MMA Star Morgan Charriere Goes Viral For One Piece Shoutout

Sometimes, you can forget just how long of a reach that One Piece has when it comes to influencing [...]

By Evan Valentine

Sometimes, you can forget just how long of a reach that One Piece has when it comes to influencing the world at large. The insanely popular anime franchise has managed to appear in a brand new arena, that of Mixed Martial Arts Fighting, or the MMA for short. While Luffy would be a ringer with his rubber abilities in the ring, one fighter, Morgan Charriere, has taken the opportunity to show off his love of the series by waving a Straw Hat Pirates' flag as he entered the ring in a recent match!

Reddit User BritishSkyPirate shared the image itself which clearly shows that if Morgan were a character appearing in the world of the Grand Line, he'd be sporting a straw hat of his own while fighting in an entirely new arena:

Go check this guy out. His name is Morgan Charrière. He is a French MMA fighter who is an avid One Piece fan from r/OnePiece

Morgan's record is definitely worthy of the Straw Hat Pirates as he's received 14 wins in his career, 8 losses, and 1 draw while fighting as an MMA brawler. The martial artist is so into One Piece in fact that he sports the nickname of "Luffy" throughout his time as a fighter. Morgan began his career with a big victory at 17, becoming a champion for Muy Thai within the French Federation. We're sure that the MMA fighter will have several more One Piece nods as he continues his career considering his love of the series.

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(Photo: Toei Animation)

One Piece itself is rampant with fist fighting action, with nearly all of Luffy's fights involving him stretching his limbs and hurling them at break neck speeds to attempt to take down his opponents. Though his powers have grown and changed throughout the years, that wouldn't stop Luffy from fighting right into a martial arts tournament were he to choose to jump into one similar to the MMA.

What did you think of this subtle nod that brings together the world of One Piece and MMA? Have you seen other anime easter eggs in Mixed Martial Arts' fights? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.

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