{"id":490836,"date":"2026-02-21T22:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/490836\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:46:08","slug":"im-getting-buried-with-these-cards-mma-star-ben-tynan-on-his-pokemon-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/490836\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m Getting Buried With These Cards\u2019 \u2013 MMA Star Ben Tynan On His Pok\u00e9mon Obsession"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben \u201cVanilla Thunder\u201d Tynan<\/a> catches opponents off guard and dominates them under the bright lights of ONE Championship\u2019s global stage. But when the lights dim, he\u2019s catching \u2019em all \u2013 Pok\u00e9mon, that is.<\/p>\n

The Canadian heavyweight builds his MMA legacy one fight at a time, then retreats to the Kanto region \u2013 not literally, but through the 150 original pocket monsters that have defined him since childhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a passion frozen in time. The 32-year-old is loyal to the first four generations of Pok\u00e9mon, untouched by two decades of franchise evolution and still fueled by the same childlike joy that made him fall in love with Charizard.<\/p>\n

Some athletes leave their childhoods behind. But Tynan carries his with pride, hoarding holographic cards like championship gold and defending his original 150-card collection with the same intensity he brings to every match in the ring.<\/p>\n

Most recently, that intensity led him to a first-round submission<\/a> victory over \u201cRising Rock Star\u201d Ryugo Takeuchi<\/a> at ONE Fight Night 40<\/a>, which emanated from Bangkok\u2019s Lumpinee Stadium on Friday, February 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But ask Tynan about his proudest achievements, and his Pok\u00e9mon collection will come up just as quickly as any fight result:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just grew up with it. It\u2019s a really cool concept, and there\u2019s a lot of other stuff I\u2019m into as well, just stuff that was around me at the time. I went through a Yu-Gi-Oh! phase. I went through a Digimon period as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I always stuck with Pok\u00e9mon because that was the main big one. I collected all 150 cards, and I\u2019ve always hung on to those. But the other stuff comes and goes. I go through a bunch of phases. I\u2019m like that kid with ADHD that gets overly invested in something and obsesses over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar, the original 150 Pok\u00e9mon \u2013 purists argue 151 with the mythical Mew \u2013 launched a global phenomenon in the late 1990s that transformed from a simple Game Boy video game into an unstoppable cultural empire spanning anime, trading cards, movies, and merchandise.<\/p>\n

The franchise has since expanded to over 1,000 creatures across nine generations, with new regions, mechanics, and monsters debuting regularly to keep the machine running.<\/p>\n

But \u201cVanilla Thunder\u201d refuses to move forward, as he\u2019s locked into the first four generations \u2013 Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.<\/p>\n

The self-declared Pok\u00e9mon Master told onefc.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just into old-school Pok\u00e9mon. That\u2019s how you know I\u2019m getting older. I don\u2019t keep up to date with the newer generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, a year or two ago, I downloaded an emulator and was playing all the older games on my phone. My dudes were talking about our lineups and leveling them up, and that was a good trip down memory lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Tynan\u2019s Charizard Tattoo Means Everything \u2013 And Nothing<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen Ben Tynan fight, you\u2019ve probably noticed the unmistakable image of Charizard \u2013 Charmander\u2019s second evolution form \u2013 permanently inked on his body.<\/p>\n

For most people, tattoos carry weight. Every piece of ink tells a story, and those stories matter. That isn\u2019t the case with \u201cVanilla Thunder,\u201d however.<\/p>\n

When asked about the deep, profound meaning behind that tattoo, the heavyweight shared:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like tattoos should be fun and something that looks cool. My favorite tattoos are the ones that aren\u2019t some deep, meaningful [tattoos]. I just like fun stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger, I was a good religious boy, so I always told myself, \u2018I\u2019m never getting a tattoo. But if I did, I\u2019d want to get a Charizard on me, my favorite Pok\u00e9mon.\u2019 And time came, and I got old enough, and I was like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m doing it. Let\u2019s go.’\u201d<\/p>\n

But pressed on why the sixth mythical creature in the National Pok\u00e9dex was his favorite in the first place, Tynan opened up about the sacred ritual every \u201990s kid remembers \u2013 choosing your starter Pok\u00e9mon at Professor Oak\u2019s Laboratory in Pallet Town.<\/p>\n

Charmander. Bulbasaur. Squirtle. Three options. One choice.<\/p>\n

For Tynan, the choice was made the moment his older brother handed him his very first Pok\u00e9mon card \u2013 a Charmander:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always my favorite. I liked its fire, and it is a cool lizard that grew into a giant dragon. I watched the TV show, and Charmander was the man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a bunch of attitude. He evolved up, didn\u2019t listen to Ash, and did what he wanted. I was like, \u2018Dude, okay, this is the Pok\u00e9mon I\u2019ll get,\u2019 and on top of that, it was one of the rarest cards that we could get. If you had it, you were the man on the playground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tynan doesn\u2019t play the Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game competitively, though. He doesn\u2019t hunt for new expansions or chase the latest ultra-rare pulls flooding the collector\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

He simply guards his original 150-card collection like a dragon hoarding treasure \u2013 which, considering his favorite Pok\u00e9mon, feels perfectly appropriate.<\/p>\n

The Canadian offered:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just collect them. I just hoard over them in my closet and watch over them like a dog with its bone, you know what I mean? I\u2019m getting buried with these cards, alright? No one\u2019s taking these things away. So, I got to hide them and be careful who I show them to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben \u201cVanilla Thunder\u201d Tynan catches opponents off guard and dominates them under the bright lights of ONE Championship\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-490836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}