mma worldwide nr.18

98TapouT:JUST BELIEVE

It’s been over eight months since Charles “Mask” Lewislost his life on that Newport Beach side street but hismessage has lived on. His predecessors Punk Ass andSkyscrape fill us in on how the vision is continuing tothrive.By Bobby Pittman

52 Patrick BarryThe K-1 kickboxer was a huge underdog at UFC 104with a lot on the line. More than almost everyone inthe arena realized until now!By John Stewart

74 Ryan BaderA lot of Ultimate Fighter contestants are in it simplyfor their 15 minutes of fame.At 10-0 however,Ryan Bader is here to stay.By Ricky Bonnet

80 Frankie EdgarThey said he was too small, they said he was notmarketable enough, they said he couldn’t make it tothe top. But no one said it well enough for Frankieto believe him.By Jon Lane

86 MMA Marketing with HeadBladeThe Octagon canvas and posts are littered with bluechip sponsors and the money is finally starting topour into MMA, but who was there before the hype?By RJ Clifford

89 Guy Mezger:Where Is He Now?One of the original Lion’s Den fighters battled someof the best all over world 1994-2003. Now he isPresident of HDNet Fights and transforming theMMA world from outside the cage.By Kyle Rayner

107 Ben HendersonNo guillotine choke, omaplata, triangle or arm barwas going to keep Henderson from defeating DonaldCerrone for the WEC interim title.All of that for ashot at Jamie Varner!By Ricky Bonnet

112 Mike “The Joker” GuymonFew have had to battle through so much for so longfor a shot at the big time. Fresh off his UFC signing,Joker talks training, the old TapouT days and hisbrush with death.By RJ Clifford

Cover photo by Tracy Lee www.combatlifestyle.com

TABLE OF CONTENTSFeatures ISSUE 18

20 The World-famous

22 The World-famous

TABLE OF CONTENTS Columns ISSUE 18

28 From the PublisherThe Orange Country Auto Show got abit of a face lift this year as the MMAWorldwide crew brought a taste of thefight game to some new fans.

30 From the EditorEditor RJ is a spoiled fellow, especiallywhen it comes to MMA. So when hemakes an MMA wish list and what heexpects in 2010, someone had betterdeliver . . . or he’ll scream.

34 The Fight NerdIt seems like every MMA fighter that canput two words together is trying his orher hand at acting.Are we facing ashortage of fighters and a surplus ofthespians?

38 Breakout FighterIt’s one thing to knock off a top fivefighter in your debut on a big show, butto choke a world champion Brazilian jiujitsu artist in the first round?

40 FaceoffBJ Penn has finally decided to stay at 155and try his hand at making himself alegend at lightweight. But the competi-tion does not get any easier as he facesa nightmare of his own, Diego Sanchez.

46 MMA Worldwide RankingsMiddleweight gets a face lift as formerjourneyman Chael Sonnen drops YushinOkami at UFC 104. Check out who elserose and who else fell.

104 America’s Best Grappling GymsLloyd Irvin earned his black belt in onlythree and a half years and has his owngym where he is continuing theprogression of the gentle art ofBrazilian jiu-jitsu.

120 Expert’s RoundtableWho better to hear from than the guyswho are paid to talk? We peak insidethe minds of the guys with the best seatin the house, fight commentators.

127 Rattling the CageNate “The Rock” Quarry has had torebound more than an NBA center tokeep his career going but is paying off.

44 94

57 116

36

24 The World-famous

Welcome to Issue #18 of MMA Worldwide!

This is a very special issue with our Christmas pull-out sectionand largest page count ever! This is our biggest and best issueand we want to Thank Everyone who made this possible.

The biggest thanks have to go to the guys at TapouT, LLC.

Marc Kreiner gave us a call that made our year, and for that, I personally THANK YOU!

Punk Ass and his team are on fire! When Marc told us you haven’t seen anything yet andour biggest is yet to come — “we are true believers.” Marc Kreiner has put them on apath that is straight to the top and we are extremely proud to be involved with TapouT’selite team.

I was fortunate enough to take the grand tour by Russell Stone, Vice President of Mediafor TapouT. Russell and our team hit it off right away and we expect many things to flour-ish in our strategy meetings.

Our first TapouT/MMA Worldwide Newsletter will be launched in December. Thiswill be emailed to over 350,000 subscribers each month. If you want to advertise, pleasegive us a call at (714) 226-0585. We can also film video commercials as well as tailorads to suit your needs.

Brett Roberts invited the MMA Worldwide team to help him with the Motor Trend OCAuto show. Brett was in charge of the show’s MMAportion and asked Bobby and Freddyif they would co-promote with him. On such short notice, I must say these guys did anincredible job. Bobby and Freddy, I Congratulate and Thank You!

Their dedication and tireless effort didn’t go unnoticed. All throughout the four-dayevent, the MMA portion maintained four times the audience of the cars. Wow, we arenow involved with Motor Trend and auto shows…how far can MMA go?

MMA Worldwide TV Show: Congratulations are in order! We will be filming Season#3 with 10 episodes again. For sponsors who might want product placement, themeshows, tags, or just great exposure, give us a call at (714) 226-0585. Stay tuned to hearabout this and our new format.

Expanding our offices: Well you know the old saying: “If you throw enough s--- againstthe wall, something will stick.” We have thrown so much up there that we need morewalls to throw at. We just expanded into the building next to us and added 10 more officesthat include a photo studio, cage assembly for filming, editing bay and a complete facil-ity for producing training DVD’s. Watch out America; we are on the move! Now if wecould only get Dana White to call…

If there is no wind, row…………..and rowing is what we are doing!

Robert “The Closer” Pittman

MMA WorldwideOrganization

Robert Pittman

Sheree Brown-Pittman

Bobby Pittman

Nicole Barton

Dan Harkey

RJ Clifford

Craig Vaughan

Mark Allen

Jacob Wells

Jeffrey Kimberlin

John Nguyen

Fred George

Mike “Joker” Guymon

Adam Villarreal

Chris Staab

Lisa Williams

ISSN 1937-1071

Chairman/ President

Co- Chairman/ Editor

Publisher

Controller/ CFO

General Manager

Editor-in-Chief

Director

Director

Editor

Sales

CustomerRelations/CirculationDirector

Executive Staff/ TourCrew/ Fitness Editor

Executive StaffTour Crew

Senior ContributingWriter

Director ofMultimediaOperations

Graphic Designer

SMP, Inc. as a publisher is an advertising platform and does notendorse or make representation, warranty or guarantee con-cerning the safety or effectiveness of either the products andservices advertised in this magazine or the martial arts ads orother techniques discussed or illustrated in this magazine. Thepublisher expressly disclaims any and all liability relating to themanufacture, sale or use of such products and services and theapplication of the techniques discussed or illustrated in thismagazine. The purchase or use of some of the products, serv-ices or techniques advertised or discussed in this magazine maybe illegal in some areas of the United States or other countries.Therefore, you should check federal, state and local laws priorto your purchase or use of these products, services or tech-niques. The publisher makes no representation or warrantyconcerning the legality of the purchase or use of these prod-ucts, services or techniques in the United States or elsewhere.Because of the nature of some of the products, services ortechniques advertised or discussed in this magazine, you shouldconsult a physician before using these products or services orapplying these techniques.

PRINT WHAT WE SELL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICYAt SMP Inc.,we believe in minimizing paper waste by printingwhat we sell. We do not flood the magazine into mass mar-kets, which typically sell fewer than 40 of every 100 copiesthey receive, and discard the unsold magazines. Our stancecosts us sales, but saves extremely large amounts of paper.We encourage all publishers to put the environment first.

Please Recycle This Magazine

FROM THE CHAIRMAN...

28 The World-famous

Welcome back to another great issue!This past year has been a big one for usand we couldn’t be more excited for2010. With our TV show playing onHDNet, the magazines continuing togrow and some great eventsto reflect on, we definitelyhad a solid year.

What I’m most excitedabout is that with eachaccomplishment this year,many more opportunitieswere presented. Even in thiseconomy that everyone isso afraid of, there are stillplenty of people who arepassionate enough aboutthis sport to keep it movingforward. In a way, the econ-omy even helped trim offsome of the fat, leavingonly the real players andgetting rid of the people justtrying to jump on the band-wagon. When the economy turns, I trulybelieve we are going to see MMA makesome major progress. When it does, we’llbe right there to help push it along andkeep our fans entertained.

When I look back on this year, one thingthat definitely stands out is our participa-

tion in the “Motor Trends” OC AutoShow. Under the watchful eyes of theautomotive industry and the show’sorganizers, MMA was allowed for thefirst time to be part of the line-up whichwas an achievement by itself. We havepushed tirelessly for years to gain theattention of these huge corporate spon-sors, like Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Chryslerand all the others. Now we had a chanceto show them what we were capable ofand we didn’t disappoint. Well maybe wedisappointed them when they saw thatpeople were more interested in the fight-ers than the cars.

We started off the show with a grandentrance on Wednesday morning. With astaging time of 7:00 a.m. to bring in our

tour bus and trailer, I went ahead andslept in the damn thing to make sure Iwasn’t late. At exactly 6:30, I walked into let the union workers know I wasready. Well apparently Chevy and Fordhad already set up their cars and big rigsand started building displays. “There’s noway you’re getting that bus through

there,” the guy told me. After about 10seconds of uncomfortable silence and acold stare from a tired and cranky me, heheaded over to break the bad news toChevy. Needless to say, I didn’t get thegreatest looks while pulling the bus rightthrough their booth. Sorry Mr. Chevy.

After a grueling set-up with my goodfriends Brett Roberts of BAMMA, USAand Freddy George, the show was underway. With 40’ x 40’ of mats set up in frontof our booth, the demos were never end-ing. Our total team consisted of Freddy,Daniel Puder, James Wilks, JamieFletcher, Michael “The Joker” Guymon,Craig Wilkerson, Juliano Prado, OlivierGrunier and many more.

The Ruffo brothers, howev-er, stole the show. WithCarlos and Giovanni on themats, the crowds wereblown away to see what a 7and 9 year old could do.These kids certainly have abright future ahead of themand we’re always happy tohave them and the wholeRuffo family with theMMA Worldwide Crew.

If the crowds we gathered atthe show are any indicatorof what’s to come for theentire MMA world and us, Icouldn’t be happier. We gotto showcase MMA to abrand new set of fans and

keep the sport moving up; that’s what it’sall about. Big thanks to Brett Roberts forsetting us up there. Be sure to check outsome of the photos atwww.bammausa.com and stay tuned fora great 2010. There’s nothing but goodtimes ahead.

by Bobby Pittman

Good Times Ahead

Bobby Pittman can be reached at [email protected]

30 The World-famous

As the days grow shorter and the nightsget colder, it can only mean onething…time to start making yourChristmas lists! Tis the season to startthinking about what superficial itemsyou absolutely must have right now, onlyto forget to use them by the time the win-ter frost thaws.

While I am in no way immune to themarketing bombardment that has beenblitzkrieging me in every shopping cen-ter, strip mall, grocery store and vendingmachine since early October, I’d like tothink I am warranted a little more depthin my wish list if I keep it MMA related.

So, Santa Claus / Commissioner / DanaWhite / Television Executive, here arethe four things I absolutely, undoubtedly,no questions asked, must have thisChristmas. At least until I get bored withit.

