Issue 044
December 2008
With the incredible growth of MMA there seems to be a seemingly never-ending supply of fighters, plenty of whom look more or less the same – young men with very short hair and at least one aesthetically questionable tattoo. This may be confusing for casual fans, so it’s often the easily distinguishable fighters that stick in the mind – men like Chuck Liddell with his iconic Mohawk, or Clay Guida’s ‘wildman of the woods’ hairdo. Some fighters take an altogether different route to stand out from the crowd and this month we salute them and their heroic beards.
01 Tank Abbott
A mediocre fighter with heavy hands but plenty of star power, Tank’s other trademarks are his bulging beer belly and his ever-present goatee beard – the original, and still among the best facial furs in the sport. Normally a goatee would be the neatest of the beards on our list but Abbott’s, like its owner, is a wild one. When Tank burst onto the scene in the mid 1990s, the beard was relatively tame, but as he’s aged the beard has grown steadily greyer and more unruly, to the point it now looks like a spiky, densely packed bushel sticking directly out from his chin.
02 Kimbo Slice
Earlier this year the monstrous Slice brutally took Abbott’s mantle as MMA’s baddest beardiest brawler. Younger, faster and better, even his beard, luxuriant and impressive like that of a storybook pirate, outclassed Tank’s. Covering the lower half of his face like a huge black stubbornly-overgrown hedge, it runs round to the back of his head, linking up with his hair and leaving his shiny bald dome as one of the few areas of Kimbo’s face not protected by thick layers of fur.
03 Andrei Arlovski
There was a time when former UFC heavyweight champion Arlovski was among the hairiest men in MMA. From the full beard and coarse hair on his back to the ‘70s style chest-rug, the Chicago-based Belorussian looked as if an archaeologist had discovered him frozen in a glacier, brought him back to life and taught him how to fight. Sadly, Andrei discovered metrosexuality (according to at least one Vegas insider, he takes longer to get ready for after parties than his girlfriend) and suddenly the beard became a little neater and the back and chest were ruthlessly waxed. At least we still have that beard to sit and marvel at.
04 Evan Tanner
The late Evan Tanner was just as restless with his appearance as with many other aspects of his life. For a while it was a baffling array of hairstyles including a skinhead, cornrows and, most hilariously, long hair tied up in a fetching topknot more usually seen on very young girls. But when Tanner made his UFC comeback to fight Yushin Okami, after some 18 months out (some of it spent literally in the wilderness) he’d grown a truly magnificent beard that made him look like the world’s hardest hobo.
05 Josh Souder
The least famous of the beards on our list, 27-year-old lightweight Souder burst onto the scene with a 47 second destruction of opponent Zac George on an IFL show in May. But more impressive than Souder’s performance was his superb beard. Proudly sporting an ‘upside down head’ with a closely shaven skull and a big, black, woolly beard, Souder made his national TV debut while in the middle of a beard-growing contest with some friends. The grand prize? The princely sum of $300. For a beard that inspiring, Souder more than earned every last cent.
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