Then Sh*t Got Real: 20 Pro Wrestlers Who Competed in MMA

With former WWE Champion Phillip Brooks (also known as CM Punk) announcing in December that he will be joining UFC, yet another professional wrestler joined the ranks of those who decided to stop "fake" fighting and actually do it for real. While Brooks doesn’t have the typical pedigree of an MMA star, his athletic background and decision to train with current champions at least gives him a fighting chance.

Brooks is following a path similar to another former WWE champion, Brock Lesnar. Lesnar left WWE and—after briefly dabbling in professional football—joined UFC and quickly rose in the ranks of the world’s top heavyweight fighters. The key difference between the two, of course, is that Lesnar also had previously competed in “real” fighting sports; in college at the University of Minnesota, Lesnar won the 2000 NCAA Division I heavyweight wrestling championship and was a two-time All-American.

The wrestling/MMA transition can cut the other way, too. Most famously, Ken Shamrock was one of the early faces of UFC before he joined WWE and at one point became an Intercontinental champion.

Regardless of the path, there’s no denying the significant overlap between the worlds of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Here’s a look at 20 Pro Wrestlers Who Competed in MMA.

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Years in Wrestling: 2000-2010; 2014
Years in MMA: 2012
Record: 1-0-0

After leaving WWE in 2010, Dave Bautista decided that the time was right to start his MMA career. He tried to join Strikeforce: Los Angeles, although the deal eventually fell through when the company was bought out by another promotion. As he bided his time before his first fight, Bautista snagged himself a purple belt in jiu-jitsu and continued to prepare himself to fight in the heavyweight division. He eventually got his wish, signing on to fight Rashid (not Rashad) Evans in October 2012. Evans landed back in prison for a probation violation the night before the fight, however, and Bautista instead fought replacement punching bag Vince Lucero. In what would be his only fight of his career, Bautista pummeled Lucero and earned a TKO win in the first round.

Years in Wrestling: 1998-Present
Years in MMA: 2008
Record: 1-0-0

Known in WWE as Rodney Mack, Rodney Begnaud trained with his uncle (and former WWE superstar) Junkyard Dog before signing with ECW in 2000 and then WWE in 2002. After a couple of two-year stints with the company, he got into MMA in 2008 and fought just one time. He at least won the fight, beating the hell out of some guy named Joe Nameth and knocking him out in 21 seconds. No word if Suzy Kolber was somehow involved.

Years in Wrestling: 1985-2006
Years in MMA: 1996
Record: 0-1-0

Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow wrestled for pretty much every promotion in existence, and in 1996 while working for ECW took a one-fight detour to a U-Japan MMA event. He fought against Kimo Leopoldo getting absolutely annihilated and submitting in the first round. Bigelow later claimed that the fight was fixed and that he was supposed to lose, although honestly that just sounds like revisionist history from a guy who got in way over his head.

Years in Wrestling: 2000-Present
Years in MMA: 2001-2010
Record: 9-5-0

Before he was fired this summer for “unprofessional conduct” following an altercation with a WWE employee, Alberto Del Rio was a very decorated member of the professional wrestling world. Before he became a WWE champion, though, Del Rio earned a reputation in the MMA world as an accomplished submission specialist. After 14 professional fights, he called it quits in 2010 when he signed his contract with WWE.

Years in Wrestling: 1997-2005
Years in MMA: 1997
Record: 0-1-0

The pinnacle of Nathan Jones’ career came in 2003, when he debuted with WWE as the Undertaker’s protégé and fought alongside his mentor at Wrestlemania. Other than that, the monstrous Jones’ wrestling career doesn’t bear much distinction apart from having one of the weirdest gimmicks of all-time (his name at one point was “The Colossus of Boggo Road”). His MMA career was likewise pretty uneventful, as the former strongman fought just one time. It was at the first ever KRS-Pride event, and Jones was forced to submit to an americana from former sumo wrestler Koji Kitao.

