November 2008

As a fan, no one remembers that us fi ghters have a hell of a lot more to worry about than the angry beast standing across the ring/cage/drugstore parking lot from us. The fl ashing lights, being spritzed down, and being touched up with…

Hermes Franca throws wide, looping punches. “He wings it,” says his boxing coach, Lou Martinez. Opponents see them coming, but sometimes can’t do anything to avoid the impact. Watch the tape of Franca’s third-round…

The fi rst time Cung Le lost a fi ght, he was ten years old. The victor was a bully named Domingo, who along with his gang, constantly picked on the small Vietnamese kid. Today, Cung Le is a far cry from that scrawny kid back in Vietnam.…

Team Meeting... Any one who has spent a lot of time in fi ght gyms will recognize their familiar smell: of stale sweat, wet leather and something vaguely reminiscent of urine, (the imported leather, which fi nds its way into a lot of…

Ryan Bader Is MMA a wrestler’s world? Some of the biggest early champions were wrestlers, or had a strong wrestling base. Wrestlers dominated their opponents with control and vicious ground and pound. But as the sport evolved, fi…

In the fi rst annual FIGHT! Power 20 we take a look at the top movers and shakers in the mixed martial arts world. Businessmen, promoters, fi nanciers, fi ghters and trainers all fi nd their way on to this years list. There are some name…

Each time the cage door swings shut, it closes on a mix of two distinct personality types - the humble gentleman and the cocky bastard. After a fl amboyant entrance offending at least half of the crowd, removing his sombrero to reveal a fi…

It’s common for sportswriters to mythologize the men they cover, to exaggerate their accomplishments, their histories, their presence in a room. Athletes, after all, exist to show us, the mere mortals, that the impossible— the…

Mark Twain coined the post-Civil War period the Gilded Age for the garish displays of wealth by the new rich who had made their fortune in that uncertain time. Those entrepreneurs saw opportunities to create, produce, and consume products…

It’s been nearly ten months since my MMA fi ght quest began. And in that time, I’ve come to learn quite a bit, both about this incredible sport and myself. But of all the newfound knowledge I’ve amassed, the one factoid…