RULE CHANGES

MMA is young and the rules are evenyounger. The regulations for our sportare akin to an adolescent teenage boy;you can tell what it can appear to be withso much potential, but it is hard to over-look how awkward and unpolished it is.Judging and refereeing criteria are soabstract and confusing, it’s a wonderanyone knows how to truly decide whowins a fight. Submission attempts vs.positional control. Volume of strikes vs.power strikes. Takedown attempts vs.takedown defense. We need clear criteria

to decide what scores more and howmuch, not to mention the need for anopen scoring system which I have beenadvocating for constantly. (My email isat the bottom if you care to discuss.)With the recent controversy surroundingLyoto Machida and Shogun Rua’s dancerecital, it’s a perfect time to settle thisand grow up as a sport. Which leads meto…

REMATCH BETWEEN MACHIDA

AND SHOGUN

Yeah, I know this is already on the dock-et for a future UFC event, but sometimesit helps to ask for things you know you’llget to convince yourself Santa Claus isreal and is listening to your requests.This rematch is intriguing on all sorts oflevels. Machida’s karate appears to havesome holes left wide open by a strategiz-ing Shogun, and Machida looks, dare Isay, human!

I have been watching Shogun fight since2003 and have never seen him fight theway he did at UFC 104. The wild andreckless, high-flying Street Fighter IIcharacter was calm, precise and strate-gic. He bided his time, picked his shotsand pecked Machida to death. Even hisown mother could not have recognizedthe chess master that took the place ofthe Tasmanian devil.

FEDOR VS. BROCK

It’s bad enough we had to lose one of thebest heavyweight matchups of our gen-eration when Josh Barnett’s urine wentthe way of Barry Bonds and simultane-ously ended the short reign of Afflictionas a fight promoter. Now we have thegreatest heavyweight fighter in the worldcompeting in the same country as the

most popular UFC fighter on their roster.Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brock Lesnarwill draw attention to this sport likenothing we have ever seen, making UFC100 seem like an Ultimate Fight Nightcard. We can sit here all day long andplay the blame game, pointing the fingerat Fedor’s management at M-1 Global orDana White and his my-way-or-the-highway business acumen, or we canmake it happen. Some people seem toprefer the former.

MORE FREE FIGHTS

We have a pretty steady helping of com-petitive, relevant fights thanks to theUFC on Spike TV, the WEC on Versusand everything else on HDNet, but this isa season of giving and if there is a giver,there has to be a taker (MMA fans).Boxing flourished in the 70’s thanks tothe steady flow of major boxing stars onnetwork television. American fans knewwho they were and started to watch themon pay-per-view. As greedy promotersand television executives looked at theshort term gain over the long terminvestment, boxing’s biggest stars fadedaway thanks to their lack of exposure.

MMA has long claimed to have learnedthe lessons from older brother boxing tonot make the same mistakes. CBS needsto grab Strikeforce more often than a fewtimes a year to keep the media buzzing;the UFC needs to keep major cards oncable to continue to build tomorrow’sRandy Coutures; and everyone needs toremember there are more ways to makemoney in this sport than just making cus-tomers buy a three-hour block of televi-sion for the night. I have yet to pay onedime to watch football, baseball, basket-ball, hockey, tennis, bull riding or bassfishing on my 50” plasma.

by RJ Clifford

My Christmas List

RJ Clifford can be reached at [email protected]

32 The World-famous

To Contact MMA Worldwide: Emai l us at RJ@mmaworldwide .com or check us out on Myspace atwww.myspace .com/mmaworldwidemagaz ine . Make sure to inc lude your name and hometown.

STEROIDS

I liked your piece on steroids in MMA.We are watching as we speak the fall ofbaseball as player after player testspositive and diluting the game withcontroversy. I just hope MMA doesn’tfollow suit.

—Mike Trevino

Huntington Beach, CA

Steroids in MMA are as bad as it seems. . . trust me.

—Frank Richmond

Editor’s Note: Thanks for enlightening

us Frank. We’ll make sure to interview

you in a follow up piece. Is your data

available in a medical journal some-

where?

BRIAN BOWLES

I have to admit, I was one of many whothought Brian Bowles had no shot atbeating Miguel Torres and yet here heis the WEC bantamweight champion.He is a lot like Forrest Griffin in thatthey are both from Georgia and seem toalways be the underdog and yet contin-ue to succeed.

—Tracy Jensen,

Birmingham, AL

JOSH KOSCHECK

Props to Josh Koscheck for stepping upfor UFC 105 on short notice, and hisopponent Anthony Johnson too. Thereare far too many fighters that pick andchoose when and who they fight andonly fight once of twice a year becauseof it. Koscheck is down to fight any-one, anytime no questions asked.

—Aaron Webster

Fresno, CA

I still think Josh Koscheck’s loss toPaulo Thiago was a complete stroke ofluck for Thiago. If they fought 50 timesKoscheck would win 49 of them.

—Mike McLeland

Ithaca, NY

THE KIMBO SHOW

I liked Karl Maple’s article about

Kimbo completely taking over The

Ultimate Fighter. The show is supposedto be about sixteen guys all getting anequal shot at a UFC contract. This sea-son just seems like the UFC is just try-ing to find a way to get Kimbo into theUFC!

—Savak Minasyan

Hollywood, CA

MAILBAG

VITOR BELFORT

I like Vitor’s chances against Anderson Silva and I liken that match toShogun vs Machida. Both Machida and Silva have similar styles ofcounter fighting and both Shogun and Vitor were former offensecrazy fighters that have been able to mature and create good gameplans and execute. Now if only the judges that gave Machida the winwon’t work the Vitor vs Silva match I’ll be happy.

—Francisco Ramirez, Gilroy, CA

I’m still not convinced “The Phenom” is back yet. We have seen himtime and time again knock off a couple of guys only to fall back intothe depths of obscurity. The win over Rich Franklin was a nice onebut it was a quick KO and could have been a fluke. Anderson Silvawill bring Vitor back to earth.

—Blake Anderson, Strafford, MO

I have been to some of Vitor Belfort’s training sessions at XtremeCouture and he is a marvel to watch. Most of the fighters at that gymare tough as nails but he just has something about him that is scary tothink what he could do to another fighter.

—Andrew Grant, Las Vegas, NV

34 The World-famous

Life after the cage can be uncertain for

many pro fighters, but the silver screen

can be a viable opportunity for a few of

the lucky ones who hang up the gloves.

It’s good to know there are some alterna-

tives other than teaching or running a

gym, but at what cost?

In a previous article, I discussed the

problem with certain champions not

defending their titles. Cung Le, the

Strikeforce Middleweight champ, was

one such fighter, taking the belt via dra-

matic beating of Frank Shamrock back in

March 2008. Almost 18 months later, Le

had yet to defend the title due to filming

the mediocre Fighting and the equally-

bad sci-fi vehicle Pandorum.

In mid-September, Le relinquished his

championship to continue pursuing his

movie career, starring in the upcoming

Tekken videogame adaptation as the clev-

erly named “Marshall Law.” Before this,

he was on the highway to stardom in

Strikeforce and gained a huge fanbase to

jump onboard the bandwagon, especially

after his performance over Shamrock. If

Le doesn’t return soon, his fans may

move onto someone willing to step back

in there time and time again.

Gina Carano, another Strikeforce star

(formerly of the defunct EliteXC),

became a household name thanks to the

promotion by Gary Shaw. Immediately

Carano’s face and signature smile was

plastered on magazines and merchandise

with Tinseltown soon knocking at her

door.

During her time in EliteXC, Carano took

on the role of “Crush” in American

Gladiators, which required her to bulk up

about 20 pounds more than her fighting

weight. This was one of the factors that

most likely caused Carano to have trou-

ble cutting weight for fights, but she still

considered herself to be a fighter first.

After her recent loss to Cris Cyborg for

the Strikeforce 145-pound title, many

expected Carano to pursue a rematch or

at least take another fight to regain title

contention. Instead she took a step back

from fighting to build her movie résumé

with a starring role in Steven

Soderbergh’s Knockout.

Will Carano return to the cage? She

claims so, but the lure of the big screen is

a strong temptation and some believe

“Conviction” used MMA to push her act-

ing career forward. Being a relatively-

young fighter, she has time to weigh her

options, but it would be a pity to lose this

rising star so early in her career.

The most recent culprit to drop his fight-

ing career for Hollywood would be

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Rampage

has had a few bit parts in movies includ-

ing The Midnight Meat Train and a guest

spot on King of Queens. The entire MMA

fan world was shocked when Jackson

announced his sudden retirement to pur-

sue acting permanently, citing his disdain

with Zuffa and his contempt for the fans.

This is one of those occasions where you

really feel sympathy for Dana White.

White backed up Jackson when he went

on his monster truck rampage, gave him

the spotlight in the UFC, a title shot and

a coaching spot on The Ultimate Fighter

10 to hype a huge fight against Rashad

Evans in Jackson’s hometown of

Memphis, Tennessee. Rampage’s rash

decision to leave the UFC and retire from

MMA forever is almost childish,

although he posted his reasons on his

blog. Rampage chose his career over his

fans, so who is left to see his movies?

Will MMA fans boycott The A-Team? If

Rampage is too immature to negotiate

with Zuffa further and turn his back on

his supporters, can he be relied on at all

anymore?

Many athletes have left fighting in the

twilight of their careers for showbiz or

toggled back and forth, including Randy

Couture, Bas Rutten, Chuck Liddell and

Don Frye. We cannot criticize a fighter

for having dreams and wanting to be able

to provide a future for his or her family,

but there is also a certain level of respon-

sibility that fighters have, especially

when they have prior commitments. If a

fighter loses his/her integrity, what’s left?

by Matthew Kaplowitz

Fighters & Films

Matthew Kaplowitz is the editor of TheFightNerd.com and can be reached at [email protected].

36 The World-famous

Success is what everyone wants andeveryone seeks. How does one definesuccess? The answer varies dependingupon where you are in your life, careerand sometimes your mental state.

When it comes to MMA, there are stepsin which to define success as well. Forexample, some people join a gym with thehopes of acquiring the skills to soon com-pete on an amateur circuit. Some hope towin some matches to turn professionaland start earning money for their craft. Atthat point, there is a certain level of minorsuccess for the fighter and the gym theyrepresent based on the wins they generatetogether. From there, perhaps the fighterwins a title, gains notoriety and moves tothe top of the divisional food chain. Hemay even move out of the familiar sur-roundings of his local gym to cross-trainwith bigger gyms. Even more excitingthan that, maybe he’ll even get a call tostep onto the big stage.

Does this story sound familiar? It certain-ly does to me and all my fighter friendsand acquaintances out there. Now I’vebeen on the fight circuit going on fouryears now as a writer, broadcaster andfight analyst. I’ve met many of the bignames and have seen tons of small shows.With this, I have also met hundreds ofnameless, faceless fighters who havecome and gone with the passing minutesand most, if not all of them, say their

dream is to fight for the Ultimate FightingChampionship.

I never hear people say stuff like, “I onlywant to one day fight for Strikeforce” or“My life would be complete by being anM-1 Global champ.” Not that these aren’tsolid organizations, but I see them asbeing used as springboards to the UFCOctagon, or the last stop in an MMAcareer. (Now don’t get me wrong, whenPRIDE was around, it certainly was theother gem in the MMA world and anobvious honor to be on their roster.)

