The Most Famous

MARTIAL ARTS from New Zealand

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This page contains a list of the greatest New Zealander Martial Arts. The pantheon dataset contains 179 Martial Arts, 2 of which were born in New Zealand. This makes New Zealand the birth place of the 18th most number of Martial Arts behind United Kingdom, and North Korea.

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary New Zealander Martial Arts of all time. This list of famous New Zealander Martial Arts is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Mark Hunt

1. Mark Hunt (b. 1974)

With an HPI of 50.27, Mark Hunt is the most famous New Zealander Martial Arts.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages on wikipedia.

Mark Hunt (born 23 March 1974) is a New Zealand former professional mixed martial artist and kickboxer. As a mixed martial artist, Hunt competed in Pride Fighting Championships (Pride FC) from 2004 until 2006, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) from 2010 until 2018. As a kickboxer, Hunt achieved success as the winner of the 2001 K-1 World Grand Prix. He is known as the "King of Walk-Offs" due to his popularization of walking away and stopping attacks before the referee officially ends the match.

Photo of Robert Whittaker

2. Robert Whittaker (b. 1990)

With an HPI of 41.63, Robert Whittaker is the 2nd most famous New Zealander Martial Arts.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Robert John Whittaker (born 20 December 1990) is an Australian professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is a former UFC Middleweight Champion and the first Australian to win a UFC championship. As of 29 October 2024, he is #4 in the UFC middleweight rankings. A professional MMA competitor since 2009, Whittaker was a contestant on the first series of The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes and won the welterweight tournament. Whittaker became interim middleweight champion after winning the title at UFC 213; he was promoted to undisputed champion after Georges St-Pierre vacated the UFC Middleweight Championship in 2017.

People

Pantheon has 2 people classified as New Zealander martial arts born between 1974 and 1990. Of these 2, 2 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living New Zealander martial arts include Mark Hunt, and Robert Whittaker. As of April 2024, 1 new New Zealander martial arts have been added to Pantheon including Robert Whittaker.

Living New Zealander Martial Arts

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Newly Added New Zealander Martial Arts (2024)

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