15 Worst Names for MMA Events

The titles of MMA events have become incredibly generic of late, encompassing little detail beyond the name of the promotion putting on the fights.

Bellator sticks with their name and Roman numerals; the UFC uses event numbers and the names of its main event fighters (UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort, or UFC on Fuel TV: Struve vs. Miocic); while Strikeforce, as Zuffa's other promotion, has followed suit.

Such blandness really makes you long for the good old days when events had super cool names like "UFC 109: Relentless," and "Pride 13: Collision Course."

Alright, maybe it doesn't.

Though today's event names are not all that enthralling, they still reign superior over many past attempts at cleverness that were quite simply horrendous

The following is a list of 15 events that received titles which completely missed the mark.

UFC 3: The American Dream

Though the American Dream is something supposedly fought for and not given, naming the third UFC event after the concept is a great example of missing the point.

Sure, the Octagon provides an arena in which the merit of individuals ideally determines the outcome of competition, but isn't the American dream more ambitious than fighting three times in a night for the chance to win $60 000?

Also, because tournament winner Steve Jennum entered as a finals replacement (he only fought once) and his opponent Harold Howard already had two fights under his belt that night the whole idea of merit sort of went out the window.

Perhaps the event was somewhat revealing of the mythology behind the concept of the greater American dream, but that makes the title more ironic than appropriate. 

A definite swing and a miss.

UFC: The Ultimate Ultimate

Poking holes in this title is just way too easy. So instead of spending the remainder of this slide criticizing the event name I will provide possible alternatives that would have made for better titles.

• UFC: Eight Man Fight Tournament
• UFC: Cage Fight Fight
• UFC: Ultimate Final 
• UFC: Ultimate Penultimate Ultimate
• UFC: Double Ultimate
• UFC: Untitled

My personal preference is the last option.

UFC 22: Only One Can Be Champion

What this title meant specifically was that only one fighter from the one main event of this one card can be the one champion of one weight class (assuming no interim title is introduced) of this particular organization.

That must have been what it meant because Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver, Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock all fought on the card, so surely there can be more than one champion.

Even if we forgive the idiocy of the title and concede it makes reference to the main event in isolation, we are left with nothing more than a statement akin to 'only one fighter can win this fight.'

Thanks guys.

UFC 37.5: As Real as It Gets

The previously-mentioned "UFC: Ultimate Ultimate" is sometimes remembered as UFC 7.5, but this event is first one to have a decimal point officially in the title.

One has to wonder if the text accompanying the numeration is an overcompensation; the promotion must have been feeling insecure about the decimal giving the event a bit of a phony feel, so they made sure that fans knew it was, in fact, real. 

As real as it gets, to be exact.

Or maybe they meant things were about to get real because it was the first time Joe Rogan took to a microphone.

UFC 43: Meltdown

Like a nuclear power plant meltdown? Why would anyone want to watch that on television, much less attend?

Like an emotional meltdown? Nothing says 'macho' like two strapping hulks entering a caged area, then weeping about girl-troubles and being stressed at work.

No matter how I turn this one over in my mind I just don't see how this name is appropriate for any event, much less a UFC card. Unless 'meltdown' is slang for something like 'tough' or 'cool,' and I just don't know about it.

'Man, that pizza was total meltdown!'

'Yeah, I love Anderson Silva, he's a total meltdown!'

'Tonight's going to be a meltdown, bro!'

Am I getting closer?

UFC 59: Reality Check

So wait, UFC 37.5 is 'as real as it gets,' but an event with a whole number needs a reality check? That seems a bit bizarre.

But even so, 'Reality Check' did prove to be somewhat prophetic for main event fighter Andrei Arlovski, who was knocked out by combatant Tim Sylvia. 

If Arlovski thought he'd be able to take anything harder than a jab for the rest of his career he most definitely received a rude awakening that night.

To be fair, Arlovski found some success after that match, but it was definitely the beginning of the end for him.

UFC 76: Knockout

An appropriate name for a UFC card, if unoriginal; but the title wrote a check the event just couldn't cash.

You see, UFC 76 featured a whopping zero stoppages of the (T)KO variety. That's kind of like the movie The Wrestler not having any wrestlers in it.

If given the opportunity the UFC would probably want to posthumously rename this card, but since that isn't possible, the title will remain the sport of MMA's legendary homage to irony.