So this begs the question: What deter-mines success in the UFC? The mostobvious answer is a championship beltwith some successful title defenses, right?I would agree and so would thousands ifnot millions of others. If that’s the case,why all the itching to leave for somethingelse? I bring this up because of the fallingout between Zuffa and Quinton“Rampage” Jackson.

Now I know what you’re thinking; it’spossible to have more than one dream. Iaccept this as a fair and astute answer.We’ve already witnessed 10 seasons ofguys bleeding to become the ultimatefighter on SpikeTV. Each one of thesesouls would do almost anything to bewhere Rampage was in the UFC.

Now before I go any further, I have to saythat I have no clue what Rampage’sthoughts are. He is his own man and owesfew, if any, an explanation. I just have thesame question everybody else does:Why? Why can’t you do both? RandyCouture is a perfect example of someonewho has balanced a career in MMA, agym franchise (yes, I know he has help)and a budding film career. He’s also a guy

who has had a bumpy relationship withDana White. Sure Randy retired at onetime, but I’m sure it wasn’t due to want-ing to fulfill a movie role.

I can see both opinions in this matter. Iremember growing up with a bunch ofrich kids despite not being rich myself.These guys had everything: the bestclothes, cars and, of course, cash. The onething they didn’t have was something tolook forward to and that could be whysome of these guys turned into the biggestscrew-ups I ever knew.

It’s with this that I can see why Rampagewould want to conquer another challenge.He’s beaten (and been beaten by) the bestin the world. He acquired UFC gold andwanted to do what Randy, Chuck, Titoand Rich were already doing in the enter-tainment world. But I have to ask; was itworth leaving the biggest stage in MMAhistory? Was it worth leaving all themoney and fans behind to play a 1980’sthrowback character made famous by Mr.T? Come on man! Yes, I am aware thereis a bit more to the story, but that certain-ly is the gist of it all. Rampage has somuch left in his MMA career and we allknow that.

The reality is this; we all have dreams andwe all have challenges we want to con-quer. But we also have to remember ourroots and acknowledge the source thatgave us our success in the first place. Ifyou want to quit, do it the right way anddon’t burn bridges because you neverknow when your next venture may failand you may have to return to where youstarted. I’d rather come back with myhead up rather that doing a “stop, dropand roll” on a burning bridge. Just my twocents…

By Adam J.Villareal

Stop, Drop and Roll

To contact Adam J. Villarreal, email [email protected].

38 The World-famous

breakout fighter

Mackens Semerizer made a shocking WECdebut versus Wagnney Fabiano on October10. Fabiano has been a rising star in theWEC with a 12-1 record and an 8 fight winstreak… that Mack da Menace strippedhim of with relative ease.

Their fight lasted half of round one withFabiano posing as the primary aggressor.He pushed the action and took Mackens tothe ground. Semerizer, who has a strongwrestling background, was taken downeasily. Without having seen any of his priorfights, fans watching this bout understoodthe danger of being on the ground withFabiano. But Mackens has defeated all butone of his six opponents, including nowFabiano, from his back.

Fabiano is a student of Antonio RodrigoNogueira, which heralds its own form ofMMA pedigree. When you add the jiu-jitsuinstruction of Wendell Alexander andAndre Pederneiras you get a third degreeblack belt who should be able to last sever-al rounds in a rigorous transition fightingmatch. Not the case however.

Even though Fabiano seemed to be con-trolling the fight and where it was beingfought, Mackens experience was justwaiting to take advantage of the situa-tion. As Fabiano pressured Mackensfrom the top he made a critical and ama-teurish mistake. While moving to standup after attempting some ground andpound Fabiano lowered his head givingMackens a textbook opportunity for a tri-angle choke.

Mackens effortlessly slipped on thechoke finishing the fight. His last fight inJune of this year was finished in similarfashion. In this fight, Mackens showedhis Muay Thai skills by faking a right legvery frequently but then throwing whenhis opponent, Kenny Foster, let his guarddown. Foster did wise up to Mackens’strategy and was able to catch a leg kickthat culminated into a take down. Justlike Fabiano, however, when he attempt-ed to ground and pound Mackens wentstraight for the nicely wrapped gift of afight winning choke.

Mackens has an extremely athletic framestanding 5’9” tall making his presence inthe WEC’s featherweight divisionunnerving. He also has a very wellrounded arsenal of skills. In 2005 he wasthe Virginia Golden Gloves Runner Up,2007 WKA National MMAFeatherweight Champion, 2008 GustavoMuchado Invitational Lightweight andAbsolute Champion, and CagefestFeatherweight Champion.

Making his splash into the WEC’s excit-ing 145 division has sent some waves offear into the hearts of the fighters livingthere now. If Mackens can put togetheranother win like this one over a top con-tender he will more than likely get a shotat the featherweight strap. His skills andathleticism make him a very dangerousopponent to face. The fact that he doesn’tmind fighting off of his back makes gameplanning for him a trainer’s nightmare.Good luck in your 145lb conquestsMackens.

Mackens Semerizer “Mack da Menace”By Dane Hesse

RECORD14-5-1 Has not lost as a lightweight since 2002 moonlighting as awelterweight and even light heavyweight where he accrued most

his lossesTIE

LAST FIVE OPPONENTSWin Kenny Florian, Loss Georges St. Pierre,Win Sean Sherk,Win Joe

Stevenson,Win Jens Pulver+1 PENN

GREATEST VICTORY After a brief hiatus from the UFC, BJ returned in 2004 going up a

weight and defeating long reigning welterweight champ Matt Hughesby rear naked choke

+1 PENN

STRIKINGA quick, crafty puncher, Penn has one of the fastest jabs in the division

mixing up his deceivingly powerful punches with a good clinch game+1 PENN

WRESTLINGNot much of a takedown offense but one of the best takedown

defenses in MMA using his tenacity and incredible flexibility to get himout of trouble and win scrambles

SUBMISSIONSA world champion Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt has submitted some of

the best in the game with his legendary rear naked choke+1 PENN

EXPERIENCEHas traveled all over the world to face some of the best of in the

business and usually comes out winning while also no stranger of thechampionship rounds

+1 PENN

INTANGIBLESKnowledgeable, has no fear of any opponent, extremely confident in

his abilities, no stranger to big fights, has had cardio issues before

FACE

BJ Penn

On December 12th MMA fans will get a lightweight matchup thatwill make the hairs on your neck stand up. “The Prodigy” BJ Penn,arguably the best lightweight fighter of this generation will take onthe blitzkrieg of strikes, takedowns and jiu-jitsu that is DiegoSanchez. Both fighters have spent a good portion of their careers athigher weights but now that they both have found their spot in thedivisions it is time to see who the best is.

40 The World-famous

www.mmaworldwide.com 41

OFF!

Diego Sanchez

RECORD21-2 Earned his stripes in the King of the Cage promotion before win-ning The Ultimate Fighter and heading to the UFC losing only to topwrestlers Josh Koscheck and Jon FitchTIE

LAST FIVE OPPONENTSWin Clay Guida, Win Joe Stevenson, Win Luigi Fioravanti, Win DavidBielkheden, Loss Jon Fitch

GREATEST VICTORY In one of the most exciting fights of the year, Sanchez beat andbattered a game Clay Guida propelling Sanchez into his titlematch

STRIKINGA straight forward,punches in bunches striker,Sanchez overwhelms his oppo-nents with punches and kicks which opens up his great takedown game

WRESTLINGA seasoned wrestler with a good mixture of quickness and power ableto both overwhelm and also a great scrambler+1 SANCHEZ

SUBMISSIONSAlso a black belt and a student of the Ribeiro brothers uses his BJJ as apositional tool to strike and wear down his opponents rather than submit

EXPERIENCEHas more fights than Penn but less in the UFC and has never seen thefourth round having never fought for a belt

INTANGIBLESVery motivated and hungry, conditioning for days, still looking to makehis mark in the UFC+1 SANCHEZ

PENN WINS 5-2With the fact that Sanchez has never been finished, nevertires out and has only lost to big, wrestling oriented welter-weights,Sanchez will keep this fight action packed and inter-esting.Penn’s experience,strong striking game and ability tobreak nearly any opponent will be the difference makerhowever keeping the lightweight securely wrapped aroundthe Hawaiian’s waist.

Ben Henderson walked into hisinterim lightweight title fight atWEC 43 against Donald Cerrone asa heavy underdog;he walked out theunanimous decision winner. But vic-tory did not come without a price.Though he was able to takedownand control Cerrone for the major-ity of the fight, Henderson was con-stantly under fire by Cerrone’sactive guard and submissionattempts. On multiple occasionsHenderson was fighting out ofchokes and holds that seemed tightenough to finish the fight. Nonewere more gruesome than some ofthe shoulder locks attempted onthe Arizona native. But what makesshoulder locks so intricate?

by Andrew Bonsall andRJ Clifford

44 The World-famous

In successful shoulder locks, there are three dynamicsthat can make or break the hold. The first is a law ofphysics being applied to the resistance arm to decreasethe effort needed to hold the wrist and increase the effortneeded by the opponent to regain his arm. The seconddynamic is the twist of the opponent’s wrist (pronation)that prevents the biceps from being used as a primemover, thus the opponent is at further disadvantage ingetting his arm back. The third is the translation of thetwisted wrist through the humerus, rotating it into ananatomical lock with the shoulder joint. Bottom line,shoulders do not go that way and your opponent taps out.

Finishing a shoulder lock does not require knowledge ofthe precise physical laws in use. However, understand-ing these laws could help in understanding why and howto utilize the physics that give a commanding control tomanipulate the opponent’s joints (levers) to your advan-tage.

WHAT IS A MOMENT OF FORCE?

The moments of force that we are going to talk about arethe static ones (we are analyzing a movement for theshortest amount of time possible). A moment of force in

itself is a relationship between the force that an objectwill produce without added acceleration (besides gravi-ty) and the length of its levers (levers of resistance andlevers of force). It is the length of the lever that is a keyin the application of this lock.

FORCE

The force of an object or a body part is measured inNewtons (N). Since we live on planet earth, gravity orthe terrestrial acceleration (represented by the letter « g») is constant and always equal to: g = 9,81m/s2. To cal-culate the amount of force (in Newtons) of any object onearth, we multiply the weight of that object (in kilo-grams) by terrestrial acceleration: w x g = N

LEVERS

Now that we understand what force is, we need tounderstand how levers work, since our whole bodyconsists of levers that are moved around by our mus-cles. Human anatomy is primarily made up of Class IIIlevers for the most part. However, there are examplesof both Class I and Class II levers. That we can discussin another article.

Andrew Bonsall has a BA in Kinisiology from Long Beach State University and a Masters in Educational technology. He is alsoa credentialed medical illustrator.


There are two types of levers used when wemove, a lever of force and a lever of resistance.The lever of force is the one that is used to moveresistance around. The levers of force in ourbody are always the same since they are relatedto the distance in between the muscle’s attach-ment on the bone and the fulcrum point (joints)of the articulation. This means that we can onlylengthen or shorten the lever of resistance, thusmaking our work easier or harder.

One of Newton’s Laws of force: The longer theresistance arm is from the fulcrum (joint) thegreater the lever of resistance. Take for example,if you hold a 10 pound dumbbell in front of you,and your elbow is under it, you feel 10 poundsof direct resistance. However, if you raise thatsame 10 pounds out in front of you with astraight arm, the fulcrum becomes your shoulderand the resistance lever length increases thus theforce needed to maintain the 10 pounds increas-es exponentially. The weight is still 10 pounds,however, the resistance has greatly increased.

