MMA: Mixed martial arts

By mmapayout If the network still believes in MMA, the most likely scenario might be a deal with the Affliction/Golden Boy combination. CBS had originally discussed the Saturday Night Fights concept with Top Rank Boxing as well as EliteXC, indicating some interest in prime time boxing. Given the mixe...

By Nichole Lesniak Walk into any given bar lately, and in addition to the myriad of NFL schedules and drink specials, these days you are likely see the faces of Mixed Martial Arts: the Kimbo Slices, the Chuck Liddells, the Fedor Emelianenkos. It’s no surprise that since the continued success of UFC, newer com...

Strikeforce is an organization on the rise.  In fact, every time a new MMA outfit starts off they seem to reference the Strikeforce model, one that starts off with strong local talent and expands from there.  Said another way, besides the UFC the only MMA organization that’s known to be maki...

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

By mma_dude Knees to a downed opponent:  If your strong suit is on the ground, then you have a great advantage in virtually every conception of MMA (Royce Gracie proved this in the first 4 UFC's). You need no further advantage, but, the no knees rule gives these grapplers yet another advantage. This adva...

By ben When Sean O’Connell made his MMA debut in April of last year, he had no fight training outside of a few cardio kickboxing classes. Somehow, he knocked out his opponent in 36 seconds. Then, he knocked out his next two opponents, both early in the first round. By November, O’Connell was 5-1 and ha...

By Dave Walsh ShareThis   Here at Total MMA we have sent one Andrew Wallace to Strikeforce twice now to report live on what usually are some of the more fun MMA events in the United States. He has gotten to hang out with Dave Meltzer, some girl who started a site about MMA afterparties, talked about his abs an...

By Thomas Hackett But then there’s a life off the mat where Couture struggles to define himself. He opens a chapter by admitting: “My greatest enemy is confrontation… I’d rather take on Chuck Liddell on any given day than communicate with someone when emotions are involved.”

By Jason Foucha Forrest Griffin is the new Light Heavyweight champ. Now, I don't believe he won this fight, I also don't think he did enough to win it. I honestly would have preferred a draw and a second matchup right away. Rich Franklin, his inability to beat Silva really overshines his greatness, because I h...

By Steve Cofield Anyone who says they want to emulate Ric Flair during their MMA career is down with me. One of Kaplan's best friends from the taping TUF 8 was Tom Lawlor, who did some pro wrestling before getting into mixed martial arts. The average hardcore MMA fan or fighter may not like what his motivati...

By Kevin Curran Mirko has stopped world class wrestlers like Mark Coleman with his sprawl and this tells me that he might be able to sprawl on someone like Lesnar or Couture. I know I'll hear it for that one with comments like, "Coleman is no Couture!", but at one point, Coleman was better than Couture. Also, i...

By Cannon J Even if you are a UFC fan only, you cannot be rooting for bad business practices in MMA. What’s happening now will affect UFC long-term because sooner or later, the talent pool will dry out as less and less fighters can find work on minor shows. Once the money starts drying up, a lot of fighters a...

By Phil Adams Kenny Rice is back this week. Tonight's guests are Josh Thomson, Tito Ortiz, and Guy Mezger (Tito's bitch, according to a tee-shirt I saw once). We start out with a look at Elite XC's recent troubles. They have cancelled a 9/20 show, lost $55 million since starting, their heavywe...

By Kid Nate This division remains a mess! Despite a wealth of talented fighters and seven major promotions (UFC, WEC, EliteXC, DREAM, WVR, Afflictiong and Strikeforce) booking top fighters, there's more confusion than clarity at 185. First off, Anderson Silva has cleaned out the UFC middleweigh...

By Michael Rome This interview he just did with MMA Junkie really says it all.  He knows nothing about what is good for his fighters, and his quotes show it. Look at Brandon Vera," Dion said. "He had a long layoff, but he's making more money than the No. 1 ranked [expletive] fighter in the world, Anderson Silva -...

By funnytiger Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter left us with quite a few fantastic fighters who still mix it up with the best of them in the UFC including: Forrest Griffin (Season 1 Light Heavyweight Winner), Stephan Bonnar, Diego Sanchez (Season 1 Middleweight Winner), Chris Leben, Josh Koscheck, Ken...

By Cannon J Did you like EliteXC's first, or second CBS show better?  It may be more a question of what more people like - including casual fans.  However, I tend to believe that keeping the hardcore base of MMA fans satisfied is extremely important for the sport in the long-term.  If you are one who belie...

