and smaller promotions such as Bellator – as well as the popularity of MMA in Japan during the early part of the 2000s, has meant that countless athletes have tried their hand at perhaps the most difficult sport there is.
The rise in popularity has meant in turn that top athletes from other sports have also dabbled in MMA, although it must be said – the majority of them have had very little success, usually due to the fact that their athletic primes came in their own sport, not in the ring or cage.
The following five men stepped out of their own sport into the MMA arena and while they failed for the most part, you’ve got to commend their efforts in a way.
#1 Jose Canseco
In the 80s and 90s, few baseball players had as much success as Jose Canseco. Named as the Major League’s Most Valuable Player in 1988, Canseco won countless other awards during his time in the sport and even saw the street outside his old high school named after him due to his success.
As of 2017, he still remains 35th in the MLB’s all-time list for home runs with 462. Unfortunately, his baseball career also ended in disgrace after he confessed to having used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.
Canseco’s tell-all book in 2005 helped to expose a much bigger steroid scandal in baseball than anyone could’ve imagined, but by 2009 his name hadn’t been in the press for quite some time. Which was precisely why it was one of the weirdest moments in MMA history when his participation in Japanese promotion DREAM’s Super-Hulk tournament was announced out of the blue.
An eight-man, openweight tournament, the Super-Hulk was basically as odd as it gets – a pair of freakish giants in Hong Man Choi and Jan Njorte, three legit fighters (Mark Hunt, Gegard Mousasi and Rameau Sokoudjou), Japan’s king of freakshow bouts Ikuhisa Minowa, then former megastar Bob Sapp, and Canseco. The former baseball star was faced with Choi in the opening round.
Canseco claimed to hold black belts in karate and tae-kwon-do, as well as skills in Muay Thai, but if that were the case, they certainly weren’t on show in Japan. Turning up wearing black sweatpants and wielding his baseball bat – which he wasn’t allowed to use – he flailed around for a few minutes before apparently blowing out his knee, allowing the almost-as-unskilled Choi to pound him out for a TKO.
It was one of the worst performances in an MMA ring, ever. And naturally, he never fought again.
#2 CM Punk
While WWE isn’t as popular these days as it was in the late 1990s, CM Punk – real name Phil Brooks – became one of the few pro-wrestling stars to almost cross into the mainstream in 2011 with the infamous ‘Summer of Punk’ angle that saw him steal away the WWE title and feud with WWE bosses Vince McMahon and Triple H. Unfortunately, WWE and Punk didn’t see eye-to-eye regarding his value and in early 2014 he walked out on the company.
He was expected to return at some point, but instead, the UFC announced his signing that December – not to commentate or promote, but to actually fight. Punk hooked up with Duke Roufus and his team – a camp that had produced great fighters like Anthony Pettis and Tyron Woodley. He was supposedly training hard, but his debut fight wasn’t organised until almost two years after his signing was announced.
The rumour was that Punk was struggling to take to MMA – no surprise given he had no prior martial arts background – but the UFC, sensing a buyrate spike, still signed him up to fight raw prospect Mickey Gall. Punk talked a good game but unfortunately couldn’t deliver when the fight came around, throwing arguably the worst-looking punch in UFC history before being taken down, battered and choked out en route to a first-round loss.
To be fair to Punk, he took the loss like a champ, was extremely humble and still claims he’ll be back in the Octagon at some point. When that will be is anyone’s guess.
#3 James Toney
A former three-weight champion in boxing, James Toney was one of the most accomplished fighters of the 90s and early 2000s, having held the IBF Middleweight Title, the IBF Super-Middleweight Title, and the IBF Cruiserweight Title during a decorated career. He was even voted Fighter of the Year twice by the prestigious Ring Magazine – an even bigger feat given the first time was in 1991 and the second over a decade later in 2003.
It was unfortunate that Toney’s MMA debut came in 2010 – five years after he’d won the WBA Heavyweight Title, only to have the belt stripped due to a positive test for anabolic steroids. By 2010, Toney was a bloated shell of his former self but was still signed by Dana White after talking huge amounts of trash on the UFC and MMA in general. He claimed he didn’t need any more skills than his boxing to get past the UFC’s top fighters.
Matched with Randy Couture at UFC 118, Toney quickly discovered that his boxing skill was practically useless inside the cage with a fully rounded mixed martial artist. The legendary Couture used a simple ankle pick to put Toney on his back and from there the fight was basically over. Randy advanced to full mount before slapping on an arm triangle choke and Toney couldn’t even manage to tap out correctly, waving his hand wildly instead.
Naturally, he never fought in MMA again, but thankfully his trash-talking mouth had been shut for good thanks to Couture – perhaps the last time the former champion was in Dana White’s good books.
#4 Johnnie Morton
Plenty of former NFL players have made their way into MMA, usually with mixed results. Brendan Schaub managed to make it into the top ten at Heavyweight before a series of knockout losses ruined him, while the likes of Marcus Jones and Wes Shivers saw much less success.
And well, you’d need much more room than this to write about Bob Sapp’s fascinating MMA career. But one former NFL player who did about as badly as it gets in MMA was Johnnie Morton.
Morton had seen a long and successful NFL career as a wide receiver and played for 12 seasons in the league with the Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. He’d only been retired from an active NFL career for two years when he stepped into the world of MMA, and if I’m honest, I don’t have a clue what made him decide to go on that career path.
At any rate, it didn’t last very long. Morton was matched with kickboxer Bernard Ackah at K-1’s debut MMA show in the US – Dynamite USA – and although Ackah had only one MMA fight on his ledger, he clearly had a lot more experience in martial arts than Morton. Morton came out and almost got a takedown, but seconds later, Ackah knocked him stiff with a right hand and the fight was over in 38 seconds.
Morton was knocked out so badly that he had to be removed from the ring on a stretcher, wearing a neck brace. And then things went from bad to worse when he failed a post-fight test for steroids. Unsurprisingly, his brief MMA career was over.
#5 Marius Pudzianowski
Unlike the athletes mentioned in the prior slides, the mighty Pole Pudzianowski actually has a pretty long MMA career at this point – he’s got a 12-5 record (with one no-contest) – and his most recent fight actually came just last week. In fact, he’s been fighting for almost a decade now and has faced off with some pretty famous fighters, too, in the form of Tim Sylvia, Bob Sapp and Rolles Gracie.
It’s not bad when you consider Pudzianowski was never a martial artist in his prior athletic career – in fact, his sport would probably be one of the last that you’d consider as a good background for entry into MMA.
Pudzianowski, for those who aren’t aware, was a former Strongman competitor who won five World’s Strongest Man titles – more than any other competitor. He also won Europe’s Strongest Man six times and has numerous other strongman titles to his name.
At his peak, Pudzianowski was able to bench press 290kg, squat 380kg and deadlift 415kg, insane numbers by anyone’s standards. Unfortunately, while he’s got more wins than losses in MMA, his great strength hasn’t really helped him get to the top level, as his cardio has failed him on numerous occasion as has his lacking ground game.
Still, compared to some of the other athletes from other sports he’s done a lot to be admired. He’s also competed on Poland’s version of Dancing With the Stars, showing that the strongman can seemingly turn his hand to anything and succeed to a degree.
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