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This story is not about cannabis. The Athletic recently conducted a survey with 170 professional MMA fighters, and 45.9 percent admitted to using cannabis for either recovery or recreation during their career; an additional 4.7 percent regularly used marijuana in the past, but had ceased at the time of the survey. If the question is on fighters who smoke cannabis, it’s almost easier to list the ones who don’t. However, cigarettes are another story.
Smoking cigarettes as a professional fighter seems like an absolutely insane proposition. There are not only zero benefits, but it can wreak havoc on your cardiovascular system which is highly essential to combat athletes of all kinds.
Perhaps back in the day before the dangers of smoking were as well-known it was more common for fighters and athletes to be smokers. Nowadays though, with the dangers of smoking so widely understood, it makes little sense why any professional athlete would still do it.
And though the following fighters still have had highly successful careers despite smoking, you’ve got to think they’d be even better without it.
NOT Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone
Despite looking like a real Marlboro Man, and rumors that Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone smokes cigarettes, it’s not true.
Smoke what? 🚬no https://t.co/iEg0FeHz5W
— Cowboy Cerrone (@Cowboycerrone) November 17, 2015
#7. Masahiko Kimura
Arguably the greatest Judoka of all, Masahiko Kimura crushed Gracie patriarch Helio, breaking his arm with an Ude Garami, which is now known widely in jiu-jitsu and MMA circles as a Kimura. He was reportedly a lifelong smoker. Kimura died on April 18, 1993, at the age of 75, following a long fight with lung cancer.
Here Kimura is profiled reverentially, as part of a Canadian Film Board documentary on Judoka Doug Rogers.
#6. Ronda Rousey, but …
… there is zero evidence she still smokes. In her best-selling autobiography, My Fight Your Fight, the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion and Olympic medalist in judo detailed a time in her life when she smoke, drank, and took drugs. After winning an Olympic medal, Ronda Rousey received $10,000, and retired from the sport. Working as a bartender, she began smoking and drinking heavily, often starting each day with a cigarette and a vodka espresso. She developed a cannabis-and-Vicodin habit, and was homeless for a time, living out of her car.
One day she saw women’s MMA on television over the bar, thought to herself, “I can beat them,” and she was right. Rousey would go on to become the most famous fighter in MMA history at the time, and been eclipsed only by Conor McGregor. Today, “Rowdy” is one of the top draws in the WWE. She and husband, retired UFC heavyweight Travis Browne live at Browsey Acres, and are raising a daughter, La’akea Makalapuaokalanipo Browne.
#5. Joe Schilling
Although he has not competed since 2019, Joe “Stitch em Up” Schilling is the 2013 GLORY Middleweight (-85 kg/187.4 lb) World Championship Tournament Champion, with a tremendous combat sports legacy. He is also very well-known to be a cigarette smoker.
At the 2104 GLORY Last Man Standing 8-man one-night tournament, Schilling reportedly smoked between bouts. He was the tournament runner-up.
Surprisingly enough, cardio really doesn’t seem to be an issue for Schilling who’s beaten some big names like Artem Levin and Simon Marcus.
#4. Ricardo Mayorga
Mayorga is a former two-weight world champion in boxing, having held the WBA (Super), WBC, Ring Magazine, and lineal welterweight titles, as well as the WBC super welterweight title. He is also a heavy smoker, and that’s a big part of his ‘bad boy’ image and shtick.
Mayorga also competed in MMA but did not find the same success he had in boxing, losing all three of his fights.
#3 Carlos Monzon
Argentina’s Carlos Monzon is, along with Sugar Ray Robinson and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, on the three greatest middleweights in boxing history. He retired with a record of 87-3-9, with one 1 NC. Monzon fought for 14 years, and all the losses occurred in the first 19 months of his career, during which he had 20 fights. A chain smoker, Monzon reportedly cut down to 50 cigarettes a day for training camps, from his usual 100. He died in a car accident at the age of 52, while on a furlough from a ten year sentence for killing his wife.
#2. Jean-Charles Skarbowsky
When the greatest welterweight of all time, Georges St-Pierre, was a coach on The Ultimate Fighter, he brought in a coach with a remarkable regimen. Jean-Charles Skarbowsky is a former #1 fighter at Rajadamnern Stadium who smokes and drinks heavily. After getting off the plane from his home in Paris, France, Skarbowsky trashed the entire team, as you can see below.
#1. Kazushi Sakuraba
Kazushi Sakuraba is a true legend in MMA and one of the all-time greats of the sport. He is also well-known to be a heavy smoker. In Japanese culture though, smoking cigarettes is pretty common and many other Japanese fighters are rumored to smoke as well.
Even though he is a smoker, it didn’t seem to hold him back in his epic 90-minute special rules fight against fellow legend Royce Gracie in 2000 that saw Sakuraba emerge victorious after Gracie could no longer continue. It was the longest fight in modern MMA history.
