10 Weirdest UFC Fighting Styles

8. Trap Fighting

With only one fighter to ever represent the martial art, trap fighting isn't a style that the modern UFC fan is expected to have heard of.

Paul Varelans was a 6'8", 300lbs fighter who was billed as 'The Polar Bear'. You can see where this is going...

The style involves trapping/pinning an opponent at close range, so that they cannot defend themselves from the close ranged bombardments.

As the form requires a lot of strength and stamina to implement consistently, Varelans found more success with the style against smaller men. As evidenced when he met the likes of Tank Abbott at UFC 6, Varelans struggled to trap the man for long enough to make an impact.

In 1998, Varelans would retire from MMA with a 9-9 record, after a troublesome spell in ECW in 1996, involving him being choked out by Tazz and being promised a sexual favour from Missy Hyatt for doing so. Hyatt refused, saying she didn't 'blow jobbers'.

With a 50% success rate in the cage (higher than his success rate in other areas) Varelans showed that the style had the potential to be effective, but he should've probably found a plan B for those bigger challenges.

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...