Furthering the canivalesque nature of the event, Chuck Liddell lost to Keith Jardine and Mauricio Rua to Forrest Griffin—not ironies by definition, but definite inversions of general expectation.

Strikeforce: Playboy Mansion

After UFC 76, the UFC went on naming events for a little while, but nothing too atrocious came out of it, which means we can now turn our attention to other promotions.

Beginning with Strikeforce, how about 'Playboy Mansion?'

Including the location of the event in a card's title is not all that novel, but when that place happens to be where girls wearing rabbit ears skinny dip, the entire fighting aspect of the night gets lost in translation.

Let's face it, the whole thing is pretty shameless. The event could have just been called 'Strikeforce: Naked Women.' I mean, who wouldn't watch that?

For subsequent trips to Hugh Hefner's place, the promotion went with the more obscure title of 'At the Mansion,' which relied on people tuning in for the fights rather than for the small chance of seeing some brief nudity in the background of the broadcast.

Strikeforce: Four Men Enter, One Man Survives

Contrary to the title of this card, which featured a four-man middleweight tournament, the event did not have three in-cage fatalities. In fact, there wasn't even one.

A more appropriate title for this event would have been 'Four Men Enter, One Wins.' Alternatively, 'Four Men Enter, Four Men Survive' would have worked equally well.

The name of this event signifies a gargantuan misstep in basic logic, which should probably have been noticed and rectified before the posters and promos were shipped out.

Pride 25: Body Blow

Prider FC didn't always title their events, and they didn't always hit the mark when they did. Case in point: "Body Blow."

Now, to be fair, "Body Blow" was the English tag for the event, so it may have seemed a little less ridiculous in Japanese.

Maybe. 

Let's hope so, because this event essentially reads as Pride 25: Punch to the Stomach. 

For the most part, Pride did better with event names, but this one definitely warrants a place on this list.

Dream 12: Cage of Dreams

This event marked the first time the Dream promotion used a cage instead of ropes for their ring. It also marked the first time their ring was shaped as a hexagon rather than a square.

Between the novelty of the cage and the promotion's own name, where the title came from is not difficult to figure out.

What is difficult to figure out, however, is why they used a pun for the event title in spite of how blatantly corny it sounds.

I mean, that's just forcing it.

ONE Fighting Championship: Rise of Kings

Over the course of its brief history as an MMA promotion, ONE FC has invariably gone for epic event names. "Destiny of Warriors," "War of the Lions" and "Battle of Heroes" are but a few examples.

There is something of a ringing audio semblance to The Lord of the Rings speak, but even as a fan of the books I don't find this makes for a very good MMA event title.

On the bright side, at least they didn't go directly for it, and just name it 'Return of the King.' That would have just been ridiculous. 

EliteXC: Return of the King

June 14, 2008: the day J.R.R. Tolkien rolled over in his grave. 

That's because the creative minds over at EliteXC figured they'd get in on the popularity the author's epic fantasy tales were enjoying as a result of their adaption to film.

First of all, shameless. Secondly, unoriginal. Thirdly, K.J. Noons was the king of the card, so you know it was pretty forced.

As a general rule of thumb, the only time a classic novel title should be pillaged for the purpose of naming an MMA card is if the event takes place deep underwater. Then it can be called 'EliteXC: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.' 

I'm sure Jules Verne would be ok with that.

EliteXC: Street Certified

A card with a main event featuring Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbott doesn't deserve a particularly whimsical title, but EliteXC's choice really plays up the street brawler angle, a business direction that contributed to the promotion's collapse in 2008.

Basically, the event's name was appropriate for what it was all about, but what it was all about was the problem to begin with. 

We later found out that 'street certified' counted for little when posed against a run-of-the-mill fighter that had spent some time in a gym, training technique. 

WEC 17: Halloween Fury 4

Sure, it's very scary, but is it really a good enough name to use four times, let alone once?

I vote 'no.' 

The folks working at the WEC brain-center back in 2005 disagreed. It is truly a good thing that the WEC was purchased by Zuffa and absorbed into the UFC.

The title incites visions of ghouls, flaming jack o'lanterns and bags of candy, not MMA. 'Halloween F(r)ight Night' would have been way better, no?