Similarly, in the shoulder lock, the elbow islocked straight which increases the length of theresistance arm and lever of resistance. Quite afew more pounds more that ten are beingapplied to the fulcrum (the shoulder) which isnow in a very vulnerable situation.

Next, the rotation of the wrist dynamic. The bio-mechanics of the levers of force (site of muscleattachment) in relationship to the fulcrum oraxis (joint), provide the same muscles are put inan advantage to work and others are at a disad-vantage. As a limb is put through a range ofmotions, the advantage and disadvantageschange moment by moment or change the forceof moment. An example is a simple pull-up on abar. Everyone knows when you do a pull-up, itis easier when the hands are facing you thanwhen they are away. The reason is that whenyou pronate your wrist away from you, thebiceps brachialis, a power full elbow flexor, isput at a disadvantage as a lever of force.Therefore, one can lower the strength of theiropponent by rotating their wrist.

The third dynamic is the application ofNewton’s Law, for every action there is an equalreaction. This shoulder lock illustrates how thelever of force through twisting of the wrist caus-ing pronation of the forearm, is translated equal-ly through the humerus to rotate it into a positionof an anatomical lock. Example: Put your armstraight out towards your side with your thumbup. Now raise your arm above your head. Noproblems, right? Now, put your arm out towardsyour side you with your thumb down, and theraise you arm above your head. Stuck huh? Thehumerus has bump on the top of it called thegreater tubercle. This bump works as a door-stop against the acromioclavicular joint whenthe humerus is rotated in certain positions and atdifferent angles. The acromioclavicular joint isthe site where the scapula and clavicle cometogether meaning the arm can not be raisedabove that threshold without damage to thejoint.

And to think you slept through physics class!

Acromioclavicular Joint

Greater Tubericle

Humerus Bone

Forward Rotation

Abduction

BANTAMWEIGHT 135

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Surehe hasn’t finished

an opponent in 2 1/2years, but he’s never

lost either.

FEATHERWEIGHT 145

MIKE T. BROWN ! USA ! WEC

Urijah Faber ! USA ! WEC

Hatsu Hioki ! Japan ! Sengoku

Leonard Garcia ! USA ! WEC

“Lion” Takeshi Inoue ! Japan ! Shooto

Jose Aldo ! Brazil ! WEC

Bibiano Fernandes ! Brazil ! DREAM

Raphael Assuncao ! Brazil ! WEC

Mackens Semerzier ! USA ! WEC

Wagnney Fabiano ! Brazil ! WEC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Handis healed and back

to training.Rumored to face

Raphael Assuncao.

Blastsinto the top tenby winning the

DREAM featherweighttournament.

Shocksthe featherweight

division with a submis-sion win over Fabiano

in just his fourthpro fight.

BRIAN BOWLES ! USA ! WEC

Miguel Torres ! USA ! WEC

Masakatsu Ueda ! Japan ! Shooto

Takeya Mizugaki ! Japan ! WEC

Dominick Cruz ! USA ! WEC

Akitoshi Tamura ! Japan ! WEC

Damacio Page ! USA ! WEC

Joseph Benavidez ! USA ! WEC

Will Ribeiro ! Brazil ! WEC

Rani Yahya ! Brazil ! WEC

46 The World-famous

Backto back first

round destructionsin theWEC.

Sneaksback into the top

10 with three straightsubmissions and a loss

by Manny Tapia.

TITLESUFC

STRIKEFORCE

BELLATOR

SHOOTO

DREAM

WEC

DEEP

SENGOKU

AS OF October 26, 2009

LIGHTWEIGHT 160

BJ PENN ! USA ! UFC

Shinya Aoki ! Japan ! DREAM

Eddie Alvarez ! USA ! DREAM/Bellator

Tatsuya Kawajiri ! Japan ! DREAM

Kenny Florian ! USA ! UFC

Gray Maynard ! USA ! UFC

Joachim Hansen ! Norway ! DREAM

Frankie Edgar ! USA ! UFC

Sean Sherk ! USA ! UFC

Mizuto Hirota ! Japan ! Sengoku

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

WELTERWEIGHT 170

GEORGES ST. PIERRE ! Canada ! UFC

Jon Fitch ! USA ! UFC

Thiago Alves ! Brazil ! UFC

Jake Shields ! USA ! Strikeforce

Josh Koscheck ! USA ! UFC

Paul Daley ! England ! UFC

Martin Kampmann ! Denmark ! UFC

Carlos Condit ! USA ! UFC

Marius Zaromoskis ! Lithuania ! DREAM

Mike Swick ! USA ! UFC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

DefeatsHansen in the rub-ber match claimingthe DREAM light-

weight belt.Will face the win-ner of Mike Swick

vs Dan Hardy.

Make it threehead kick KO’s in arow for the DREAM

champ.

Faces dangerousPaulo Thiago at UFC

107 inMemphis.

Faceda tougher than

expected KatsunoriKikuno in DREAM 12 but

still scored his fourthstraight submission.

Sengoku champappears in the top

ten for the firsttime.


MIDDLEWEIGHT 185

ANDERSON SILVA ! Brazil ! UFC

Dan Henderson ! USA ! UFC

Jorge Santiago ! Brazil ! Sengoku

Nate Marquardt ! USA ! UFC

Vitor Belfort ! Brazil ! UFC

Demian Maia ! Brazil ! UFC

Robbie Lawler ! USA ! Strikeforce

Chael Sonnen ! USA ! UFC

Yushin Okami ! Japan ! UFC

Yoshihiro Akiyama- ! Japan ! UFC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT 205

LYOTO MACHIDA ! Brazil ! UFC

Rashad Evans ! USA ! UFC

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson ! USA ! UFC

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua ! Brazil ! UFC

Anderson Silva ! Brazil ! UFC

Forrest Griffin ! USA ! UFC

Gegard Mousasi ! Armenia ! Strikeforce/DREAM

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira ! Brazil ! UFC

Thiago Silva ! Brazil ! UFC

Luis Arthur Cane ! Brazil ! UFC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Contractnegotiations

pending betweenHendo and the

UFC.

Showshe is human afterall winning a razorthin decision over

Shogun.

Winsthe last two roundsof title fight with

Machida, the only tworounds Machida has

ever lost.

Great match upat UFC 106 in Las

Vegas.

Will ready him-self for title fight

with AndersonSilva.

Bigwin over

Okami shows he ismore than just a

wrestler.

48 The World-famous

TITLESUFC

STRIKEFORCE

BELLATOR

SHOOTO

DREAM

WEC

DEEP

SENGOKU

AS OF October 26, 2009

HEAVYWEIGHT 205 AND ABOVE

FEDOR EMELIANENKO ! Russia ! Strikeforce

Josh Barnett ! USA ! Free Agent

Brock Lesnar ! USA ! UFC

Frank Mir ! USA ! UFC

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira ! Brazil ! UFC

Brett Rogers ! USA ! Strikeforce

Andrei Arlovski ! Belarus ! Free Agent

Randy Couture ! USA ! UFC

Alistair Overeem ! Netherlands ! Strikeforce

Shane Carwin ! USA ! UFC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

POUND FOR POUND

ANDERSON SILVA ! Brazil ! UFC

Georges St. Pierre ! Canada ! UFC

Fedor Emelianenko ! Russia ! Strikeforce

Lyoto Machida ! Brazil ! UFC

Mike Thomas Brown ! USA ! WEC

Jon Fitch ! USA ! UFC

BJ Penn ! USA ! UFC

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson ! USA ! UFC

Rashad Evans ! USA ! UFC

Thiago Alves ! Brazil ! UFC

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

No longer facingCarwin at UFC 106

due to illness.

Itmay not be long

before St. Pierre facesoff with Anderson

Silva.

The second bestfighter in the toughest

division in MMA.

Standingin P4P rankings a

little shaky after hum-bling performanceagainst Shogun.

Triesto get back on the

winning track againstthe grappling

challenged CheickKongo.

Anotherquick submissionwin for Overeemover journeymanJames Thompson.


52 The World-famous

Just two days before the fight, Barry hadkept something from everyone, includinghis mother and coach Jeff “Duke”Roufus. “I literally sat there on a Sundaymorning before we left for the fight witha cheap bag of white rice and ketchup,”said Barry. “After filling up my car thenight before, I was flat broke. I couldn’tcall my mom and didn’t want to tell Dukeas I never wanted him to think I neededthat fight for the money. It wasn’t aboutthat.”

The driving reason was validation, some-thing that has been with Barry ever sincehe stepped into a kickboxing studio atage 23. Barry is a self-proclaimed ninjawarrior and a celluloid martial artsjunkie. He was on the bowling team inhigh school, played no sports whileattending LSU, but deep down inside hewas the “bad boy road warrior, vigilante,ninja assassin,” even though he had nevertaken a traditional martial arts class,strapped on a wrestling singlet orgrabbed the gi of a BJJ stylist. His educa-tion was Jean-Claude Van Dammemovies, the Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles and playing Streetfighter II. “Myentire life I believed I was a ninja andcarried around ninja stars and swords.”

But that world came crashing down onhim when he laced up the gloves andstarted hitting the heavy bag while kick-boxing students looked on. Without anytraining, Barry was exhausted afterpounding away at the bag for barely aminute. Dejected, he walked into thebathroom and locked the door behindhim. “I just sat on the floor and cried. Isucked and everything I thought just was-n’t real. I’d get mauled in a real fight!”

After a few minutes Barry picked himselfup, wiped away the tears and left. Hewould return a month later, his instructorlaughed, but the ninja was here to stay.“If I really want to be the ninja I claimedto be, I had to give into it and I’ve beenwith it ever since.” A deep-seeded beliefthat he could be the greatest kickboxeraround carried Barry through numerouskickboxing tourneys, san shou matchesand a five year commitment to train withthe best in Amsterdam, Holland.

Ernesto Hoost, one of kickboxing’sgreatest champions, gave Barry a veryimportant message while training at thefamed Vos Gym. “He asked me, ‘Do youwant to be a good fighter or be the best?’I told him I wanted to be the best and he

said, ‘That’s a very lonely journey.’” Andsince that time Barry has been married tohis gloves. He’s carved out an amateurMuay Thai record of 26-3, a pro MuayThai record of 20-5-1 and competed inK-1 nine times.

While Barry said that mental toughnesswas the most important thing he learnedfrom his days in Holland, it would be hislack of a support system that stuck withhim. Barry felt he was being used to trainthe other fighters, and on December 18,2007, he left Amsterdam and neverlooked back. “That was the last time Iheard his voice,” Barry said of Hoost.“He never once called, emailed or textmessaged me, not even to ask if I made ithome alright.”

But even home was a different place inMilwaukee, Wisconsin. It was just overtwo years earlier that Barry had lost hisfamily home and grandmother toHurricane Katrina. “It was all physicallygone and I lost everything my parentshad worked for, but the spirit and thememories were still there and you can’ttake that away.” Barry is extremely closeto his mother, brother and cousins, andjust couldn’t find himself living in

The Validation of Patrick BarryBy John Stewart

It usually takes a stint or two on a UFC main card for a fighter toget noticed, but Patrick “HD” Barry accomplished that on theundercard of UFC 104 with his emotional post-fight victoryspeech. With tears streaming down his smiling grimace, the audi-ence shared this moment without ever realizing just how much itmeant to the New Orleans native.

Amsterdam any longer without anyoneclose to him. He was at a crossroads, or sohe thought.

