If Bas Rutten had made his name in anything other than a niche sport like MMA, he’d be the biggest superstar on the planet.  Not only was he one of the pioneers of MMA and without a doubt one of the best fighters ever, he’s one of the best personalities in any sport.  There’s probably never been an athlete that combined his success at his chosen discipline with a hilarious personality and overall natural charisma.  You’d have to have a number of other sports figures doing a variety of cons to equal Rutten–in NBA, you’d need Michael Jordan plus Bill Walton minus ‘da chronic’ and that still wouldn’t come close.

As a fighter, Rutten was ahead of his time and remains one of the baddest men on the planet.  He finished his MMA career with a 28-4 record, including a 22 fight unbeaten streak to end his reign of destruction in the ring.  Rutten is a three time King of Pancrase and a former UFC heavyweight champion, though he’s probably more of a natural light heavyweight.  His 1996 Pancrase fight with Masakatsu Funaki is arguably the first great MMA bout in the US or Japan.  You can make a really compelling case that Rutten is the ‘pound for pound’ best fighter in MMA history and is certainly in the conversation. His street fighting instructional videos are legendary and you realize pretty quickly that despite his good natured disposition if you had to pick anyone to walk with you down a dark alley, Rutten is very likely your man.

Rutten is also a great broadcaster.  Until they handed the HD Net live event reins over to the phenomenal Michael Schiavello and his various sidekicks including Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller and Guy Metzger he and Kenny Rice were without a doubt the best broadcast team in the sport.  Rice’s gravelly voice and solid play by play were the perfect counterbalance for Rutten’s often loopy humor and his encyclopedic knowledge of fighting.  Bas and Kenny now hold court every week on ‘Inside MMA’ and Rutten has recently done some commercials for the Cartoon Network that have caused quite a stir.  So let’s go to the videos–the first video is Bas and Kenny Rice calling the DREAM 5 entrance of Japanese judo badass and current UFC competitor Yoshihiro Akiyama.  Not only is Rutten hilarious on this clip, amid all of the hijinx they manage to explain the Akiyama phenomenon very succinctly.  His line to his broadcast partner “Hold me, Kenny!!” could be an all time MMA highlight in itself:

Bas and Kenny call Akiyama’s DREAM 5 entrance:

In this clip, Bas single handedly tackles the problem of childhood obesity as he gets some kids off the couch and doing pushups in a Cartoon Network PSA:

In another Cartoon Network PSA, Bas teaches their audience of adult geeks and kids the importance of washing your hands:

For more Bas Rutten excellence watch ‘Inside MMA’ on HD Net every Friday or you can check out some highlight clips of recent shows on their website:

Inside MMA video library at HD Net Fights