Nic Cullison is a fan, just like you and I - Or so he says. He’s been following the Ravens since his childhood in Baltimore, keeping the team close to his heart despite his moves to Eagles country in high school and for the last 11 years, moving around the United States for his job in the military.
“I’m just like you guys. I’m literally a fan. That’s all it is,” he says earnestly. But is it, though?
Nic isn’t just a fan–he’s the Ravens Tattoo Guy. Over the past three years, he’s racked up 45 Ravens-inspired tattoos (and counting), a commitment that arguably places him in a league of super-fans that most of us mere mortals can only dream of reaching. Or perhaps avoiding. Depends on your perspective.
It all started as a off-hand comment to his wife, Naomi, back in 2021. Naomi, an aesthetician, had just gotten a tattoo gun in preparation for permanent makeup school. The Ravens were down against the Chiefs and things weren’t looking good. Nic joked that if the Ravens came back to win the game, she could debut (no, literally - she’d never used one before) the tattoo gun on him. When the game was over, the Ravens had won by a point, and Nic tried to head to bed - But Naomi called his bluff.
By the end of the night, Nic’s leg bore a fresh—and decidedly amateur—tattoo. He tweeted it out for a laugh, went to sleep, and woke up to discover he’d gone viral. A tattooed star was born.
Fast forward three years, and Nic is still at it: a tattoo for every Ravens win. He’s confident that there are only three tattoos standing between him and the ultimate prize—a Lombardi Trophy for the Baltimore Ravens.
We caught up with Nic to chat about meeting Lamar Jackson, swapping Oklahoma stories with Mark Andrews, and what remains on his bucket list.
Our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity, is below.
You’re known as the Ravens tattoo guy now, but back in 2021–how did this start?
My wife is an esthetician and she was going to go to permanent makeup school. She got a tattoo gun and we were sitting there watching the game; it was against the Chiefs, things didn't look good. And I was like, if we come back and win this game, you can use your tattoo gun for your first tattoo.
Her first-ever tattoo?
Yeah, first ever. That was the first time she'd ever tattooed anybody. They won and I was like, all right, we're going to go to bed. And she was like, no, you said it, let's do it. I was like, whatever. So she tattooed me, I posted on Twitter, and went to sleep.
What was the tattoo?
It says September 19th, 2021, and it has Baltimore- 36, Kansas City - 35. Super simple. Not the best tattoo, but it was the first tattoo.
I woke up the next day for work at six in the morning, and I had over a hundred thousand notifications. I was like, oh no, that is not what I meant to do with this. It was just a joke. It was for my friends and family to see, not everybody in the world. Everybody wanted to hear why I did it, and the questions were like, are you going to continue to do this? Is that just a one-and-done? And I was like, I don't know, I don't know.
And then the next week, Justin Tucker hit a 66-yard field goal and I was like, all right, we're doing it. And now here we are, 45 tattoos later.
Does she tattoo other people now or are you the only tattoo client she has?
She just does permanent makeup, so that's her actual thing. She's great at that. Tattoos are completely different, but she's gotten so much better over the course of time and you can see the growth.
I won't let her touch up the old ones, the bad ones. I want to see 'em grow. So the first couple of 'em are pretty bad, but now they're getting really, really good. It's fun. We bond over it.
And is the feedback mostly positive?
At first, because the tattoos were bad, the trolls would get you good. And after the first two or three tattoos, I was like, I'm not going to look at any of it anyway. I truly don't care, I never respond. I just do my own thing and whatever they put out there, they put out there. I'm not worried about it.
If you asked any one of my friends or family before this happened, they would expect nothing less. I don't really care what anybody thinks. I've never been like that. If I see something that I think is cool for my friends and family, I'm going to do it because they're going to think it's cool, not because I'm trying to impress anybody around me.
It's weird to be at the game and stop and get asked to take pictures. That I will never get used to. It always makes me feel so awkward. I'm a very outgoing person, but that kind of thing, I’m just like– I'm just like you guys, I'm literally a fan. That's all it is. Just a fan.
Just a fan with a lot of tattoos.
Yeah, exactly. I just took it a little further. That's all the same. We're all just fans of the same team. We all want the same thing, but I just have to get a tattoo afterward. That's the only thing.
You mentioned some of them are pretty bad. Which one do you think will age the worst?
Probably the Justin Tucker tattoo, the 66 yarder, because I mean, it was a bigger tattoo compared to the others, and I may have been drinking a little during that one, so that didn't help with the actual process of it. So then after that, we learned what to do and what not to do.
You said that you didn't initially plan to do this every week. At what point did you decide, I'm going to do this until they win a Super Bowl?
So after I got the Justin Tucker one, I did a radio interview and they were like, are you going to do this until they win the Super Bowl? Off of a knee-jerk reaction, I said yes.
My sister sent me the clip– at that point we lived in Oklahoma, and she was listening to the radio in Baltimore–She was like, did you say you're going to do this until they win a Super Bowl? I was like, I don't remember saying that, but I guess that's what's happening.
You were on this past weekend's NFL on Prime Stream. I saw that Lamar came over and checked out your Lamazing tattoo, and he signed your jersey. What was that conversation like?
When I first started this in 2021, they asked him about it at a press conference and at that point, I was like, cool, he knows about it. That was when I was probably four tattoos in and it was a long time ago. Every time we go up there, we've met different players and stuff. We just never crossed paths with Lamar.
