I like my appendages like I like my milk, whole. There’s no reason why anyone should experience that brief moment when the pressure surrounding a limb is so great that you can feel your entire body constrict, bracing itself for a shot of insurmountable pain. Just tap. There’s no pride to be had anymore. Pride’s dead, Frank Mir killed it at UFC 119. To make your life slightly more cringe-worthy, we’ve compiled a list of The Top Ten Bone Breaks in MMA. Before you go on with the list, just note that some of these videos, animations and images seen below are very graphic. You’ve been warned, sicko.
It seems inevitable that someone will refuse to tap to a man who collects the arms and legs of his fallen opponents as trophies. When will people learn that the Tobikan Judan gets an immense amount of satisfaction out of hearing the pops of your tendons. There aren’t many people in this world that can say they know what it feels like to almost tear off someone’s arm. If there was a college level course on literally pulling someone apart with your bare hands, Shinya Aoki would be the professor. Here’s what he said shortly after his extraordinary victory at Dynamite!! 2009.
“When I had his arm behind his back, I could feel it popping,” Aoki said. “I thought, ‘Well, this guy’s pride just won’t let him tap, will it?’ So without hesitation, I broke it. I heard it break, and I thought, ‘Ah, there, I just broke it.’ I was stopped afterward, but even if I hadn’t been, continuing to break it more would have been fine by me”
Love him or hate him, I think we all wish Bloodstain Lane was making his videos five years ago so we could have experienced his reaction to Shogun Rua’s horrific arm break at Pride 31. Hearing Bloodstain’s commentary on the Chute Box/Hammerhouse feud would have been epic, and we probably would have seen him spar Phil Baroni long before Nate Marquardt. My god this butterfly effect. Check out the referee’s vantage point of the horribleness.
And the above video is nothing without this partner in crime. Check out what happened backstage following the horrific appendage snap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cMArVabIqs
This fight reminds me of those crash videos they make you watch in defensive driving class which consisted of random people driving in a car on the verge of a head-on collision. Their first instinct is to brace for impact by extending the arms and/or legs out in front of them. Bad instinct, very bad. If that theoretical accident happened, the result would be somewhat similar to this unknown guy in this YouTube clip. An arm is no match for 3500 lbs of force pushing you into an immovable object. In the battle of arm versus octagon, the arm loses and does so in rather cringe worthy fashion.
No one else on this list but Mega Megu had their opponent crawl away from them after having their limb snapped. It’s almost like Serin thought Fujii wasn’t done and, for cautionary measures, tried to get out of her vicinity. Megumi Fujii had the greatest win streak in MMA history at 22-0 and only one of those wins came by strikes, eighteen came via submission. USA Today’s Sergio Non caught up with Mega Megu and Josh Barnett to talk about her first TKO victory.
Fujii: I was glad to get the TKO win, but I still like winning by submission better.
How come?
Fujii: I think it’s less damaging to submit somebody.
Barnett: However, I’ll add my two cents. The way I’ve trained her, she goes until the ref stops her on submissions, so I don’t know how realistic that is. She’s already broken one person’s ankle
Obviously it’s up to the opponent to tap out. Maybe that’s the whole aspect of it, I don’t know. I think it’s just image.
In a perfect world, Josh Barnett and Mega Megu would star in a series of Kung-Fu movies directed by the RZA. Fujii would ride on Barnett’s shoulders as they walked the countryside, searching for justice, honor and sick beats.
Every day before I get out of bed I lay on my back and hope my kneecap doesn’t implode on me. I can’t think of many things worse than awkwardly crumpling to the ground like one of those collapsible tubes that children play in. Back in May, as Alexander Schlemenko was making his spinning backfisted run through the season two Bellator middleweight tournament, Alexander encountered Jared Hess in the semi-finals.The two met on a warm Thursday night that ended in Jared Hess looking like a broken GI Joe. Props to Hess for continuing to fight and even trying to use his floppy leg in guard.