In addition, the characters themselves seem like spitting images of their real-life counterparts. Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Rampage–every character is instantly recognizable, and without a photograph, you would be hard-pressed to point out flaws in the models. This is even more notab...

I follow MMA pretty closely, and we sell close to as many MMA tickets as anyone but the big ticket houses like Stubhub..and have not had one inquiry on this Elite XC show, and we usually get a lot of action on Northern California shows. We get calls for most Strikeforce shows, definitely lots for...

By James Hizona Hello MMA fans and fighters! I am James "Balistik" Hizona, and this is "MMA ALL THE WAY!!" Today's topic for discussion is the Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring fight at UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. When you have faced the likes of Mirko Cro Cop, Wanderlai Silva, "Minotauro" Nogeira, and Fedor Emel...

By Eric Shapiro Fedor Emelianenko def. Tim Sylvia via submission - Round 1, 0:36 Josh Barnett def. Pedro Rizzo via KO - Round 2, 1:44 Vitor Belfort def. Terry Martin via KO - Round 2, 3:12 Kevin Burns def. Anthony Johnson via TKO - Round 3, 3:35 CB Dollaway def. Jesse Taylor via submission - Round 1, 3:58

By Michael Rome One area that needs big improvement is fighter entrances.  The videos on the fighters were weak, and the entrances did not create the same type of theatrical environment you get live at UFC shows.  Fedor's entrance reaction was way lower than you'd think simply because he did not have that k...

By Steve Cofield Any word that Affliction "Banned" and Ultimate Fight Night 14 going at it head-to-head was bad for the sport was squashed by the Fedor Emelianenko and Anderson Silva performances. Give the UFC announce team, Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan credit, they not go into shill-mode screaming ab...

By Ron Yacovetti Can MMA fighters make the jump into professional boxing and produce successful careers? But what about the MMA tide going back out—taking with it pro boxers trying their hands at Mixed Martial Arts, after some MMA guys attained recognition in boxing?

By Michael Rome This protection alone is of enormous benefit for all mixed martial artists. Currently, no objective rankings are utilized by any of the major promotions. Title shots should be awarded by merit, and not based upon contracted promotional exclusivity. Fighters and fans alike would benefit...

By Mike Cormack Josh Neer vs. Din Thomas. Din Thomas by submission. He's got great takedowns. Neer's an awesome fighter but I'll look for Din to take him down and submit him. Marcus Aurelio vs. Ryan Roberts I'll pick Aurelio by submission. Very experienced and good ground fighter.

By Kendall Shields Discuss this article in the Total MMA forums I can offer nothing by way of introduction that would set the stage more fittingly for the no doubt earth-shattering events about to unfold on this, our season finale of The Ultimate Fighter, than these words from Dana White himself. BEHOLD:

By Rich Howlett Greetings MMA Supporters:  This Saturday, July 5, 2008, the UFC returns with UFC 86: Jackson vs. Griffin. The world will be watching as this season's The Ultimate Fighter coaches battle for the UFC Light-heavyweight title.  More than just another fight, this war will be the final validati...

Which fighter that you met impressed you the most? Ha haaaa – BJ Penn, of course! Answer: It’s the Hawaii State Capitol House Resolution approved and passed in March 2008 “Congratulating BJ Penn the current Lightweight Ultimate Fighting Champion on his successful martial arts career”.

By Nichole Lesniak KM: Wee have Ring of Combat on June 27th and it’s forming to be a real good show, so I’m looking forward to that one. It’s gonna be a very good show, Lou Neglia always puts on good shows. Then we have Dave Mastriovanni I believe is in Battle Cage Xtreme which I think is in July. Then there’s a few more,...

By Jonathan Snowden Ortiz is the Answer Elite XC definetly stamped their presence on the US MMA scene with their debut on CBS. Sure, the ratings were actually significantly lower than the average show on the network in that timeslot, but it wasn't about how many were watching, it was about w...

By Eric Shapiro Joey Villasenor vs. Phil Baroni Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson Kimbo truly was broken last night. He gassed, got outclassed on the ground, and was proven to be a fighter with much to learn, as he did humbly state in the post fight. Try as they might, I don’t think EliteXC will be able to cover the fa...

By Jerret Anderson The MMA industry is going through some very similar growing pains to what the professional wrestling industry went through in the 80's. Yes, I know most people on this website don't like pro wrestling, but as much as you may dislike it there are many parallels between MMA now and pro wrestli...

By Brandt DeLorenzo Pulver says that he never wanted to fight at the higher weights, especially 170, just to be in the UFC in the past. He’s happy with the lower weights and representing wrestlers at 155 pounds and lower. If the WEC is pushed off TSN in Canada due to game 7 of the NBA championship, the card will be bro...

