Fedor Emelianenko, Josh Barnett and the Pudgiest Fighters in MMA Today

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"I don't think you're ready for this BJJelly"

This title purports to enumerate and discuss the pudgiest (or “chubbiest” as we say this side of the pond) fighters in the current MMA landscape, possibly with a view to mildly poking fun at these lovable, yet portly combatants. And if you’ve chanced upon any of my previous “amusing musing” articles, this would certainly be in keeping with the generally light-hearted, jovial tone of my writing.

However, before I proceed to document the ten most renowned podgy mixed martial artistes currently plying their trade inside the cage, I must state in advance that I myself am not a “fattist”, the online dictionary definition being “discrimination on the basis of weight, esp prejudice against those considered to be overweight.”

Indeed, as I simultaneously type and munch on last night’s Chinese takeaway leftovers, it would prove the height of hypocrisy for me to ridicule the weight of those that risk life and limb in the cage, for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect.

It would also prove disingenuous to withhold the fact that I myself am walking around several pounds/kilos/stones above my fighting weight, depending on which weight scale index you consult. In fact, I’m a middleweight walking around as a heavyweight. I’m Mike Bisping walking around as Mike Russow. Oh well, at least I’ve managed to retain my northern English twang.

My Own Rotundness Aside, Let’s Discuss the Other Chunky Heroes: The Fighters

Fitch Food Vlogs, even Jon recommends them as a cure for insomnia.

So why do we, the general sports-obsessed public, love a slightly obese sportsman? What is it specifically that so ingratiates us to a bloated belly over a bulging bicep? Well, it’s simple really.

The concept of the “flabby fighter” is oxymoronic, with rippling rolls and chubby cheeks starkly contrasting with the level of health presupposed by one of the world’s most grueling professional sports. These fighters subvert the conventional notion of the superhuman sportsman and consequently they more closely mirror us mere mortals, serving as a reminder to the everyday person within our superficial society that he/she too can strive for excellence. They seem decidedly more human to us and not just untouchable demigods that belong to that elusive, superhuman cohort known as “the athlete.”

We can empathise with their plight and associate more readily with their dietary patterns. The likelihood is that the majority of us would prefer to shoot the breeze with Roy “Big Country” Nelson over a flame-grilled Whopper than to share an awkward conversation with Jon Fitch over a quinoa salad (oh really Jon, quinoa is a South American grain?).

Other Fighters Have Quickly Learned Not to Be Beguiled by Their Fleshy Exterior

"You better give me my other two ice-cream cones back after the photo is taken"

Indeed, take these buffet-abusers lightly at your peril. They adhere to that time-honoured adage that “appearances can be deceptive”. Whilst it may appear that certain fighters spend more time refuelling at the gym than actually exerting themselves, beware that the chubby surface often belies a devastating MMA skill-set. It isn’t all cheese curls over bicep curls, chicken dips over tricep dips, pressed meats over bench press, and milkshakes over protein shakes.

And who am I to cast aspersions as to whether these fighters are salad-dodgers or carb-fiends? They are often still men that train at a rate we cannot comprehend, hours of intensive, gruelling workouts on a daily basis which signify that behind the podge is a vortex of lean muscle waiting to be let loose on an unsuspecting victim. 

At that moment when the fighters approach the cage and disrobe to reveal their frames, I think it’s safe to presume that 95% of MMA laymen would tend to back the picture of physical perfection over the man with the moobs. It’s pure intuition to believe in the man with the quintessential athletic figure. But whilst the lean, mean fighting machine may have duped us in the past, us seasoned MMA aficionados know better than to always judge a book by its cover, as you might judge a cook by his blubber. 

Heavyweight Fighters Tend to Dominate "Pudgy" Lists

The chubbier guys are generally tucked away on the back row

The dearth of the lighter weight class fighters probably comes as no surprise and is rather self-explanatory, but it’s still worthy of note. Indeed, Roy Nelson’s body fat percentage likely eclipses the cumulative body fat percentage of the entire Lightweight division, in which you would be hard-pushed to pinpoint a fighter who exceeds the dreaded double figures. Not only are the frames more diminutive but the weight brackets are also considerably tighter, with a 15-pound discrepancy within all other weight classes apart from heavyweight. At a whopping 60 pounds, the latitude afforded to heavyweights is fourfold, so naturally this manifests itself in the waistlines.

There are certain fighters notorious for their dramatic weight-fluctuations in-between fights, though such fighters (including the likes of Rampage Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Anthony Johnson, Matt Serra) all appear to make the required effort to appear shredded when it’s game-time, and seemingly compete in their lowest feasible weight-class. Hence, when we discuss the pudgiest MMA fighters, we must make the distinction between how fighters walk around outside the cage and how they step into it come fight-night.

And it has become commonplace within MMA for fighters to drop a weight division in an attempt to become a more physically-imposing fighter. Granted, short of removing limbs, certain HW fighters are not genetically predisposed to dropping a weight class, but the same cannot be argued for all of the fighters comprised in the following list, with Dana White perennially contesting that “Big Country” could be a LHW, and many asserting that LHW is also the natural fighting weight of the “Last Emperor”.