After watching this video of John Gettle’s arm snapping off, all I can think of is a spear of asparagus snapping and exposing the more tissuey edible parts. Roasted asparagus is no longer all that appetizing to me if it’s going to remind me of the pain caused by muscle, tendons and bones splitting in half every time I see it. I might not even be able to walk through the produce aisle ever again.
I think M. Night Shyamalan had something to do with this sickening clip that adds a little extra twist at the end. After the fighter shatters his leg on his opponent’s shin (there is a ‘Got Milk’ joke in there somewhere), he puts all of his weight back onto his broken limb and then crumbles to a saddened heap. If the toes on your right foot can touch your right calf, something has gone horribly. Horribly wrong. M. Night Shyamalan, I don’t know whats more pathetic, the fact that I spelled his name right on my first try without looking, the fact that I can’t prove that I didn’t look — or the fact he is still making movies. The Happening? Come on M. Night…
Remember Slap Bracelets from the late 80s and early 90s? Well if you don’t (and you should), they were flexible stainless steel bands that had rad neon-colored designs of triangles and leopard print. Straightened, they served no aesthetic purpose, but when slapped they could be “snapped” around your wrist or ankle — or whatever your sick mind desired. At first, they were a quasi-fad for grade schoolers everywhere, but then future engineers in classrooms everywhere created a neon arms race. Catapults and other makeshift destructive devices were created out of the metal straps of joy. After a few years, due to outraged parents and their welted children, the metal Slap Bracelet was replaced with the infinitely inferior plastic version which had a tenth of the previous models’ functionality. The Snap Bracelet was never the same again, our friend gives his best effort to recreate the Slap Bracelet effect on a checked leg — and succeeds.
Everytime I see Corey Hill, I immediately having flashbacks of the live broadcast of Fight for the Troops. This break was so horrible, the UFC didn’t air it on the pacific time zone. I was just too gruesome for TV. During the fight, Dale Hartt checked Corey’s leg kick and his shin became what looked like a piece of rubber flapping in the wind. Legs just are not supposed to look like lethargic rubber chickens. The break kept Corey out of MMA for a full thirteen months and the image of it was so disturbing. I’m pretty sure we all suffered a form of mild PTSD for a few weeks. I probably could have even used some therapeutic military style debriefing counseling to help me return to watching MMA again. I couldn’t even re-watch the video to write this in fear that it might induce night terrors and panic attacks. It’s just that horrific.
You might question why this one grabs the number one spot on our Top Ten Bone Breaks in MMA. Just watch the video and take note that not only did looking at Tomomi’s appendage make you scream out four-letter words while running around the living room, flailing your arms around in utter terror, but there was an additional extreme circumstance at work. Tomomi had to endure her nerve endings sending warning signals to her pain receptors for a full four-hour long ride to the nearest doctor! This is when ‘OMFG’ is the only appropriate response. As a matter of fact, you can see that Rosi’s coach won’t even let her look at Tomomi writhing in pain. The commentators also mention that the spectators were getting sick from looking at the injury. When a mangled appendage starts an all out vomit-fest with the spectators, you know it’s the winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcBghl21IKE
I don’t really like to see evil clown masks, or look at white chicks with gold grills in their mouths or see train wrecks happen-but still these are all things that when I do see them-I just can’t look away. Extreme fight injuries are kind of the same way. We’ve already brought you forehead wounds that look like wombs about to give birth, and the most dry heave inducing staph infection pictures ever and now we want to show you MMA’s top ten freakishly horrific fractures. Watching these the first time around was bad enough, but having to go back and rehash these traumatic events was almost too much to for me to take. Jason IM’d me and asked me did I think I could ‘nadle’ it. Apparently, what he meant to type was ‘handle’, and not ‘nadle’. That’s good news because, I can’t nadle anything. Its just not anatomically possible for me to nadle. Now that you’ve all gone and figured out what nadle means-I hope this list does not induce any nadling. The only acceptable body part that this list should cause to wildly flail about is your arms as you try to shake off the skin crawling heebie geebies you get from watching what happens to bones when they attempt to defy the laws of phsics.
