Unfortunately there have been several sick and twisted individuals who just so also happened to excel at mixed martial arts. When the crimes of these fighters are exposed it sends a dark ripple throughout the MMA community.
Plenty of crimes committed by MMA fighters have been fairly benign. Examples include Chael Sonnen’s shady real estate deals, Jeff Monson spray-painting of parliament buildings, or Josh Rosenthal’s 3-year prison term for selling weed. Crimes like that don’t give the sport a black eye. It is for more serious crimes, ones which directly harmed people, that sent the fighters listed here to prison.
Here are five shocking crimes that shook the MMA community.
Hermes Franca
Hermes Franca spent 42 months in a state prison before he was deported to Brazil in 2014. In 2011 he pled guilty to 1 count of unlawful penetration and 1 count of first-degree sexual abuse. The victim had been an underage student at his jiu-jitsu school. Before that he was a fairly decent fighter.
From 2006 and 2007 Hermes Franca was one of the top lightweights in the world. At one point he was on a 5 fight win streak (WEC + UFC combined) which included WEC lightweight title defences over Jamie Varner and Nate Diaz. He is the only person to make Nate tap in an MMA fight. By 2011 he’d sort of fallen off the map however.
Franca was deported to Brazil when he was released. He attempted to revive his fighting career, but he’s lost 4 of his last 5 and hasn’t fought since 2015.
