“A MF Grabs Me” – Shaquille O’Neal Almost Came to Blows With UFC Star During Camp in Hawaii, NBA Legend Reveals Untold Story

Published 04/25/2024, 2:54 PM EDT

One of the biggest athletes in the world, Shaquille O’Neal, was the most unstoppable force in his prime, perhaps in the entire history of the sport. Apart from the NBA, the four-time champion holds another sport in high regard, and it is MMA, specifically UFC. Shaq’s respect for MMA was highlighted by a chance meet-up with Francis Ngannou at a gym wherein the fighter managed to effortlessly pick the former Miami Heat player. However, this wasn’t the only time a UFC champion had picked up Shaq, and it also was not the first time his admiration for the sport grew.

In an appearance on former UFC champions Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo‘s ‘Pound 4 Pound Podcast’, the former Center revealed he became a fan of MMA after a chance encounter with former UFC champion Vitor Belfort on the street. “Let me introduce how I got to your sport. We’re in training camp, in Shaq’s First Fight Night in Hawaii, and I’m walking down the street and a motherf**er grabs me. And he’s strong as f*k and I’m thinking ‘oh, f*k, it’s about to go down and we’ll f**ing turn around, we square up, and Vitor Belfort goes like this ‘no, no, no, man I’m a fan of you,'” O’Neal narrated.

“And he gave me tickets to his fight… He beat some seven-foot dude in some overalls and I had never seen a sport like that. And I’ve been a fan since,” he added. Back in 1996, O’Neal had signed with the LA Lakers, leaving the Orlando Magic in one of the biggest transfers in NBA history. And in the ’96 off-season, the two-time NBA Finals MVP went with the Lakers team to Hawaii for a training camp.

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The gentle giant has even more reasons to hold fighters in very high regard as one special UFC fighter was able to do the seemingly impossible to him. Women’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili is the number one pound-for-pound female fighter in the UFC, on her way to contend with Amanda Nunes for the greatest female fighter ever period. However, the Chinese champion was able to achieve a feat that some may find even more impressive than being the p4p no. 1 in the world’s most competitive MMA promotion.

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Last year, Shaquille O’Neal met Weili. And the UFC champion, throwing all of the physics out of the window, managed to lift ‘Shaq’ off the ground! Just for reference, Weili weighs around 115 pounds, while O’Neal has admitted to being over 300 pounds. This means Weili lifted more than twice her body weight in a demonstration of just how freakishly strong she is. Given all of this, no wonder ‘Shaq’ has so much respect for mixed martial artists that he once considered making a career out of it.

Was Shaquille O’Neal open to fighting in UFC?

Winning the NBA Championships and Hall of Fame wasn’t enough for the Newark-born as he once discussed the possibility of taking home a championship belt by fighting in the octagon. Impressed by the sheer strength and conduct of the UFC fighters, Shaq once told MMA Underground, “I’m 50. I wish I was 38, 39. I would fight.” Despite sharing good camaraderie with UFC president Dana White and the former owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the athlete’s wish to fight in the UFC may never materialize.

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However, he hopes to bring the promotion to Orlando. In 2014, the now 52-year-old extended an invitation to the Las Vegas-based company to host a press conference in Orlando estate. “I had all that space, and I said, ‘Hey, you can use my house free of charge.’ Listen, anything Dana White needs, he gets from me,” the legend had said.

What are your thoughts about the NBA star’s love for the MMA? Let us know in the comments below.

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Written by:

Kanishk Thakur is a UFC writer at EssentiallySports with nearly 5 years of professional writing experience. Kanishk has expertly covered the heated rivalries of the fight game, and delivered meticulous reports of payouts of PPV events and Fight Nights, in addition to covering the personal side of fighters outside the sport. He is also an ardent Joe Rogan fan, who hopes to draw in more fans to the sport as Rogan did for him.

Edited by:

Sakshi Jain

“A MF Grabs Me” – Shaquille O’Neal Almost Came to Blows With UFC Star During Camp in Hawaii, NBA Legend Reveals Untold Story

Was Shaquille O’Neal open to fighting in UFC?

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