The 13 Most EVIL MMA Fighters Of All Time

Competitive MMA fighters need a mean streak in order to win fights. It’s fine to be a nice person when they’re outside of the cage, but for 15-25 minutes (depending on the amount of rounds), they need to be able to put this aside and try to finish their opponent as fast as possible.

However, some fighters in-cage style is simply an extension of their own personality. Despite the character some fighters will play in the media, their true persona comes out when their real life is on show. Many people who have been thought to be solid, stand up guys, have turned out to be criminals that abuse women, animals and their own family.

Fortunately, most fighters involved in the world of MMA are good people. It is the small minority of outliers that ruin the sport and give it a bad name in the press when they do something wrong. The UFC roster alone has hundreds of active and retired fighters, only a small handful of which are criminals.

The Most Evil MMA Fighters Of All Time

#13 – Jon Jones

One of the most well known infamous fighters is Jon Jones. Due to his extremely successful career alongside his rap sheet which is almost as long as his win streak – Jones is one of the most famous fighters on the planet. If it were not for his behaviours and controversies outside of the cage, it’s very likely that Jones would be a fan favorite in the UFC.

However, whilst his crimes are not as henious as many other crimes on this list, Jones is still hated amongst many for having terrible judgement and doing horrible things to other people. Jones attitude can be summarised by his coach Greg Jacksons comments after he dropped an unconscious Lyoto Machida on to the floor showing a complete disregard for his opponent. “Jon Jones, go check on him, go check on Lyoto and get some fans” is a simple sentence, but just shows you the instructions this man needs to do something every other person would consider normal.

In terms of his criminal record, Jones has drive a car in to a pole whilst under the influence of alcohol, has been caught using cocaine in the build up to fights, fled the scene from a hit and run on the vehicle of a pregnant woman battered a waitress and more recently been arrested for domestic violence involving the mother of his three children.

#12 – Lee Murray

Even though Lee Murray had a great MMA record of 8-2, he was considerably more scary outside of the cage. It is no secret that Murray was a successful drug dealer and a man that the British police were extremely scared of as he would sometimes follow them around London in his car in order to intimidate them.

A well known street brawler, there are disputed accounts about whether Murray knocked out Tito Ortiz in a London street fight when the UFC came to london. Murray had previous history of street fights after being stabbed in 2005 and suffering a puncture lung – a wound from which he almost died 5 times.

The career of Lee Murray was on the rise but came to a sudden end when he was arrested for his involvement in the largest ever UK cash robbery. Murray and his accomplices held both the manager of a Securitas depot and his family hostage at gunpoint until they handed over £53 million in cash. Eventually Murray was caught and arrested in Morroco where he is serving 25 years for his crimes. To this day £32 million of the original £53 million is yet to be recovered.

#11 – Viacheslav Datsik

Despite having a very average 6-9 record, Viacheslav Datsik is an extremely dangerous man with a crazy fighting style. His usual form would be to swing for the fences and even tried a WWE style dropkick in one of his fights.

When you get to know more about Datsik, he becomes more scary than your average MMA fighter. A member of the banned Slavic Union party, Datsik is a schizophrenic who hates anyone who is different to him, specifically christians, jews and non-whites.

Datsik was imprisoned for 9 years for various armed robberies as well as vigilante style raids on local brothels which he disapproved of. He briefly escaped Russian jail and fled to Norway, attempting to claim political asylum as a “white warrior”. Needless to say this wasn’t granted and Datsik was returned to Russian prison.

#10 – Josh Grispi

At one point in time Josh Grispi looked like a prime contender to reach the heights of UFC champion as he had a 14-1 record. This eventually slipped to 14-5 along with many other things in his personal life going wrong.

Married for 3 years, Grispi had been abusive to his wife for at least 2 of these and was on bail for a recent domestic assault. It was at this point he thought it would be a good idea to punch and kick his wife again before being re-arrested. Grispi is also well known to have trained his dog to attack his ex-wife whenever he commanded it.

Eventually Grispi was sentenced to 5.5 years in jail for his crimes.

#9 – Hermes Franca

Hermes Franca has a very long MMA career with a record of 26-20. In 2011 he pled guilty to sexual abusing a minor who trained at his gym in Oregon. Unfortunately Franco only received 3.5 years in jail for this crime, which is very lenient compared to many of the other crimes on this list.

After he served his time in US jail, Franca was deported back to his native Brazil where his MMA career steadily declined after a series of losses.

#8 – Aleksander Emelianenko

Brother to one of the greatest fighters to ever step in the cage, Aleksander Emelianenko is a fearsome fighter himself, with a very respectable 28-8 record, having lost to legends of the sport such as Josh Barnett and Fabricio Werdum.

