UFC vs. WWE: Top 20 Pro Wrestlers Turned MMA Fighters

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Brock Lesnar is hardly the first pro wrestler to break into MMA. But you wouldn’t know that from watching the UFC vs. WWE buildup in the UFC 81 commercials. Brock isn’t even the first WWE Superstar to try MMA. UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock leads that pack which includes Sylvester Terkay, Giant Silva, Ludvig Borga, Sean 'O Haire, and Bart Gunn.

So who are the top pro wrestlers turned MMA fighters? And where does Brock Lesnar fit in the all-time list? Here's my take:

Top 20 Pro Wrestlers Turned MMA Fighters*
(Source: LarryWeaver.com)

Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba (UWFI) 23 - 10 - 1
Dan "The Beast" Severn (NWA) 81 - 15 - 7
Ken "The World's Most Dangerous Man" Shamrock (WWE) 26 - 12 - 2
Don "The Predator" Frye (New Japan) 17 - 6 - 1
Kazuyuki Fujita (New Japan) 14 - 6 - 0
Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFI) 27 - 12 - 0
Volk Han (Rings) 19 - 6 - 0
Brock Lesnar "The Next Big Thing" (WWE) 1 - 1 - 0
Bob "The Beast" Sapp (WCW) 9 - 2 - 1
Justin McCully (UPW/New Japan) 8 - 3 - 2
Sylvester "The Predator" Terkay (WWE) 3 - 1 - 0
Ron "H2O" Waterman (OVW) 15 - 5 - 2
Dos Caras Jr. (AAA) 6 - 4 - 0
Tokimitsu "Kendo Kashin" Ishizawa (New Japan) 1 - 4 - 1
Paulo Cesar "Giant" Silva (WWE) 2 - 6 - 0
Tony Halme aka "Ludvig Borga" (WWE) 1 - 2 - 0
Sean 'O Haire (WCW) 1 - 2 - 0
Mike "Bart Gunn" Plotcheck aka "Mike Barton" (WWE) 1 - 1 - 0
Craig "The Pitbull" Pittman (WCW) 1 - 1 - 0
El Canek (CMLL) 1 - 0 - 0

Honorable Mention: Yoshihiro Takayama (All Japan) 0 - 4 - 0; Tom "KGB" Howard (AAA) 0 - 6 - 0; Anthony "Pitt Bull #2" Durante (ECW) 0 - 2 - 0; Bam Bam Bigelow (WWE) 0 - 1 - 0; Taka Michinoku (WWE) 0 - 1 - 0 ; Jushin "Thunder" Liger (New Japan/WCW) 0 - 1 - 0; Michiyoshi Ohara (New Japan) 0 - 2 - 0; "Lightning Foot" Jerry Flynn (WCW) 0 - 1 - 0

Note: (Parentheses) denotes wrestling organization when they gained most fame.

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*Eligibility Rules:

The athlete must have had their first professional wrestling match prior to their first professional mixed martial arts match.
Professional wrestling is defined as having “worked” (predetermined) finishes.
Professional MMA is defined as a paid MMA match (not amateur or exhibition). For clarity, the fighter must have their record listed on Sherdog.com (listed above as win - loss - draw).
Top 20 takes into account an entire MMA career as well as potential for future MMA success.

Not eligible for this list are Josh Barnett, Tank Abbott, and Daniel Puder. They all had success in both pro wrestling and MMA, but all had their professional MMA debut before their pro wrestling debut.

To be very clear, I don’t expect to get this list right the first time. I encourage your intelligent, articulate input below in the comments section.

Update: Here are some additional candidates for the list:

Akira Maeda 10 - 5 - 0
Nobuhiko Takada 2 - 6 - 2
Masakatsu Funaki 38 - 12 - 1
Naoya Ogawa 7 - 2 - 0
Wataru Sakata 6 - 11 - 0
Serjbudee "Blue Wolf" Dolgorsuren 1 - 0 - 0
Jadamba Narantungalag 1 - 2 - 0
Kensuke Sasaki 2 - 0 - 0
Genki "Neo-Samurai" Sudo 15 - 5 - 1
Yoji "Mr. 200%" Anjo 0 - 5 - 1
Geza Kalman 4 - 7 - 0
Glenn Kulka 1 - 0 - 0

I guess the point is that there are nearly 50 professional wrestlers who competed in MMA. Many of those competed in both the WWE and the UFC. All of this makes a quote from the Feb. 2 edition of the Washington Post some troublesome: Lesnar "is the first professional wrestler to make the leap to the UFC." That's an unforgivable error in the age of Google. If you don't already, question everything you read.

References:
http://www.sherdog.com
http://www.wrestlingobserver.com
http://www.mmafighting.com/faq/prowrestling.html

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