It seems inevitable that someone will again refuse to tap to a man who collects the arms and legs of his fallen opponents as trophies. When will people learn that the Tobikan Judan gets an immense amount of satisfaction out of hearing the pops of your tendons. There aren’t many people in this world that can say they know what it feels like to almost tear off someones arm. If there was a college level course on literally pulling someone apart with your bare hands Shinya Aoki would be the Professor.
“When I had his arm behind his back, I could feel it popping,” Aoki said. “I thought, ‘Well, this guy’s pride just won’t let him tap, will it?’ So without hesitation, I broke it. I heard it break, and I thought, ‘Ah, there, I just broke it.’ I was stopped afterward, but even if I hadn’t been, continuing to break it more would have been fine by me”
NO ONE gets more satisfaction out of hearing tendons snap than The Baka Survivor.
We’re moving onto high school brawlers in this fight organization. Rather than keeping things hidden in bathrooms or basements, these kids fight in their parent’s yards and nobody seems to get in their way. What you’ll see in some of these videos is a bunch of kids who actually look like they train in various MMA disciplines and get together to practice after school. While fighting is still somewhat taboo in society, these kids really break the suburban mold by skipping their high school football tryouts and jumping right on the MMA bandwagon instead. There are other high school fight clubs out there, but this particular one makes the number nine spot on our list because it has a fully-loaded Youtube channel of backyard brawls and they weren’t caught like those Howard Fight Club n00bs. Check out one of the better fights from the Backyard Octagon:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9cMArVabIqs
Back in January, I was helping my friend Joe shovel snow off his driveway until he launched a snowball at my head. I dropped my shovel, shot for a double and stuffed his face full of snow. Eventually, his wife yelled at us to cut it out and finish cleaning off the driveway; we obeyed. If we all lived in Russia, Joe would probably get her to shovel the driveway while we invited over some more friends and this is what her front yard would look like:
According to their website: Felony Fights is ‘physical combat between convicted criminals who served time in prison for “unusually violent” crimes; brought together in underground locations in an attempt to harm and gain power over their opponent through the use of force with blows or weapons.’ Additionally, there are no rules or judges, so pretty much anything goes. While a part of this belongs filed-away somewhere in our WTF section, the other part of it belongs on this list. See what happens when you take ex-convicts who learned to fight in prison and pin them up against one another for no reason besides getting it on film for our entertainment.
If you watch some of their more gruesome clips like this one or this one, you’ll find all the reasons why you should never fight outside of a controlled environment. Not only do unsanctioned fight have disaster written all over them from the get-go, the outcomes are often life-threatening late stoppages. We can’t reiterate enough that you don’t try this at home.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-gN-gfP9fLc
It would just be irresponsible of any top ten list that utilizes the word “backyard” without paying royalties to Kimbo Slice. Perhaps his MMA career didn’t pan out the way he hoped, he still remains one of the most famous viral video sensations in the world. Dude single-handedly got millions of viewers to start watching professional MMA with his debut in Elite XC. Still to this day, Kimbo is responsible for three of the four most watched MMA events in history, which earns him the number six spot on our list. Regardless of where his career takes him, he’ll always be the toughest guy at any BBQ and the videos below are proof.
Din Thomas should probably have his own top ten list of reasons why he’s the man. After his win over Gabe Lemey, he got on the mic and called out Chris Brown, letting Rhianna know that he’s ready to lay an ass-whooping on the recording artist whenever she says the word. Din also has a 52 volume set of DVDs where he teaches you 1001 submissions. No, we’re no not kidding. He’s already claimed the number eight spot on our top ten list of fighters you should build a shrine to and I feel like I should be handing him a lifetime achievement award. All I can offer him from a journalistic standpoint is moving up the ranks to number five on this list for his work in creating an unsanctioned underground fight club in his gym in Palm Springs, Florida.
