Bob Sapp - TheSportsDB.com

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Name
Bob Sapp

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Image Source

User Rating

(0 users)

Complete

60%

Born
1973 (51 years old)

Birth Place

Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Position
Wrestler

Status
Active

Ethnicity
Black

Team Number

Height
196 cm

Weight
149 kg

Outfitter

Kit

Side

Agent

Wage Year

Player Cutout

Full Body Render

Sport

Fighting

Team
_Retired Wrestling

2nd Team

League
_No League

Creative Commons Artwork
Yes

Latest Results

					Battle of Heroes	11 Feb 12

Description
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Robert Malcolm Sapp (born September 22, 1973) is an American mixed martial artist, kickboxer, professional wrestler, actor, and former American football player. He is currently under contract with Rizin Fighting Federation. Sapp has a combined fight record of 24–39–1, mostly fighting in Japan. He is well known in Japan, where he has appeared in numerous commercials, television programs, and various other media, and has released a music CD, Sapp Time. He is known there as a gaijin tarento (foreign-born talent). He is currently working sporadically for various MMA promotions in the U.S., Japan, and Europe.

Sapp played college football as a guard for the Washington Huskies with whom he won the Morris Trophy. He was drafted in the third round of the 1997 NFL draft by the Chicago Bears with whom he played for one season seeing no game action before playing with the Minnesota Vikings for another two seasons, only playing in one game. He later began a career in professional wrestling before branching out into mixed martial arts and kickboxing, where he initially enjoyed significant success and popularity before eventually developing a reputation as a tomato can.

Sapp began his athletic career in high school playing football at Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He received a football scholarship to the University of Washington, where he won the Morris Award in 1996. He took part in "The Whammy in Miami", the Washington Huskies' upset win over the Miami Hurricanes that broke the latter's 58 game home winning streak.

Sapp was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the third round (69th overall) of the 1997 NFL Draft. He signed with the Minnesota Vikings after being released by the Bears. However, his career took a hit after he was suspended by the NFL in 1998 for alleged steroid abuse. He spent two seasons with the Vikings and only played in one game.

Afterwards, Sapp was left in poverty after being defrauded by his economic advisor, and was resorted to working at a funeral home moving coffins to make a living. He eventually decided to pursue a career in professional wrestling on the advice of his friend Mike Morris, who saw a chance for Sapp on it.

In 2002, after Sapp was released from WCW, he was picked up by FX for its amateur boxing show The Toughman Competition. Sapp was pitted against William "The Refrigerator" Perry as a pro wrestling representative and, despite not having any prior boxing experience, won by knocking out Perry in round 2. Then Sapp's friend and trainer Sam Greco showed his match to Kazuyoshi Ishii, chairman of Japanese kickboxing promotion K-1. Ishii then invited Sapp to Japan in order to start a career in the ring, seeing a combination of great potential and great marketability in him. After training for six months in United States in the AMC Pankration and Team Quest gyms, he would be sent to mixed martial arts company Pride Fighting Championship, which had expressed interest on him too, in order to make his professional debut first under such rules. Sapp competed under both rulesets indistinctly for the rest of his career, usually for the promotion K-1.

In December 2017, it was reported in Japanese newspaper Shukan Bunshun that a woman claiming to be Sapp's girlfriend accused him of domestic violence. She provided photographs of the alleged injuries and told how she had been abused by Sapp for six years. Although the article included an apology message supposedly sent by him, Sapp did not make public comments about the accusation. No civil suit was filed, and no criminal proceedings were announced as a result of the allegations.