Archive for the 'MMA' Category

Picture: Jon Jones throws a left roundhouse kick at Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

At 2:37 into the third round, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was stopped by the relentless attacks of Jon “Bones” Jones. Jones captured the UFC Light Heavyweight title at age 23 making him the youngest champion in UFC history.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: A T-Shirt from Purebred to raise funds for victims of the Tohoku earthquake.

If you love the martial arts — and if you’re reading this, chances are you do — it’s impossible to not love Japan. My visits to Japan include many memories I will always cherish, not just attending several MMA shows but getting some insight into the beautiful culture which is so integral to the foundations of the sport we love.

It’s just as obvious that following the recent earthquake, Japan needs your love right now, along with your sense of charity. With risks incoming from radiation from the damaged nuclear facilities and more than 10,000 persons still missing, it may be impossible at this point to give an accurate account of the damage sustained; in addition to the confirmed dead — approaching 9,000 as of this writing.

So it’s fitting that as in the case of last year’s (continuing) crisis in Haiti, several figures in the MMA and jiu-jitsu world are making their presence felt in disaster relief. Here are some ways you can help, or maybe this will inspire you to do what you can to help. This post will continue to be updated in the coming weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Picture: Russell Harvard as Matt Hamill.

A true story based on the life of deaf UFC fighter Matt Hamill, Hamill tells the story of what it takes to be a champion, on and off the mat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Tito Ortiz (right) throws a right at Ken Shamrock in their final bout. Robert Visnick argues in this piece that MMA in 2011 could use some more rivalries like Ortiz’s Team Punishment vs Shamrock’s Lion’s Den.

How civilized do the fans want MMA to become? Do you want overly respectful fighters in MMA?

No doubt MMA is a mainstream sport now and needs a good reputation to keep growing. But what really makes a sport have a good reputation? Is the MMA world starting to get a little to sensitive?

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: BJ Penn ground and pounded by Jon Fitch at UFC 127 in Sydney, Australia. photo by Daniel Herbertson, FanHouse

Jon Fitch at UFC 127 in Sydney, Australia drew with MMA’s great BJ Penn last night. A fight in which I think he won. But more importantly, it’s a fight in which he does not get his due respect.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Machida’s Unique Karate in Action

Fans of most sports have no trouble referring to their favored athletic pursuit as a game. MMA fans however, would probably take offense at the idea that combat is a game at all. Combat sport events, have never been referred to in everyday parlance in the way that other sports have – It’s never ‘Are you going to watch the game?’ It’s always ‘Are you going to watch the fights?’

However, in the technical sense of the word, MMA is very much a game. In game theory, a game describes any strategic interaction where the choice of the various players can affect one another. A famous example of game in this sense is the Prisoner’s Dilemma, where two prisoners face the following outcomes depending on whether they confess or not.

The Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

This type of game is pretty theoretical and is purposely made simple in order to be easy to understand. Some more complex ‘games’ include things like Chess, Poker, and of course, Sports. Now, that’s enough of the technical stuff. My point is that in MMA, the success rate of one fighter not only depends on that fighter does. It also very much depends on what the opponent brings to the table.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Anderson Silva. George Do calls Silva “the Picasso of MMA,” –and dubs Georges St. Pierre “the fighter with the most scientific approach in the sport.”

It’s pretty common in sports commentary to hear or read things that compare athletic competition with artistic expression. It’s also common for announcers and journalists to say things like “They’re putting on a clinic tonight” or “That way he hits that shot is surgical” – things that draw parallels between sports and science. Boxing is known as the “Sweet Science”, and Muay Thai is known as “the Art of Eight Limbs”. While a lot of these comparisons are merely semantic, in our sport, these sorts of comparisons are surprisingly apt. When we look at the top of the various divisions in our sport, most of the fighters are clearly either scientific or artistic in their overall approach to fighting.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Buakaw (right) shoots a push kick at Masato in a K-1 Max bout. Robert Visnick describes this technique as underutilized in MMA.

Though mixed martial arts has been around for a while now, the sport and the fighters’ technique are still evolving. Still, there are some basics that a lot of fighters can and should add to their arsenal. Fighters can still pull and learn to better utilize some basic techniques from boxing, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

First, boxing…

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Ken Shamrock blocks an advancing Pedro Rizzo, along with advancing age, during last night’s listless encounter in Sydney.

Any card featuring Ken Shamrock, Paul Daley’s first fight (since his UFC firing) and names like Murilo Rua, Denis Kang and Paulo Filho is enough to at least grab the attention of most MMA fans.

On paper, this past Saturday’s Impact FC 2 in Sydney, Australia had some potentially great fights. But, fights happen in a cage, not on paper. Although the fights were not completely disappointing, neither did the initial promise of the card produce any lasting memories.

It could be that the main event just sullied my opinion of the whole event.

Ken Shamrock v Pedro Rizzo should simply never have happened. Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s note: Alexia Krause is a usual contributor to MMAIndustries — and we’re happy to have her contribute to Total-MMA this week. If you’re interested in writing for Total-MMA, please contact us! — Tommy)

With the New York state deficit hitting $8 billion, steps need to be taken in order to right the ship that is the state’s budget. Recently New York Gov. David Paterson stated that the projected deficit for the upcoming fiscal year has grown by an additional $750 million. There’s no doubting that the Empire State is in dire straits trying to fix their deficit.  It is extremely difficult trying to balance a state budget at a time when the country as a whole is going through some of its most difficult economic hurdles in recent history. This forces us to take a fresh look at which programs will continue to receive funding. As a result, the state has been forced to cut, reject, and outright shut down many state programs and projects in order to make some type of movement out of the red and back into the black. Many of these budget cuts (like closing down state parks and cutting funding to public schools) were rampant and have cast an unfavorable light on politicians in Albany in the eyes of many New Yorkers. However, something must be done in order to fight the ailing state economy.

As coincidence has it, a good fight might just be the answer to the budget problems.                             

Read the rest of this entry »