Barry text-messaged Hoost to say he was-n’t returning to Holland. The following dayan old friend called with an incredibleoffer. “Duke Roufus asked, ‘Are you readyto make a move that will change your lifeforever?’” Few people could say “no” tothat question, but when Roufus told himthey would be getting into mixed martialarts, Barry wasn’t terribly interested. Hewas a stand-up fighter who never saw theartistry with the ground work and felt per-plexed as to why one of the best kickbox-ing trainers around would be beating a dif-ferent drum. The new sport also didn’tbode well for someone vying to live out hisninja dream fighting in his very ownStreetfighter game.

Barry showed up the next day at Roufus’gym and was paired up with a 160-poundgrappler. Feeling invincible, he thoughtthere would be no problem in throwing thelightweight around like a rag doll. InsteadBarry found himself on the mat with hisopponent turning his body into a pretzel. “Iremember grabbing the guy and squeezingwith everything I had and he just let me doit,” remarked Barry. “All my muscles gaveout and I knew there was nothing I coulddo, especially if it had been a real fight.”

The determined kickboxer who didn’tthink anything of MMA left that day withthe same feeling he had at age 23 when hethought kickboxing would be a walk in thepark. Barry came back the following day tobegin his new journey. A friend of Barry’s,Myron Gaudet, summed up the experienceby calling it “synchronicity,” and now thekickboxer only has eyes for 4-ounce glovesfrom now on.

He earned his chance on the big stagewhen Duke Roufus pitched Barry to JoeSilva at UFC Fight Night 15 while two ofhis teammates, Alan Belcher and EricSchafer, competed. Barry only had threeMMA fights under his belt, but Silva likedhis kickboxing demo. After stopping DanEvenson with leg kicks in his first fight andlosing via submission to Tim Hague, Barryearned his chance at validation againstAntoni Hardonk, a product of the Vos Gymand Ernesto Hoost.

“I lot of people thought I switched

legs due to his kicks, but it’s only

because people don’t know I’m

ambidextrous with my whole body,

so I double my arsenal.”


Sure he was broke and money was anissue, but if Barry was to be the best strik-er in MMA, he’d have to defeat a manwho is said to have the best leg kicks in thesport. Barry peppered all his pre-fightinterviews with how he was going afterHardonk’s legs, but that was a ruse. Heknew the secret to winning the fight wouldbe letting his hands go and breakingHardonk’s will.

Two accidental eye gouges could havederailed that plan, but Barry stayedfocused and listened to his corner. “I putmy total faith in Duke Roufus and kept myhead in the game. I lot of people thought Iswitched legs due to his kicks, but it’s onlybecause people don’t know I’m ambidex-trous with my whole body, so I double myarsenal.”

After dropping Hardonk with a short righthand and reversing a position on theground in Round 1, Barry turned up theheat in the second stanza. He landed astraight right, then left that bouncedHardonk whose will and spirit seemed toleave his body. After Barry sent him crash-ing to the canvas, an enormous rush ofemotion came over him. “I felt like Hoostnever believed in me and this was my val-idation.”

The 30-year-old freely admitted he’s notready for a stud wrestler just yet. He wantsto be known as the best punch/kick guy inMMA and the UFC has plenty of strikersto choose from. Next stop would beCheick Kongo if Barry had his wish, butfor now, just a day and a half after thefight, all he wanted to do was tackle a pil-low for a good night’s rest.

Ever since his first UFC fight, Barry hasunderstood a deep connection with the

fans. When Barry returned home at 6:00AM on Sunday following his win overHardonk, he sat at his computer for 12straight hours doing nothing but answeremails, MySpace messages, etc. from thefans. “Of course I just realized I opened upa can of worms because I just doubled theamount of messages with people in aston-ishment that I wrote them back personally,but I’m nothing without the fans.”

The 5’11” heavyweight contender recalleda particular instance from UFC 104 thatspoke volumes about how not to win fans.Barry had a dozen friends fly to the fightto see the show, and one by one, they triedto get a photo from a major UFC superstar.“He turned every one of them down andpretended like they weren’t even there,”said Barry. “If a fan loves a fighter and thefighter loses, the fighter may lose the fan.If the fan loves the person, win or lose,he’ll always be a fan. I’m never going tolose sight of that.”

Barry is still a newbie in this game, butalready understands what it takes to go tothe next level. He’s training with wrestlersand jiu-jitsu players, but firmly believesfans want to see the big knockout over anarm-bar any day, and many fans wouldagree with that. His moniker “HD” (hypeor die) stems from his favorite movie of alltime, The Matrix. It simply means thatwhichever road you take, give it 100% andcommit everything you have to it. Patrick“HD” Barry knows which road to take andhis fans love being along for the ride!

Patrick Barry would like to thankSucker Punch Entertainment, Harley

Davidson New Orleans, TapouT, FighterWarehouse and Tokyo 5.To learn more aboutBarry and the rest of his team, check outwww.roufusport.com.

i

2009 Holiday Gift Guide

PULL OUT CATALOG

!


www.Nativefighter.com

TapouT HeavyBag and

GlovesMMA Fightsocks by 4Q2 Fightwear

$99.99

$23.99 includes shipping

www.4q2fightwear.comwww.centurymartialarts.com

Native WearT-Shirt

Six Deuce

www.62gear.com

$21.95each

“Land of the Setting Sun”

“We AreAll One”

“CombatSambo”


www.riotgearmma.com

RIOT GEAR APPAREL

3 Skulls

CrestZip

RoyaltyReigns

Zip

Bones Sword of HonorRoyalty Reigns - Black

All T-shirts $39.99 All Hoodies $59.99

Total Domination

62 The World-famous

The Ultimate Burn Machine

The Burn Machine GreatMats

GymBoss

www.TheBurnMachine.com

www.greatmats.comwww.gymboss.com

48lbs. $299

4lb. Novice$129

8lb. Intermediate$139

12lb. Professional$149.

DiscountFolding Gym Mats4x8 ft x 1.5 inch

thicknessRoyal Blue or Rainbow

$149.00

5x10 ft x 2 inchthickness - v418 oz Cover

Royal Blue or Black$259.00

1-5/8” Grappling Mats$32.00

7/8” Standard MartialArts Mats $16.95

The Speed Bag

$19.95


REVGear

Bad Boy

www.revgear.com www.badboy.com

Women’sTank

$24.95

FleecePulloverHoody

Sweatshirt$54.95

Walk Out Shirt$24.95

Pull Over Hoodie$54.95

64 The World-famous

NAGA

www.nagafighter.com

Choke

$25 $30 $30

Shield Snake

Tribal

$25 $40 $30

JerseysRash Guards


BUDONOGIBeanie

$18.95

NOGIHoodie

NOGI Volt Shorts KingpinShorts

$49.95

$44.95 $49.95

www.budovideos.com

66 The World-famous

BubbaDummy

SNAC GLC 2000

GrappleGripwww.iisports.com

www.glcdirect.comwww.snac.com

www.grapplegrip.com

$499.95$34.99

The Ultimate GripTraining System

$99.95per pair plus

shipping/handling

HypOxygen

$49.95$55

ZMA-5

$29.95

ExtremeFight

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68 The World-famous

House of Pain Velvet Rose

Anderson Silva:Takedowns and

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MMA WorldwideFight Shorts

Tank Dress

Axe$24.99

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5

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70 The World-famous

Century® Teams with TapouT®for New MMA Equipment Line

A walk through TapouT’s headquarters inGrand Terrace, CA lets you know immedi-ately that you are not working with just anyother company. A walk through the500,000 square foot facility in OklahomaCity, OK that is Century Martial Artsquickly alerts you to their focus on technol-ogy-driven product development and cre-ation. While the two styles couldn’t be fur-ther apart from each other, together theycreate the “perfect storm” of creativity andproduct excellence.

So when TapouT considered expandingtheir well-known apparel and lifestylebrand into the equipment market, theybegan their list of exacting standards anddetailed requirements. To continue provid-ing the quality their customers expect,TapouT was unwilling to accept anythingless than the very best. Enter Century,LLC., the world’s largest supplier of mar-tial art and fitness equipment.

With over 30 years of experience, CenturyMartial Arts understood TapouT’s desire to

provide their customers not only withequipment that would last, but also withinnovative solutions to training needs forboth professional and retail consumersalike. Century, LLC. has teamed upthrough a licensing agreement withTapouT, LLC., the premier mixed martialarts (MMA) apparel, gear and lifestylebrand, to create a brand new line of mixedmartial arts training equipment. The linewill begin rollout in select stores in time forthe 2009 holiday season and introduce newproducts throughout 2010 and beyond.

Under this new partnership, CenturyMartial Arts will design, manufacture, mar-ket and distribute the TapouT brand ofMMA fighting and training gear to sportinggoods retail stores, department stores,sports specialty stores, fitness centers,gyms, martial arts schools, MMA schoolsand online. “As the leading MMA lifestyleand apparel brand, TapouT is excited toteam up with Century, who has developed astrong presence in this market,” said MarcKreiner, TapouT President. The line will


feature all equip-ment used in MMAtraining, includinggloves, heavy bags,

targets, shields,grappling dummies

and more. “This is agreat opportunity to

expand our product lineand further spread the atti-

tude, strength and passionthat fans of TapouT depend on,” saidTapouT CEO, Dan “Punkass” Caldwell inreference to the new line.

The expert product development andquality production teams at Century areexcited to work on the new line. Productdevelopment and testing hasbegun on fabrics and materialsdesigned to exceed the indus-try standard. There will betwo levels of product—apro line to be used byprofessional MMAfighters and a retailline for the generalpublic to use in fit-ness workouts. Thecommercial line will bea flagship line of products creat-ed around the needs of the profes-sional MMA training schedule. It will bedesigned to withstand the daily use andpunishment exerted by professionals andhigh-use gyms around the country. Bothproduct lines will be engineered with the

highest qualitymaterials andconstructionmethods toprovide gearthat will maxi-

mize trainingresults. The two

lines are set todebut in spring

2010 and will beavailable in retail stores across thenation, as well as online atwww.CenturyMartialArts.com.

Just in time for the holiday season, a pre-view of the line will be available at selectHibbett Sporting Good stores. This debutpromotion will feature a training bag andglove combination. The TapouT MMATraining Bag features durable leather-grainembossed vinyl that simulates the look and

feel of real leather. Solid steel chain con-struction and sewn web straps secure the 70lb. bag for hanging. It is ideal for trainingwith all kinds of MMA techniques. TheTapouT MMA training gloves are alsodesigned to be functional for all MMAtechniques. The TapouT gloves are con-structed from heavy duty vinyl and featurea full open palm, padded knuckle protec-tion and wrap-around straps for added wristsupport. Both the gloves and the heavy bagare black featuring white TapouTlogos. The combo is set to sellfor $99.99 and will be avail-able in select Hibbett storesbeginning November 2010.

The new line signifies animportant step of growth for

participants and fans ofmixed martial arts. It is yetanother reminder that MMA is

here to stay. “TapouT is a dom-inant name in MMA and

Century is thrilled to havethis opportunity to work onthis new product line,” saidDan Bower, Century

President. “We look forwardto working in conjunction with

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74 The World-famous

Ryan Bader:

Head of the ClassBy Ricky Bonnet

Ryan “Darth” Bader won Season 8 of The

Ultimate Fighter, recently ended Eric schafer’sfour fight winning streak and has won ten straightfights of his own with no losses. Like many before

him who’ve won TUF honors, he understandsbeing in the spotlight to continually exceed expec-tations. The show has changed the face of thesport’s culture as we know it and has created manyUFC mainstays. Though the names Forrest Griffinand Stephan Bonnar ring through the halls of UFClore, the TUF banner does not ensure as much suc-cess as it does promise. MMA Worldwide satdown with Ryan Bader to see if he has what ittakes to get ahead of the class.