By Curtis Clontz Matt Hughes is highly-regarded as the best 170-pound fighter in the history of the UFC. He is a future hall of famer, and a legend in the sport of MMA. He has a phenomenal 42-6-0 professional MMA record, including an 18 fight win streak. A former UFC welterweight champion, Hughes holds notable...

By Kid Nate The two most valuable lessons to take from this book is that first, a style of Mixed Martial Arts fighting should be built off of one main discipline with techniques from other styles added to complement the base style. Second, that the style should be an integrated blend, not a disintegrat...

By Larry Vollmer Today, as the effort to regulate the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) gets underway in New York State, the Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC®), the leading MMA league, committed to holding a fight in Upstate New York in 2008. Mixed martial arts, which boasts sell-out crowd across the...

By SamCaplan Kenny Florian TKOs Joe Lauzon at 3:28 of round 2 - I think Jordan Breen from Sherdog.com pretty much called this one. I picked Florian to win but Breen apparently believed that Florian would dominate Lauzon. The first round was really good but Florian just took over in the second.

By Michael David Smith This is a statement that's about as well informed as Rush Limbaugh's statement that the NFL resembles the Bloods and the Crips. Have you ever seen a street fight where there's a doctor on hand who's trained in diagnosing and treating cuts and concussions and who has the authority to end the f...

By Pramit Mohapatra Kimbo Slice So far, EliteXC President Gary Shaw is using Kimbo Slice well. Despite his training, Slice is probably not ready for good fighters yet. So, Shaw is building him up by pitting him against big-name fighters who are past their prime and who match up stylistically. Slice gave the fans...

By Sam Caplan It’s been reported in the past that UFC president Dana White is a big fan of Pavlik’s. In fact, the inside word is that White wasn’t watching Kimbo vs. Tank on Saturday and instead was at the MGM to see Pavlik vs. Taylor. Kimbo Slice vs. Tank Abbott wasn’t the only big fight to take place in combat spo...

In one case, the UFC filed an injunction against Couture in the hopes of preventing him from appearing at the IFL's Feb. 29 event, saying that such an appearance would violate the terms of his contract with the UFC. Couture's camp, Xtreme Couture, is fielding a team at this IFL event.

By Sam Caplan The element of a larger crowd also added a lot of energy to the show. There’s nothing wrong with having a few “B” shows at the Palms or Hard Rock, but I’ll take the atmosphere of a big arena show as opposed to the “intimate” feel of a smaller show any day of the week. The WEC fighters came across as bi...

Other fighters have simply improved their other skills so much over time that their wrestling has become their defensive weapon. Chuck Liddell’s primary weapons are his fists, and he uses a counter-striking tactic that isn’t seen in wrestling ground and pound fighters too often. He does...

By Neal Taflinger Dr. Cindy Bir wasn’t a fan of mixed martial arts before she started working on the new installment of “Fight Science.“ “Fight Science: Mixed Martial Arts” sets out to measuring the power and accuracy of MMA fighters’ punches and kicks, exploring the mechanics of grappling, and examining t...

By ben The last fighter to actually wear Affliction during an event was Georges St. Pierre at UFC 79 where he sported Affliction on his tights and gi. If you review UFC 80 and Wednesday’s Ultimate Fight Night: Swick vs. Burkman, you’ll notice that Affliction was noticeably absent from any fighter’...

By Jordan Katz ·        Matt Hughes’skills are deteriorating, not the fighter he once was; ·        Renato Sobral’s lack of striking abilities prevent him from becoming a top 5 light heavyweight; ·        Randy Couture regains the heavyweight championship.

By The Fighting Life Radev had a wrestling background, so this isn't as lopsided as some previous bouts the UFC has given to Lister.  Still, anyone with anything other than a stellar ground game is probably in trouble against "The Boogeyman".  This should be interesting to see how Lister rebounds from a previo...

By Steve Sievert(cycling.notebook@earthlink.net) Although HDNet Fights' Reckless Abandon show Saturday night at American Airlines Center in Dallas was the fledgling promotion's second event, it was my first taste of Mark Cuban's brand of MMA. Fighters first • • • If you were at the show or caught it on HDNet, give us your critique.

Before I get started, let me begin by saying that I understand the decision to put Hughes versus Serra as coaches on “The Ultimate Fighter” or as I like to call it, “The Ultimate Hype Machine.” What I don’t understand, is putting a division, arguably the deepest in MMA, on hold for a reality te...