World: Meet Constantinos Philippou.

Sometimes we can be surprised when we find out that some guys are fighters. If you had a conversation with someone like Kenny Florian for example, you might be surprised to hear that he fights in a cage for a living. The same could be said for guys like Amir Sadollah,  Stephan Bonnar and even Georges St Pierre. Constantantinos Philippou is not one of these guys.

I first saw Philippou fight on the UFC 133 card in August, when he beat fellow middleweight Jorge Rivera by split decision. This was a big win for Philippou, but mostly I was just taken by what a tough, intimidating looking figure he cut in the Octagon. When people think of cage fighting they think of guys that look like Philippou and Nick Diaz, guys you can just look at and tell straight away "They get punched in the face for a living".

In this budding era of Jon Jones type super athletes, this type of fighter is changing from the norm to the exception. It has existed in guys Rich Franklin for years, the guy who can throw down but also be an ambassador for the sport, and now the image that a fighter will present to the public seems to be nearly as important as the fighting for the UFC.

When I saw Philippou fighting Jared Hamman on the UFC 140 card, I saw this as a matchup of old vs. new. Philippou had made the transition from local hard man in his native Cyprus, to fighting in the biggest MMA organisation in the world. Not only this, but he was fighting a guy like Jared Hamman, a respectable, normal looking guy sporting an impressive professional record, and an even more impressive bushy moustache. When Philippou proceeded to punch the moustache off the face of Hamman, I got a pleasant flashback to the days before modern MMA, when the guy who looked like a tough guy, more often than not, actually was a tough guy.

MMA needs athletes that can build bridges, garner positive publicity, and generally present a positive image of the sport to its potential fan and sponsorship targets. It also needs guys like Philippou, who can be relied on to look tough, and go out and throw hands when the occasion calls for it. Mixed Martial Arts has evolved as an art form over the years, and come to be respected as such to some extent, though there is work to be done in this area. It is still fighting however, and as long as we have athletes like Constantinos Philippou in the UFC, we won't be allowed to forget this.