The 6 Most Cringe worthy MMA Fighters

When it comes to MMA fighters, everyone wants to be able to control the mic like Conor Mcgregor or Chael Sonnen. These two were undoubtedly trash talking legends whose verbal skills arguably helped skyrocket their careers. Whilst they had undeniable talent inside the cage, their witty one-liners and behavior helped elevate them to stardom.

However, some people just naturally lack charisma. There’s nothing wrong with this and most of the time, these people avoid talking for obvious reasons. Rarely though, you will find those who still try to talk as if they’re aware or intelligent enough to make a point. In these golden moments, we sometimes find some extremely hard MMA cringe.

Of course, sometimes regular people can make mistakes but we’ve sought out repeat offenders. Here, we’ve rounded up the six biggest offenders and have analyzed what makes them so cringe worthy.

Luke Rockhold

At one point earlier on in his career, Luke Rockhold was deemed cool. This is hard to believe these days as he’s been dubbed The King Of Cringe. Basically, somewhere along the way his slick persona turned horribly awkward. Now MMA fans can expect a mixture of arrogance, corny sayings, and strange body language during his interviews and moments on the mic.

Perhaps one of the most cringy sayings was ‘Conceive, believe, achieve’ in the build up to the Mike Bisping fight. Bisping responded by calling it ‘BS’ that was from a self help book to rapturous laughter. Rockhold would later go on to be knocked out by Bisping which made his comments even worse in hindsight.

Tony Ferguson

Love him or hate him, Tony Ferguson is a weird, interesting character. In the early days, he seemed misunderstood and people took his cringe the wrong way. Years later, Ferguson seemed to redeem himself with the public. Not because his behavior changed – but because people started to embrace it. Often seen holding a baseball, wearing sunglasses and a smart shirt, Ferguson’s bizarre personality finally struck a chord.

He also famously said he’d use his ears to hit a person if required which says it all. Such is the strange behavior of Ferguson – that he even had to pull out of a fight after damaging his shin from kicking a metal pole during training. As said, his behavior may be seen as cringy to many but this also helped him win people over and create a cult fan base. Unlike others on this list, Ferguson could be seen as a cult MMA hero rather than cringe expert. However, it depends on your perspective.

Angela Magana

Although less known compared to others on this list, Angela Magana is still a culprit of some real MMA cringe. After a knockout loss in 2017, she tweeted, “I need to walk in the cage with a banana in my shorts and a crew cut then maybe the ref will let the fight go.” As if sexism was somehow at play for her loss. Ironically, she would then go on to talk about creating an Only Fans account in the future.

Other cringey moments include getting sent to ER for refusing to tap to a Twister submission in training and her infamous interview with Ariel Helwani. Here, she referred to herself as majesty and tried to come across similar to Conor McGregor. However, there was no real conviction in her tone and you could tell. Even the usually-patient Helwani was clearly bored of her antics.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Some people are just born uncool. Sadly for Joanna Jedrzejczyk, she is one of those people. Although she undoubtedly had a dominant UFC reign as champion, her boogeyman persona wasn’t well received by everyone. Here, she would try and intimidate her opponents at press conferences by using bad language, threats, and physical dominance tactics. The only thing is, these games look foolish if they don’t work.

With Jedrzejczyk, it seemed like a case of trying too hard to appear tough. It probably didn’t help that English was her second language, which made her delivery even less convincing. For instance, she once said “Boogey woman is coming tomorrow, and she doesn’t know what’s coming” Nonetheless, she stuck around after her boogeyman era and continued to bring the cringe.

Tito Ortiz

Some people just aren’t good at speaking and should stay quiet. Sadly, Tito Ortiz is one of those people. Sometimes, it appeared like he was trying his best WWE heel impression – which combined with a poor vocabulary and sloppy pronunciation often led to a mixture of criticism and laughter from fans. In fairness, there have been claims that his speech and lack of cohesion are due to CTE.

However, for the most part it seems that Ortiz just isn’t that bright – yet still tries to come across as intelligent. In one interview when asked about Chuck Lidell, he responded by saying “Jealous of him? He’s reaching for those grapes. He’s trying to make wine. And the wine’s already sounding like a violin with that cheese and wine.”

No one has a clue what this was meant to mean – and what’s worse is that Ortiz said it with a smug grin on his face. Sadly, Ortiz has had countless stories just like this over the years and infamously got verbally destroyed by Chael Sonnen at a Bellator press conference. Ironically, Ortiz would go on to become a professional MMA pundit for a while.

Brendan Schaub

Over the years, Brendan Schaub’s reputation has slowly worsened and was arguably at its peak as a fighter. Now retired, he is viewed as the ultimate cornball. For example, after retirement he bizarrely went into stand-up comedy. This venture bombed but he continued and his specials went on to become the worst rated in internet history.

Mostly known for his lack of awareness and dressing like a teenager, Schaub garnered an entire internet community on Reddit whose sole purpose was to criticize his antics. Although this may sound a bit extreme, it just goes to show how much cringy content Schaub released on a consistent basis. It didn’t help that he had a regular podcast alongside Bryan Callen who suffered similar delusions of grandeur. Furthermore, Schaub seemed to turn against his one-time friend Joe Rogan after a few years and this also left a sour taste in people’s mouths.