UFC Fighters Who Started in Their 30s

You can often hear that MMA is a young’s men game where you can’t come in your 30s and expect to make a career out of it. In the end, the 3rd decade of your life is when you start dealing with back pains, kids, marriage, and many other things. You don’t wake up with a thought “oh I’m about to train and become a UFC champion”.

But throughout MMA history, there have been more than a few fighters who joined the sport in their 30s and have managed to reach the pinnacle of the game. In fact, some of them have even become champions.

In this article, we are going to look at UFC fighters who started their MMA journey in their 30s and managed to succeed.

Table of Contents

Shane Carwin

Let’s kick off this list with the former UFC champ, Shane Carvwin who used to be a superstar in the 2000s. But what people often miss about him is the fact that he has two bachelor’s degrees in:

Mechanical Engineering
Environmental Technology

And second, he actually started competing in MMA in his 30s, why so late you may ask? Well obviously, he was too busy studying and working a regular 9–5 job.

After college, Carwin got a job at the “North Weld County Water District” where he worked as a construction manager. He even continued to work as an engineer while pursuing his MMA career. He would probably demolish someone on the regional scene on Saturday, and then come to work on Monday.

What was the reason behind his decision to leave a job and focus fully on MMA, we will never know. But one thing is for sure, it ended up as a smart move.

Carwin is a gifted athlete and he used to wrestle a lot in college. He is a former NCAA II National Champion (1999) and Runner-Up (1996 and 1997), and on top of that, he was also a two-time All-American in football. This unique mix of freak strength, top wrestling skills, and ability to learn fast is what allowed Carwin to succeed in MMA despite starting late.

Randy Couture

Couture is not just one of the greatest UFC fighters, but also a very inspirational athlete. You see, he came into the sport at 34 years of age and had built an amazing legacy in a very short time span. In this day and age, you can see a lot of fighters retiring at this age, or at least, accepting the fact that their athletic prime has passed. But Couture was different.

Before he switched over to MMA fighting, Couture used to wrestle at the highest levels. Upon discharge from the military where he attained the rank of sergeant in 101st Airborn, he went on to become :

Three-time Olympic team alternate
Three-time NCAA Division 1 All-American
Semi-Finalist at the Olympic trials (2000)
NCAA Division 1 runner-up (1991 and 1992)
Pan American winner (1991)

Couture made his MMA debut at UFC 13 tournament held in 1997 as a short notice replacement. But despite having only three weeks to prepare and the fact that he didn’t have any previous MMA experience, he went on to win the tournament, and the rest is history. Over the next decade, he would become:

UFC light heavyweight champion
UFC heavyweight champion
The oldest fighter to win the UFC title (45 years)
The oldest fighter to defend the UFC title (44 years)
UFC Hall of Famer

Yoel Romero

From the way he looks to the way he fights, Romero is intimidating in many different ways. But the other special thing about him is the fact that he actually arrived in MMA at 31 years of age. Quite late if you ask coaches and other MMA experts.

Before he made a move to MMA, Romero was a prominent name in the wrestling world. He had a very successful career in which he won Pan Americans and World championships many times. But the biggest moment of his career came in 2004 when he won the silver medal at the summer Olympic games in Athens.

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Romero joined MMA upon retiring from wrestling around in 2008 or 2009 and needed just around 2 years to reach the UFC. Despite having top level wrestling skills, Romero became known as a vicious striker. Like many wrestlers before and after him, he too got hooked on putting people to sleep with a single punch. On his road to the top UFC level, he left nothing but carnage in just about every fight.

In his UFC career, he failed to win the UFC title on three occasions, losing twice to Robert Whittaker, and once against Israel Adesanya.

Daniel Cormier

Although it seems like Cormier has been around forever, let’s not forget that he started fighting in MMA only just when he was 30 years old in 2009. What’s even more amazing is the fact that he needed 2 years to go from being a total amateur to winning the “Strikeforce” heavyweight tournament. Bear in mind that Strikeforce, at the time, was the second-best MMA promotion, packed with talented fighters. With just two years of training, he beat the likes of Jeff Monson, BigFoot Silva, and Josh Barnett.

Like most other fighters from this list, Cormier was also too busy wrestling at the highest levels where he achieved quite a lot. He was a:

US champion (six times)
Pan American Games Champ (two times)
2004 Summer Olympic Games (4th place)

In 2008, the injury forced him to retire from wrestling, and this is the moment when he decided to join the famous AKA gym in California. He started training alongside the head coach, Javier Mendez, and the team captain, Cain Valasquez. In 2013, he joined the UFC, and over the next 7 years, he would win both the light heavyweight and heavyweight titles and reach legendary status in the sport. Upon retiring from UFC, he joined the ESPN commentary team.

Mark Hunt

Hunt is an MMA legend widely known for two things: iron chin and overhand right knockouts. He is a king of walk-off KOs and a man who left nothing but carnage in just about every fight, both in MMA and kickboxing.

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Speaking of kickboxing, Mark Hunt was very famous during the glory days of K-1 back in the 2000s. He had a lot of success competing inside the ring against some of the best fighters like Jerome Le Banner, Stefan Leko, and many, many others.

The biggest moment of his K-1 career came in 2001 when he was able to win the prestigious K-1 World Grand Prix title. Bear in mind that, at the time, the UFC and PRIDE were just starting to rise and K-1 was, by far, the most popular combat sport on the planet.

Hunt retired from kickboxing in 2003 to fight in MMA. But instead of working his way up on the regional scene as most fighters do, he made a decision to sign with PRIDE FC, the biggest MMA promotion at the time. Although he never achieved the same success as in K-1, and that he retired with a negative record of 13–14, Hunt had a solid MMA career overall. He scored many memorable walk-off KOs and was a fan favorite fighter. In 2014, he even fought for the interim UFC title against Fabricio Werdum but lost it in the second round.