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As the old saying goes, closed mouths don’t get fed. In the world of the UFC, that couldn’t be truer. There’s no better way for a fighter to get the opponent they want than by calling them out.
Over the years we’ve seen countless numbers of callouts inside the UFC. While plenty of them have come off as clunky or simply didn’t work, a handful stand out as true classics.
What’s more, some of these classic call-outs led directly to some of the biggest fights in the history of the promotion, as well as some of the best-selling pay-per-views, too.
With this considered, here are five of the best callouts in UFC history.
#5. B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk (UFC 80)
The UFC lightweight division is now full of absolute superstars and has seen some of the biggest fights in the promotion’s history, including ones between the likes of Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. However, it wasn’t always that way.
It all changed when former welterweight champion B.J. Penn decided to return to the division in 2007.
‘The Prodigy’ won his first fight at 155 pounds by defeating his old rival Jens Pulver. However,before a fight with champion Sean Sherk could be set up, ‘The Muscle Shark’ tested positive for steroids and found himself slapped with a suspension.
Naturally, Penn was furious about this. By the time the promotion booked him against Joe Stevenson in a fight for the now-vacant title, it felt like he had plenty to say on the matter.
Sure enough, ‘The Prodigy’ choked Stevenson out in the second round to claim the title and then took to the microphone. Where some of his other callouts in the octagon felt clunky and forced, this one was perfect.
Penn didn’t even sling an insult towards Sherk, instead uttering a single line that had far more effect. That line? “Sean Sherk – you’re dead.”
The callout immediately set up a major feud between the two lightweights, which came to a head four months llaterwhen they squared off with the title on the line. While the Hawaiian didn’t quite live up to his threat, he did come out on top – stopping Sherk with a violent TKO in the third round.
#4. Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones (UFC 173)
When he won the UFC light heavyweight title in 2011 by defeating Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, it was clear that Jon Jones was capable of a dominant reign as champion.
However, few people realized quite how dominant ‘Bones’ would be. Over the years that followed his title win, Jones absolutely destroyed every foe put in front of him, from Quinton Jackson and Lyoto Machida to Rashad Evans and Glover Teixeira.
By the time 2014 came around, there was a distinct lack of prospective opponents for him. That made it all the more interesting when former Strikeforce heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier decided to drop to 205 pounds in order to chase a fight with ‘Bones’.
Cormier quickly defeated late replacement Patrick Cummins in his debut in the division. When he followed that win with a dominant victory over Dan Henderson, it was clear that a fight between him and Jones was inevitable.
Sure enough, ‘DC’ got on the mic and immediately called Jones out in the most entertaining way possible, telling the champion that he couldn’t run forever and no matter what happened, he was coming for him. More to the point, he stated that he could easily outwrestle Jones, claiming he could take him down 100 times if he wanted to.
Naturally, UFC fans across the world were blown away by the callout. Cormier vs. Jones went from a cool-sounding prospective fight to the biggest feud in the promotion literally overnight – leading to two major pay-per-view events.
#3. Nick Diaz vs. Georges St-Pierre (UFC 137)
When the UFC bought out its rival promotion Strikeforce in early 2011, the fight that most fans wanted to see the most was a clash between welterweight champions Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz.
The promotion wasted no time in signing the clash, booking it to headline UFC 137 that October. However, when Diaz failed to fulfil his media obligations, Dana White and company pulled him from the bout in favor of Carlos Condit.
In turn, Diaz was instead left to fight B.J. Penn in the semi-main event.
However, GSP then blew his knee out, sidelining him entirely. While Condit was still considered the top contender, a fight between the Canadian and Diaz immediately came back to the forefront.
That feeling only amplified when Diaz destroyed Penn. Before he was even handed a microphone, he began to rant at St-Pierre, who was shown watching on from the crowd.
Once Joe Rogan did give Diaz the mic, the fans were treated to an all-time classic callout. According to Diaz, GSP wasn’t hurt at all, he was instead scared to face the Stockton native in the octagon.
For his part, St-Pierre responded with a mocking gesture, pretending his hands were shaking. From that moment on, his feud with Diaz became arguably the biggest one in the UFC.
While it took the promotion well over a year to get the two men into the octagon against one another, it didn’t affect the interest of the fans, as their fight ended up drawing over a million buys on pay-per-view.
#2. Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva (UFC 136)
Prior to 2010, Chael Sonnen had a reputation as a solid fighter with excellent wrestling. What he didn’t have was a reputation as an expert on the microphone. That quickly changed when ‘The American Gangster’ secured a shot at UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
Suddenly, Sonnen changed his tune entirely and morphed seemingly overnight into a master of trash talk, hitting Silva with a ridiculous amount of witty barbs and building himself into the promotion’s biggest villain in the process.
Unfortunately for Sonnen, no amount of trash talk – nor, according to the post-fight tests, performance enhancing drugs – could lead him to a victory over ‘The Spider’. Instead, despite dominating their title bout, he fell prey to a fifth-round triangle choke.
Following his positive drug test, Sonnen found himself sidelined for over a year. When he returned, it was clear that his feud with Silva wasn’t over. So when he defeated Brian Stann in his comeback fight, he quickly went about calling him out in the craziest way possible.
Starting his callout by literally stating “Anderson Silva, you absolutely suck,” ‘The American Gangster’ went about challenging ‘The Spider’ to a rematch, suggesting that if he won, Silva would have to abandon the division. Meanwhile, if he lost, he’d leave the UFC for good.
Naturally, the callout immediately became the biggest talking point in the sport. When the promotion booked the fight, it became the biggest of 2012.
While Sonnen didn’t live up to his promise to leave the UFC after he was defeated for a second time, his callout remains one of the best in the promotion’s history to this day.
#1. Nate Diaz vs. Conor McGregor (UFC on Fox 17)
When Nate Diaz stepped into the octagon at UFC on Fox 17 to take on Michael Johnson, a prospective fight with Conor McGregor was not on the mind of many fans at all.
It simply didn’t seem to make sense, given Diaz hadn’t fought for a year since his loss to Rafael dos Anjos, while McGregor was coming off the biggest win of his career, his featherweight title victory over Jose Aldo.
More to the point, at that time, ‘The Notorious’ had never fought above 145 pounds in the octagon before, while Diaz had always fought at either 155 pounds or 170 pounds.
However, all of those thoughts went out of the window when Diaz shellacked Johnson and wasted no time in ranting an epic call-out at McGregor. In an expletive-leaden tirade, Diaz claimed that the Irishman had “taken everything he’d ever worked for” and that he wanted to fight him next.
Plenty of fighters had called McGregor out at the time, but none were as effective as Diaz had been, perhaps because his rant was not in any way pre-meditated. While the UFC didn’t initially book a fight between the two, when dos Anjos dropped out of his planned fight with ‘The Notorious’, it quickly became clear which fighter the fans wanted to see face the Irishman.
Sure enough, McGregor vs. Diaz headlined UFC 196 and instantly became one of the promotion’s biggest-ever shows, drawing well over a million buys on pay-per-view. Five months later, their rematch set a new pay-per-view record for the company, proving the true power of an effective call-out.
