Gallery UFC Wichita photos: What the hell is this Shocker mascot, anyway?! view 20 images

For the first time, the UFC has touched down in Kansas this week for UFC on ESPN+ 4 in Wichita.

It’s a smaller market for the UFC, to be certain. Wichita proper has a population just short of 400,000, and the greater metro area checks in around 650,000. It’s the largest city in Kansas, though, and home to some big companies, in particular in the aircraft manufacturing business.

But the city perhaps is best known for its major institution of higher learning: Wichita State University. Well-rounded sports fans likely will know that Wichita State’s nickname is one of the more unique ones in sports. If you play sports there, you’re a Shocker.

That’s right: the Wichita State Shockers.

OK, c’mon … get your heads outta the gutter. Grow up. We know. We know.

But even if you know the school’s nickname – represented at basketball and football games by a big yellow dude known as WuShock – there’s a pretty good chance you don’t know just how the Shockers moniker came to be.

For the record, Wichita has some of the highest wheat production in the country, and the most in the state. In the early part of the 20th century, harvesting wheat was known as “shocking” it. And with a lot of students making some extra spending cash in the early 1900s by shocking wheat, the brilliant idea was hatched that the nickname should be “Wheatshockers.”

Eventually, it was shortened to just “Shockers,” and nearly 100 years ago the nickname stuck. About 20 years later, the mascot followed.

So there’s your history lesson. But we thought it might be interesting to find out if the fighters at UFC Wichita had any idea just what in the hell that mascot was, to begin with, and then why the school’s teams are the Shockers.

Check out the video above to see how they did. Then don’t miss UFC on ESPN+ 4, which takes place Saturday at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kan. The event streams on ESPN+.

For more on UFC on ESPN+ 4, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.