This weekend, Roy Nelson will waddle on down to the cage for eighth time in his UFC career. Blaring in the background, if everything holds to form, will be Weird Al Yankovic’s classic parody, “I’m Fat.”
Nelson, you see, has embraced his girth, made it his gimmick.
“Do I have fat cells on my body? Everybody has fat cells,” Nelson told ESPN last year. “Do I have more than most other athletes? Probably.”
One man who isn’t laughing is Nelson’s boss, UFC president Dana White, who has pressured the fighter to lose the gut and drop the act. Last year. after a disappointing performance against Frank Mir, White let it all hang out.
“The fat thing was funny for awhile, it’s not funny anymore,” White told Ariel Helwani. “It’s not funny when you’re the co-main event in a big fight like that and the fight looks the way that it did tonight.”
Of course, Nelson isn’t the most corpulent man in MMA history. Far from it. Here are five other large-and-in-charge men who made the Octagon shake with their mighty presence.