The top 20 ugliest, most boring and WORST UFC posters ever!

Famed Russian author Leo Tolstoy once said: “Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.” That is a powerful quote, emphasizing the greatness of art when done right, and implying the general garbage of art when done wrong. We previously took a look at the best UFC posters ever (a list that I highly dispute, personally), and now we decided to look at the top 20 worst!

A few quick disclaimers:

• Art is subjective, so what works for one person may not work for another, and that’s fine! If you disagree then let us know on our sociala media post where we can surely keep a civil, respectful discourse (ha!).
• I may not be an art critic but I have studied graphic design, material production and logo design, so I know just a little more than your average filthy casual
• We are starting from UFC 100 and going forward, because a lot of the older UFC posters were trash, plain and simple.
• Consider every TUF Finale poster as a dishonourable mention, they’re pretty much all terrible, cluttered messes.
• These entries are (mostly) not that tightly ordered, but the top 10 are definitely the all time worst.

With that out of the way, let’s start the list!

20: UFC 191: Johnson vs Dodson 2 – What is this, a class photo shoot?

So this is hardly terrible. In fact, at first glance it looks fine. The longer you look the worse it gets, though, and it just feels like they crammed a bunch of fighters onto the poster to compensate for something, leaving it with an oddly empty feeling.

The fact that strawweight Paige VanZant is about as big as the massive Andrei Arlovski and Anthony Johnson is ok, it would look weird life size. But the golden glare behind the fighters is very unevenly distributed, the font is bland, the octagon cut out the upper, Johnson vs Dodson side of things doesn’t look good, the colour schemes are uninspired. Yeah, it’s just not a great look, more boring than anything.

Think of this as a soft landing, we’ll be getting to the really bad stuff later in the list.

19: UFC on Fuel TV: Struve vs Miocic: Just too much going on

We continue with an entry that isn’t necessarily terrible, but there are some poor choices made. You know how the words ”UFC on Fuel TV” just rolls off the tongue as smoothly as a cactus on fire? Well this poster feels just as cluttered.

There’s too much text spread out across the poster, and the text ”Live on fuel TV” probably shouldn’t be just as big as ”Struve vs Miocic”. Also: What’s up with the little digital screens that display the other featured fights? Why are they semi-transparent? Why are they angled in a strange, MC Escher kind of way so it’s confusing as to which way they’re angled? Why is the ”Hathaway vs Maguire” text much brighter than ”Hardy vs Sadollah”?

Also: the huge ”UFC on Fuel TV” logo smack dab in the middle of the poster is just plain ugly.

18: UFC 209: Woodley vs Thompson 2 – Live from the Twilight zone

Classic rock band The Smashing Pumpkins once sang: ”Emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness is cleanliness, and cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty, just like me”.

That’s one hell of a cynical 90’s grungy rock lyric, but it’s kind of fitting here, isn’t it? There’s a lot of emptiness going on here, and it’s making me lonely. Especially in hindsight as the rematch between Tyron Woodley and Stephen ”Wonderboy” Thompson was an uneventful disaster of a bout and Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson never ended up fighting on the card.

There’s just nothing going on here. There’s something to be said of the effectiveness of a minimal aesthetic but this just seems completely unfinished, like something someone could throw together on Photoshop in fifteen minutes.

The idea of the event taking place in some kind of dark, empty void is cool in a kind of sci-fi, Twilight Zone kind of way. But that wasn’t what they were going for.

17: UFC on FOX 30: Alvarez vs Poirier – Is anybody home?

This is one of those that seems fine at first but the longer you look at it the emptier and more boring it becomes.

This is a GREAT fight card with some of the UFC:s biggest stars! Former champ Eddie Alvarez vs fan favourite Dustin Poirier in a heated rematch! Former featherweight king Jose Aldo takes on the always entertaining Jeremy Stephens and how about the return of ”The Boogeywoman” Joanna Jedrzejczyk?!

Great lineup! Why then design the poster with all the ambiance and excitement of a fish tank? Like, why is this so empty? The cage and arena in the background seem completely deserted as if this was some kind of post apocalyptic thing. Where is the energy?

It’s just such a baffling choice to have such big fighters and then give them the graceful presentation of a piece of tape stuck on a background of a dark, empty arena.

16: UFC Fight Night: Werdum vs Tybura – I see some obvious scaling issues

So, sure, former UFC champ Fabricio Werdum is obviously the A-side here versus Poland’s Marcin Tybura. Werdum is undoubtedly the one with the star power and while he can carry a main event, Tybura cannot. We get that. But why are they so strangely out of proportion next to each other? The splash of green and gold for the Australian colours as this event took place in Sydney, is great, but there’s plenty of empty space that simply just obscures the lower halves of the fighters.

As it stands now it looks like one giant torso without legs is fighting a much smaller torso without legs which is kind of hilarious when you think about it in a Family Guy sketch kind of way, but it’s just weird otherwise.