MMA WORLDWIDE: Tell me aboutyour background and how you got start-ed in MMA.

RYAN BADER: I have always had a realsupportive family and I have been doing ath-letics since I was five years old. I played soc-cer and baseball until I was old enough toplay football, and when I started that, I tookup wrestling. I was about eight years old,and from there, my dad and mom prettymuch came to every single wrestling matchand football game. Athletics have been ahuge part of my life. I went down to ArizonaState University and I loved it down there.We loved the people and I decided to wres-tle and basically that was the catalyst for myMMA career. I went through collegewrestling, became a two-time All American,three-time Pac 10 champ and met a lot ofgreat people. I was an MMA fan, but it was-n't something I was going to do as a career.

After college, I started working with JesseForbes. He told us to come to his gym,Arizona Combat Sports. They wereimpressed with our wrestling skills andtoughness, so we started training, but at thatpoint, I was like, "Hey, I don't know if I amgoing to do this, but I am going to try it."

I had my first fight and after that I washooked; I was working the normal 9-to-5 joband it wasn't for me. I was doing it at thattime and something was missing — thecompetition. I've had that my whole life andso it was fun for the first couple of months,and then afterwards, I was like "Man, whatam I doing?" So I got into MMA and builtup seven wins in smaller shows and got

invited to compete in The Ultimate Fighter

and that is pretty much it.

MMAW: Tell us about training at ArizonaCombat Sports and the support systemthat training there provides you.

RYAN: We kind of came up as a team. Therewere no real stars when we came in there.Jamie Varner had fought in the WEC, but hewas just getting to that point where he wasbecoming big time and getting some bigwins. We all kind of came up together andalways supported each other.

When anybody has a fight, we are there inthe gym helping those guys out. AaronSimpson just had a fight with Ed Herman;he has been here every day. He was hereevery time I needed him to come and work

76 The World-famous

out. We rally behind the guy who is fightingand we have done that since wrestling. Wehave been around each other for ten-plusyears so we know each other very, very well.We know how to push each other, we knowwhen to back off and when not. It’s not justabout testing skills, but working with some-one from the transition of smaller fights tothe big shows. It has been awesome!

MMAW: Arizona Combat Sports has astrong wrestling pedigree, but what isyour camp doing to diversify and expandother skill sets?

RYAN: Yeah, we work a ton on striking andevery evening practice consists of just strik-ing. That entails hard, hard sparring threetimes a week and I feel that really differenti-ates our camp from a lot of camps. We go inthere and we spar with each other. That helpsus out a lot and we go hard and we are get-ting better at our stand-up, but we also put inour time on the mat doing BJJ. I believe westill have to wrestle, so we wrestle once aweek and concentrate on stand-up and jiu-jitsu the rest of the time. Our stand-up gameis really coming along for all the guys.

MMAW: You came into the public eyeduring a very interesting season of TheUltimate Fighter. Between JunieBrowning's outburst and some of the "toohot for TV" moments, how did you keepyourself focused to maintain the rightmindset to train and perform at a highlevel?

RYAN: Basically I wanted to ultimately winthe whole show and win each individualfight, so I had those goals down. When Iwent in there with all the shenanigans goingon, I just kept that in my head and said,"Okay, I am here for one thing and I am nothere to look like a fool on TV. I am here towin this competition and further my career."I knew people who had been on the showbefore and they gave me a lot of insight thatreally helped me out. I have been throughworse, so when I got in there, it was fun forme.

MMAW: How did you adapt to the wholeexperience of being cut off from the out-side world?

RYAN: The positives are, obviously, youhave to concentrate on one thing and thatwas becoming a better MMA fighter. Youtook advantage of it and we had great coach-

es; I got to work with Lyoto Machida andAnderson Silva, a once-in-a-lifetime oppor-tunity. I just really buckled down and usedthat time to get better and learn from thosetypes of guys. Negatives, it drives you crazywith no TV. You are in a house with guysyou are fighting and other fighters, and thenthe boredom sets in. Overall it was a greatexperience; I really learned a lot and hadsome good contacts. I still keep up withthose guys today. It was a chance of a life-time to be able to do that.

MMAW: You mention Lyoto Machidaand Anderson Silva. Did youhave any idea that you mightbe competing against theseguys one day?

RYAN: It’s always in the back ofyour mind. Machida is a 205-pounder, but at that point youhave other things on your mindand don’t need to worry about it.Besides we didn’t get to doenough with Machida. He justkind of came in and showed ussome stuff, but I did get to sparwith Anderson so I learned a lot.I learned that I need to keepworking and he is on a differentlevel as far as the striking. It wasgood to kind of see that, but inthe back of your mind, you arealways thinking like, "Hey, oneday I could be fighting theseguys."

MMAW: What was the mostdifficult fight in your wholeTUF experience?

RYAN: I would probably haveto say the Eliot Marshall fightdue to the circumstances thatsurrounded it. You ask any ofthose guys…we fought on the second to lastand the last day. Your mind is not there andyou’ve been in the house for six weeks. Youhave put up with everything and trained forfour months now, considering you trained amonth prior to getting on the show. Mymind was in a weird place and I kind ofgrounded out that victory and did what I hadto do. I wasn't really happy with myself andhow I won, but that was my most difficultfight because that was the first time I had toovercome my mind. I was kind of just sittingthere and like, "Oh, man, I just want to gohome and relax," but at the same time, I just

wanted to win this fight. I had to put thatother stuff to the side and do what I had todo. It’s probably my toughest experience asfar as that.

MMAW: With all the emotion at thatmoment, what was it like having yourarm raised and being presented the sixfigure contract after beating VinnyMagalhães to win The Ultimate Fighter?

RYAN: It was definitely surreal and crazy.You look back and say, "Man, I wentthrough all of that?" I went from winning

my first fight to get into the house and thenwinning all of the fights in the house withoutgetting injured, only to put more time totrain for the finale. It is just a huge relief andyou are like, "Oh, I made it!" Then immedi-ately you felt like, "Okay, I am here, but nowI have to start over." In winning that con-tract, you kind of have that stigma that putsa bullseye on your back. I felt like I just haveto start over now and start climbing up theladder in the UFC 205-pound division. I wasproud of myself that I came out victorious,so it was a good feeling.

MMAW: How is the transition fromnewcomer to UFC fighter been andhow has competing at the highest levelin the UFC not only changed you as afighter but as a man?

RYAN: It hasn't really changed much.Obviously my skill set is getting betterwith each fight in the big crowds, but thecrowds never really got to me or anythinglike that. I feel the same as I did with myfirst fight. You get a little nervous, youget ready to go and have different emo-tions, but I put the same pressure on

myself from the first fight Iever had. It will be just asmuch pressure if I ever get tofight for the title I think. I ammy biggest critic and I put alot of pressure on myself toperform because I put in thework.

MMAW: The 205-pounddivision is obviouslystacked. Where do you seeyourself in the whole mixand where do you feel yourank in the division overall?

RYAN: We have some realtough guys in the 205-pounddivision and for me, like Isaid, I feel like I am starting

over. As The Ultimate Fighter

champ, I have to go in therewith the big dogs and workmy way back up. I don't feellike I really have a rankingright now. I feel I need quite afew more wins and I want thattoo. I want to get some experi-ence under my belt in the bigshow and I want to become abetter MMA fighter. I don'twant to be rushed, I want to

take my time to mature as a fighter. I amrelatively new to this sport — a little overtwo years — and have a long way to go. Ijust kind of go, "Win this fight, win thisfight and everything will take care ofitself."


To learn more about RyanBader, check out his official

website at www.ryanbader.comwhich includes his sponsors, videos,

training and even a new TapouTsignature shirt.

i

80 The World-famous


His training partner has always been armedwith tales, techniques and lessons on howFrankie Edgar can overcome a Kimuraattempt or slap on a choke of his own. Onthis day Chris “The Story” Liguori hit aroadblock. Edgar’s athletic foundation wasbuilt on wrestling since his pre-teen days.One of a wrestler’s greatest strengths is neu-tralizing the best of strikers with one of hisviolent takedowns, so Edgar explained thebasics of a ground game to Liguori’s satis-faction.

“Thanks Frank,” Liguori told him. “You arethe answer to my problems.”

That’s nothing new. In addition to nice, ver-bal chemistry with his surname, “TheAnswer” moniker is a perfect match formore reasons than one. As recently as Maybefore UFC 98, there were doubts. Acrossthe Octagon was a former lightweightchampion, a veteran buzzsaw named SeanSherk. Edgar held an impressive resume,but few noticed. This was to be the fightwhich would vault Sherk back into title con-tention and in his way was a fresh-faced 27-year-old Jersey boy who supposedly did nothave the stand-up to hang with an elite light-weight. Even Mike Tyson, Edgar’s boyhoodidol and ringside for the event, was caughtmotioning to his female acquaintance thatSherk was the man he came to see.

Never mind winning the bout. Edgar domi-nated and out-struck Sherk for the full 15minutes en route to a unanimous decisionvictory. Dana White was left shaking hishead at a press conference, admitting hethought Edgar had no chance until quicklyadding, “This kid put on an amazing show.”Edgar is not one to seek publicity. Heproudly bills himself as “the same dudefrom Toms River, New Jersey,” who hangs

with the people he befriended in highschool. He’s always quick to counter thatthrough hard work and faith, your justrewards will be realized.

“If you win and perform well, all that stuffand recognition is going to catch up to you,”Edgar said. “People are going to notice.”Then when asked for a reaction to White’spraise, he looked at it as a happy boss tellinghim job well done – until he slipped: “Andit was good to finally get some recognition.”

Digest this for one moment: Edgar is 10-1(5-1 in the UFC) and each of those wins atMMA’s elite level came against the organi-zation’s finest fighters. There was Sherk.Hermes Franca once fought for the title.Spencer Fisher at one time was a top con-tender at 155 pounds. Tyson Griffin wasamong the top 10 in his class; Edgar refusedto tap to Griffin’s deep kneebar and guttedout a unanimous decision victory. This com-ing in his UFC debut on short notice andone week after checking out of a hospital —a visit he kept to himself.

Yet Edgar’s next bout is against Kurt

Pellegrino at The Ultimate Fighter 10 finalein December, one week before DiegoSanchez gets his shot at lightweight cham-pion B.J. Penn. Like Edgar, Pellegrino (14-4, 6-3 UFC) is a Jersey kid, sandpaper toughand who with Edgar forged his high schoolwrestling legacy in the state’s Region 6.Pellegrino also comes off an impressive winover veteran Josh Neer, but the resumes donot match. The media picks up on suchnuances and have attempted to bait Edgarfor the money quote, which is bulletin boardfodder that screams headlines over beingoverlooked and disrespected.

Too bad. The kid won’t bite.

“As much as they try to stroke him, he justwon’t do it,” said Mark Henry, his longtimeboxing coach. Edgar’s best quality is hishumility. His camp has asked for opponentpreferences to send to UFC matchmaker JoeSilva. His response is always, “Anybody. Idon’t care.” That’s instant respect withEdgar’s upbringing in his blue-collar neigh-borhood; however, the UFC tends to judgeon style points in addition to talent.

