And despite his size advantage against Anderson, Hess resorted to blatant eye-gouging twice in order to get out of trouble. A co-founder of SAFTA - that’s Scientific Aggressive Fighting Technology of America, noob - Hess decided to pursue MMA after watching UFC 4 and concluding that he could beat Royce Gracie “very easily.” But once he got in the Octagon and started flailing around like a spaz, it wasn’t clear that he’d ever studied a real martial art. How did a guy who never lost in the UFC make it onto this list? Well, just watch the video of Jon Hess’s UFC 5 fight against Andy Anderson, and it’ll start to make a lot of sense. Jon Hess (1-0) Sole appearance: UFC 5, 4/7/95 The only silver lining to the ugly story of Joe Son’s life is that he’ll almost certainly die behind bars.ĥ. He was convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and promptly killed his cell-mate, a fellow sex-offender. Once again, Keith Hackney played the role of regulator, repeatedly slugging Joe Son in the balls during their fight - perfectly legal back then, mind you - before making the “Joe Son Do” practitioner tap due to a choke.Īfter his failed UFC campaign, Son snagged a role in the first Austin Powers movie then lost three more MMA bouts in equally embarrassing fashion before a fluke vandalism warrant tied him to his earlier crime. When Joe Son cut his creepy UFC 4 promo in which he threatened to show us “the spirit of the Lord of Jesus Christ tonight,” nobody knew that he had participated in the horrifying kidnapping and gang-rape of a woman on Christmas Eve 1990, a crime that wouldn’t catch up to him until 2008. Maybe we’re biased, considering he’s arguably the worst person who ever competed in the UFC. Emmanuel Yarborough (0-1) Sole appearance: UFC 3, 9/9/94 See? Nice guys don’t always finish last.ģ. He went on to open a Pat Miletich-affiliated MMA gym, and returned to competition in 2009, scoring a first-round TKO of a guy who was half his age. Rhodes eventually won by way of a choke-hold that he seemed to have invented on the spot. Ettish’s front-kicks were more of an annoyance to his opponent than anything else, and by the time Rhodes knocked him to the mat and began firing strikes from above, Ettish only had the “ earthquake defense” to protect him. This all happened in about a 10-minute window, and I was headed out to the Octagon…I wasn’t able to get my mind right. He grabbed me by the arm and asked, ‘Are you ready to fight?’…I had to go find my guys in the crowd, drag them backstage, get my gear, stretch and try to get myself prepared. I was going downstairs to find the next fighter at the same time Rorion Gracie was coming up the stairs. “ I’d just brought up Ichihara, the guy who fought Royce in the first round. When Frank Hamaker injured his hand during his round-of-16 victory over Thaddeus Luster, shit got very real, very fast: But instead of letting Ettish warm up and keep focused backstage, the UFC tried to kill two birds with one stone by having Ettish wrangle fighters at the arena, Burt Watson-style. The man has earned his place in history.Ī kenpo karate stylist who wanted to challenge himself beyond point-fighting tournaments, Ettish sent a letter to Art Davie asking for a spot on UFC 2, and was brought on as a stand-by alternate when Ken Shamrock broke his hand before the event. But leaving Ettish off a list of the worst UFC fighters of all time is like leaving Robert Johnson off a list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. He seems like a legitimately nice person, and he’s suffered enough in his life as it is. The last thing I want to do is pile more abuse on Fred Ettish. Art Jimmerson (UFC record: 0-1) Sole appearance: UFC 1, 11/12/93 If I omitted anyone notable, please let me know in the comments section. 2) Instead of ranking one form of suckitude against another, I grouped the 50 fighters into sections and arranged them chronologically. Some of these fighters achieved great things in other organizations, before or after their time in the UFC for the purposes of this feature, I’m not really interested in that. So in honor of the brave competitors who proved that MMA is even harder than it looks, I humbly present this “tribute” to the worst UFC fighters of all time.Ī couple of notes to start: 1) I chose fighters solely based on their performances inside the Octagon. We have our Joe Sons, our Tiki Ghosns, our James Toneys. Baseball has its Mario Mendozas, its Bob Kammeyers, its Pete Rose Jrs. Every great sport has been built on the backs of men who absolutely sucked at it - athletes whose hapless failures made the champions’ triumphs look even more outstanding by comparison.
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