15: UFC 157: Rousey vs Carmouche – Did you guys forget something?

UFC 157 was a historic event. It didn’t just feature the first ever UFC women’s bout, but the first title defense in a female UFC division as well as the debut of rising superstar Ronda Rousey. Why not give the poster a sense of… excitement? Sure they highlighted the ”making history” part of that at the top but just barely.

This is just too bright, this poster is crying out for some contrast and colour. It’s actually kind of shocking that the designers decided to give this poster the feel of an old, over-exposed polaroid photo that has been left out in the sun, sucking all the colour and energy out of the picture. Such strange design choices, really bizarre.

14: UFC on ESPN 31: Font vs Aldo – Who’s ”Foal”?

This had all the makings of a nice poster. A solid colour scheme that was subdued but still kind of cool and… that’s kind of all you need, really. But whoever handled the lettering should be fired.

There are many ways to do cool things with lettering, implementing it into the art style and such. This was not one of those cases. Sure, they colour-coded the letters to make sure that people read it correctly, but going from left to right, you know, like we do in the western world, it reads ”Foal Ntdo”. A tiny ”vs” would have made things slightly better.

Also the letters aren’t even placed in a way that’s pleasing to the eye, right now it looks like it’s raining letters in an alphabet storm that Rob Font and Jose Aldo got caught in.

Your poster shouldn’t cause confusion, guys.

13: UFC Fight Night 133: Dos Santos vs Ivanov – How NOT to emphasize your headliners

So there is some baffling decision-making here.

Blagoi Ivanov may be the most boring fighter in the history of the UFC heavyweight division, but he was also the first Bulgarian in the promotion for years, making his UFC debut right into a main event against the former division king; Junior dos Santos. You don’t perhaps want to emphasize that in some way? No? Just make everything gray and void of colour?

No, that would be a terrible decision (see our #2 spot). Let’s add some colour! Do we add some green and gold for dos Santos former status as Brazilian heavyweight champ? Or maybe green and red for Ivanovs Bulgarian heritage?

No, how about we only underscore the fact that these two are heavyweights, and make that the only truly noticeable thing on the poster, more so than the headliners actual names! Yes, that’s a great way of ensuring nobody will ever remember this event!

12: UFC Fight Night 111: Chiesa vs Lee

Here’s a case where you wont really find any good resolution versions of this poster and it’s easy to see why (we’ll have a few more of those!). It’s just lazy and completely lacking of any real creativity. Everything is just blueish-grey, like more well lit versions of modern live action Disney movies (I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast!). Basically it’s just the bare minimum poster, everything feels like it’s just copied and pasted in from something else.

They barely spent any time designing this poster so I’ll barely spend any time trashing it.

11: UFC 122: Marquardt vs Okami – It’s a European event, nobody cares

This conveys nothing. Nothing at all, except for a few questions.

Why is Nate Muarquards fist bigger than Yushin Okamis head? Why is there a weird, bright sheen on the lower part of his glove? What’s up with those halfhearted white rays coming off the fighters? Why do the edges on Okami seem so rough? Why are the colours so over-saturated? Did anyone watch this card? No? Ok, maybe that explains it.

This was the UFC’s second event in Germany, but whoever designed the poster didn’t seem very excited about the return.

10: UFC 191: Evans vs Henderson – Woah, don’t throw too much colour on there!

Why did they make this so boring? Completely black and white and of all colours to have they chose orange? Orange?!

Anybody who has studied printed media design will know that orange is the least favourite colour of printing houses because the printed colour often doesn’t match up with the digital preview for some unknown reason. It’s bizarre and only somewhat interesting. More interesting than this poster, though.

Adding orange of all colours to this sleeping pill of a poster is just adding insult to injury.

9: UFC Fight Night London: Gustafsson vs Manuwa – Do you want to clean this up first?

Ah, the ”Step into our World”-era of UFC posters, a strange combination of blurry, messy fighter pictures and large areas of negative space.

So why does there seem to be a drastic motion blir on both fighters despite them being pretty stationary and not making big movements? Why is Jimi Manuwas right shoulder fading away from existence and why can the same be said for the top of Alexander Gustafssons head? These are your main eventers, like maybe don’t vaguely imply that they are disappearing before our eyes. For real though, why does Gustafsson look so bad? The edges on his beard are strangely sharp in contrast to the blurry nature of his hair, it makes no sense.

Yeah this is pretty awful.

8: UFC on Fuel TV: Sanchez vs Ellenberger – Add some yellow, that’ll make it exciting

This simply doesn’t look good. To be fair most UFC on Fuel posters were pretty bad. On the plus side: remember when Diego Sanchez was good? Or at least good enough to headline a UFC card?!

