The 10 Biggest Knuckleheads in MMA History

When I began putting together this list of MMA's biggest knuckleheads, I started by trying to name as many stupid fighters as I could. That list quickly exceeded the necessary sample size.

Be more specific, then. What really comes to mind when you think of a knucklehead? Personally, I came to the conclusion that a knucklehead is someone who speaks or acts before thinking, in a pattern of behavior often (if not always) equally as detrimental to the knuckler as the knuckle-ee.

In other words, it's someone who not only does dumb stuff, but who should know better. So it's more than stupidity. It's stupidity with big, wet chunks of silliness in it.

Here are the 10 MMA fighters I think most fit that bill. Are there others? Yes, there likely are. 

Before You Even Ask...

No. Nick Diaz is not on this list.

(Photo credit: Sports Illustrated)

10. Rousimar Palhares

He even looks like a knuckle. Sorry. Just making an observation.

The current UFC's nastiest jiu-jitsu finisher is also its wackiest. If he's not holding on to a winning submission too long, Paul Harris is celebrating victory prematurely.

How about a nice, normal, on-time celebration, Paul Harris? Actually, how about never mind. I'm just gonna let myself out. 

9. Jesse Taylor

Essentially, a frat boy who had the dumbest night of his life caught on tape. (In case you forgot, here's a trip down memory lane.)

Stupid, but in all fairness, he's gone on to have a pretty rock-solid career.

8. Paul Daley

The Koscheck Late Hit is probably his crowning achievement in this field, but he's established a larger pattern of letting other parts of his body get ahead of his head.

7. Kimo Leopoldo

Carried life-size cross to ring, mentored Joe Son.

6. Josh Koscheck

One of the most enthusiastic, and least talented, trash talkers in the sport.

You might be a knucklehead if you can reasonably rank two spots higher on a list of knuckleheads than the guy who sucker-punched you.

5. Hermes Franca

The owner of perhaps the single biggest knucklehead moment in MMA history. Franca, known mainly for his fluffy purple hair, tested positive for steroids. Then he confessed. 

It's a knucklehead move, because his opponent that night, Sean Sherk, denied it the whole time.

Sherk's sentence was later reduced; Franca's wasn't. So he's a knucklehead because he didn't realize that honesty is punished in the drug testing system. See how that works?  

Oh, and he was also jailed for sexual abuse. 

4. Kalib Starnes

He spent a whole fight running away from Nate Quarry.

But then he got eight kinds of knucklehead when he later explained his actions by saying they didn't pay him enough to risk his health.

Oh, OK.

3. Junie Browning

Really enjoyed the recent sequel of Junie Browning Hangover. This one was set in Thailand. 

2. War Machine

Where do you begin with this guy? I don't know, but he's back in jail again. And his name is still War Machine.

(Photo credit: CBS 8)

1. Ken Shamrock

The man, the myth, the legend. A knucklehead to the living death.