Biography
Bas Rutten is a Dutch-American actor and retired mixed martial artist. Born Sebastiaan Rutten on 24 February 1965 in Tilburg, Netherlands, he became a naturalised American citizen in the late 1990s.
He is a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and three-time King of Pancrase world champion, retiring on a 22-fight unbeaten streak. Rutten has appeared in films including Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009), Zookeeper (2011), Here Comes the Boom (2012) and The Smashing Machine (2025), in which he plays himself. From 2007 to 2016 he co-hosted the MMA programme Inside MMA on AXS TV.
