Good article about Mac Danzig, the guy with the best MMA name ever. He’s an interesting character in addition to being a top-notch fighter. The article focuses more on his fighting career and background, but that’s only half of the story when it comes to a guy I consider to be on a list with Jeff Monson and Josh Barnett of the smartest guys in MMA. For example, outside of the octagon, he enjoys taking nature photos (and is pretty good at it). The most intriguing thing about Danzig, however, is that he’s a vegan–which means he not only doesn’t eat meat but animal products of all sorts which includes eggs, cheese, milk etc.

Glen Danzig can’t understand either…

Now the story here isn’t that he *is* a vegan–its not my cup of herbal tea but he’s got a right to eat and live how he wants. What I find so interesting is that to the best of my knowledge he is the *only* vegan who’s also a successful professional fighter. It helps that he fights at a lower weight (155) but I’d still like to know what his daily diet is like. I’ve gone without eating meat for months at a time at several points in my life, and even including eggs and cheese in my diet I shed weight like nobody’s business. I’ve even tried eating a vegan diet for a couple of weeks at a time but gave it up because I felt so weak that it wasn’t worth it. For Danzig to be able to keep his weight and muscle mass with his diet, factoring in his training regimen, is extremely impressive. He may try to downplay his vegan diet because he doesn’t want to deal with ignorant questions from clueless mainstream media MMA noobs but that’s really a fascinating component of his success as a fighter. I’d be interested to know how he does it.

I’d also like to know why he doesn’t use a Danzig song like “Twist of Caine” as his ring entrance music.

Danzig wants to leave TUF stigma behind @ FoxSports