Issue 047

March 2009

MMA seems to have a couple of fairly dominant haircuts. Mostly fighters opt for short, natural hair, or a shaven skull. Some wear theirs in a particular way as part of their image, attempting to stand out from the crowd. Think of Chuck Liddell’s iconic Mohawk, or Tito Ortiz’s bleached blonde hair as two prime examples. But there are other fighters out there whose hairstyles are even more recognisable or important to their image. Andrew Garvey picks out five of the best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) hairstyles in the sport.  

1 Josh Koscheck

Koscheck’s curious dyed-blonde pseudo-Afro may have been somewhat toned down in recent years, but its still one of the most recognisable hairstyles in the sport. As he explained in a November 2008 interview with Figure Four Daily, the haircut and the persona are all part of an effort “to get my name out there, get my brand out there and do the things I can in this sport to have longevity. I knew I needed to do something to make myself stand out, so guess what? We dyed the hair.” For most of his UFC career it has worked perfectly, with fans falling all over themselves to catch his fights just so they could boo him. A very smart businessman is that Mr Koscheck.  

2 Clay Guida

Even more than ‘Kos’, Fighters Only favourite Guida is the perfect example of a fighter who instantly stands out from the pack for his hairstyle. Can you really imagine ‘The Carpenter’ in the midst of battle without his hair straggling in his face, soaked by sweat and most likely smelling like a wet dog? Guida would just look all wrong without what seems, at first glance, to be the most impractical hairstyle in the entire sport. Which brings us to a fascinatingly ridiculous idea. Should lightweight Guida and welterweight Koscheck ever finds themselves in the same weight class, the UFC might be well-advised to pair them off in a Mexican pro wrestling inspired caballera contra caballera match where the loser is shaved bald by the victor. Now THAT would be worth a fair few pay-per-view buys.  

3 Ryo Chonan

A proudly patriotic man, fish-faced welterweight Chonan, already no stranger to oddball dye-jobs, paid homage to Japan’s military at UFC 92. Chonan would have found it easy to replicate Japan’s national flag – just dye his hair as white as possible and have somebody leave a big, round, red blob exactly in the middle of his head. But where’s the challenge in that? Instead, he opted for the old ‘Rising Sun’ flag with its red rays boldly striking outwards from the red circle. Sadly for Chonan, it didn’t quite work. Some unkind souls at the MGM Grand loudly and repeatedly noted it’s similarity to the strawberry cream, a quite delicious red and white striped sweet. Even worse than being mocked for his hair, Chonan lost. Oh dear.  

4 Dan Hardy

Unlike Chonan, ‘The Outlaw’ carries off his red Mohawks with real panache. And this is no affectation brought on by his new-found UFC stardom, Hardy’s been rocking this kind of hairdo for years. As he recently explained, its now become “kind of a trademark, and people get a little disappointed if they see you and you don’t have it, so I have to keep up that image. They expect it, and I don’t like to disappoint.” Indeed he doesn’t. One of the most entertaining fighters in the entire sport, the 26-year-old Hardy fully deserves the attention he’s getting and that distinctive hairstyle should be a fixture on UFC shows for a long time to come.

5 Aleksander Emelianenko

At first you might think a cleanly-shaven head is the polar opposite of the kind of sculpted, designed, dyed, and deliberate hairstyles sported by Chonan and Hardy, but you’d be wrong. A skinhead means actually taking the time to have your head shaved. For the true opposite, look to the crudely tattooed Russian heavyweight. Emelianenko clearly can’t even be bothered to do anything at all with his hair, even for international television. In every public appearance he looks dishevelled, and his hair ranges from a fabulous near-mullet to just a vague, unruly mess atop his head. But its absolute peak was his October 2004 Pride FC fight against James Thompson. His hair sticking up all over the place, Aleksander literally looked as if he’d been woken up two minutes before his ring entrance. Awesome.