10. Michael Bisping (at Light Heavyweight)

"Did you just ask whether striking is my 'bread and butter'?"

The ever-popular Michael, my Northern English compatriot, first graced our screens on TUF 3 as a slightly chubby light heavyweight prospect. Hailing from the vicinity of my beloved Manchester, it’s easy to understand his excess pounds, and reluctance to immediately make the cut to middleweight.

Manchester is infamous for its grim weather and fatty foods, and a lot of Northerners tend to carb-load on stodgy meals during the winter months to help us survive those lonely, cold nights. It is no coincidence that Michael has relocated with his family to Australia, where chucking low-fat shrimps on the barbie is more conducive to his newfound weight class.

9. Mike Russow

"Keep that thing away from me"

From Michael Bisping to Mike Russow. That pretty much sums me up. Mike Russow is another guy that, like Fedor, has an amiable face. And like Fedor, he has a very impressive record, having only dropped one fight to Sergei Kharitonov during his MMA career hitherto. I’m conjecturing that his eight-year hiatus from the game between 1998-2006 partially accounts for his less streamline silhouette, but if he overcomes the eccentric Dave Herman at UFC 136, he arguably catapults himself into the division’s top 15.

8. Christian Morecraft

The tattoo guy assured me that more flab=less pain

If you are carrying a little extra baggage around the mid-section, you’d probably opt against tattooing your surname across it, with the rationale that it might draw unwanted attention to the area. But Christian Morecraft is evidently not self-conscious about his figure, and fair play to him.

7. Diego Sanchez (at Welterweight)

That's a clear 7.5 on the Wobble Scale

The amazing quirk of Diego’s body-type is that whilst he looks emaciated at Lightweight, his latest 15lb-leap to Welterweight doesn’t appear to have evenly distributed itself. Indeed, a stone’s worth of fat seems to have accumulated exclusively around Sanchez’s mid-riff, which certainly does nothing to complement his figure. This erroneously conveys the impression that Diego has made the jump through a scientific regime of Big Macs and double-cheese pizzas, when in fact it may be attributed to his body clinging onto, and storing any ounce of fat of which he has deprived it whilst competing at lightweight.

In fact, in terms of his body-shape, it’s almost as if Diego has come full circle, with the reacquisition of the puppy fat which he initially carried around when we first saw him as a fresh-faced 23-year old on TUF way back in 2005. Maybe, like Samson with his luscious locks, Diego felt that he had lost some of his X-factor when he shed the paunch, and so maybe the newfound flab is a counterintuitive endeavour to regain some of his earlier Mojo. Let’s just hope the early trademark shaggy hair and unkempt goatee aren’t resurrected simultaneously.

A side thought re Diego- If an acronym for “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” is TAFKAP, could the same be applied to Sanchez to produce;

“The Fighter Formerly Known As Nightmare” TFFKAN

6. BJ Penn (at Welterweight)

Baby J's belly-button in its smiley phase

Given they are such a rarity, the chubbier guys in the smaller weight classes tend to prove even more distinctive, as opposed to the heavyweights wherein half the UFC roster resemble Vegas buffet-whores.

BJ finds himself in a similar predicament to Diego Sanchez, treading that fine line between “too heavy for lightweight” and “too light for welterweight”. The creation of a light welterweight division would have perfectly suited these two fighters. However, the fact that both now consciously choose to operate at 170 intimates that they are too fond of their Hawaiian “loco moco” and New Mexico burritos respectively.

And you can always perceptibly discern when BJ is going loco on the “loco moco” because the gravitational pull southwards of the extra weight transforms his belly-button from being the perfect sphere (much like his bonce), to the perfect oval. If you were to envisage his nipples and belly button to be the eyes and mouth of a virtual emoticon character, then it’s like going from the “ooo” face to the smiley face.

5. Karo Parisyan

"Hey guys, be totally honest, does my belly look big in these shorts?"

Akin to Senyor Cote, Karo is another fighter ravaged by injury and whose body hasn’t facilitated a consistent and longstanding career in MMA. Karo’s story is even more saddening than Patrick’s though, in the sense that Patrick has seemingly remained on the straight and narrow, whereas Karo fell into the depths of despair through an addiction to painkillers, bouts of anxiety and superfluous expenditure beyond his means. In light of lengthy injury layoffs away from the sport, his lack of chiselled torso hardly comes as a surprise.

4. Patrick Cote

"Hurry up, I can't clench my stomach for much longer"

Given the inordinate amount of major knee surgeries this poor dude has had to endure, it’s no wonder that the man they call “The Predator” consumes too much prey whilst sedentary on the operating table, treatment room and side lines. It’s an inauspicious corollary of all professional sports, but injuries have certainly taken their weary toll on Patrick’s figure, though credit to the man for continuing to compete at a high level.

