Top 10 Craziest Interviews In MMA History
Mixed martial arts has it’s fair share of colourful, volatile and unpredictable characters who seem to be drawn to the sport like a moth to a flame, and when you put a mic in front of them you have to brace yourself to expect the unexpected.
Of course, these days it’s almost become that norm that things can get a little out of hand at a major press conference or in the heat of the moment in the cage after a fight, but that’s not the focus of this particular article.
Instead we’ll be homing in on what happens when MMA interviews in a more traditional setting go wildly off-script and head down a weird, bizarre, uncomfortable or indeed just downright disturbing path into the heart of Crazyville!
Chuck Liddell On Good Morning Texas
UFC Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell had an infamously incoherent interview with WFAA’s Good Morning Texas show back in 2007 to promote the movie ‘300’, which he’d made a cameo appearance in.
Liddell was still at the peak of his fame at the time, coming off what would prove to be his last successful 205-pound title defense against Tito Ortiz.
’The Iceman’ was also a significant party animal back then, and seconds into his interview on the morning show fans were already questioning whether he was drunk or on drugs as he mumbled and slurred his words almost unintelligibly, and then briefly appeared to fall asleep!
It was a hugely embarrassing incident and UFC president Dana White immediately pulled Liddell from any further promotional interviews, while the Nevada State Athletic Commission opted to carry out a random drug test on the champion, which surprisingly came back clear.
Liddell would later claim to the L.A. Times that he had been suffering from pneumonia and a fever, plus he’d taken the prescription sleeping pill Lunesta and a dose of Nyquil to help him get some shut-eye after a late night, despite having to get up early the next morning for the talk show.
”I needed six to eight hours of sleep and only got three,” Liddell said. “They should’ve never got me out of bed.”
Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller On ‘The MMA Hour’ Show
In the months after Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller announced his retirement in 2011 following his release from the UFC there were stories that his life may have been going off the rails, but it wasn’t he made an appearance live on ‘The MMA Hour’ show with Ariel Helwani that fans got to see evidence of this first-hand.
For reasons best known to himself, Miller showed up to the interview playing the part of ‘Lucky Patrick’, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it acting role he had in an upcoming MMA-based movie at the time, ‘Here Comes The Boom.’
This quickly became painfully awkward to watch, but Miller refused to break character and became increasingly belligerent as Helwani tried in vain to steer the conversation back on course.
Eventually ‘Mayhem’ had to be talked down after he took it upon himself to climb up onto the studio desk, then started shouting and swearing at the perplexed Helwani, before storming out of the interview.
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson & A Japanese Interviewer
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson has a long history of inappropriate interviews with members of the opposite sex, and it all began with a Japanese reporter back in the days when he was still fighting for the PRIDE organization.
The woman was interviewing various fighters that were hanging out backstage when she spotted ‘Rampage’ sitting on the floor and knelt down to speak to him.
He responded by getting on all fours and began panting and barking like a dog, before moving behind her and repeatedly simulating a dry-humping motion.
The reporter did her best to laugh it off and attempted to bid a hasty retreat as ‘Rampage’ continued to follow and grab at her leg, while several other fighters laughed in the background at the fighter’s antics.
Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier On ESPN
Technically this exchange between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier didn’t happen during the actual ESPN interview, but rather during a short off-air break.
Just hours earlier Jones and Cormier had engaged in an all-out brawl on-stage at a UFC 178 pre-fight press conference in Las Vegas after tempers flared during a staredown, and though things had now apparently cooled down, officials weren’t taking any chances and had put them in separate rooms for the interview.
On-air both fighters had been sincerely apologizing for their conduct, but off-air it was a different story.
”Are you still there, pussy?” Jones asked Cormier during a commercial break, unaware that the cameras were rolling and that the footage would later leak on to the internet.
Cormier responded by marveling at how different Jones was acting off-camera.
”It’s unbelievable how fake you can really be!” Cormier exclaimed, but it wasn’t long before his annoyance got the better of him and he stated, “I wish they would let me next door so I could spit in your f*ckin’ face!”
Not appreciating that, Jones responded with death threats.
”You know I would absolutely kill you if you didn’t something like that, right?” Jones responded matter-of-factly.
Cormier laughed it off, but Jones insisted he was serious.
”I would literally kill you. I’m not saying I would fight you, I’m saying I would kill you,” he warned.
Chael Sonnen On OTR With Michael Landsberg
Long-time TSN host Michael Landsberg is known for his confrontational interviewing style with sporting personalities on-screen, but he may have bitten more than he could chew when he went up against Chael Sonnen on ‘Off The Record’ in 2011.
The interview immediately got off to a bad start when Landsberg asked why Sonnen had backed up an offer to give his rival Anderson Silva 0,000 to give him a rematch.
”You might wanna take the bass out of your tone, I’m not sure you know who you’re talking to here,” the sharp-tongued Sonnen replied.
As the interview continued to deteriorate rapidly, Sonnen criticized Lansberg for being “amateur hour,” and suggested that he start the interview again, only to chastise him when he agreed.
