'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Despite today’s UFC Heavyweight division having a cut-off limit of 265lbs – the limit decided back in 2000 when the current Unified Rules were initially introduced by the New Jersey State Athletic Commission to the UFC – the history of the promotion has seen a handful of fighters who weighed in at far heavier weights.
I’m not talking about the likes of Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin and Mark Hunt who cut weight to make 265lbs. Those guys were undoubtedly behemoths, but even they would’ve been dwarfed in comparison to some of the giants who roamed the Octagon in the Wild West, pre-sanctioning early days of the UFC.
Here are five of the heaviest men to ever set foot in the Octagon – plus one honourable mention.
Honourable Mention: Gan McGee – 290lbs
Nicknamed ‘The Giant’, Gan McGee was a former training partner of Chuck Liddell who stood at a massive 6’10”. And while he did compete in the UFC on three occasions in the current Heavyweight division – forcing him to cut to 265lbs – he makes this list because he’s the heaviest man to ever weigh in under the Unified Rules.
How did he manage this? Well, he was part of the only Super-Heavyweight fight in UFC history – against current UFC star Josh Barnett back at UFC 28 in 2000. While Barnett came in at just over 250lbs – a weight that would’ve allowed him into the Heavyweight division – McGee tipped the scales at 290lbs, almost forty pounds heavier than his opponent and way over the 265lbs limit for a regular Heavyweight.
The fight was quite decent, too – McGee used his superior size to bully Barnett in the first round before gassing out and allowing Barnett back into the fight in the second round, eventually winning by TKO.
Despite the fun fight though, the UFC decided to can the Super-Heavyweight class shortly after, probably feeling there was a lack of talent there. To be fair, given the historically thin nature of the Heavyweight division, it was probably the right call.
As for McGee? He went on to a failed UFC title shot against Tim Sylvia, then headed to Japan with PRIDE for a couple of fights before going into semi-retirement. He went 1-1 upon a 2008 comeback and hasn’t fought since.
#5 Koji Kitao – 390lbs
A notable sumo wrestler in Japan, Kitao became the 60th Yokozuna in the history of the sport – the highest rank — before being drummed out of sumo in 1987 after a falling out with his coach. From there, he moved into a successful career as a professional wrestler. Of course, being a pro-wrestler in Japan in the mid-1990’s – particularly coming from a legitimate athletic background – meant that a brief career in MMA was always likely to be on the cards.
After a debut loss in Brazilian promotion Universal Vale Tudo Fighting – a TKO to Pedro Otavio – Kitao made his way to the USA for a fight at UFC 9 – the promotion’s first show not to feature a tournament format. Unfortunately for Kitao, despite a massive size advantage, his time in the UFC didn’t last long. Weighing in at a colossal 390lbs, Kitao outweighed his opponent, Mark Hall, by around 200lbs. The advantage didn’t help him.
When the fight began, Kitao charged Hall and shoved him into the fence before getting a slam down to the ground. It looked like he was in firm control until ref Big John McCarthy stepped in to call time – and it was revealed that Hall had broken the sumo’s nose with a short right hand as he moved forward. The fight was stopped there – after just 40 seconds – making it a classic UFC anticlimax. Hall did propose to his girlfriend post-fight though, making it slightly more memorable.
Kitao didn’t fight in the UFC following this, although he did pick up a win on the inaugural PRIDE show just over a year later, submitting future WWE star Nathan Jones with a keylock. He remains the only Yokozuna to have competed in the UFC.
#4 John Matua – 400lbs
Any longtime UFC fan who’s seen highlights of the old Wild West days of the promotion would probably recognise John Matua instantly. Unfortunately for Matua, they probably wouldn’t recognise him for his massive size. The Hawaiian stood at an imposing 400lbs and claimed to be a master in the “ancient Hawaiian art of bone breaking”. Unfortunately for Matua, in his one fight with the UFC, he never got the chance to show off such skills.
See, the reason fans would recognise Matua is that he’s the poor dude in the black bodysuit who faced off with David ‘Tank’ Abbott in both men’s UFC debuts back at UFC 6. You could never fault Matua for his efforts – he came forward and attempted to grab Abbott, who was massively outweighed but not outgunned. Tank hit him with a barrage of punches that sent him crashing down, and added one extra right hand for good measure, stiffening Matua up and leaving him convulsing.