Years in Wrestling: 1990-Present
Years in MMA: 2008
Record: 0-1-0

A mainstay in ECW, Kid Kash came to WWE in 2005 and never totally found his place. He held the Cruiserweight Championship for a month at the end of 2005/beginning of 2006, but by September of 2006 he was released from the company. It was while working for independent promotions in 2008 that he stumbled onto MMA, and seemingly had won his first fight by decision until he had three points deducted for various illegal moves he had tried during the bout. That was apparently enough to swing the decision against him, and that was it for Kash’s MMA career.

Years in Wrestling: 2004-Present
Years in MMA: 2008-Present
Record: 7-2-0

Once a top prospect in WWE expected to do big things, Bobby Lashley was injured at a 2008 Pay Per View event and after wrestling the following night never again set foot in a WWE ring. After his release from WWE, Lashley dabbled in a mix of independent wrestling and MMA, fighting with numerous promotions and signing a deal with Bellator MMA this past summer.

Years in Wrestling: 2000-2007; 2012-Present
Years in MMA: 2007-2011
Record: 5-3-0

Brock Lesnar’s career of wrestler-turned mixed martial artist-turned wrestler again has been well-documented. At 6’ 3” and 266 pounds, Lesnar is about as intimidating as it gets both in and out of the ring. After a meteoric rise in WWE that saw him become the youngest WWE Champion ever at age 25, he left the company in 2004 and wrestled in Japan for a few years before joining UFC and winning the UFC Heavyweight Championship. He finally returned to the squared circle in 2012, and he is still going at it in WWE today.

Years in Wrestling: 1992-Present
Years in MMA: 1997
Record: 0-1-0

A hugely accomplished wrestler in Japan, Taka Michinoku also had a surprisingly long run for WWE in the late 1990s/early 2000s before he returned to his native country. Prior to his big breakthrough in WWE, he fought one time in the octagon; at an event in Tokyo, he submitted to Keiichiro Yamamiya in the first round in what would prove to be the only MMA bout of Michinoku’s career.

Years in Wrestling: 2010-Present
Years in MMA: 1996-Present
Record: 59-37-8

Known mostly as a mixed martial artist with over 100 professional fights under his belt, Ikuhisa Minowa made his pro wrestling debut in 2010 for the Japanese Inoki Genome Federation. He continues to wrestle sporadically, although these days he spends much more time fighting in the octagon than the wrestling ring.

Years in Wrestling: 2004-2006
Years in MMA: 2010
Record: 0-1-0

Remember the Spirit Squad? They were a short-lived group of male cheerleaders in 2006 WWE who were equal parts flamboyant and ridiculous. Nick Mitchell (or “Mitch”) was one such member, and after getting to feud with the likes of DX and Ric Flair he was unceremoniously cut (along with the rest of the squad) in May of 2007. Mitchell embarked on an MMA career after that, losing his first fight in 2010. A second bout was scheduled for later that year, but Mitchell got injured, pulled out, and never fought again.

Years in Wrestling: 2000-2006
Years in MMA: 2004-2007
Record: 4-2-0

Sean O'Haire became part of the WCW “invasion” into WWE in 2001, and established himself as a regular part of the roster for the better part of the next three years. While his career in WWE was unremarkable, he did have a pretty funny gimmick in which he simply went around backstage trying to convince people to do crazy things. After he left the company, he embarked on an MMA career whose most noteworthy moment was probably when O’Haire got beaten to hell by Butterbean. Sadly, this past September O’Haire joined the ever-expanding list of wrestlers to suffer an early death when he committed suicide.

Years in Wrestling: 1991-2004
Years in MMA: 2006
Record: 1-1-0

Who is Mike Polchlopek? You might better know him by his in-ring persona Bart Gunn, who along with his “brother” Billy made up the highly-successful “Smoking Gunns” tag team in the mid-to-late 1990s. The Gunns held the WWE tag team titles on three separate occasions until breaking up in 1996, and at that point Polchlopek engaged in a mildly-successful solo career until he got knocked out by Butterbean in a boxing match at WrestleMania XV and was dropped from the company soon after. He began his MMA career in 2006 after wrestling in Japan for several years, fighting twice before deciding that working as an electrician was a more worthwhile gig that involved way less getting punched in the face.

