It seems like the entire MMA world is filled with a potpourri of The Pitbulls, The Beasts, Hands of [insert variation here] and Assassins. Whenever someone like Wanderlei ‘The Axe Murderer’ Silva comes around, the only thing you can do is stand-up and applaud for originality. There’s always the occasional hit and miss but if a fighter chooses to think outside the box, they definitely get an ‘A’ for effort (and for using the phrase ‘think outside the box’, I get a ‘C’ for cliche). After many weeks of culling through the hundreds of MMA fighters with awkward nicknames, we’ve finally found 10 fighters who truly have the best nicknames you’ve never heard of. Theoretically, The Last Emperor and Vladimir ‘The Janitor’ Matyshenko should be on this list but they’re huge. Everyone knows them. This list is reserved for those fighters that get absolutely no play in the MMA world.
Check out ‘The Top Ten Nicknames You’ve Never Heard’ only on MiddleEasy.com – Because MMA is Everything. 
If you’re not from Las Vegas, Nevada then you’ve probably never heard of Ulysses “Useless” Gomez…unless your name is Fernado Vargas. Apparently after UFC 71, Useless drunkenly goes up to Tito Ortiz’s entourage and slugs one of the guys directly in the face. The guy on the other end of Gomez’s fist was two-time world champion boxer, Fernando Vargas. Don’t take my word for it, here’s an account of a guy that saw the scenario pan out.
Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, the fighters in town for UFC 71 – Liddell vs. Jackson switched their focus from the battles to the bottles and gathered in a hotel bar. Chief among those killing brain cells was pankration fighter Ulysses “Useless” Gomez, who’d been keeping a steady pace since the night before. Shaking hands and buying drinks, he stumbled from table to table like the orangutan from the classic Clint Eastwood movie “Every Which Way But Loose”. Bottle after bottle, his mustache was never dry.
I’m not sure why, but one of the Mexican boxers in Tito Ortiz’s entourage, refused to shake his hand. Useless did not react well, hit him, and hit him hard. Moments later, hotel security was dragging him away, shirtless and howling. A person nearby asked if there was a camera crew around filming a reality show. It turns out this Mexican boxer laid out cold on the floor was none other than former two-time world champion Fernando Vargas.
After the party had settled down, I decided to hit the sack and headed up to my room. The last thing I expected when the elevator doors opened on my floor was to find myself face-to-face with a shirtless, weeping Ulysses Gomez. Nevertheless, there I was and there was he, the fighter who had just knocked out Fernando Vargas with a quickness, Ulysses Gomez, shirtless and weeping.
I can’t say for certain what my facial expression told him that night, but I can tell you this: He didn’t like it.
“F*ck you! You motherf*cker!” he shouted.
The “fight or flight” instinct kicked in.
I chose flight.
Thankfully, two of Useless’ handlers David Bollea and Simpson Go were there to restrain him. Seizing my opportunity to escape, I headed for my room, speed walking with the panicked intensity of a frightened ostrich. Fumbling madly for the hotel room key-card, images floated through my mind of a scrambling fight to the finish with a weeping, tequila-breathed pankration fighter. Seconds later, I was safely behind a locked door, peering out through the peephole like a cornered rat in a hole. Useless was in the hallway. I wondered if the door was strong enough.
As an extra precaution I took the liberty of calling the front desk. “Ulysses Gomez chased me into my room,” I said. “You might want to send someone up here.”
“We know,” the voice replied, sounding exasperated. “We’ve gotten three calls already about it. Security is on the way.”
Still in disbelief? Check out what Tito Ortiz had to say about that ‘useless’ night.
“Ulysses “Useless” Gomez knocked him out. Fernando Vargas came after Useless. It was something that should’ve never happened; it was a scuffle outside of a nightclub. A friend of Vargas’ jumped on my back goofing around, who is actually a real nice guy, we get along. So he was just goofing around, jumped on my back and acted like he was choking me from behind and one of my fighters, Tiki Ghosn, thought that he was actually attacking me and put him in a choke from behind and ripped him off my back. Well, I turned around and saw who it was, I told my fighter, “No, let him go” and right when my fighter let him go, he (Vargas’ friend) turned around and asked my fighter (Ghosn) “What the hell are you doing?” And then one of the guys from Cobra Kai (Simpson Go), who is a friend of Useless, thought that the guy was actually causing problems and punched him and knocked him out. Then a big brawl started out of it; it was complete confusion. When the brawl started, Vargas took off his jacket and went after Useless, which, you know, he was just trying to defend his friend, and threw a punch at Useless and missed and then Useless hit him with a combo and knocked him out. He kicked him a couple of times, and I pushed Useless away from him to stop the fight and Tiki Ghosn helped Vargas up to his feet. In a nutshell, Useless lit Vargas up like a Christmas tree, and kicked his head like a football.”
