Some stars are created organically. They prove themselves in the cage and build an audience based on their fighting prowess and general excellence.
These are the stars with staying power.
Randy Couture. Georges St-Pierre. Anderson Silva. Matt Hughes. Jon Jones.
Others are products of a powerful media and marketing machine. They haven’t necessarily sought the spotlight, but it has found them nevertheless. Smelling money, promoters pounced.
You know an over hyped fighter the moment you see one. He’ll be the guy on UFC Live after just his first significant win in the Octagon, the articulate trash talker who doesn’t walk it quite as well as he talks it.
He’s the fighter getting a huge media push who just happens to be from whatever country the UFC is invading next, merely a part of MMA‘s own war on local insurgents.
He’s Shane Carwin, a muscle-bound heavyweight who is pushed to the top of the sport on the strength of a single viable win, then somehow stays there despite not winning a bout in more than two years.
Carwin, believe it or not, isn’t the worst of the worst. Here are 10 fighters even more over hyped than he is. Thought of someone else who belongs on this list? Let me know in the comments.