After professional MMA fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller was arrested yesterday following a police standoff, several other fighters throughout the MMA world quickly worked to scrap their existing nicknames in place of gentler, more mild-sounding in-ring names.
“If Jason’s nickname wasn’t ‘Mayhem,’ he probably wouldn’t be looking at jail time,” said fighter Mark “The Killer” Hudson. “I don’t want to appear like a violent guy. I’m a professional fighter, but that’s just in the ring. Someday someone I know will end up dead, and they’ll come right to me. ‘Well, his name is The Killer,’ they’ll say. F— that. From now on, I’m going to be known as Mark ‘The Loving Friend and Husband’ Hudson.”
Over the last several months, multiple arrests have been made on professional cage fighters, including several from major MMA company the UFC. In August of 2014, UFC fighter Jonathan Koppenhaver, who goes by the name ‘War Machine,’ was arrested for an alleged assault on his porn star girlfriend Christy Mack.
“That’s another example of just a horrible, abysmal name choice,” said Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. “I don’t think I’m going to stick with Rampage, that’s for sure. All these guys getting arrested, I need to tone it down. I don’t beat my girlfriend or wife like some of these guys, but you have to understand, if Mayhem’s name was ‘Friendly’ or ‘Mr. Hugs’ or something, no one would believe he was guilty. Because of his name, it’s assumed by the public and any potential jury, automatically, that’s he’s an abusive sonofabitch.”
Jackson went on to say that he would like to be referred to as “Dr. Love” in future bouts. Several other professional MMA fighters, including Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, Joey “The Mexicutioner” Beltran, and Christoph “I Beat My Wife Regularly” Jones also say that are considering changing or dropping their nicknames from promotional materials and are asking announcers to stop use as well.