Oh, Twitter. You have provided us some entertaining moments over the years. You’ve given us insight into the lives of professional athletes like never before. You’ve become our go-to source for mixed martial arts news. And, in some cases, you have cost fighters their jobs and livelihoods.
Twitter has become part of the fabric of our lives. Few of us could imagine living without it in the same way it would be difficult to live without our phones or text messaging or Taco Bell.
Today, courtesy of Twitter’s new First Tweets tool, we’re taking a look back at some of the first steps taken on Twitter by fighters and other MMA personalities.
I don’t know whether to be sad about this or concerned. Probably a little bit of both.
But then again, that’s pretty much been the story of the last five years or so of Baroni’s career, where he’s gone 2-7 and elicited groans from fans every time he steps back in the cage because he needs the money.
One of the most deplorable human beings in mixed martial arts, Jon Koppenhaver (I refuse to call him “War Machine”) was on the set of a…movie when he discovered Twitter.
We all know what kind of movies Koppenhaver starred in. And now that I’ve forced these thoughts into my brain, I’m going to go in the living room and hit myself with a hammer until they disappear.
Sometimes the jokes write themselves. I have no words here.
Yeah, Dana White didn’t write his first tweet. You know how I know? Because everything is spelled correctly and there are no expletives.
Josh Barnett apparently only joined Twitter because the fans voted that he should. Oh, and because Twitter needed some more chaos and destruction.
Blackzilians photographer Ryan Loco, ladies and gentlemen.
Is there a more fitting first Pat Barry tweet? One of the funniest and most engaging UFC personalities wanted a po-boy, and who can blame him? Po boys, a staple of the New Orleans food scene, are delicious and not at all nutritious.
And now I’m hungry. Thanks, Pat.
This is Pat’s girlfriend, Rose, who will appear on Season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter. She’s a really fun fighter to watch. Also, she’s bad with the grammar and punctuation.
I had to point this out because Tito can’t spell and because it reeks of the same confusion that surrounds the rest of Ortiz’s life. This is his Twitter. Not the other one. This one. My neck is broken, and I’ll risk paralysis if I fight again. I’m fine and waiting for Bellator to give me a fight.
No, Mark Hunt. We did not know about your new Twitter account. Not until you tweeted about it, anyway.
This was before the first fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen, and so it is not surprising that Sonnen’s first usage of the social media service was to continue the expansion of his burgeoning trash-talking empire.
Look at this: Uriah Hall, a year before he would go on The Ultimate Fighter, using Twitter to identify himself to Dana White.
Andre Fili, I don’t even know what to say about your first tweet. You are far too young to speak of such things.
That’s Forrest Griffin for you: dragged kicking and screaming into the Twittersphere by a sponsor who wanted him to use it to further the company’s product.
This is actually T.J. Dillashaw’s first tweet: a retweet of Team Alpha Male leader Urijah Faber. In it, we see that Miesha Tate has just won the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Championship, and Joseph Benavidez is so excited he can’t keep his eyes open.
This appears to be one of the first moments that Cormier revealed his move to mixed martial arts. Just a few months later, he would make his pro fighting debut for Strikeforce, and the rest is history. That’s a pretty good use of a first tweet, I’d say.
One imagines Vitor Belfort sitting in front of his MacBook Pro, coding his own website. No? OK.
Thankfully, Cat Zingano would likely go on to learn the correct name of the social-media service.
Yet another fighter who was forced to sign up for Twitter, but would go on to become a prolific user of the service.
What Jon Anik would “get into” is an eventual job with the UFC. So things seemingly worked out for him.
This one is great because it was the same day Jose Aldo would beat Mike Brown to capture the WEC Featherweight Championship. He hasn’t lost since.
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s probably a better way to refer to the act of opening up a new Twitter account than what Travis Browne chose here.
Well, I don’t know what any of this means.
Nate Diaz’s Twitter account would go on to be used for much more awesome things than this simple tweet in the years ahead.
Succinct and to the point. That’s what Dan Henderson is all about. And Sunday, he’ll do the thing against Shogun Rua in Brazil.
I close with my own, from way back in 2006, mostly because it is likely the single worst tweet ever.
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