The List: Needle-movers, or the fighters who light the Internet on fire

For too long, our writers’ hyper-specific arguments have been confined to the private corridors of the Internet. Welcome to The List, where we take their instant message bickerings, add a little polish, and make them public. Today: With Ronda Rousey-mania sweeping the Internet in the workup to Saturday’s UFC 190 event, we talk about the fighters who always draw an online crowd. And no, we did not mention Brock Lesnar or Fedor Emelianenko, so deal with it.

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Nick Diaz

Nick Diaz

Steven Marrocco (@MMAjunkieSteven): There are MMA fans, and then there are Nick Diaz fans. We can thank Scott Coker for that.

The ex-Strikeforce honcho built up the Sultan of Stockton Slap from an also-ran in the UFC to a full-blown folk hero in his hexagon. All of the sudden, Diaz (26-10 MMA, 7-7 UFC) was more than a fighter with an attitude problem; he was the mouthpiece for an area code and a saint to everyone who wanted to give the world double birds. And, no surprise, when he popped up in stories saying this or that or whatever, his disciples showed up in the comments section, daring anyone to talk smack about the 209. To talk bad about him on Twitter was to risk a flaming.

Without that support, he never would have been promoted as a star by the UFC, which keeps close track of these things. The industry-leader knew he moved the needle, however fundamentally deficient he was when pared against wrestlers or pretty much anyone who didn’t oblige him on the feet. Diaz made a lot of people a lot of money, not least of which himself, no matter what he said publicly (according to a guy once close to his inner circle, he rode an exorbitantly expensive bike for those triathlons he was so fond of).

Every time the clicks rolled in on a story, it was clear he was, and is, a star.

Gina Carano

Gina Carano

Dann Stupp (@dannstupp): For a woman who fought just eight times as a pro and never won a major title, Gina Carano will go down in MMA history – or, at least, MMAjunkie history – as a pivotal figure and bona fide needle-mover.

When we launched this website in 2006, I was pretty new to this whole building-an-audience thing. But as I sifted through the traffic reports, I saw a pattern among our most popular keywords: Gina Carano, Gina Carano MMA, Gina Carano pics, Gina Carano feet (seriously, guys?), Gina Carano next fight, Gina Carano boyfriend, and countless other combinations.

These days, with the likes of Ronda Rousey and Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino and Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Miesha Tate headlining major events, it’s easy for fight fans to forget just how rare women’s MMA used to be. While her good looks and girl-next-door charm won over legions of admirers, Carano (7-1) – at least until she suffered a beating at the fists of “Cyborg” – possessed exactly what women’s MMA needed: some credibility and legit skills. And thanks to EliteXC’s broadcast deal with CBS, Carano had an audience right at the time domestic UFC competitors started to emerge on the scene.

WMMA could have easily been written off as a sideshow less than a decade ago. After all, it wasn’t just UFC President Dana White who doubted the depth of the female divisions and the skills those women possessed. But beating the likes of Julie Kedzie, Tonya Evinger and Kelly Kobold gave Carano some clout. She wasn’t just a pretty face. She was a legit badass and a true MMA star during MMA’s heyday.

Love her or hate her (and far more fans, both male and female, fell in the former category), Carano commanded an audience. Even today, sticking “Gina Carano” in a headline is still guaranteed to get fans clicking.

Chuck Liddell

Chuck Liddell

Ben Fowlkes (@benfowlkesMMA): It’s been just a shade over five years since Chuck Liddell last fought in the UFC, yet I dare you to attend a sizable MMA event anywhere in this hemisphere and not see at least one person sporting some iteration of that haircut (hereafter known as “the Chuckhawk”).

For a lot of people – especially people who don’t really follow this sport – Liddell isn’t just some MMA fighter. He’s the MMA fighter. He’s the archetypal image their brains reflexively conjure at the mere mention of MMA or the UFC. He’s what Sigmund Freud is to psychoanalysis, a sort of visual shorthand for the entire field.

And that was the cool thing about writing a Chuck Liddell (21-8 MMA, 16-7 UFC) story – any Chuck Liddell story, whether he was knocking someone out, nodding off on a morning show, or taking off his shirt in a club. Even people who didn’t read about MMA might read about Liddell. He was the guy equally revered by the bar bouncer and the type of person the bar bouncer was specifically hired to deal with. He was the one fighter both your kindly aunt and her weird, agro son could agree on. He was the guy who inspired the entire frat to chip in on a pay-per-view that didn’t even include any nudity.

It still works, too. Even five years after he suffered the final knockout loss in a disconcerting string of knockout losses, people will still give you a click just to see what Liddell is up to. He’s synonymous with a different era of MMA and the UFC, an era that gave him as much as he gave it.

To see Liddell’s name in a headline now is to be wrapped in the warm embrace of the American zeitgeist circa 2006 (the man was in a Mandy Moore video, for crying out loud). It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to go check your MySpace page. It’s familiar and fun and if the headline implies that he was last spotted in a nightclub, entertaining a group of women who all seemed very, very friendly and possibly not of legal drinking age, well, let’s just say it’s not a deterrent for most readers. Such is the power of “The Iceman.” Like the anthem that reminds us, even now, to “Face the Pain” in one form or another, the power of Liddell endures. So does the Chuckhawk, somehow.

Phil ‘CM Punk’ Brooks

Phil “CM Punk” Brooks

Brent Brookhouse (@brentbrookhouse): He’s yet to step into the cage for his first fight, footage of him training is minimal, his weight class isn’t set in stone, and yet everyone seems quite set in their opinion of exactly how talented (or untalented) Phil “CM Punk” Brooks is.

Brooks (0-0) was a controversial WWE superstar, loved or hated for his brash personality, confidence and straightedge lifestyle. His decision to move to the world of MMA – and directly to the UFC – has been met with everything from excitement to skepticism to outright ridicule.

But Punk brings a very important element to a sport that can never have enough stars: He provokes extreme reactions every time his name is mentioned. A small video of an exchange between Brooks and a fan who challenged him at a UFC Q&A event drove fans to comment sections in droves and into fits over who would win this ridiculous hypothetical fight.

Brooks is a needle-mover, and he’s yet to truly do anything in the sport. One can only imagine how crazy things will get in the lead-up to his first fight.