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Analyzing 2500 fighter nicknames, and what they tell us about the UFC and mixed martial arts.
Clichés
With almost 2500 nicknamed fighters, it's not surprising that there are some repeats. Many of these repeats are thematic - it's so common to name oneself after an animal, weapon, profession, etc. and you can see these groupings in the explore page. But even among these categories, and subcategories, there are a fair number of reused keywords or even exact nicknames, which you can view to the right.
Many of these Cliches are expected ("The Beast", "The Hammer", "Pitbull") but some are pretty surprising. "Bam Bam" is held by 6 fighters (most well known of which is probably Tai Tuivasa), and "The Spartan" by 8. To me, these seem pretty specific to be repeated so often. I would have expected more generic names like "The Lion" and "The Warrior" (which both have 5 fighters) to have more than these.
That said, around 2/3 of fighters (1676) have unique nicknames, so cliches are not the norm.
Interesting fact: There are only 2 nicknames that are shared by multiple UFC champions. "Suga" (Sean O'Malley + Rashad Evans), and "Rocky" (Leon Edwards + Raquel Pennington). What's an interesting coincidence is that both of these nicknames are boxing cliches, considering the plethora of boxers with the nickname "Sugar" (Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Shane Mosley...) and that "Rocky" is clearly a reference to the boxing movie.
Common Nicknames
What Were They Thinking?
I made this site because I was deeply interested in the origins of UFC fighter nicknames, and the deeper meaning behind them. To me, a great nickname adds an extra dimension of imagination to not only the fighter, but also their backstory and performances.
However… some nicknames out there are just very strange or make me roll my eyes. Probably the funniest to me is James Krause, whose name is stylized as “The James Krause”. This by itself isn't too bad, until you realize that his nickname is simply shown as “The” in UFCStats.com, which is pretty funny.
I'm also a fan of “Useless” Ulysses Gomez and “Uglyman Joe”, Joseph Holmes. These are some of the only nicknames I've found that actively disparage the fighter.
Weird Nicknames
- “The Snack Panther”— Elisha Ellison
- “Awesomely Awesome”— Pat Audinwood
- “McLovin”— Dustin Hazelett
- “Obi Won Shinobi The Pillow”— Steven Koslow
- “Sexual Chocolate”— Everett Sims
- “Son of Susie”— Billy Elekana
- “The”— James Krause
- “The Best Fisherman in MMA”— Cody Chovancek
- “The Cheesecake Assassin”— Danny Mitchell
- “The Ninja of Love”— Nick Denis
- “The Pride of Bloomfield”— Mark Cherico
- “The Red Nosed Pitbull”— Steve Berger
- “Uglyman Joe”— Joseph Holmes
- “Uncle Creepy”— Ian McCall
- “Useless”— Ulysses Gomez
Puns
148 nicknames are a play on the fighter’s own name, sorted into four kinds of wordplay. Pick a kind to filter, and click any row for the explanation. The highlighted letters carry the pun. This list is not meant to be all inclusive.
Every kind — the nickname reworks the fighter’s real name.
Nick Aguirre“Slick”
Slick rhymes with Nick
Amir Albazi“The Prince”
Amir means prince in Arabic
John Albert“Prince”
Albert evokes Prince Albert
Junior Albini“Baby”
Junior implies baby/youngest
Leon Aliu“The Albanian Lion”
Leon means lion
Brendan Allen“All In”
Allen sounds like "All In"
Art Arciniega“King Arthur”
Art (Arthur) matches legendary King Arthur
Teddy Ash“Bear”
Teddy -> teddy bear
Ryan Bader“Darth”
Bader sounds like Vader (Star Wars)
Renan Barao“The Baron”
Barao translates to The Baron
Marc-Andre Barriault“Powerbar”
Powerbar echoes the 'Bar' in Barriault
Stephen Bass“Bigfish”
Bass is a fish, played up as Bigfish
Chris Beal“Real Deal”
Beal rhymes with Deal
Manny Bermudez“The Bermudez Triangle”
Bermudez becomes 'Bermuda Triangle'
Khadzhi Bestaev“Best”
Bestaev embeds real word 'Best'
Jason Black“The Black Legion”
Black becomes 'The Black Legion'
Brad Blackburn“Bad Brad”
'Bad' rhymes with first name Brad
Da'Mon Blackshear“The Monster”
Da'Mon echoes opening syllable of 'Monster'
Curtis Blaydes“Razor”
Blaydes sounds like 'Blades', hence Razor
Viacheslav Borshchev“Slava Claus”
Slava (from Viacheslav) plus 'Santa Claus'
Steve Bosse“The Boss”
Bosse becomes 'The Boss'
Ashe Bowman“The Archer”
Bowman -> bow-user -> Archer
Will Brooks“Ill”
"Ill" rhymes with first name Will
TJ Brown“Downtown”
"Downtown" rhymes with surname Brown
Languages
Besides English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese are the most popular languages of origin for nicknames. However there is a very long tail, which includes obscure languages such as Hawaiian, Icelandic, Choctaw, and Sanskrit. Click a language to see example nicknames and what they mean.
By Language
Overlaps
A nickname rarely sits in one box. “The Black Beast” is an Animal and a Color; “Iron Mike” is Materials and a Namesake. Because classification is multi-label, 28% of nicknamed fighters carry more than one theme — and the pairs that recur tell you which ideas naturally travel together.
The tightest big pairing is Professions & Roles × Provenance — 67 fighters carry both.
Most common theme pairs
Across Eras
When examining these nicknames, one of my first thoughts was: "Has the distribution of them changed over time?" Fortunately, once I completed the arduous task of classifying all 2500 nicknamed fighters, this was easy to figure out. Below is a graph of the number of categories each year, measured by the quantity of debuting fighters with a nickname of that category.
Animals and colors has increased over time, but the data is noisy enough that not many patterns are apparent. Nonetheless, it's interesting to be able to view the data year by year.
Themes (16/16) ▾
Nicknames were classified into themes by an LLM (multi-label, so a fighter can carry several). Debut years come from joining 1,750 fighters (70%) to a recorded UFC bout; the rest had no bout in the data and are excluded from those slices.