“If he would have made his hair pink ortalked smack to somebody, he’d probablyhave a title shot,” Henry said. “Who has henot beaten? How many top guys do youhave to beat? Who’s left for him? He’s beatthe guy who’s had the title and beat the guywho’s fought for the title. That’s wherehumble pie is getting him.”Allow your thoughts to go deeper and that’snot necessarily a bad thing, for even duringthe longest of journeys, every answer is dis-covered and uncovered. “We’re taking theMarvin Hagler road,” Henry said. “MarvinHagler had to fight a million fights beforehe finally fought for the title because he wassuch a quiet guy.”

*****

Something wasn’t clicking, and to Henrythat was a big surprise. Edgar had alwaysbeen the kid brother that listened, but whenit came down to fine-tuning his boxing, themessage wasn’t delivered. At times 45 min-utes to one hour were spent on perfecting aleft hook until they got it exactly right, but asingle day’s repetition wouldn’t unlock therequisite answers. Edgar needed a refinedroutine and that meant integrating boxinginto the regimen more than twice a week.

“You basically have a joystick in your handplaying a videogame because every punch

FRANKIE EDGAR:Humble Superstar in the Making

By Jon Lane

you tell Edgar to throw, he’ll throw it auto-matically,” Henry said. “It was just gettingmore time with him.”

Sherk and his relentless ground game werewaiting. The way to rattle him early was bystriking, in other words doing somethingnobody thought he could do. Henry neededa spark which led to a phone call to FreddieRoach, a celebrated boxing trainer who hasworked with Oscar De La Hoya, BernardHopkins, Michael Moorer and MannyPacquiao, and MMA competitors AndreiArlovski and Dan Hardy. Roach invitedEdgar to his Hollywood, California gym totrain for a week. Roach held a heavy bagwhile Moorer, a former heavyweight cham-pion, stood behind him, close eyes on hisfootwork.

“Going there and doing well showed meI’ve got some skills,” Edgar said. “It was anexperience. You have to take advantage ofbeing with someone like that.”

It was poetry watching Edgar performagainst Sherk. Sticking and weaving, Edgartook the initiative and kept Sherk from find-ing his range. It wasn’t until Round 3 whenSherk turned to his wrestling foundationand scored on his first takedown attempt.Before he made his next move, Edgar wasback in a vertical position. He stuffed twomore attempts and locked Sherk into a guil-lotine choke as time ran out.

Lessons learned. Answers discovered.

“In his match against Sherk, I’ve tried toprepare him for a fight like that for two andhalf years, but he just kind of couldn’t do it,”Henry said. “He just wouldn’t slip for somereason and I kept telling him you have tostart slipping and dipping with Sherk. Youhave to start changing your angles, in andout. I kept harping on it, but he wasn’t quitegetting it.”

Whether it was immediate or gradual,Edgar’s gotten it since his childhood, grow-ing up on the Jersey Shore as the son of aplumber. To this day, Frank Sr. rises at 4a.m. daily and works Saturdays; a taste ofworking under his father instilled the corevalues to help him pursue his passion forwrestling. He competed in two state cham-pionship tournaments and became a four-time national qualifier at Clarion Universityfrom 2001-2005. His junior year he earned

I came in as a pure wrestler andnow I really think I can standwith pretty much anybody in

the UFC. That’s testament to howmuch time and dedication I’ve

committed to this craft

“ “


freestyle All-American honors and won theEastern Wrestling League Championshipthe following season to finish his collegiatecareer at 120-29.

“I pride myself on my conditioning and theconditioning comes from being a hardworker,” Edgar said. “I believe just myimprovement in the sport is a testament tohow hard I work. I came in as a purewrestler and now I really think I can standwith pretty much anybody in the UFC.That’s a testament to how much time anddedication I’ve committed to this craft.”

His MMA career began on October 29,2005 in Asbury Park, New York, and heraced to a 5-0 record before battling Griffinat UFC 67. At the end of the fight, he wascaught in that kneebar. By then you figureEdgar’s inexperience had done him in andhis only shot at a good first impressionwould come to a crashing end. His knee wasabout to blow and he had the rest of hiscareer and life ahead of him, so tap out, losethe battle and return to fight again. He hadan excuse handy, too. He was getting mar-ried the following week.The hell with that. By pure will and a refusalto lose, Edgar didn’t tap and held on for theunanimous decision win and “Fight of theNight” honors.

“I felt I had it on the scorecards and I gotcaught in a kneebar,” Edgar said. “I wasreally mad because he lulled me to sleep. Ithought he was on his way to kind of quit-ting, but he did a great job of keeping hiscomposure and finding that kneebar. Hecaught me in it and it got tighter and tighterand tighter – it actually popped – and there’sno way I’m going out with an ‘L’ like this.It already popped, so I might as well let himtake it off.

“For me it’s all in my head, telling myself Ido not want to lose. If I tap out, it’s a guar-anteed loss. I’ll take my chances on injuringmyself and deal with that later.”Two more victories over Mark Bocek andFisher had Edgar at 8-0 and a favoriteagainst Gray Maynard at UFC Fight Night13. Overpowered by Maynard’s size andground game, Edgar tasted defeat for thefirst time in a long time and that led to a re-evaluation. Until the Maynard fight, Edgarhad bounced around various gyms withouta home base. That changed when the Graciementality and a fellow Jersey guy attracted

him to Ricardo Almeida’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Hamilton, NJ. Edgar’s jiu-jitsu needed refining and so did his focus,which until midway through college wasalso scattered in different directions.

“I hated losing,” Edgar said. “Everybodyhates losing, but it kind of ruled me toomuch, to the point I wrestled matches wor-rying about losing instead of worryingabout winning, and that would take a lot ofmatches away from me.

“The whole Gracie mentality shows howpassionate they are about their craft andhow they want to expose it to the world,”Edgar said. “They’re very big on respectand perfecting their craft. Just to be aroundthese guys – Renzo comes to visit some-times – you can’t ask for anything else. Youfeel it. It’s like a buzz in the room. You takethe energy he’s given us and try and put itinto your training.

“The biggest thing for me is relaxing, focus-ing and not over-thinking any situation. Justfrom maturing, realizing you train hard andwork hard, just go out there and do whatyou do, and good stuff will happen. It’s beenhappening.”

With every great fighter comes evolution.Edgar rebounded from the Maynard losswith a unanimous decision win over Francabefore taking Sherk to school. Preparing forPellegrino has also involved eating right,

treating injuries properly, resting andmedia obligations, all of which hashelped him focus on more of the game asa whole.

“You try not to think about it because youget overwhelmed…you really do,” Edgarsaid. “When I get up today, I’m going towork as hard as I can with everything Ihave to do – eat properly, do whateverelse that’s entailed as far as media,coaching and family life, and I’ll worryabout the next day after that.”

That means going to work, whether it’sthe gym or serving as an assistant coachat Rutgers. That work ethic is somethingthat will never change with Edgar, butthat doesn’t stop Henry from attemptingto loosen him up a bit. One time Edgarconceded and grew his hair out – barely.

“Is that the best you can do?” Henryasked. “You have to do something crazy.”Crazy is Edgar staying true to his Jerseyroots, where he can live quietly whileseeking more answers to becoming achampion, even if it takes twice as longcompared to others. “Under the radar,”Henry said. “It’s a nice place.

Frankie “The Answer” Edgar meets KurtPellegrino on December 5th on Spike TV.

Until then you can check out his officialwebsite at www.frankedgar.com.

i

86 The World-Famous

As pay-per-view numbers keep growing,

venues continue to fill and promoter’s

pockets overflow, it is the business side of

MMA that is maturing right along with

the fan base. New clothing companies

sprout up everyday it seems, MMA mag-

azines continue to impress all who read

them *cough* and blue chip advertisers

have taken notice. Now that MMA is

breaking into the mainstream and becom-

ing a profitable industry, everyone is

jumping onboard the bandwagon. But

who was there at the beginning and saw

it all coming?

Enter Todd Greene and HeadBlade.

Born in Maine, Todd Greene began los-ing his hair at a rather early age, approx-imately his mid-20’s. In 1992 he movedto Seattle to work as a gaming artist forsoftware company Sierra Online, and by1995, was working on the fantasy gamesfor ESPN’s first website and other sportsentities.

At around the same time he also startedshaving his head. Greene noticed therewas no real razor designed for the serpen-tine twists and crowbar angles of thehuman hand engaged in the process ofshaving one’s head. "Shaving with a reg-ular razor is very hard," explains Greene.

"It's kind of like a rake. It takesyour hand away from your headand you can't shave by feel."The circus act of balancing mir-rors and razors simultaneouslystarted to become more than hecould handle. "If I could put arazor on my finger, it would be amuch easier, more intuitive wayto shave." Greene started fid-dling with prototypes andHeadBlade was in the process ofbeing born.

After going through the rigorsof prototyping the product,design patents and trademarkattorneys, Greene first attempt-ed to get Schick or Gillette tolicense his product designs butto no avail. So in 1999, he bor-rowed some modest seed moneyfrom his father and somefriends, designed and built hisown website and started selling

and distributing HeadBlade from his ownhome-based company.

The early going was slow. Not many peo-ple, especially the corporate shirts, feltthere was a market for a shaver designedexclusively for the noggin. "If you open aSubway, you get a sheet that says this iswhere you put your signs, this where youbuy your bread and this is how the nap-kins are set up. I designed a product for amarket that never existed."

The tide turned in Greene's favor howev-er when Time Magazine called theHeadBlade one of the “Ten Best Designsof 2000.” The company exploded whenPlayboy, Sports Illustrated and Maxim

featured his new product; the calls andorders cascaded in and Greene did over$25,000 in web sales that month alone.Not bad for a prematurely-balding guy, adream and some proprietary razors.

It was about this time, nearly a decadeago, when Greene garnered interest inMMA. He first caught the bug afterattending UFC 46 for Randy Couture andVitor Belfort’s second match. “It’s a puresport, it wasn’t overtaken by the hugecorporations and the people that reallyenjoyed it were crazy about it. It’s notlike going to a Lakers game where halfthe people are there just to be seen.”Greene saw the excitement it was gener-ating with the attendees and found a greatpotential marketing tool for his product.

“A lot of military guys, cops, securityguards and athletes shave their heads. Alot of guys shave their heads because it is

MMA Business101:Marketing with

HeadBlade

By RJ Clifford

“Rampage” Jackson and

Todd Greene

performance oriented.” Fighters fit rightinto the same bill. With the proactive,tough guy look a shaved head confers,Greene found great synergy.

“It was a way to gain the rub off of an upand coming sport that I knew would behuge, and like HeadBlade, was kind of anunderdog. It was a growing demographicthat a lot of other marketers did notbelieve in. For us, to be riding alongsidea sport that was growing and get thenational brand recognition…every timewe would do something that was news-worthy, we would subsequently getpitched by NASCAR, ESPN, the NFL,the NBA and MLB and the numbers theywould come back with were breathtak-ing—and not in a good way!” Greenewas able to get great national recognitionwith the male 18-35 year old demograph-ic without the huge price tag associatedwith advertising because it was under theradar of corporate America’s alreadyestablished major sports.

