Sure-fire basketball Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal has long been a supporter of MMA, and is a regular fixture at UFC events. When not busy calling out Jose Canseco for a celebrity MMA fight, Shaq manages to also find time training in various disciplines of Mixed Martial Arts.
That being said, the mats wasn’t only his time he had worked on his grappling during his NBA career. He apparently choked a former teammate out after a scuffle during a 2008 practice, and as one of the pranks he’s known for, Shaq also used to wrestle his teammates while naked in the locker rooms. Watch the ESPN video below, where his former coach Alvin Gentry spoke about Shaq’s antics:
“The thing that he did that he got to be notorious for is that, every few days or every week or so, he would decide that it was time for this Brazilian naked wrestling contest. You would never know who the chosen one was, but what would happen when you least expect it, this 7-foot, 310-pound guy would turn the corner, and he would be stark naked and he would run right at you full speed, grab you, he would take you to the floor and then he would do about five rollovers with you. And he would always tell our trainers who it was going to be, so they were always prepared for it, but you never knew who it was going to be. Yes, I was a victim of this. I had to go to therapy a bit after that”
Someone needs to tell him that this isn’t how ‘no-gi’ works.
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