Known as one of basketball’s greatest players of all time, Shaquille O’Neal has also been an avid MMA enthusiast for a long time as well.
However, his love for MMA started in quite an unusual way…
According to him, it all began with an unexpected encounter with Vitor Belfort.
Shaq revealed what happened during a recent episode of the Pound 4 Pound podcast:
We’re at training camp in Hawaii, and I’m walking down the street, and a motherf*cker grabs me, and he’s strong as f*ck.
I’m thinking: “Oh shit, it’s about to go down.”And I turn around, and we square up, and Vitor Belfort goes like this [raises hands]: “No, no, no, man! I’m a fan of yours.”
The guy just grabs me, so I’m getting ready to square up, [and he is like]: “No, no, no! I’m just a fan!”
And he gave me tickets to his fight.
He beat some dude who had on some overalls.
Shaq continues:
He grabbed me in the middle of the street. So in my mind, I’m about to mess him up because he’s little.
But he was nice: “No, no, no. My friend, my friend. I fight in the UFC. We have a fight.”He beat some 7-foot dude in overalls, and I had never seen a sport like that.
So I’ve been a fan ever since.
