MMA: Mixed martial arts

By Tommy Hackett I watched Renzo Gracie’s Legacy again recently, looking for inspiration. (I gave it kind of an uncharitable review here. It’s actually better than I gave it credit for, but that’s for another time.) Maybe Dana White was watching too, because it looks like Renzo will be making his UFC debut in...

By Tommy Hackett Ribeiro also speaks proudly of his brother Xande’s recent success in Japan’s Sengoku MMA promotion. “Yeah, we won the belt there. I’m already in talks with Dana White to bring him to the UFC, the biggest show out there, but I’d like him to get more fights, a little more experience. Japan and US a...

By Tommy Hackett Main Event, for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship: Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida (champion) vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua Despite what Marc says, I don’t see any advantage for Rua other than possibly size. No way is he catching Machida with a lumbering lead left hook as he did in his knockout...

By Marc Staehling Shogun has better wrestling, better jiu-jitsu, better ground and pound and more heart than Machida has ever showed in a ring or cage, yet the champ is a massive betting favourite, and people are already annointing him the next Anderson Silva, and he hasn’t even defended his title ye...

By Dave Walsh Vadim Finkelstein: Fedor believes his opponent is a top fighter, a knockout artist. One should overestimate his opponent. Fedor respects him as a fighter. He’s in a serious training camp now preparing diligently for the November, 7 fight.

By Dave Walsh Nick talked to Black Belt magazine recently, where he talked about being a Martial Artist and how MMA really isn’t his thing. Nick likes to be a martial artist, but feels the world of MMA to be rather cumbersome; full of steroid abuse and cocky attitudes with nothing to back them up. What is int...

By Dave Walsh Tim Kennedy: I think the guys like Georges St. Pierre that are amazing athletes in the first place and have been able to train with the best in all of the different realms of mixed martial arts: boxing, kickboxing, jiujitsu, wrestling, and really take a certain skill set and perfect it. You ca...

By Dave Walsh Rumor has it, from Rampage Jackson himself, that he is done with MMA, most notably of course his home in the UFC. Dana White is a master of the PR wars, often times doing whatever it takes, including making himself a target, to get what he wants in the end. Rampage is playing a dangerous [...]

By Tommy Hackett Again, fight fans are faced with a choice between offerings from the biggest players in MMA and boxing tonight, as UFC goes head to head with HBO PPV. Hey, it’s not the worst problem to have; and in fact I think we’ve got a pretty clear decision here. ShareThis

By Thomas Hackett There have been a ton of autobiographies from MMA champions released in the last year or so. Here at Total-MMA we have reviewed releases from legendary champions like Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Matt Hughes, and my favorite of the bunch, Chuck Liddell. Forrest Griffin, a good-but-not-leg...

By Thomas Hackett A couple of weekends ago, I had a ton of fun at a “Modified MMA” tournament hosted by the good people of Warrior-One, an MMA retailer and training center just north of Seattle. The event offered an opportunity for a hopeful fighter to begin to bridge the gap between jiu-jitsu matches and MMA,...

By Fraser Strikeforce: Shamrock v. Diaz Dream.8 WEC: Torres v. Mizugaki I know it’s all the rage to hate on EliteXC, but I quite enjoyed their shows and have missed them this year. This Strikeforce show picked up where EliteXC left off with an exciting, dramatic main event, a great

By Thomas Hackett In a recent interview with Fight Magazine, Lyoto Machida was asked what was in his refrigerator. The Brazilian MMA phenom known as “The Dragon” (or, as I prefer to call him, “The Next Light Heavyweight Champion of the World”) didn’t surprise me when he included açaí (pronounced a-sigh-ee...

By Thomas Hackett Main Event, for the UFC Middleweight Championship: Anderson Silva (champion) vs. Thales Leites (challenger) For the second week in a row, MMA fans have the pleasure of watching a pound-for-pound entrant defend his world championship. Last week, we had bantamweight king Miguel Angel To...

By Dave Walsh Nightmare of Battle not only has the best name of any MMA site in history, but is a great resource for Japanese MMA. Mainly covers the big league Japanese promotions of SENGOKU and DREAM, but also goes into depth on DEEP, SHOOTO and so on, usually as long as it involves fighters who will end up i...