Years in Wrestling: 2004-2011
Years in MMA: 2003-2009
Record: 8-0-0

Daniel Puder’s biggest accomplishment in WWE was his victory in the $1,000,000 Tough Enough challenge, WWE’s reality series where wrestling hopefuls vie for a professional contract. While Puder did win the competition and competed on several Pay Per Views, he was cut from the company to save money in 2005 and wrestled on the independent circuit until 2011. After WWE, he continued a highly-successful MMA career in which he went undefeated prior to his retirement in 2011.

Years in Wrestling: 1993-Present
Years in MMA: 1997-Present
Record: 26-15-1

Kazushi Sakuraba’s name may not resonate as much in the United States, but in Japan he is regarded as highly successful in both MMA and professional wrestling. He’s been able to mix in both vocations since launching his career in the early 1990s, competing in 45 MMA bouts and returning to pro wrestling full-time in 2012. He even had one of his fights last an astonishing 90 minutes, which must have been ridiculous to see in person; what kind of fight lasts that long? That’s like a full feature-length movie.

Years in Wrestling: 1995-2012
Years in MMA: 1994-2012
Record: 101-19-7

Dan “The Beast” Severn is one of the most accomplished fighters in the history of MMA, a UFC Hall of Famer who also owns the distinction of being the first fighter to ever be awarded a UFC title belt. He can trace his fighting roots back to college, where he was a highly successful freestyle wrestler who was named an All-American at Arizona State and an alternate on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. When not smacking fools around in real fighting, Severn also tried his hand at professional wrestling. He is the only person to hold belts at the same time in MMA and professional wrestling (with the NWA), and even briefly feuded with UFC rival Ken Shamrock in WWE.

Years in Wrestling: 1997-2013
Years in MMA: 1993-1996; 2000-2006; 2008-2010
Record: 28-15-2

Perhaps the best-known of the early MMA-to-wrestling converts, Ken Shamrock became known as “The World's Most Dangerous Man” in the early part of his career. He rode that moniker (and some badass fighting skills) to the top of UFC, headlining 15 main events and being widely considered one of the most MMA fighters in history. He was no slouch during his WWE stint either, winning the Intercontinental and Tag Team championships as well as the 1998 King of the Ring tournament. He continues to dabble in professional wrestling even today, and also runs an MMA school known as the Lion's Den.

Years in Wrestling: 1997-2010
Years in MMA: 2003-2006
Record: 2-6-0

Paulo Cesar Silva, better known as “Giant Silva,” is exactly that: giant. Standing at 7’ 2” and tipping the scales at 385 pounds, Silva enjoyed a brief run in WWE as one of the Oddities, a very odd collection of gimmicks during a time where basically any wrestler who wasn’t Stone Cold Steve Austin had to be a part of some sort of posse. He also enjoyed a long career wrestling in Japan with several companies, and during that time he also tried his hand at MMA (it didn’t go all that well, as his record shows). Silva’s real specialty, oddly enough, is basketball; he was a reserve center on the Brazilian national team in the preliminaries to the 1988 Summer Olympics before turning his attention to wrestling.

Years in Wrestling: 2000-Present
Years in MMA: 2003-2006
Record: 3-1-0

Sylvester Terkay’s WWE career spanned all of six months from mid-2006 to early 2007, and didn’t make all that much of an impact. Since then, however, he’s been a huge success in Japan and at one point was even named the No. 1 non-Japanese wrestler in the country. His fighting roots trace back to college, where in 1992 he lost on points in the NCAA Division I heavyweight wrestling tournament finals to a guy named Kurt Angle. Terkay won the tournament the following year, and 10 years later would use those skills to launch his MMA career.

Years in Wrestling: 1982-2009
Years in MMA: 2004
Record: 0-1-0

A man with one of the great nicknames in wrestling history, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams is best known for his exploits in the wrestling ring. Working largely in independent promotions, Williams was a three-time world heavyweight champion and eight-time tag team champion who even had a very brief stint with WWE in 1999. Despite this success, however, his one MMA bout did not go well; Williams got TKO’d after just 22 seconds. Sadly, he died in late 2009 after multiple battles with throat cancer.