3. Josh Barnett

"I refuse to look at the scales"

Befitting of his rather extreme personality, we have witnessed Josh compete at varying degrees along the “pudgy” continuum. Uncannily, his increase in waistline seems directly proportional to his increase in years. It’s like watching a surreal episode of “Superskinny vs Supersize” in which the same man fits both categories. From lean, to toned, to muscled, to pudgy, Josh’s body has evolved in a similar way to Britney Spears as she bypassed her teenage years and fell of the proverbial rails.

We must thank for the Lord for small mercies however, since Josh has never subjected us to a rendition of “I love rock ‘n’ roll”, officially named the worst cover of all time. Whilst wearing a wig. Though he is such an extrovert that if you asked him nicely (or in fact even if you were blatantly rude), he would probably perform the Karaoke version for you.

2. Fedor Emelianenko

"Ever since I lose belt, I have to show belly"

Would Fedor Emelianenko be such a revered icon if he boasted a physique like Alistair Overeem? I deign to suggest he wouldn’t.

The reason we adulate Fedor is precisely because he reigned atop the world of MMA for nigh on a decade whilst never once coming close to boasting a visible abdominal muscle. In fact he has always been respectful, phlegmatic and downright docile to the point that he constantly appears satiated, or even sedated, by his last saturated-fat based meal. He’s too full, and contented, to engage in heated discussion with fellow inferior fighters, or to waste energy on peripheral platitudes such as smiling during an interview. He conserves energy, and keeps his mind firmly on his next helping of “Salo”. And why not? After all, "The Last Emperor" loves a good ol' fashioned banquet.

There are certain endearing associations we make with flabby fighters. One dictionary classifies chubby as “pleasantly or charmingly plump, especially in the way that healthy babies and toddlers often are”. So when we glance at Fedor, we see the puppy fat which he never quite managed to shed, and we are drawn to him. These fighters, savages in the cage, seem somehow more vulnerable, more non-threatening, more unassuming than the man with impossible abdominal definition. These are the fighters that are more likely to be appreciated by your mother or your grandmother than by your girlfriend or your sister. And the same principle pertains to the intermittently chubby Dana White.

So, horny girls may wanna touch GSP’s pecks, but broody mothers want to squeeze Fedor’s cheeks.

1. Roy "Big Country" Nelson

"That's enough to feed a 'big country'."

I may literally be stretching the term “pudgy” when applying it to Roy, who some opine to be outright obese, not least Dana White. Indeed, as I previously made the distinction between how fighters walk around outside the cage and how they step into it come fight night, similarly a distinction must be made between those fighters that enter the cage overweight. Some are chubby, whilst others are full-on, gung-ho, no-holds-barred, unmistakeably, unquestionably, unashamedly FAT.

Roy isn’t just overweight, he is obese, to be pigeonholed in the same category as Butterbean and Tank Abbott. I don’t think this is a major revelation, even to the fighters in question who would readily admit their substantial physical state.

How does one distinguish between chubby and fat, I hear you ask yourselves? Well, I think the key differentiator between the chubby guy and the three cited here would be the fact that the chubby fighter is still able to see his “family jewels” whilst showering without being impeded by his corpulent mid-section. Indeed, Big, Butter and Tank (the three operative words which best encapsulate these three characters) all boast incredibly stout bellies, the envy of the most devout beer-drinker.

Hence, I had to qualify my selection prior to positioning Roy at the summit of the pile. He’s “numero uno” because for me he is currently the mixed martial artist who instantaneously springs to mind when the concepts of “MMA” and “obesity” are mentioned within the same conversation. He may serve to inspire all-you-can-eat competitors or deter those that like to admire their pride and joy in the shower. Either way, it always gives me great pleasure to see Nelson fight in Vegas because I know it’s the one weekend that the MGM Grand isn’t making a profit on the buffet.

With it being such an amusing topic of conversation, I have discussed Roy's weight/figure at various other junctures during my B/R odyssey:

1. It was difficult not to be tickled by the sight of Roy Nelson standing over a Burger King logo, often rubbing furiously on his portly paunch having prevailed over yet another TUF 10 victim.

2. Dan Hardy has employed Roy as his Strength & Conditioning coach.

3. Dana stated that the fat thing “isn’t funny anymore,” so maybe it’s high time for Nelson to do away with this gimmick, if he has the inclination and capability to do so.

4. Roy Nelson is acutely cognizant of the media’s perceptions and criticisms of his dietary approach and consequently enters his place of combat accompanied by a self-deprecating “fat” tune.

(Not So) Honourable Mentions

"Chubsters, we salute you."

And I would be doing them a disservice if I neglected to mention all those other MMA chubsters that continue to make us non-athletes look, and feel, half decent:

Ben Rothwell

Joey Beltran

Rob Broughton

Aaron Rosa

Jon Madsen

Mark Hunt

Paul Buentello

Tim Sylvia

Old school Frank Mir

Anthony Perosh (at HW)

Mark Munoz (at LHW)

Fabio Maldonado (at LHW)

Jason Brillz

Mauricio Rua

Demian Maia

Travis Lutter