Can Mark Hunt's Long, Strange Trip End with Him Among UFC's Best Ever Big Men?

Mark Hunt isn’t even supposed to be here right now.

Among the many amazing things about his latest walk-off knockout win on Saturday at UFC Fight Night 85, the most astonishing is that once upon a time the UFC offered Hunt almost half a million dollars to stay home.

That was back in 2005, when the fight company was sifting through exactly what it had bought along with the wreckage of Pride Fighting Championships. Hunt’s contract was in among the rubble of the once great Japanese organization, but UFC brass weren’t overly interested in bringing him to America.

According to a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph’s Nick Walshaw and Nick Campton, UFC President Dana White called Hunt and offered to buy out the remainder of his Pride deal for $400,000 (NSFW language).

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“So we thought 300 grand was enough to make him go away...," White said. "He told me something like, 'No way, f--- that s---. I love fighting, it’s who I am.'"

Even with the benefit of hindsight, you can see White’s logic.

At the time, Hunt was mired in a five-fight losing streak, albeit against some of the biggest names in Pride’s legendary heavyweight division. When the UFC begrudgingly brought the heavy-handed striker in for what it assumed would be a brief stay, he lost again—this time to unheralded big man Sean McCorkle—in one minute, three seconds.

Exactly how Hunt got from there to here is not completely clear, but fortune has certainly treated The Super Samoan better ever since.

Hunt—who in 2001, won the K1 World Grand Prix to establish himself as perhaps the best heavyweight kickboxer on earth—explains his decision to turn down White’s lump-sum offer:

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“Fighting for me is not about money anymore,” he said, via MMA Junkie's Brent Brookhouse and John Morgan. "I started because I was a broke-ass fool, but this isn't about the money now. It's about achieving my goals and dreams and trying to be the best fighter on the planet again in a different sport.”

Since that armbar loss to McCorkle at UFC 119, Hunt has gone a respectable 7-3-1, scoring six knockouts and winning six of the fight company’s performance-based fight-night bonuses.

In November 2014 he fought on short notice for the interim heavyweight championship and was affording himself surprisingly well before Fabricio Werdum knocked him out with a flying knee in the second round.

Hunt hasn’t been perfect—he’s still just 12-10-1 overall in MMA—but he has feasted on mid-level competition in a rapidly aging division, where legitimate up-and-comers are few and far between.

Meanwhile, his defeats have come against the best—losing to former champ Junior Dos Santos and No. 1 contender Stipe Miocic, in addition to Werdum.

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He has also established himself as an unexpected fan favorite and a reasonably marketable commodity for the UFC. Five of his last six fights have been main events, and during his run to a title shot, fans even created a social media hashtag to nudge the process along: #RallyForMarkHunt.

All told, it makes Hunt perhaps the strangest, most improbable figure in MMA’s strangest, most improbable weight class.

The heavyweight division has long been so chaotic and unstable that it’s frequently hard to put anything there in proper historical perspective. There is no single “greatest UFC heavyweight of all time” simply because no man has managed to sustain a run of success long enough to make the title fit. There is no greatest champion and no significant tradition beyond disarray.

But Hunt's late career resurgence at least raises the question of where he should be considered within that muddled history—and that alone is better than we ever could’ve hoped for him.

At first, we mistook him for a complete washout. His diminutive stature for a heavyweight (5’10”) and rotund physique (265 lbs) make it easy to underestimate him. His one-dimensional fighting style—hit hard, ask questions later—is easy to dismiss as a product of bygone days.

But as Hunt showed, once again, in the cage against Frank Mir on Saturday, he has at least made the proper technical strides to find success against fighters that might be considered his peers.

His takedown defense has gotten just good enough to keep guys like Mir, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Roy Nelson from taking him down. And when you can’t take Hunt down—or at least outmaneuver him on the feet—you’re in trouble.

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Simply put, his fighting style may age better than most. He has never been particularly mobile. He has never relied on explosiveness or superior athleticism. He just tracks men down with his plodding pressure, accepts their best punches, and eventually, knocks them out with one of his.

It’s not overly complicated, but it sure is impressive to watch—it has provided him surprising longevity.

Hunt turns 42 on Wednesday, and it’s not impossible to imagine him continuing his current brand of success for another few years.

That power won’t fade anytime soon, and so long as his granite chin doesn’t crumble, his style figures to remain viable in a heavyweight division where most competitors are about his age and many are equally flawed.

He’s not liable to win the heavyweight title—though, in this division, nothing is impossible—but another handful of years at his current pace might land Hunt a fairly surprising legacy.

He’s already out-earned the original offer White made to him just to go away. In a division where almost everyone winds up with an imperfect resume, his UFC run might end up looking pretty good once it's all said and done.

We already know he'll go down as one of the most interesting heavyweights ever to fight in the Octagon.

At one point, it looked like Hunt was in danger of being remembered only as a punchline. Now, the UFC Hall of Fame might not be out of the question.

That wouldn’t be a bad end for a guy the UFC didn’t even want in the first place.