THE FIGHT IN THE DOG

Pitbull owners swear they’re a lovable breed maligned by the press and a few thousand idiot owners. Conversely, the press loves a headline that starts with "Pitbull mauls…". MMA fighters love the nickname because of the breed’s fighty, bitey reputation.

And by "love" I mean vastly overuse it.

I love MMA nicknames, and for me the one true Pitbull will always be Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski. The man with the fanged gumshield is my favorite Pitbull because he was the first fighter with that nickname that I was afraid of in my early years of MMA fandom. (I’m choosing to ignore the Pitbull / Pit Bull spelling difference. Pedants, come at me.) But the big Belarussian is far from the only one to adopt that nom de guerre.

I searched that bastion of "free speech" / wanton assholery that is Sherdog for fighters with "Pitbull", "Pit bull", "The Pitbull" or some combination therein and it returned 413 results. Yup – there are over 400 Pitbulls in the young history of the sport we all mostly love. But since Sherdog’s admission policy for who they list is about as selective as the colleges I applied to, parsing the data is key.

Taking completeness of profile as a good indicator of data quality, from the 413 we see that:

- 179 have both height and weight listed (95% certainty they’re real people)

- 343 have weight only (76% certainty they’re real people)

- 163 have height but not weight (40% certainty they’re real people)

- All 70 with no weight listed also have no height, which isn’t surprising as weight should be easier to glean based on the weightclass the fight took place in (8% certainty they’re real people)

And as for the Pitbull adjacent:

- 11 fighters go by "Bull Terrier" or "The Bull Terrier" (shout outs to Spuds MacKenzie and Slurms MacKenzie, and…. what the hell, why not Phil Mackenzie too?)

- 4 fighters go by "Terrier" or "The Terrier" (But which kind? Airedale? Scottish? Wirehair? Jack Russell? Soft Coated Wheaten?)

- A tip of Marlon Brando’s ice bucket hat from Island of Dr Moreau to Finnish bantamweight Hannan "Humanterrier" Housmand (now and forever the only Triple H I’ll ever love).

- Czech bantamweight Marian Kotlar goes by "Stafford" but I don’t know for certain it’s in reference to Staffordshire Terriers (aka the breed you tell landlords when you don’t want to say Pitbull) or Stafford, the battery-electric shunting engine from Thomas & Friends.

THE DOG IN THE FIGHT

Using the awesome power of Excel, I was able to calculate the average Pitbull in the cage is 5’ 7" and 157 lbs. Given how many people invoke the supposedly bitin’-est, fightin’-est dog breed for themselves it’s little surprise that this mirrors MMA fighter size distribution as a whole. (Whereas "Techno Goliath" seems to be reserved for fighters 7’ 0" and above).

Let’s dig in.

On the short side there’s the 5’ 0" Flyweights Gleyson Menezes and Tati Pitbull.

On the light side there’s 105er Nathielly "Nathy Pitbull / Macuxi" Santos (she keeps the doggo name even though she also has a better nickname - as any nickname other than Pitbull is better). For the better, according to Google the Macuxi are "an indigenous people living in the borderlands of southern Guyana, northern Brazil in the state of Roraima, and in an eastern part of Venezuela."

The tallest Pitbull is the one true Pitbull – heavyweight legend Andrei Arlovski at 6’ 4".

The heaviest is the 5’ 11" early-UFC-name-you-probably-know Scott Ferrozzo at 323 lbs. Ferrozzo boasts a win over Tank Abbott, a loss to Vitor Belfort, and an eventual loss to Tank Abbott (in what might be the saddest sub-WorldStar video ever).

"CAN I PET YOUR DOG? WHAT’S ITS NAME?"

The careful reader might’ve so far noticed that there are many Brazilian names on the list, and we’ll get to that in a moment. First, however, another item of interest – many of the possibly real fighters who love those broad, squat terriers so much also take Pitbull as either a first or last name.

63 fighters of the 413 have Pitbull for a last name. An additional 3 are one step beyond, taking the infamous terrier for both names – yes, there are 3 people listed as Pitbull Pitbull.

51 fighters made the most generic MMA moniker slightly more original by adding an extra adjective.

The highlights are:

"Gordo Pitbull" Luis Henrique dos Santos (refreshingly honest)

"Lord Pitbull" Murat Kazgan (probably an egomaniac. His brother, and fellow Kazgan MMA Team fighter Kaan Kazgan, might win for "Most Earnest Nickname Ever" with the far superior nickname "Face Puncher")

"Punisher Pitbull" Chris Conlin (as in the guitar, he’s NOT A FISH! Wait, wrong Punisher…)

"The Red Nose Pitbull" Steve Berger (lest anyone think he was a Brindle, a Blue Nose, a White or a Gator)

And if you thought it was necessary to sacrifice repping your country for calling yourself a bitey dog, you’re wrong! "The Irish Pitbull" Scott Furr, "The Italian Pitbull" Mateo Cutbill, "The Korean Pitbull" Doo Won Seo, "The Mexican Pitbull" Santos Delgado, and "The Polish Pitbull" Damian Grabowski all want your visit to the doc for a rabies shot to have the added zest of patriotism.