Despite having a record of only 4-1, dude has definitely made his mark on the MMA world…and Fernado Vargas’ skull.
There’s a lot of cool things with ‘Golden’ in the name (and Lyoto Machida knows one of them). The Golden Girls has definitely rocked my DVD player for the past two months as well as The Golden Child. The only thing I remember about that movie was that Pepsi can dancing on the floor and something about blood in oatmeal. The late 80s was a pretty good time for anything ‘golden’ so maybe Gabe “The Golden Gremlin” Holmes is just a guy that needs to get his hands on a flux capacitor. The Golden Gremlin has a record of 4-7 and is a member of a MMA camp based out of Indiana called Damage Incorporated. Check out The Golden Gremlin’s most recent fight in the cage, he’s the guy in black shorts.
Joe Charles (or Mr. ‘The Ghetto Man’) is actually a pioneer of the sport. Dude made his debut at UFC 4 and grabbed a 14 second arm-bar submission over Kevin Rosier. UFC execs thought The Ghetto Man was the next big thing so a few months later, they threw him in the cage with an unstoppable stud at the time: Dan Severn. Severn eventually caught The Ghetto Man in a rear naked choke, ending his one-fight win streak (bummer). With a name like The Ghetto Man, you would expect Charles to grab victories by way of broken bottles and brass knuckles. Dude was judo practitioner with 5 of his 6 wins coming by way of submission. His most notable fight was against Vitor Belfort at UFC Japan back in 1997. When asked about his six-year career in MMA, The Ghetto Man said:
“Let’s say my experience was some days like hell, but a great experience that helps me understand who I am and take life to the next level in every positive way I can. As a kid, I grew up watching Bruce Lee and wanted to be that Martial Artist, striving to be the best that one can be.”
The Ghetto Man is now the CEO of GI Joe Boot Camp and teaches something he’s coined as ‘Bone on Bone Power‘ to a legion of followers in Southern California. He also puts on a ‘Pier To Pier Run’ together 4 times a year for the community. The Ghetto Man, giving back to the community daily.
Not much is known about Ali ‘Iraqi Samurai’ Ileiwi aside from the fact that with a name like ‘Iraqi Samurai’, he’s probably the most uncomfortable airplane buddy to sit by in a 9 hour flight. Iraqi Samurai hails from Texas and rocks a record of 0-1 with his only fight coming in Austin, Texas at King of Kombat back on November 22nd 2008. Dude apparently has a pretty large following on Yahoo! Answers, check out bossmac7 throwing her best Iraqi Samurai question out there and it warranting not one, but two responses. Solid.
First off, yes there are zombies in this world and yes Korea has an ample amount of them. In 2008, Korea released its first zombie flicked entitled GP506 and it will probably grab your favorite zombie film by the neck, slap it around a bit and steal it’s wallet. I’m not sure if the movie was inspired Chan Sung “The Korean Zombie” Jung, but if it was…cut the dude a royalty check. If you follow Sengoku, then you’ve probably heard of The Korean Zombie. He’s one of Korea’s top MMA prospects sporting an impressive record of 10-1, with his only loss coming from Kanehara at Sengoku 9 (who rocks the appropriately assigned nickname, ‘The Japanese Steve Urkel‘). The Korean Zombie was a cast member on a show called ‘Street Fighter’ that aired exclusively on Korean television. The Korea Zombie’s most notable win comes from Carebear/Manny Pacquiao hybrid: Omigawa at Gladiator II which I will provide for you free of charge (Merry early Christmas to you).
Oriol “Cookie Monster” Gaset. See what he did there? The Oriol with the Oreo and the Cookie Monster in there. That’s clever stuff. My nickname growing up was a kitchen appliance. A kitchen appliance that I will never reveal (unless you catch me drunk in some bar off of Sunset Avenue). Oriol Gaset must have had a rough childhood, I can only imagine the kids on the playground teasing him with boxes of double stuffed Oreos and Teddy Grahams. “That guy has a name that implies he likes cookies, lets tease him with something that we assume he likes but we like also”. That’s how kids talked in 4th grade…like Mitch Hedberg. Oriol Gaset hails from Barcelona, Spain so maybe kids didn’t tease him with cookies and instead, elect to drink cups of Sangaria and talk about how they almost scored the winning touch-down in their high-school homecoming game and then make you go to the convenience store for a pack of cigarettes (at least that’s what my Uncle does every year around this time).
