Issue 026
June 2007
British brawler Ross Pointon loves three things in life: his daughter, fighting, and his tattoos!
The UFC veteran came to popular attention when he appeared as a contestant on the reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). In the short amount of time since Ross appeared on the show, he has managed to add a fair bit of new ink to his already-generously covered body.
Quite a bit of Ross’s work was done while he was in the US. “I had the ‘Made in England’ done while I was in the loser’s house on TUF. I was in there three weeks, we weren’t allowed to go to any gyms or night clubs or nothing. We weren’t supposed to go anywhere without a chaperone.” Managing to slip out to get the tattoo, it was the first of many that Ross acquired while in the USA.
As a permanent reminder of his journey to Las Vegas and the experience of being on the show, Ross has 6-24-6 tattooed on the inside of his right wrist, representing the date of the finale of the third series of TUF (24th June 2006). A lengthy stay with Chuck Liddell in San Diego and a brief relationship with former porn-star Brittany Skye saw him spend plenty of time in and around Californian tattoo studios, but Ross has had the majority of his work done in England. “I’m sponsored by a tattooists – I have a mate who is a tattoo artist, I swapped him my UFC tickets for some tattoos!”
He describes the tattoo on his leg of the two MMA fighters as his favourite, though the Chinese-style dragon on his right shoulder has certain significance, as it was his first, done way back on his 17th birthday.
All the time spent in the tattooist’s chair hasn’t kept him out of the gym through. Look carefully as you will see that the tribal work that stretches down his left arm and onto his hand has faded a little on the knuckles, as he couldn’t stay out of the gym long enough to let it heal before getting back to training!
Finally, and perhaps one of the most striking of his tattoos, is the text running down the inside of his left forearm. Nicknamed the Gladiator, Ross decided to have it inscribed where all could see, but those who try to second guess the origins of the text often get it wrong. “Its actually the old Roman language, people think it’s Greek but it’s not, it's Roman.”
Like many people with tattoos, Ross uses his as a way of recording those life experiences that have a special place in the memory. The work on his lower-left leg is symbolic of his daughter, with her birth signs and other artwork wrapping around his calf and ankle. “The centaur is for Sagittarius [her star sign], that’s my daughter’s name and her birthday there. Some people go out and get drunk and ‘wet the baby’s head’, but I went and got a tattoo.”