26 fighters with this asinine sobriquet also come from teams with Pitbull in their name, chief among them Juliano Pitbull who fights for Pitbull Team. The Pitbulls Leandro Higo and Bethe Correia both fight out of the Pitbull Brothers camp, named after the Bellator mainstays at the forefront of unoriginal nickname-have, Patricio and Patricky.

As an aside for other famous-ish MMA brothers: Chinzo Machida - the older, smaller brother of Lyoto "The Dragon" - doesn’t even have a nickname. And some thoughtful soul / hilarious jackass updated David Teymur’s nickname on his Wikipedia page to "Underwear Man" in honor of his ESL insult to Cody Garbrandt from Season Whocares? of TUF ("Take care of your underwears, I’m gonna fuck you man!"), while his smaller, younger brother Daniel has the more generic "Kid Dynamite".

(Though for shared nicknames Pat & Pat Pitbull have nothing on the few years when Evangelista Santos and Cris Justino were married to each other and both fighting as "Cyborg". Dawwww… Now he has a skull fracture and she’s mauling bantamweights. Sometimes these things happen in MMA.)

"O SEU CACHORRO É UM COVA TOURO?" (Calques are the best!)

A few notable exceptions aside, the list of 413 are heavy on Brazilians. But are Pitbulls really that popular in Pindorama?

Some lazy googling led me to the following stats:

- Brazil has the #2 dog population worldwide (behind the USA) with approximately 35.8 million dogs for a population of 207.7 million people, or 1 dog per 5.8 human. (The USA has 69.9M dogs for 325.7M people, or 1 per 4.6. Is there value to this stat? Probably not, but I worked it out, so there it is anyway…)

- Brazil has the highest number of small dogs per capita in the world

- Finder.com says the Pug is Brazil’s most popular dog, iHeartDogs says it’s Labradors and Yorkies, and Business Insider says it’s Shih Tzus

Regardless of the above lack of consensus on Brazil’s most popular dog, not-a-one says it’s Pitbulls. So if Brazilians aren’t buying them in much higher numbers than anyone else, what’s with their love of the nickname? My guess is it’s the breed’s small size and reputation for ferocity. I say this because Brazilian’s don’t usually run very tall – average national height of 5’ 7" for men and 5’ 2" for women, vs 5’ 9" and 5’ 4" for USA men and women, or the Dinka people at 6’ 3" and 5’ 11", respectively.

And if I’m pushing my luck, since Brazil is also known for its Werdum-esque machismo, that could be a connection too. But if there’s anyone else who wants to weigh in on the Brazil / Pitbull connection lemme know in the comments, eh?



So, what if you were an up and coming Brazilian fighter in need of a nickname and your very unoriginal friend said "Howsabout Pitbull? That’s totally badass, bro!" Would you even be following in the footsteps of champions? The numbers would suggest the answer is "Nope."

Should you listen to your friend, you’re now in league with Pat & Pat Pitbull, from Pitbull Brothers camp, plus two other fighters also from Pitbull Brothers. To that I would say - as I often tell people who defend MMAMania – "Aspire to more!"

"AREN’T THOSE DOGS ILLEGAL?"

At this point, taking Pitbull as a nickname in MMA is about as original as covering "Wonderwall", "Wish You Were Here", or "Hallelujah" on acoustic guitar, or middleweights calling out Michael Bisping during his brief title run.

From our pack of 413, arguably fighters with "Pit" or "Pitt" as a part of their actual names – i.e. Cassie Pitka, Craig Pittman and Isaiah Pitts - have the strongest claim to adopting the moniker, but even still there are other options (e.g. The Armpit, Pitt the Bed, Pit and Pendulum, Talkin’ Mad Pit, Don’t Give a Pitt, etc.).

With that in mind, I’d like to offer the following alternate suggestions for Brazilian fighters, or anyone else, to consider before brining another Pitbull into the cage -



The Mosquito - As a primary vector for malaria, zika and other bloodborne diseases, they are responsible for more deaths than any other animal. Only 8 fighters currently have this nickname, so I think a few more would be ok.

The Tardigrade – These microscopic critters can survive being frozen, or even the vacuum of space. Definitely small and tough.

The Cuttlefish – Small and deadly, these fucking things are terrifying. Probably Lovecraft’s primary influence for Cthulu.

The Thick Dutch Pretzel – A great nickname for top jiu-jitsu players, this specific type of food is an overlooked choking hazard according to this article.

If you’ve got a suggestion for a better non-Pitbull nickname do let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading! And If you’re thinking of getting into the cage to risk probable brain trauma and possible glory please, por favor, s'il vous plait don’t choose Pitbull for your nickname.

Now let’s all take a moment to take in the enjoyably caustic, batshit insanity of Pitbull Terrier by Die Antwoord.