The faded, metallic look of this has the feel of a placeholder. It feels so incredibly dated, like something that was cool in the early 2000’s. It genuinely looks like some kind of template. The splash of random yellow in the middle of the poster makes one think that the designers realised how blasé this was and hoped to salvage the poster with a splash of colour. Mission failed there, buddy.

7: UFC 108: Evans vs Silva – Are we interrupting something here?

Why does it look like we just interrupted Rashad Evans and Thiago Silva as they were about to whisper secrets to each other? Why is there a strange feeling of an awkward silence emanating off this poster? Why is the side of Silvas face almost engulfed in the white light in the middle while Evans seems completely unaffected, almost as if these two weren’t even in the same room?

Also: the chrome style font with the boring crimson background colour just doesn’t work, this feels unfinished, it needs a little flair. It has some decent foundations but that’s about it. As it stands the poster just seems awkward.

6: UFC Fight Night: Muñoz vs Mousasi – What are we stepping into?

Yikes.

I am NOT a graphic designer, but I know enough about feathering to know that somebody did a poor job here. There are bonus points for at least trying to incorporate the german colours into the poster but it didn’t work and the images here clearly dont go together well.

The edges of the fighters are either blurry or choppy, what’s up with the back of Gegard Mousasis head? It’s strange how blurry the back of his head is in contrast to how sharp the edges on his right hand are, come on now, that’s basic clipping issues right there. Why is all the text crammed onto the left side leaving a big, open space around Mousasis crotch?

This feels like it was made in MS Paint.

5: UFC 282: Blachowicz vs Ankalaev – Were they trying to tell us something?

UFC 282 was supposed to crown a new light heavyweight champion as the title was vacant. Though the poster lacks any excitement at all, not playing up the title aspect of the main event. Why are Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalev transparent and almost fading out of the picture?

As we all know now, the fight would end in an anti-climactic draw and no new champ would be crowned. With that in mind the faded nature of the fighters seems weirdly prophetic. It’s still a lame poster though.

4: UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Yan  – Let’s put everyone to sleep with this one

So this is a modern classic of a bad poster. Dull colours, boring font, a weird…. shock wave effect? Is that what it is? Or water ripples? The strawweight bout between Mackenzie Dern and Yan Xiaonan was already a fight that didn’t at all feel like a main event, so the poster could at least have added some excitement. Maybe those circular lines on the poster were an attempt to hypnotise us into watching anyway?

Us nerds still watched, of course, but come on, this is just bad.

3: UFC Fight Night: Dos Anjos vs Miocic – What were they thinking?

Fun fact: it’s pretty much impossible to find a high resolution version of this poster. Why? They must have known how trash it was.

This poster poses so many questions like: Why box in and only show 60% of your athletes faces? Why not play up the unique aspects of fighters like Junior dos Santos and Nate Diaz? Why leave so much empty space for this muted, red background? What were they thinking? Was someone fired over this? Is this not claustrophobia-inducing?

So many questions but no answers will ever be satisfactory. This is straight up terrible, one of the absolute worst.

2: UFC Fight Night: Rodriguez vs Penn – When you’re creatively bankrupt

Sometimes simplicity can be wonderful. We’ve seen plenty of cluttered, messy posters that don’t get the job done. But the fact that this magnanimously uncreative poster made it through as the finished product must be because it’s so boring that it passed through several offices unnoticed. Yair Rodriguez is one of the flashiest, most creative strikers in the history of the UFC. BJ Penn is a UFC legend, the ligthwieght GOAT before Khabib Nurmagomedov came along.

Why not utilise the Mexican and Hawaiian flags, or somehow point out the status that the fighters have? Why not do anything at all?

It’s shockingly boring. Black and white, no character, no flavour, nothing. It’s the poster equivalent of steamed potatoes and nothing else, without even salt or pepper. It’s white toast with nothing on it. It’s the most basic and minimal sustenance imaginable and make no mistake; you will still be hungry afterwards.

Do better, UFC.

1 UFC Fight Night: Nogueira vs. Nelson – Jesus Christ.

While the previous entries aren’t necessarily in any particular, make no mistake about it: this is the worst UFC poster of all time.

Where does one begin?

As previously stated the ”Step into our world” era of posters was probably the worst creative poster period for the UFC. This is just straight up awful, though. Rodrigo Nogueira and Roy Nelsons arms look like smudged, unnatural messes, their bodies contorting in weird, unflattering ways. It looks like Nogueira is standing on an elevated platform, punching down towards Nelson. The contrast between the blurry poster and the oddly shiny ”UFC Fight Night” text doesn’t gel well together. It looks like a poorly made fan poster, though ironically a lot of the times the fan made posters are better than the official ones.

This poster just looks…dirty, and not in a cool, gruff, tough guy kind of way. It just makes me want to take a shower.

Read more: Seven Swedish fighters we want to see debut during UFC Sweden 2023!

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