The night before UFC 131, Junior dos Santos attended the Stanley Cup Final game five, a thrilling and close game won by the Canucks. Though dos Santos was disappointed that no big fights broke out, he was impressed by the game.
Now, it turns out that the Boston Bruins, the winners of Lord Stanley's Cup, have pretty big MMA fans in their midst. Goaltender and Conn Smythe winner Tim Thomas told Fight magazine that even on game nights, he'll stay up late to watch the fights so that he won't be left out when his teammates discuss them in the locker room.
He became a fan of MMA in its early days, recognizing the genius in Royce Gracie's jiu-jitsu.
"As a kid, I got into a fight with a wrestler. He was bigger than me, but he couldn't fight. He took me down, and I could not get up," Thomas says. "I gained an appreciation right there for wrestling, and to later see Gracie's BJJ?I got hooked on the ground game right away."
As a goalie, Thomas doesn't get in as many fights as his teammates, but he did admit that the many fights he's watched were in his mind when he got into a fight with Montreal goaltender Carey Price.
There are plenty of other hockey connections to MMA. UFC lightweight Sam Stout told Cagewriter that he is good friends with the Chicago Blackhawks' Dave Bolland. Featherweight contender and Bostonian Kenny Florian celebrated the Bruins win on his Twitter account, and UFC president Dana White encouraged, in his own, vulgar way, the Canucks fans to stop rioting.
In fact, hockey and MMA are a natural match. Both have dedicated fan bases, commonplace bloodshed, and athletes with busted-up faces. How could they not be friends?
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