Guilty Pleasure Fighter - Cody McKenzie

Whether they have a style you really enjoy watching, have responded to one of your numerous messages on Twitter, or simply make you laugh, we all have at least one fighter who we are a fan of without being quite sure why. Cody McKenzie is one of those fighters for me. If you haven’t heard of him, he is the guy from season 12 of TUF with the guillotine. Nicknamed the McKenzietine, it is McKenzie’s main weapon in the Octagon, with 10 of his 12 career wins coming by him choking out his opponent. He came to my attention during the prelim fights for season 12, when Georges St Pierre leaned over to Dana White during his fight and stated “That guy there, he will win this, by guillotine”. Having a reputation for just one move seemed like a recipe for disaster, but before TUF Cody had won his last 9 straight fights through guillotine, with a record of 11-0.

More or less everyone regarded him as a novelty act that would get crushed by the higher level talent that TUF would present. This including opposing coach Josh Koscheck, who chose his teams number one pick Marc Stevens to face Cody in his first fight inside the competition. This bout was considered a formality by Stevens, who was positive that he was going to go on and win the competition. 17 seconds into the fight, Stevens was passed out in the McKenzietine, and Cody went on to the quarter finals. Though he lost this bout to current UFC contract holder Nam Phan by TKO, he put on a good fight and his goofy, laid back attitude made an impression on me throughout the show.

McKenzie has since lost his only two bouts in the UFC, and is scheduled to face season 12 TUF finalist Michael Johnson at UCF on Fox 2 in January next year. With both fighters having the same 1-2 record in the UFC, it seems likely that the loser is going to be shown the door. With 5 of Johnsons 6 career losses having come by submission, hopefully McKenzie can pull off one more McKenzietine to save his UFC career. Not a perfect fighter by any means, but I consider Cody McKenzie to be an entertaining character, and one I would watch for many more fights if I got the chance.