3 MMA Stars With Successful Acting Careers

Hollywood is full of professional wrestlers – and there is a reason for that. Professional wrestling is as much about the show as it is about athletic performance – so the performers already have what it takes to make it on the silver screen. When it comes to mixed martial arts, things are very different. MMA is not about acting but about skill, power, and resistance. This is one of the reasons why you’ll find many outlets offering MMA betting online while almost none that cover professional wrestling. In MMA, there are odds to be evaluated, there is a favorite and an underdog, and the outcome of the events is unpredictable most of the time. In wrestling, there’s no uncertainty – everything is predetermined.

MMA doesn’t rely on the athletes’ acting talent to be attractive. Still, there are MMA fighters who have successfully transitioned to acting.

Randy Couture

Randy Couture is the textbook case of a person wearing many hats. He spent eight years in the US Army, reaching the rank of sargeant in the 101st Airborne Division – he did some wrestling while there, and some boxing. While there, he applied for the US Army Freestyle Wrestling team – he ultimately ended up with the Greco-Roman wrestling team due to an error, but decided to just go with it. So much so, that he ended up on the NCAA Division I All-American three times, and a semifinalist at the 2000 Olympic Trials.

Couture made his debut at the UFC 13 in 1997 and won. Over the years, he fought 30 times, winning 19 of his bouts, became the first fighter to hold two UFC titles in two different divisions, and the only person over the age of 40 to have won a UFC championship fight.

After a few non-speaking roles, his first serious acting role was a cameo in the CBS series The Unit where he played Sgt. Strickland in a couple of episodes – but he rose to prominence as an on-screen action hero in The Expendables (2010) to which he returned several times. Today, he is featured in half a dozen productions that are in the works.

Georges St-Pierre

A two-division champion in the UFC, Georges St-Pierre is considered one of the best MMA fighters in history, ranked #1 by some of the most prestigious publications for years. When he retired in 2013, he held the most wins in title bouts and the second longest combined title streak (more than 2200 days) in UFC history. 

He began acting while still active in the octagon: he played various characters in various action movies until the 2014 Marvel flick Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where he played mercenary Georges Batroc. He later returned to the role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier miniseries.

Gina Carano

A professional Muay Thai fighter with a 12-1-1 record, Gina Carano was invited by Jamie Levine to take part in the first sanctioned female MMA fight in Nevada, World Extreme Fighting. She won her bout in 38 seconds. While she never officially retired, she didn’t fight since 2009 – she stopped at a record of 7-1-0.

She made her movie debut in the 2005 cult film “Ring Girls” where she played herself, part of a team of women who take on a challenge to fight the best Muay Thai fighters in the world. Her first “official” acting role was in the 2009 action flick Blood and Bone, followed by roles in everything from spy dramas to superhero movies – most notably, she played the role of Angel Dust in the 2016 “Deadpool” movie. But the role that made her famous was that of Cara Dune in the Disney+ original series The Mandalorian, in which she played until last year.