And then when he went on stage, I was like, I wonder if he's going to come over here. When he did, I was just like, man, it's so nice to meet you, can you sign my jersey? He was like, it's nice to meet you too, yeah, absolutely. So he signed my jersey and then when he dapped me up the second time, I was like, we're going to win this shit this year. And he was like, hell yeah, we are. It was a cool experience.
Do you think they'll win a Super Bowl before you run out of space?
I think we're going to win a Super Bowl this year. I’ve got plenty of space for three more tattoos.
What is the process of coming up with a tattoo design like?
So after the game, we'll sit there and we'll be like, who had a big game? The hardest thing to do is Steelers, Bengals, Browns, because we play 'em twice a year, every year. So to keep it creative and not the same, that's the most difficult thing.
So you just have to hope for a player to have a big game. When Marlon Humphrey had an interception to seal the game against the Bengals this year, we got Marlon Humphrey's podcast logo, just something like that. The one that I got tattooed last week was the Michael Pierce interception. It was just a cool moment. So if it's a big moment in the game, that's what we usually go off of.
And who draws and designs them?
My wife does. She does everything. I'm just literally a canvas. She'll draw stencil, tattoo and then it's over. I just sit there. Honestly, it's her. It's not me.
Do you have a favorite so far?
I think my favorite one, so far, is probably the one where Mark Andrews signed my leg after the game. Just that experience was cool. I think nowadays, it's going off of experience over tattoos, and it was just more personal. Naomi killed it. It was 20 degrees outside and it was an empty stadium.
What did Mark have to say about the tattoos?
We talked for five minutes, and he was cool. He was like, wow, that's wild, definitely a true fan, that's commitment. He was like, not a lot of people would do that. I was like, I know this is a crazy idea, know it's not anything normal. I was stationed in Oklahoma and he played there in college, so that was the big conversation.
And then he was like, all right, where do you want me to sign? And I was like, find your spot wherever you want. He found it and fit it in there perfectly. When we were walking out of there, we got to see Eric Weddle because he was a legend of the game, and the whole Harbaugh family, which was a very cool experience.
These are obviously the actions of a super fan. Would you have considered yourself a diehard before this?
Yeah, I think I've always been a diehard fan. Being in the military, you run into people that have never had an NFL team or never been to an NFL game. That's my goal. If you've never been to something or you don't watch it, you're going to be a Ravens fan and I'm going to take you to the game so you can really become a Ravens fan. And we've had so many people embrace the story.
When the Ravens do eventually win a Super Bowl, do you know what tattoo you'll get to cap off the adventure?
We have ideas. They're not fully set in stone yet, and they've changed year by year. I know something with the Lombardi is definitely involved in that. I don't think we'll know until we get through it. So, we definitely have a running idea board in both of our heads that we bounce around. But we'll see what happens when it happens. And hopefully, it happens this February,
Knock on wood. You've already gotten 45, hopefully you cap this run at 48. Do you think you'll continue to get tattoos, Ravens or otherwise, after the Ravens win the Super Bowl?
I always had tattoos. My arms are covered and I have other tattoos on my legs that aren't Ravens-related. But Raven's tattoos? I mean, we've committed years to this, so we can stop at the Super Bowl. But there's no saying 10, 15 years down the line if we're in a drought that we can’t bring something back. But I think we're going to definitely take a break.
I don't even get regular tattoos anymore because I get tattooed every week. I mean they're enjoyable, don't get me wrong. I don't feel it anymore at all, but it's like I need to just save the tattoo pain for when I am getting 'em weekly instead of for fun.
Do you ever regret starting this journey and committing to it?
Not at all. So many good things have come out of it. In 2023, they sent us to the draft and that was a crazy experience. It’s something I've dreamed of doing since I was a kid. And we got to do that, Naomi and I, for the whole three days.When we go back to the stadium, we’re running into people that are like family now. So it's been very cool, and of course, these last three weeks have just been crazy.
What else is on your bucket list?
I would love to go to the Super Bowl. That's something that has always been a dream of mine. I would also love to be one of the people that announces a draft pick. That'd be cool.
That would be so cool.
That's probably the rest of my bucket list. I met Lamar, I got on the field, I went to the draft– It's been crazy.
Lamar has been unstoppable this season. He's the favorite to win MVP. Any thoughts? Do you think he's got it?
Yeah, I think he has it in the bag. I mean, this is his best season ever, and it's not even close. I do respect Josh Allen and Joe, though. They had great seasons this year, but Lamar was on a different level, and I think they know that too. I think the league knows that as well. It's just one of those things when somebody keeps winning it, people get tired of it. But I mean if he's that good, he's that good.
How do you feel going into this week against the Bills?
I think it's a tough game for sure. I think last year when we went to the A FC Champ, we went to that game too and was, you couldn't tell anybody in that stadium that we were going to lose… and then we lost, and it was the worst feeling in the world.
But I think we learned from that game that we should just continue to do what we're good at and run the ball. And then when we can't run the ball, Lamar can take care of it through the air. So I think Derrick Henry had 199 yards against the Bills earlier this season. Do that again. And if they stop him, use Lamar to chop 'em up throughout the field.
Hell yeah. It's going to be a good game.
It is the toughest road for us that we've had so far for the playoffs, but I think it's the right road. If you go through that gauntlet and go to the Super Bowl, nobody's stopping you. Just take it, prove that you're the best team.
The Bills fans are really nice and they do a lot, and I like Josh Allen. I think he's a super nice guy and he's talented. But today, they’re the enemy.