However, unlike his brother,Aleksander Emelianenko does not have a clean record.

In 2015 he was found guilty of assaulting and sexually assaulting his former housekeeper, as well as stealing her passport. This crime landed him 4.5 years in jail, of which he only served 1.5 before being allowed out on parole. This seems like a very light sentence for such a crime and Emelianenko has been one of the few fighters who have managed to be successful after being released from jail.

#7 – Mike Whitehead

With a 27-8 record, Mike Whitehead is yet another fighter that could have secured a solid place on the UFC roster had his life not been so troubled by outside issues.

In 2010, Whitehead was accused of a sexual assault by a female acquintance and had his house searched by police. When entering the house, they discovered that he had a small weed farm and subsequently arrested him. Intelligently, Whitehead made a deal with prosecuters which saw him plead no contest and receive 4 years in prison rather than 20 he could have faced.

#6 – Julian Wallace

If you don’t know the name, then you will certainly recognize the face. If you’re familiar with the Ben Nguyen face-off, you will remember Wallace showing his attitude towards others by trying to intimidate another professional fighter before a match (not a good idea). Justice was served when Wallace was knocked out after just 28 seconds.

Wallace continued the intimidation outside of the cage punching and choking his ex-girlfriend who was also an MMA fighter, the reason? Because she had bought the wrong food home and was 15 minutes late. Thankfully when Wallace let her out of the chokehold she was able to kick him in the head and knock him out. Wallace pled guilty to a single assault charge

#5 – Jeremy Jackson

A fairly solid professional fighter, Jeremy Jackson has a 9-5 record which includes a career highlight win against Nick Diaz, a win which came in the first round via TKO.

It all went downhill for Jackson in 2008. Despite still being an active fighter, he decided it would be a good idea to break in to his ex-girlfriends home with a gun and sexually assault her. Although Jackson was advised to plead not guilty to the crimes by his own lawyer, he went against this advice and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

#4 – Joe Son

Joe Son has one of the strangest careers you will ever see. Formerly the cornerman of Kimo Leopoldo, Son fought in UFC and various other MMA promotions with a record of 0-4. If anything, this poor record helped propel his acting career to the next level where he featured in Austin Powers as an Oddjob parody character.

Fortunately for the people of America, when Son was arrested for vandalism in 2008, he failed to report for probation which required him to give a DNA sample. This sample linked him to a gang rape in 1990. To cut a long story short, he was cleared of many counts, but was given 7 years to life for torture.

In 2011, Son murdered his cellmate and was given an additional 27 years on top of his previous sentence making it unlikely he will ever leave jail alive.

#3 – War Machine

Jonathan Koppenhaver legally changed his name to “War Machine”, which should tell you something about his general mindstate. War Machine had somewhat of a tragic childhood growing up with a drug addict mother forcing him to take care of his younger siblings. This however does not excuse him of his horrific crimes.

From the years 2007-2010, War Machine twice got in to physical altercations in public places, one of which led to him choking a man unconscious and punching him in the face.

However, the most well known and high profile crime of War Machine involves his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack and her associate Corey Thomas. Thomas was the luckier of the two and still received a 10 minute beating from War Machine, which is the equivalent to a 2 round MMA fight. After Thomas was released, War Machine attacked Christy Mack for two hours which left her with 18 broken facial bones, 12 missing teeth, a ruptured liver and several other injuries.

Currently serving life in prison for his crimes, sadly War Machine is only the 3rd most evil fighter on this list.

#2 – Amar Suloev

With a 24-7 record and having fought in both PRIDE and the UFC, Amar Suloev is one of the most successful fighters on this list, but is also ranked as the 2nd most evil. In his prime, Suloev lost on unanimous decision to Chuck Lidell, something which many other fighters have not managed, lasting 15 minutes in the cage against the Iceman.

Things began to take a turn for the worst when Suloev retired from mixed martial arts. Allegedly taking up a job as a contract killer, Suloev was on trial for 3 murders against relatively high level Russian political figures. Like many other people associated with Russian politics, Suloev died of stomach cancer whilst he was on trial and the murders remain unsolved.

#1 – Jarrod Wyatt

Despite many other MMA fighters doing truly evil things, Jarrod Wyatt is a step above everyone else. Wyatt was 29 years old and had a 1-0 MMA record when he murdered his sparring partner. Sentenced to 47 years, Wyatt drank a psychedelic mushroom tea and was convinced he was in a battle between god and the devil.

Viewing his friend as Satan, Wyatt cut out his friends heart and tongue whilst he was still alive, as well as removing some of his face. After his friend died, he cooked his heart on a stove as he thought it was still alive. When police arrested Wyatt they found him covered in blood and mumbling to himself.