With the tension between the two showed no sign of abating Sonnen eventually decided he’d had enough of Landsberg’s line of questioning and walked out, becoming the first person in over 3,000 episodes of ‘Off The Record’ to have done so.
Matt Major
To fully appreciate this interview in all of it’s weirdness it’s best to know a bit about Matt Major’s background.
Major was dealt a tough hand in life with his dad dying of cancer when he was only a 7-year-old, while the mother he never knew also passed away a few years later.
By the time he was 16, Major was already getting into trouble with the police, but MMA would then bring a sense of purpose to his life and he even fought for Bellator before a two-fight losing streak led to him becoming disillusioned and stepping away from the sport for a time.
His life then spiraled out of control and he’d become homeless and eventually spent two years in jail on an assault charge.
In 2014 he was back training in the gym, but sleeping on a sofa bed under the 87 Highway in San Jose at night. With that in mind, it’s perhaps not surprising that he lost his comeback fight.
This interview took place the following year after he lined up another fight, and given his backstory it’s difficult to tell whether he was just hamming it up for the cameras, or if he really was as mentally unhinged as he seemed as he creepily ranted about “fighting in the dark tunnel” .
Either way, the video certainly helped Major gain some attention, but he would still lose the fight and has since vanished from the MMA scene once again.
Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic vs. Mauro Ranallo
Backstage prior to PRIDE 27: Inferno in 2004, commentator Mauro Ranallo was tasked with interviewing one of the promotion’s most feared stars, Croatian heavyweight fighter Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic.
Midway through the interview, things suddenly got tense when ‘Cro Cop’ informed Ranallo that he had been annoyed with comments he had made about him during his last fight.
The flustered Ranallo claimed that he hadn’t even in the broadcast booth that night, but ‘Cro Cop’ was insistent and continued to loom over the commentator in an intimidating manner.
Several times the increasingly rattled Ranallo attempted to end the interview prematurely, but he kept getting called back under the assurance that ‘Cro Cop’ had calmed down, only for things to escalate again.
It was only when ‘Cro Cop’ grabbed the mic out of his hands that Ranallo’s co-commentator Bas Rutten finally stepped in to put his shaken colleague out of his misery, confessing that the whole thing had just been an elaborate prank!
Chael Sonnen vs. Jim Rome
Chael Sonnen is no stranger to weird and wonderful interviews, such as the time he boldly claimed on Larry Pepe’s show ‘Pro MMA Radio’ in 2010 that superstar cyclist Lance Armstrong had given himself cancer by abusing steroids.
However, Sonnen managed to outdo himself just a few days later during an interview on Jim Rome’s ESPN show when he denied ever making those comments and noted that no footage of the interview existed.
The perplexed Rome then played him back an audio recording of the interview, making it clear to everyone listening that it was indeed the voice of ‘The American Gangster.’
However, Sonnen defiantly stuck to his guns.
”Sounds like a guy with a Hispanic accent to me. Maybe I had a bad connection, but I thought you were kidding around with that voice over. That’s certainly not me.”
Sonnen’s flat-out denial in the face of overwhelming evidence generated plenty of headlines, and it wasn’t until a year later that the star finally admitted that it was him.
“Of course it was me,” Sonnen said at a UFC 133 fan Q&A.
“Come on, ‘Was it me?’ I’m a genius. That was the single greatest thing I’ve ever done. I’m so proud of that moment, and I’m disappointed that I’ve outed it, because there are actually people out there who don’t think that was me.”
Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller On HBO Real Sports
Behavior that borders on the bizarre is nothing new for Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller, but his interview for HBO’s Real Sports in 2015 went deeper down the rabbit hole than ever before.
During the erratic interview, which went on so long that day turned to night, ‘Mayhem’ drank, took hits from his bong, randomly walked off set, smashed a glass and boasted that he could beat up the entire film crew.
The main focus of the show had been to investigate the prevalence of domestic abuse within the sport of MMA, something that Miller has been accused of in the past.
However, Miller denied punching and kicking his ex-girlfriend, though when asked to respond to allegations that he urinated on her he claimed, “I never pissed on her unless she liked it.”
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson Dry Humps One More Female Interviewer
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson took interview awkwardness to a whole new level while being quizzed by Heather Nichols for Break.TV in 2009.
’Rampage’, who was still signed to the UFC at the time, appeared to get overly randy during the interview and drew Nichols close to him and essentially started dry-humping her.
If this had only lasted for a few seconds it would still have been inappropriate, but what made it especially cringe-worthy was the fact that ‘Rampage’ continued for the best part of a minute, never breaking eye contact with her, and only stopped when Nichols ended the interview and a producer tapped him on the arm to get him to let go.
The footage would soon go viral, and years later, it’s now racked up a staggering 20 million views.
Some watching felt that Nichols was egging ‘Rampage’ on by not telling him to stop, but in a subsequent interview with Sports Illustrated she explained that she was simply so taken aback that she didn’t know what to do.
”At first I was just shocked when he grabbed me, and all I could think was, “Oh my gosh, what is he doing?!” Nichols recalled. “Then I tried to play along a little bit because I knew he was trying to be funny, but after about the first 5-10 seconds, it was just plain awkward.”
