With the explosion of popularity in mixed martial arts over the past decade thanks to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, willingly engaging in a petty street fight is crazier than ever. You just never know who you’re dealing with out there or what kind of training they might possess. This poses a special kind of threat for police officers to face these days as getting those handcuffs around the wrists of a person trained in the art of dislocating joints and choking people to death can be a dicey proposition. It’s a good thing our side has men and women like the ones in this fierce group of thirteen cops who also happen to be world class fighters.
Forrest Griffin
Before Conor Mcgregor, Brock Lesnar, or Rhonda Rousey, there was Forrest Griffin – who will forever be remembered as one of the UFC’s most colorful personalities. Griffin may have reached the top of the mountain by defeating Quinton “Rampage” Jackson for the UFC Light Heavyweight title back in 2008, but perhaps his biggest contribution to the sport was made when he beat Stephan Bonnar in the finals of the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter back in 2005. UFC President Dana White calls it “the most important fight in UFC history” and many fans hold the opinion that it was the scrap that took the sport mainstream.
While anyone who recognizes the name knows of Forrest Griffin the fighter, many don’t realize he was a cop in Richmond County, Georgia for three years. In fact, he had given up fighting and was a current LEO just before White fatefully talked him into making a last run at fighting and joining the inaugural TUF cast. Check this out to see why Griffin made a much better fighter than a cop. Still, it’s pretty damn funny.
Mirko Filipovic
Croatia’s Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is a true legend in the sport of mixed martial arts. Before it was bought out by the UFC, Pride Fighting Championships was putting on mixed martial arts fight cards in front of 90,000+ spectators out in Japan as early as the year 2000. Mirko earned one of the sport’s coolest nicknames in “Cro Cop” because of his membership to his country’s elite Police Special Forces, the Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit. Think Croatian SWAT.
“Cro Cop” was crowned the Pride FC Openweight Grand Prix Champion in 2006, K-1 Kickboxing World Grand Prix Champion in 2012, and Rizin Openweight Champion last year. Infamous for the devastating kicking power he possessed, he once stated, “right leg is hospital, left is cemetery”. With kicks like those, who needs a taser?
Tim Sylvia
Proving to be another pioneer in the MMA world, Tim Sylvia became the UFC Heavyweight Champion in 2003 when he defeated Rico Rodriguez at UFC 41. He went on the defend his title at UFC 44 and had an epic trilogy of fights with Andre Arlovski in which he took two out of three tilts for the heavyweight strap. Sylvia last fought in 2013 and retired from the sport with a record of 31-10.
He is currently a reserve police officer with the Milan Police Dept. in Illinois where he works the road most weekends. According to Sylvia, he “loves it” and “it’s what he’s always wanted to do.” He’s even got the high school year book quote to prove it. Go on a ride-along with him here.
Stipe Miocic
Okay…reigning UFC Heavyweight Champ Stipe Miocic isn’t actually a cop, he’s a hose dragger – but public safety is public safety and he seems like a hell of a guy. When he’s not “moonlighting” as the top heavyweight fighter in the world and winning four fights in a row all by first round Knockout, he works a $14.00 per hour day job at the Valley View Fire Department outside of Cleveland.
Truly dedicated to a life of service, he’s known for working shifts up until 6 days before his fights. Ask him about it and he’ll tell you, “I love helping people. People who are sick or something with their house. We’re there.”
If you think million dollar fights have earned him any kind of one-up in the pecking order of a firehouse, think again. On any given day, you can catch the Champ out at the FD mopping the floors or scrubbing toilets like one of the guys.
Chuck Norris
Everyone knows the jokes:
“Chuck Norris doesn’t do pushups. He pushes the earth down.”
“When Chuck Norris was born, he drove his mom home from the hospital.”
“Chuck Norris threw a grenade and killed fifty people…and then it exploded.”
You can laugh, but do so at your own peril. Carlos Ray Norris is a legit savage. You can’t lump him in with Van Dam, Jackie Chan, Snipes, Stallone, Seagal, or any of the other “martial arts action heroes”. To this day, Norris is the only one of them to be a legitimate world champion martial artist. From 1964-1969, he dominated the martial arts scene as the Middleweight Karate Champion of the World and was named the Black Belt Magazine Fighter of the Year of ’69 to top it all off.
In 1990, Norris became the first westerner in the recorded history of Taekwondo to be given the rank of 8th Degree Black Belt Grand Master before being inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum’s Hall of Fame in 1999. If he had been born a half-century later, I don’t doubt we’d all be watching him competing for UFC gold right about now.
While most people know him as the butt kicking star of Walker, Texas Ranger – Norris’ can thank his time as a military policeman in the Air Force for being what ultimately put him in the position to fall in love with martial arts while stationed in South Korea.
Norris eventually went on to join the Terrell County Sheriffs Office in Texas as a Reserve Deputy in the mid- 90’s. Check out this archived 1997 story of the time he helped the boys take down a drug ring during a narcotics sting op.