After being arrested the charges were eventually dropped once the judge saw that all his fighters were actually students trying to gain experience and the entrance fee went towards a raffle instead of illegally paying fighters for unsanctioned bouts. Din Thomas had all his basis covered, and thankfully, he didn’t have to spend five years in jail where his awesomeness would go to waste. While we don’t have video of this particular underground fight club, it still gets a spot on the list. If you don’t like it, Din will exile you to a fruit stand in Nicaragua where you’ll wear straw hats, smoke cigarettes, and sell bananas until you’re old and frail.
You start with a two fighters in a ring, and that’s where the similarities between Shockfights and any other combat sports end. There are no judges, skill levels, weight classes, or rules; it’s just you, an opponent, and 3,000,000 volt tasers strapped to each hand. That’s not a typo. I proofread it. The only way to win is via submission or “shock out“. While their website was taken down and the organization seems to have disappeared for good, Shockfights used to boast disclaimers such as ‘too dangerous for those “ultimate” fighters…’ and we still have old screenshots of what their attempts at marketing used to look like. Below is the only known footage of Shockfights actually taking place. Let’s all be collectively be thankful as a human race that this loony hybrid of MMA disappeared forever.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uGJFOOncRMs%5B
DaDa 5000 is a legend in Florida. While he didn’t invent backyard brawling, he did gave it a face-lift and a classy pair of clear stilettos. Dude has everything from a food court to VIP seating for backyard MMA enthusiasts. The guy he hired to man his BBQ grill looks just like Melvin Manhoef and that right there is worth the price of admission alone. Everything about DaDa’s showa looks legit, except the actual ring made out of caution tape and a somewhat pooly-maintained lawn. Even Ultimate Fighter contestant Bruce Leroy was spotted honing his skills before he got the call from Spike TV. I could go on about DaDa 5000 for days, but let him tell you all about it instead.
Of all the wild happenings in New York City, somehow MMA is still publicly frowned upon (and illegal). In a city with nearly 5,000 bars and just about 5,000 bar-fights every night, it would seem that New York has a moral dilemma with sanctioning MMA. Besides collecting tax revenue to help alleviate that $54,500,000,000 in state debt, people like NY Assemblyman Bob Reilly continue to lobby against the sport insisting it’s no different than cockfighting.
New Yorkers are generally pretty creative people, and they often find ways to get around stupid legislative interferences like this one. The folks over at No Mas have been long-time supporters of underground boxing culture and it’s subsequent influence on society. They’ve been slowly turning their focus towards MMA in recent days; particularly the depths to which local fighters go to participate in a sport their state won’t allow them to. Check out this short video they created showcasing NYC’s Underground Combat League.
There’s a cult following behind our pick for the number one underground fight league. If you’ve never heard of Rio Heroes, you probably still think the tooth fairy exists. This underground fight league took the internet by storm and capitalized on the fans that weren’t quite ready to give up soccer kicks and bare-knuckle brawling under the rest of the world’s unified rules. Heaps of Brazilians got their first taste of MMA through Rio Heroes, and even more fighters throughout the world followed in the organization’s footsteps of underground fighting. This was the closest thing you’d ever find to Fight Club Fighters like Flavio Alvaro (27-8) and Pedro Santos (24-7) were Rio Heroes Champions before they were ever recognized in bigger promotions. These guys were like the Kimbo Slice and DaDa 5000’s of the Brazil, except their skills translated seamlessly into successful pro careers.
Between DVD sales and web-streamed PPVs events, they actually made some decent money which translated into average prize purses of around $2,000 (USD) for each participant. While it doesn’t sound like much, it’s about $2,000 more than most fighters earn at any other underground event. Taking into account how far that kind of money can take you in Brazil, and you’ll find that these promoters did more for the combatants than what some ‘legitimate’ organizations do for their fighters today. You could spend weeks going through all their underground fights on Youtube, pinning grapplers against strikers and men against women. Eventually Rio Heroes was raided by the police and the people responsible for promoting it were slapped with minor charges of aiding illegal gambling. Along with a small fine, they basically got away with running the most famous underground fight organization ever. Well worthy of the number one spot on our list.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bcBghl21IKE