By Alan Conceicao Returning to Zuffa and their handling of PRIDE, it is remarkable that such a bungled effort sees such little interest retrospectively, particularly when talk of great business prowess is so rampant. Some estimates of the purchase of PRIDE range upwards of $70,000,000. Even at a quarter o...

By Alan Conceicao After a start that most every MMA fan would be assumed to be happy with, along comes Bobby Lashley, and with him, the end of the event’s entertaining portion. Lashley’s sideshow bout with Ken Shamrock was take away at the last minute when he tested positive for an army of roids for his bout wit...

By Alan Conceicao ShareThis One thing that was brought up regularly in the post fight talk of UFC 93 is how awful Mark Coleman looked. Sam Caplan was but a single (and the most coherent) voice among many who has written in the last 24 hours about his wish to see Mark Coleman retire. That, sadly, is not going [...]

By Thomas Hackett ShareThis A few years ago, Jonathan Snowden, an attorney-turned-soldier in the US Army looked for a substantial book on the rise of mixed martial arts. Unable to find one he found complete, he wrote it himself. Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting is Snowden’s attempt to offer a complete hi...

By Alan Conceicao ShareThis After a weekend that saw the biggest night in heavyweight kickboxing (and argurably the sport in general) and the biggest night in boxing for 2008, its hard to believe it may be topped without a single PPV card on the bill. But with 5 boxing cards and 3 MMA events scheduled for natio...

By Dave Walsh ShareThis I think that if you are a fan of combat sports this weekend really turned out to be something special. While there really wasn’t much going on for Mixed Martial Arts, for events having the word “boxing” in them it was one hell of a weekend. Starting off last night with the amazing K1 Wo...

By Alan Conceicao Is Royce Gracie the Frank Gotch of his era? Is he a legitimately tough fighter with enough grappling and martial arts skills to defeat most opponents, but then “does business” (i.e. plans finishes) with those whom he might lose to? If the gravy train is lucrative enough, there will be a long...

By Alan Conceicao RESULTS: Allen Grays defeats Brian Burgen (TKO Rnd 2, fighter unable to continue) Matt Swanson defeats Jared Freeman (Ref Stoppage/Submission by guillotine, Rnd 2) Allen Grays defeats Matt Swanson (KO, Rnd 2) 135) Kemp Griffin defeats Tim Houser (Tapout from guillotine, Rnd 1)

By Dave Walsh We’ve had a few obnoxious server issues, so this is up a few days late. But late is better than never, no? Join Chris Henderson, Alan and myself as we look back at UFC 87 as well as do some speculating into the future and more. ShareThis We’ve had a few obnoxious server issues, so this is up a few day...

By Dave Walsh In this week’s edition of Total MMA Radio, Alan, Kendall and myself discuss this weekend’s UFC 87 card — Alan covers what to look for in the Olympics in boxing and Kendall gives an in-depth look into what The Olympics has to offer with Judo.

By Jonathan Snowden We look at the Affliction card and hear from Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Freddie Roach, and Ben Rothwell. Some crazy bastard picks Sylvia! And hey, what’s going on with Rampage Jackson? ShareThis We look at the Affliction card and hear from Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Freddie Roac...

By Jonathan Snowden We talk about last week’s fights, worked fights in MMA, Lou Duva, drunken Merchant, and what’s coming up this week in boxing. Improved Audio quality!? ShareThis We talk about last week’s fights, worked fights in MMA, Lou Duva, drunken Merchant, and what’s coming up this week in boxing. Imp...

By Jonathan Snowden ShareThis In our latest edition of Total MMA Radio, Dave and Alan preview the UFC’s Affliciton-Killer card and Dave talks with THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER Amir Sadollah. Remember to subscribe to  via iTunes or possibly more underground and edgy podcast receivers.  Just search for ‘Total MMA’ o...

By Jonathan Snowden ShareThis On today’s edition of Total MMA Radio, our own Iain Liddle sits down with Cage Rage’s Neil Grove and Marc Staehling discusses DREAM 5. Remember to subscribe to  via iTunes or possibly more underground and edgy podcast receivers.  Just search for ‘Total MMA’ of if want to flex your...

By Jonathan Snowden ShareThis Covering the weekend in British MMA with Lee Whitehead from MMA Weekly and UFC 86 with a brief word from Forrest and Rampage. Remember to subscribe to  via iTunes or possibly more underground and edgy podcast receivers.  Just search for ‘Total MMA’ of if want to flex your technolo...