Issue 046
February 2009
From now on, I want to be known as ‘The Shooter’. Or maybe ‘The Scribe’. You see, I’ve decided it’s time I get myself a nickname.
Pick up a program from any MMA show and you’ll be forgiven for thinking half of the card has been replaced with characters from a Marvel comic, or worse, a WWE event. ‘The Dominator’ vs ‘The Pitbull’, ‘The Maniac’ vs ‘The Crippler’, ‘The Iceman’ vs ‘Pretty in Pink’.
Few sports can boast as many nicknames as MMA. Whether it’s a hangover from boxing (where nicknames, ranging from ‘Gentleman’ to ‘The Butcher’ have been bestowed on fighters for hundreds of years) or whether savvy promoters cottoned onto the attention-grabbing tactics of calling otherwise-bland and boring-sounding fighters barmy names in order to drum up attention is open to discussion. Nicknames are part and parcel of the sport of MMA, and I love them.
Nicknames can swing from the proud to the absurd. Some are comedic gold, some are suitably fitting monikers seemingly chosen by the gods of combat sports, some are plainly absurd and border on the idiotic, but I love them.
Here’s an exercise for you to try. Make a short mental note of ten fighters with nicknames. I’ll race you to it. Go!
Easy, eh? It’s no great difficulty. Even those with only a passing knowledge of MMA are likely to remember fighters’ nicknames. It’s one of those clever hooks that get people’s names out there. Half of America have probably only ever seen Chuck Liddell in a Nickleback video, but I’d bet half of them could tell you his name is ‘The Iceman’.
Nicknames are great hooks. The truly great, remarkable fighters often start out without them, picking up theirs en route to greatness. Usually, their nickname is a manifestation of their fighting style, ability, personality or some such. Examples include the aforementioned ‘Iceman’, or fighters such as ‘The Spider’, ‘The Muscle Shark’, or what about ‘The Machine’?
Often, a nickname can simply be used to let you know where somebody comes from, yet it is often jazzed up to give them that extra bit of ‘recognition factor’. Here we have nicknames such as ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’, ‘The Texas Crazy Horse’, ‘The Westside Strangler’ or ‘The Russian Bear’.
For me, the best nicknames are those which blend a description of the fighter with a touch of insight into their being. When you hear Genki Sudo described as ‘The Neo Samurai’, you can’t help but feel any other nickname just couldn’t compete. Would BJ Penn, known around the world as ‘The Prodigy’, sound better as ‘The Hawaiian Hitman’? I doubt it very much.
Spend any time around a working MMA gym and you’ll see why nicknames are so easily bestowed. Many gyms see fighters come and go, and when you’ve seen hundreds of faces go by, nicknames are often the best way to remember someone who’s name you probably won’t even have time to learn. Gym nicknames usually centre on the obvious, easily understood. It is far more likely to encounter a ‘Smelly Brian’, ‘Old Dave’ or ‘Fireman Phil’ than an chartered accountant who introduces himself as ‘The Smashing Machine’.
Possibly the best in the world at awarding nicknames are the Brazilians. Nicknames aren’t just a fight thing – they’re a cultural institution. Brazilians often have long names (with multiple Christian names – think ‘Joao Paulo Marcelo’) yet there are a relatively small amount of names to choose from (with most being Catholic saint’s names) for a country of close to 200million people.
The Brazilian nickname falls into a few different categories. You’ve got your simple name-play nicknames (for example, Paulo Filho is known as ‘Paulao’, or Big Paulo), to the descriptive (Antonio ‘Pezao’ Silva – simply, ‘Big foot’) to the downright surreal (Rousimar Palhares is known as ‘Toquinho’ or ‘Tree stump’).
Brazilian nicknames aren’t something you can pick up or put down, though. Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, who is rarely even called by his given name, explains. “[My] nickname was given to me by a friend when I was 11 years old. It is the name of a chewing gum. I used to wear red shirts which resembled the gum’s wrapper. Your nickname is not something you can change – the more you dislike it, the more people will call you that to make fun of you.
“Here in the U.S. people have nicknames like ‘the killer’ or ‘the assassin’, but it’s different in Brazil. Their nicknames are things like ‘big head’ and ‘owl’s face’. You don’t get to pick your own. This nickname was given to me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The power of a good nickname is not something to be scoffed at. You don’t need to second guess what a bruiser entering the ring to the nickname ‘Hands of Stone’ is about, and you might be the most uninspiring fighter in the world, but let everyone know you’re called ‘The Nightmare’ and you’re likely to leave an impression. If you’re lucky enough to choose for yourself and not be lumped with one, be careful what you settle for – as Babalu says, once you’ve got one, you can’t select another.
