When we see the image of a professional MMA fighter, we see the image of a muscular tough person with a demeanor that the normal average person would not want to mess with. A lot of these fighters have been training martial arts for years if not decades. They’ve trained themselves to be some of the most complete combatants on earth.
But what is surprising is that some of these combatants were actually bullied growing up. Here is a list of 5 MMA fighters who were bullied.
5) Junior dos Santos
The former UFC Heavyweight champion, Junior dos Santos is listed as 6’4 and weights well over 200lbs. But as a child on the streets of Caçador, Santa Catarina, Brazil, dos Santos had gotten into fights that he did not instigate. One of the beatings he took was so traumatizing that he still remembers the childhood bully by the name of Rodrigo till this day.
4) Ben Henderson
Ben Henderson was a former WEC and UFC lightweight champion. Being multi-ethnic, one of the most popular fighters in MMA had his own experience of schoolyard bullying as a child. In fact, he started the Korean martial art of Taekwondo because he feared a particular bully as a child.
3) Uriah Hall
This New Yorker has become one of the most exciting fighters to watch in the UFC middleweight division. He was knocking out competition in devastating fashion on TUF (The Ultimate Fighter) and even finished the great Gegard Mousasi. Even with his incredible martial arts athleticism, it’s a surprise that Hall was bullied as a child. It was so bad that he had even contemplated suicide as a child.
2) Ronda Rousey
Who would have thought that a former Olympian and the one to put WMMA on the map was bullied growing up. But former UFC champion Ronda Rousey was tied to numerous schoolyard bullying as a young woman over her weight. What’s crazy to find out is that not only was she made fun of her big arms but for her doing judo. I wouldn’t mess with someone like Rousey and her judo.
1) Georges St-Pierre
Possibly one of the greatest MMA fighters of all-time and if not the greatest welterweight fighter of all-time, former UFC champion Georges St. Pierre has gone on record about him being bullied as a child. It’s surprising to know that the Canadian who is well-spoken and always respectable had children stealing his lunch money to stripping of his pants. I bet those kids, now grown adults wouldn’t do that now.
Clyde Erwin Barretto is an emphatic obsessed fan of mixed martial arts, combat sports and body movement. Follow him on Twitter @ClydeBarretto.
