Bryan Battle on his Nickname: ‘I Should Never Have Said That’

At UFC Fight Night 200 this weekend, Bryan Battle has an appointment with fellow “The Ultimate Fighter Season 29” contestant Tresean Gore. The pair should have met in the “TUF 29” middleweight final at UFC on ESPN 30 on Aug. 28, but Gore withdrew from the contest due to a knee injury. Instead, Battle (6-1, 1-0 UFC) faced castmate and Combate Global veteran Gilbert Urbina, whom he submitted with a rear-naked choke. “Pooh Bear” has recorded five consecutive wins, all inside two rounds. During a recent interview with Sherdog, Battle explained that he didn’t like his Winnie the Pooh-inspired nickname, which he received during a roast. Still, “Pooh Bear” stuck and in time, turned out to be pretty lucky.

“I never wanted that name,” he said. “It all started when I was roasting one of my teammates, I was getting him some good burns, and he didn’t have any good comebacks, so he said, ‘Okay, Pooh Bear.’ Another teammate started laughing. I looked at both of them and said, ‘Bro, don’t call me Pooh Bear, man.’ I didn’t like it. I wanted a tougher nickname, and I knew how those things started. Even then, it was too late. I never should have said, ‘Don’t call me that,’ because as soon as I said it, they kept on calling me it, it started spreading in the gym. In my next amateur fight, the ring announcer comes over to my corner, makes sure he’s pronouncing my name right, but he says, ‘Bryan Battle?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I left the nickname thing blank, so it was just Bryan Battle. My coach leans over, and he whispered to him, ‘His nickname is Pooh Bear.’ The guy was like, ‘You got to be s**tting me, right? That’s the best f**king thing I’ve heard all day.’ They announced me as ‘Pooh Bear,’ they made a bunch of Winnie the Pooh jokes while I was fighting, it was pretty funny, so, after that, that’s when I decided to run with it.”

Battle also talked about the birth of his son Miles and how it impacted his life, discussed his training camp in preparation for Gore, gave his pick for the “UFC Vegas 47” main event, and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:46) Being a father
(02:21) Preparing for Gore
(03:59) His sparring partners
(04:58) Whether the Gore fight is personal
(06:52) What he is missing from “The Ultimate Fighter” house
(07:35) The memory he cherishes the most from that experience
(08:57) Walking out to “The Game” by Motorhead
(10:05) The origin of his nickname
(11:37) Talking about the best version of himself
(12:35) Having a long training camp
(14:05) His favorite in the Jack Hermansson vs. Sean Strickland clash
(14:44) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.