[larrythedream]

Fans of the Wrestling Observer may have seen Dave Meltzer's mention of my list of Top 20 Pro Wrestlers Turned MMA Fighters. The list looks at 28 athletes who had their first pro wrestling match before their first pro MMA fight. That qualification disqualifies people like Josh Barnett, Tank Abbott, and Daniel Puder. Here's the Top 10:

Top 10 Pro Wrestlers Turned MMA Fighters
(Source: larryweaver.com)

1. Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba (UWFI) 23 - 10 - 1
2. Dan "The Beast" Severn (NWA) 81 - 15 - 7
3. Ken "The World's Most Dangerous Man" Shamrock (WWE) 26 - 12 - 2
4. Don "The Predator" Frye (New Japan) 17 - 6 - 1
5. Kazuyuki Fujita (New Japan) 14 - 6 - 0
6. Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFI) 27 - 12 - 0
7. Volk Han (Rings) 19 - 6 - 0
8. Brock Lesnar "The Next Big Thing" (WWE) 1 - 0 - 0
9. Bob "The Beast" Sapp (WCW) 9 - 2 - 1
10. Justin McCully (UPW/New Japan) 8 - 3 - 2

I'm continuing to make changes to the list as people point out additions and make intelligent rankings arguments. For now, I'm going to keep the list alive on my website so I can make the changes there. Please leave your input here or on the comments section at the original blog post here: http://www.larryweaver.com/blog/2008...a-fighters.asp

[falconstalon]

what about The Hero?

[SUPERBiRDUS]

Shamrock's WWE days were post his mma debut. His wrestling before that was in japanes like UWF. Also, I'm not sure Sapp ever wrestled for WCW, or WWE. His early days were in NWA.

[LythalWeapon]

shamrock worked the small territory shows back in the late 80's and early 90's then went onto japanese pro wrestling and then into pancrase
this list is missing 2 of the greatest pro wrestlers/pioneers of mma:
Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki
those dudes started Pancrase

[White Snake]

Where is Tsuyoshi Kohsaka?

[psychomikex]

Ludvig Borga?

[engr chris]

Minowa?

[MIKEMCCANN]

Ken worked the Carolinas before going to Japan. He beat Chris "Tatanka" Chavis for the SPW heavyweight title.

Bob Sapp did appear on WCW TV towards th end of their run. He was given a purple suit and smooth operator type of gimmick.


Funaki and Suzuki should be on there.

And there are a lot of other workers turned fighters, but remember the list stated the top ten