When you see muscular men duking it out in the ring, does it make you think of spinach? It should. It turns out Popeye was right all along. Yahoo! Sports is reporting on the growing trend of vegetarian diets among mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters.

Strikeforce MMA champion and our Most Animal-Friendly Athlete winner Jake Shields is always ready to talk to other fighters about his life-long vegetarian diet. And they're listening. (I would, too—geez, look at him.)

Jake's training partner, Strikeforce champ Nick Diaz, and Nick's brother Nate Diaz, an Ultimate Fighter winner, both adopted vegetarian diets after watching Jake work his magic in the ring. UFC fighter Jon Fitch has also almost entirely ditched his meat-and-potatoes habit and is considered to be one of the top three welterweights in the world.

And who could forget studly Mac Danzig? We would totally not pick a fight with him (thank goodness he's our friend), but this tough guy has a soft spot for animals and went vegetarian after seeing a truckload of pigs being sent to slaughter. He's now vegan and continues to wipe up the floor with meat-eaters all over the world.

Wonder if we could get them to do an Ultimate Vegan Fighting Championship? That would be enough to make a good vegan girl go bad.

Written by Michelle Sherrow  

Mac Danzig, for those of you unfamiliar with his work, is a Mixed Martial Arts King of the Cage Champion, and—as of two days ago—the winner of Spike TV’s Ultimate Fighter 6. I’m not going to go into too much detail about what these things mean, as the key point here should be evident from the titles themselves. The dude is a serious badass.

He also happens to be an outspoken animal rights activist, who speaks up about the health benefits and the ethics of a vegan diet at pretty much every opportunity he gets. Mac’s Spike TV victory means that he’s going to be debuting on the big stage—the Ultimate Fighting Championship—next month, and all of our best wishes go with him. Here’s an interview Mac Danzig did with those trendsetting scene-hoppers over at peta2 last year, and the following is a highlight reel of Mac’s fights that should give you an idea of what happens to dudes who get in the ring with a vegan.

Congratulations, Mac—we’re looking forward to seeing more of you in the future.