Blended martial arts has introduced us with some colourful characters through the years, so it is going to come as little shock to study that quite a lot of well-known fighters cannot at all times management their mood exterior of the Octagon.
There is a rule of thumb relating to reporting on combat sports activities: if a headline opens with the time period ‘MMA fighter…’, it’s not going to be good.
A fast Google search will present tales like ‘MMA fighter concerned in highway rage incident’, or ‘MMA fighter arrested after firearm dispute’ are a dime-a-dozen. Not often, or by no means, can we see the inverse. ‘MMA fighter develops remedy for uncommon illness’, or ‘MMA fighter discovers new species of butterfly’.
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As if to show this truism, one solely has to look within the route of Russian MMA fighter Akmal Khozhiev who drew important media consideration a few weeks again for stabbing a physician to demise in Guam. With an animal bone. In a dispute about Covid-19 vaccines.
Whereas Khozhiev’s indiscretion is actually in direction of the extra severe finish of issues, combined martial arts has introduced us with a number of superstars who simply cannot keep out of bother and listed below are a number of the most, ahem, infamous.
CONOR MCGREGOR
What do you get for the person who has every little thing? A jail sentence.
McGregor, the Forbes-endorsed richest athlete on the planet earth this 12 months, can legitimately buy virtually something on this planet that has a financial worth. Previously 12 months or two, the UFC double-champ turned whiskey magnate and property developer has purchased not one however two of his native pubs, a Lamborghini automotive and yacht and absolutely anything else that his coronary heart wishes.
The one factor that has eluded the Irishman, although, is one thing that does not have a price-tag connected to it: revenge. His all-encompassing feud with Russia’s Khabib Nurmagomedov finally noticed McGregor constitution a personal jet to fly to New York to confront his rival and finally throw a dolly by way of the window of a bus on which Khabib was sitting within the bowels of Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Middle.
McGregor’s act of vandalism noticed the NYPD difficulty a manhunt for him after which he turned himself in and he was charged with three counts of assault and one in all prison mischief. Nurmagomedov defeated him within the cage by submission months later, and McGregor has had a number of different authorized points since.
CHARLES BENNETT
It could not come as a fantastic shock to study fighter who voluntarily selected the nickname ‘Felony’ could have had one or two run-ins with the regulation, however that’s precisely the case with Charles Bennett.
The 42-year-old Florida man has developed into one in all combined martial arts’ foremost punching luggage lately and has, if we verify our notes right here, misplaced his final 17 fights in a row. However Bennett has had way more than a dropping streak to take care of lately, and has gathered a laundry checklist of authorized complaints virtually as prolonged because the losses on his skilled document.
We do not fairly have the time to checklist off all of Bennett’s authorized infractions through the years however they embrace numerous drug prices in addition to an aggravated battery case stemming from when he entered his health club armed with what was described as a “heavy piece of metal” and attacked one in all his coaching companions.
His latest opponents within the cage, nonetheless, have had no such points.
JON JONES
When it’s all mentioned and completed, Jon Jones may effectively be remembered as essentially the most distinguished combined martial arts celebrity who simply could not fairly get out of his personal means.
In sharp distinction to Charles Bennett, Jon Jones’ checklist of arrests extends virtually so long as his personal profitable streak. The longtime UFC gentle heavyweight champion initially entered the group with a squeaky-clean fame, and even assisted within the apprehension of a mugger on the very day that he would grow to be the youngest champion in UFC historical past.
From then, issues went downhill. In 2015, he was concerned in a hit-and-run incident by which he broke the arm of a pregnant girl earlier than fleeing the scene and presenting himself to authorities a number of hours later. His rap sheet additionally exhibits multiple DUI and, just some months in the past, a home violence arrest within the hours after he was inducted into the UFC Corridor of Fame.
Certainly, nothing encapsulates Jones’ profession extra aptly than being heralded for his unbelievable achievements within the cage earlier than subsequently being detained by authorities.
LEE MURRAY
Ask an Englishman about Lee Murray and also you may get a number of totally different solutions. “Is not he the man who knocked out Tito Ortiz in a bar combat in London?” or “Is not he the man who fought Anderson Silva at a Cage Rage present earlier than ‘The Spider’ turned a family title?”
Each of these are true (or, within the Ortiz case, virtually actually true), however anybody even broadly conscious of the story of English MMA’s first true star will ask the extra pertinent query: “Is not he the man who masterminded the most important money theft within the historical past of the UK?”
The reply to that’s ‘sure’. In February 2006, Murray – who fought within the UFC simply two years earlier – was the brains (and brawn) behind a theft by which he and some different thugs stole the equal of round $ 70 million from a money depot in Kent, England. Murray subsequently fled to Morocco, the place he was finally arrested and stays to this present day after being slapped with a 25-year jail sentence.
And should you’re in search of essentially the most damning assertion as to Murray’s fearsome fame, take into account these phrases from Dana White, a person who has handled a number of the world’s most fearsome people throughout his time as UFC president: “He is a scary son of a b*tch, and I do not imply fighter-wise.”
JASON MILLER
Very similar to Charles Bennett earlier in our checklist, a fighter who takes the nickname ‘Mayhem’ might be extra susceptible to the definition of that phrase than you or I.
In Jason Miller’s case, that is very a lot true. Miller, although, has lengthy been one in all MMA’s extra beloved characters but additionally somebody who simply can not seem to keep out of bother and, very like a lot of the different characters talked about, it is laborious to know precisely the place to begin.
Maybe the time he wakened bare in a church is an efficient lead-off? Or perhaps the five-hour standoff with a SWAT group at his Orange County, California house which he live-blogged on Twitter?
Within the final couple of months alone, Miller has discovered himself entangled in additional authorized points together with a September felony home violence, and confronted separate however comparable prices in October after allegedly breaking a person’s rib in a bar brawl.
It has been fairly a fall from grace for one in all MMA’s extra fascinating characters, and somebody who at one level appeared to have been carving out a distinguished media profession for himself because the host of MTV’s ‘Bully Beatdown’, in addition to being a coach on the UFC’s actuality present ‘The Final Fighter’.
However we suspect that casting brokers aren’t precisely too obsessed with armed stand-offs with SWAT groups.