Abbott’s mocking celebration of Matua’s convulsions – arms outstretched, shaking – remains infamous to this day. The Hawaiian was taken out of the Octagon wearing an oxygen mask, but thankfully he was alright. He went on to post a 1-4 MMA record before retiring in 2000, proving that a lot of the time in MMA, size doesn’t count for all that much.
#3 Thomas Ramirez – 410lbs
Like Matua before him, a lot of longtime fans would instantly recognise giant Puerto Rican Ramirez for being on the wrong end of one of the all-time classic UFC highlight clips. Despite weighing in at 410lbs, Ramirez was knocked out at UFC 8 by the legendary Don Frye in just eight seconds – a UFC record for the fastest knockout that stood for almost a decade before being broken – albeit unofficially – by Duane Ludwig in January 2006.
UFC 8 had a ‘David vs. Goliath’ subtitle, with an eight-man tournament all featuring big man vs. little man matches being the centrepiece. An MMA promotion would just never get away with such things today, but this was during the early days of the sport, when it could be argued that it wasn’t even a sport, more a spectacle. The other fights – Gary Goodridge vs. Paul Herrera, Paul Varelans vs. Joe Moreira and Jerry Bohlander vs. Scott Ferozzo had big size differences, but not quite like Frye vs. Ramirez.
Frye weighed in at around 205lbs – or basically half the size of his opponent. But one stiff jab from Frye and a pair of right hands later, and it was the big man who was unconscious. To make matters worse for Ramirez, he was fighting at home as a local fighter, while Frye was resoundingly booed by the fans. Not that Frye cared. He would go on to win the UFC 8 tournament and is now a UFC Hall of Famer, while Ramirez never fought in MMA again.
#2 Teila Tuli – 414lbs
The second-heaviest man in UFC history only competed inside the Octagon once, but it was a pretty famous fight. A former sumo wrestler who reached the level of makushita – the third-highest ranking in the sport – Tuli entered into the inaugural UFC tournament and took part in the first televised fight in UFC history, where he faced off with Dutch savateur Gerard Gordeau. Amongst his fellow combatants, though, Tuli had already gained some fame.
Not for his size, either. Although he was by far the biggest man in the initial line-up of eight fighters, he gained notoriety amongst them by being the one to stop a pre-event meeting with the attitude of a true fighter. When the other fighters were quibbling over the rules – or lack thereof – of the first UFC, it was Tuli who stood up and apparently said he didn’t know about any of the others, but he was here to fight tomorrow.
The fight, of course, didn’t go his way. He was stopped when Gordeau landed a head kick that knocked a number of his teeth out. Some of them remained embedded in the Dutchman’s shin and stayed there for the rest of the tournament, even. It was the first sign that size wasn’t everything in a “real fight”.
Tuli never fought again, but ended up going into acting. He had a cameo in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall which starred Jason Segel and Mila Kunis, and currently has a reoccurring role in the hit TV series Hawaii Five-O. And in the world of MMA, thanks to his role in the UFC’s first fight, he’ll never be forgotten.
#1 Emmanuel Yarbrough
When it comes to the heaviest UFC fighters, nobody really comes close to Emmanuel Yarbrough. The amateur sumo wrestler – who also competed in judo, wrestling and American football – supposedly weighed 320lbs by the time he was 14 years old. By the time he competed at UFC 3, he was a true giant, standing at 6’8” and weighing in at a monstrous 616lbs.
Naturally, with this being the good old days of the UFC, he was paired with a much smaller man – the Kenpo practitioner Keith Hackney, who stood at 5’11” and weighed around 200lbs. It remains the biggest size difference in UFC history. The fight sent Hackney into UFC immortality as the ‘Giant Killer’, as he managed to survive being literally shoved through the fence of the Octagon by his larger foe to land a series of unanswered punches to the back of the head for a TKO in around two minutes.
It was the only time Yarbrough competed in the UFC, unsurprisingly. He continued in MMA, though, winning a fight in Shooto before being beaten in PRIDE by the even smaller Daiju Takase, who managed to escape from underneath the giant to score a TKO via punches.
After leaving the world of MMA, Yarbrough’s weight continued to rise to the point where he weighed 882lbs at his heaviest in 2007. He was advised to lose weight by doctors and managed to get down to around 670lbs, but a man of his size was always going to have problems and sadly he passed away in 2015 at just 51 years old, the victim of a massive heart attack. It’s hugely unlikely we’ll ever see such a large man inside the UFC again.
Send us news tips at [email protected]