If you sympathize with Oriol “Cookie Monster” Gaset and his extreme longing for cookies, you can stalk him on his Myspace page as well as his personal website. It’s all in Spanish so you better have your Rosetta Stone ready.
This is a weird one. In Japanese, Chomolangma’s mean nothing and it’s safe to assume that Chomolangma 1/2 means half of nothing. However, Chomolungma is Tibetan for the highest mountain on earth (also know as Mount Everset to us funky English speaking people). However, Makoto Maeda intentionally misspelled the mountain’s name as to not anger any mountain gods/spirits. He also chose to only be recognized as ‘half’ of the misspelled mountain as another attempt not to piss off any invisible forces. Chomolangma 1/2 has a record of 3-2-1 with all of his bouts occurring in Shooto.
Check out Mr. half-of-misspelled-mountain score a 34 second knockout in Shooto against Takaaki Oban on New Years Eve 2008 (and do his nutty ‘mountain dance’ afterward)
All of Jeff “Scary Nickname” Nader’s MMA bouts took place in something known as Reality Fighting. If you visit the organization’s website and click “Reality Fighting Rules” there is a button that says ‘ADD RULES HERE’. Damn, that’s when you know you’re fighting in some hardcore unregulated stuff. When the commissioner of the organization you’re fighting under owns and operates the biggest MMA message board in history, you know you’re in for some post-fight calamities.
Jeffy “Scary Nickname” Nader has a record of 2-2 with his most recent fight occurring November 7th 2009. There’s not much to say about Jeff Nader, I never met the guy but he’s a young guy and seems to have one of the best nicknames in MMA. That’s it. That’s all I can really say. He probably posts on the UG under an alias that is less of a scary name that his MMA nickname. Check out Jeff Nader’s first fight in the cage against Brian Kononchik.
Dominic “Mr. International Playa With a Passport” has a record of 9-4 with half off those losses coming in 2009. Despite being called “Mr. International Playa With a Passport”, Ahnee has only been able to utilize his passport once in Rage in the Ring 10 in Alberta, Canada (dude scored a 1st round knockout). Mr. International Playa With a Passport has fought in ten promotions in his four year career with most of those taking place in Hawaii. Mr. International Playa With a Passport is boys with BJ Penn and Scott Junk. I’m not sure what they do out there on the island, probably compare each others passport and see who has the most ballerish stamps. If you’re a fan of Tupac’s ‘How do you want it?’ then you probably understand where Ahnee got his moniker from (and if you’re not, you probably just think he’s a complete nutcase).
Since I couldn’t find any clips of Mr. International Playa With a Passport, here’s a video of Tupac’s hip-hop anthem ‘How do you want it?’. Go to the 0:49 mark for the payoff.
With a name like “The Math Librarian” you would think Mike Martelle could find the square root of an integer and then categorize it in the Dewey decimal system. Jokes on you, The Math Librarian is raw. Really raw. He has a record of 7-2, has competed six times in 2009 and has not lost a single bout since 2008. His last fight was in some ominous promotion called Draka – Governor’s Cup 2009 held in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. Before his stint in Russia, The Math Librarian fought four consecutive times in the Bahamas and even brawled in Montego Bay, Jamaica this past May. Martelle has also fought in Alaska, Tokyo and even friggin Tijuana, Mexico. And the kicker…the dude’s Canadian. Sorry Dominic Ahnee, but Martelle is the authentic Mr. International Math Librarian With a Passport.
The Math Librarian trains out his own camp which he’s named Grizzly Gym. He teaches a variety of methods to inhibit one’s consciousness including…
On November 14, 10 year old Daniel Leakey passed the Level 1 test of Northern Shaolin Kung Fu, earning the Green Sash! Daniel, a former Kingston This Week Athlete of the Week and the October 2008 Athlete of the Month, is the first Grizzly Cub to reach this pinnacle. Congratulations, Daniel! Good job!
Shaolin Kung-Fu! Where the hell was my nearest Shaolin Kung-Fu training facility when my parents forced me into Karate back in elementary school? Reading that just makes me realize how much my childhood blew. My youth consisted of me cautiously looking around every corner for some stranger offering me candy. Dammit. If I had Shaolin Kung-Fu I could have friggin…dubbed my own voice or something equally as cool.
