Cool Hand Luke

Champion fighter Luke Rockhold won over UFC fans with his steely resolve and deadly submissions. His movie-star looks didn’t hurt, either.

- Thomas Freeman

As mixed martial arts, once maligned as “human cockfighting” by Arizona senator John McCain, has been accepted as a more mainstream sport, its most ferocious fighters have become household names. But it is Luke Rockhold who could become MMA’s best-known face.

Raised in a surfing community in Santa Cruz, California, the 33-year-old Rockhold speaks with the nonchalance of a West Coast beach bum, but his track record reveals an unrelenting determination to be at the top of his sport. After training in judo as a kid and in Brazilian jiujitsu after high school, he made his MMA debut in 2007, at the age of 23. He became the Middleweight Champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 2015 after defeating previous titleholder Chris Weidman in a fourth-round technical knockout. “I was always driven, and I was passionate to achieve and to be the best,” Rockhold tells Maxim. “I never thought I would ever be second best in anything.”

It was not only MMA fans who took notice of the rising UFC star. Modeling agent Jason Kanner, founder and CEO of Soul Artist Management, saw potential in Rockhold’s 6'3" stature, rugged good looks, and fortunate lack of cauliflower ear (an all-too-common side effect of his sport), and he approached the handsome fighter about a potential side hustle modeling. The fashion world had unofficially given MMA its blessing, but Rockhold was hesitant. “I was just more focused on my career at that point,” he says of his early trepidation. “At a certain point, when I had achieved the pinnacle of the sport, won multiple world titles, I didn’t think it could hurt.”