To date, HeadBlade is still on the “cuttingedge” of the sport, having sponsoreddozens of fighters, including Quinton“Rampage” Jackson, Chuck Liddell,Frank Trigg, Jeff Monson, Josh Burkmanand just about any fighter you can thinkof with a clean scalp. While HeadBladedoes not advertise exclusively withMMA, having worked with NBA stars,Hollywood celebrities and even withtheir own Harley Davidson racing team,the results of its ongoing relationshipwith MMA continues to yield results.

Greene, who has been featured on CNN,CNBC, Fox, MSNBC and on satelliteradio, now has HeadBlade in retail giantssuch as RiteAid and Walgreens. He isalso working to turn HeadBlade from ahead shaving company to a full fledgedmen’s grooming corporation.

“I look at HeadBlade kind of like a Nike.I look at our logo, which a lot of peoplerespond to because it is very clear, it’sYin-Yang and it’s Michael Jordanesque.It’s very simple but very powerful. Atsome point it’s going to be for everyone,not just head shavers.” Our skin care lineis great for face and body and we justintroduced a new travel folding facerazor called FaceBlade. The originalHeadBlade is now in the permanent col-lection of the Museum of Modern Art, soits influence has been felt far outside ofthe Octagon.

The value Todd Greene and HeadBladefound in their advertising, sponsorship andalignment with MMA years ago is justnow being recognized by major advertis-ing giants. Nowadays, huge corporationslike Bud Light, Harley Davidson, BurgerKing and others line the Octagon canvasas the effective alternative to the enor-mous price tag of the NFL, NBA, MLBand other established sports who aren’teven attracting that many young malesanyway. “It has all the ingredients of com-bining a great sport with a great audienceand great marketing!”

www.mmaworldwide.com 87The HeadBlade Racecar

HeadBlade front man Frank Trigg

To learn more about HeadBlade,

check out www.headblade.com.i


Sandman RevisitedBy Kyle Rayner

For over 25 years, Guy Mezger has been afixture of the martial arts scene in one wayor another. He’s had over 100 fights whenyou take into account all of his years onthe full contact karate and kickboxing cir-cuits, not to mention his fights in the UFC,Pride and Pancrase. And though he mayhave retired from competition, Mezgerhas continued to be a martial arts instruc-tor and gym owner, in addition to televi-sion executive, film producer, consultantand most importantly, family man.

At age 41 he still has the rippled physiquefrom his fighting prime and his workweek has become far more regimentedthan his competitive yesteryear. A typicalday starts at 6:00 a.m. when Mezger andwife Michelle are awakened by their twokids, son Logan (4 1/2) and daughterRachel (2 1/2). “Having a family, whichincludes older son Jake (19), is an emo-tional and spiritual development and verytrying at times, but I am so grateful to

have a wonderful wife. She’s an amazingmother and unbelievably successful busi-nesswoman (Vice President of an IT com-pany).” After taking care of the dogs andgetting dressed for the day, by 8:00 a.m.the family sits down for breakfast. He nor-mally takes the kids to school beforeheading off to his gym, the Addison,Texas-based Guy Mezger’s CombatSports Club.

From 9:00 a.m. to noon, Mezger is in fullgym mode, but around lunch time, he putson his TV exec hat to work on HDNETfor the next five to seven hours. And justwhen most people are leaving to go home,he jumps back into teacher mode andcloses down the gym around 9:00 p.m.Add frequent trips out of town (he’ll fly toJapan seven times in three months thisyear alone) where Mezger serves as colorcommentator for HDNET Fights and onecan gain some perspective as to how fullof a life he leads.

Guy “The Sandman” Mezger is still achampion for the sport of mixed martialarts; “retirement” is a misnomer for“working harder” in his world. “I neverlooked at retirement as retirement sinceI’ll work up until the day I die,” saidMezger. “I have a real passion for what Ido and would probably do this forfr…(laughing) Well I don’t want MarkCuban to hear I’d do this for free, but Ienjoy what I do.” And what he does hasheld so many different meanings through-out the years.

IN THE BEGINNING

Houston-born Guy Mezger grew up inand around Dallas, Texas. As a preteen, hetook up old school karate and wrestlingsimultaneously and excelled at both. Hewon the state championship in highschool wrestling and earned his first blackbelt at age 19. A collegiate wrestlingscholarship was quelled by a knee injury,

90 The World-famous

so Mezger focused on full contact karateand trained under Billy “Jack” Jackson,the only man to ever defeat the greatBenny Urquidez in full contact karate.

Mezger won two full contact karate cham-pionships, but desperately wanted a kick-boxing title under his belt. When politicsprecluded him from the goal, a local pro-moter put him into UFC 4 when SEG(pre-Zuffa owners) needed a couple ofkickboxers for the card. “When I fought inthe UFC, I just thought about retiring,”said Mezger. “Without my kickboxingtitle shot, I thought I’d fight in this crazyUFC and have one fight so I could tell mykids that I did it because I didn’t think itwould last.” The bare-knuckle match thatensued was raw brutality; it looked liketwo rock stars going at it with fists andhair flying, but Mezger came out the vic-tor.

LION’S DEN

Prior to UFC 4, Mezger asked KenShamrock if he could come and train. Hesaw a lot of himself in Shamrock andended up trying out for Shamrock’s Lion’sDen. The Gracie’s may have been the firstfamily of MMA, but the Lion’s Den wasthe first assembled team for MMA…atleast American anyway. Mezger joinedthe likes of Vernon White, JerryBohlander, Tra Telligman, Alex Andradeand others.

After picking up another UFC win andfinally getting his kickboxing title,Mezger moved to MMA permanently.Shamrock suggested he join him inJapan’s Pancrase organization which actu-ally predated the UFC by two months. Hefelt the UFC wouldn’t catch on and Japanwould be the place for a Mezger to collecta steady paycheck. The style was basical-ly similar, save for no closed-fist strikes tothe face, matches were held in a ring andfighters in trouble had rope escapes. FromJuly 1995 to February 1997, he competed16 times for Pancrase, sometimes fightingonce a month.

Training for the lightweight tourney atUFC 13 (May 30, 1997) would becomeone of Mezger’s most memorable experi-ences with the Lion’s Den. “I rememberthe song ‘How Bizarre’ by OMC and thatbecame the theme music if you will for

“I feel real blessed. Ihad a career with

some ups and downs,but I love the

fight business.”


the training camp. Ken was with theWWE at the time, but Frank came down,along with Tra and Alex. It felt goodbecause everybody came out there tohelp me win.”

The Lion’s Den standout bludgeonedjudo player Christophe Leninger to adecision, but broke his hand in theprocess. He almost pulled out, but lookedaround at his team and thought to him-self, “I can fight with this hand eventhough I’ll look like Michael Jackson.”Mezger won the championship overalternate Tito Ortiz with one gloved-hand, but he called it the best trainingcamp with the Den and that song made itspecial.

Sandman would go onto become theKing of Pancrase by defeating the pro-motion’s founder, Masakatsu Funaki, inApril 1998 and defended that title twomore times. He vacated the crown torematch Ortiz (substituting Vitor Belfort)at UFC 19. The Lion’s Den rallied behindMezger who showed up to the fightextremely ill and ended up losing byTKO. A feud with Ortiz over a tacky shirtwas nothing more than a fleeting momentaccording to Mezger.

LEAVING WITH PRIDE

The once-great Pancrase just couldn’tmatch Pride’s awesome power and deeppockets. And Pride loved having Mezgeronboard because they wanted to see aKing of Pancrase get knocked out. Aftera long road of tough fights, the Sandmanwould face some of his stiffest competi-tion.

In only his second fight, Mezger facedoff against Kazushi Sakuraba in theopening round of the Pride Grand Prix.He took the fight on two weeks notice

and the stipulation was that if one fighterweighed more than 22 pounds (10 kilos)over his opponent and the match went toa decision, it would be declared a draw toforce a second round. “I had the flu andgot it from Ken’s kids when I went totrain. I took four IV bags before I evengot on the plane and I weighed in at 198pounds (90 kilos); he weighed in at 85kilos. The weight differential shouldnever have been part of the determinationfor calling it a draw.”

Mezger won the first round, but Prideruled it a draw (they had Mezger’sweight at 97 kilos) and a disgusted KenShamrock called the fight off and Mezgerwalked away. This would be the first ofseveral instances where, in many minds,

the organization played favorites. “All Ihave to say is, ‘That’s Japan!’ It’s part ofwhat I call creative scorekeeping. I knowwhat it is and I think most people havetheir opinion too,” in reference to someof the questionable split decisions,notably against Ricardo Arona.

All of the training and the tough battleswere starting to take their toll. “My skillswere going downhill, I was getting olderand I had a change of heart about how Ilooked at stuff. I remember fightingRogerio Nogueira and I didn’t want tostay in his guard. I stood up and saw himgoing for an ankle lock and rememberedalmost stomping him in the face. At thatmoment I just remember this claritythinking what the hell am I doing? I

thought, alright it’s time to really thinkabout getting out of this.”

After a token win in Europe, he took ayear off and started using his businesssavvy and name in DFW to forge sever-al lucrative business ventures andinvestments. In late 2004, Zuffa present-ed Mezger with an opportunity hecouldn’t turn down: a rematch with TitoOrtiz. Throughout his career, Mezgeryearned for certain rematches and Ortizwas offered up on a silver platter. Butjust a week before the fight, Mezgerreportedly experienced stroke-likesymptoms and had to withdrawal fromthe fight. On January 25, 2005, heretired from competition.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

No matter how lucrative any of his busi-ness dealings are, the one constant willalways be Guy Mezger’s Combat SportsClub. And though his gyms have hadother names — once being a Lion’s Denaffiliate — the heart, friendships andfamiliar sounds will forever be part ofMezger’s life. “This is my passion. All ofmy business is run out of this gymbecause I love this atmosphere and I wantmy children to grow up in this atmos-phere. It’s a place to be strong, developdiscipline and build great friendships. Iwould love for my children to have thesame sense of camaraderie here.”

Mezger’s philosophy mixes the hardcore,traditional mentality and discipline fromhis karate days with the different seg-ments of combative arts. “Traditionalmartial arts put the steel in my spine andthat has made me successful all theseyears,” said Mezger. “I want to instill thatsame type of feeling with wrestling, jiu-jitsu and striking. We are going to attracta certain type of person who really wants

to work out and I’m kind of at a levelwhere I want only those people.” Thefacility includes a large mat space, ring,punching bags and weights — but nomachine weights — only the real stuff.

But don’t think these people are justMMA fighters. Because of Mezger’smartial arts legacy in Dallas, he constant-ly has to show people that his children’sprogram is not only safe and fun, but theyare going to actually learn the real thing— far removed from the K-mart karateclubs trying to make a quick buck. “Irealize that not everyone is going to be afighter, but that doesn’t mean they’re notgoing to enjoy their experience and train-ing. I have a 66-year-old guy who trains,wrestles, boxes and spars. He’s not goingto climb into the cage, but he’s enjoyingthe experience and he’s dropped 20pounds. It’s that kind of story that buildsthe true MMA fans at the end of the daybecause that is America. My gym is foranyone who wants to train hard regard-less of the reasons behind it.”

Mezger still has a soft spot for the ath-letes and regularly trains a few at his gym

each week and accompanies them tofights. His top pro prospect is a scrappylightweight named Derek Campos. “Ithink he’s got an opportunity to really bea star and he’s a nice kid who workshard.” Mezger said the key to a success-ful MMA gym to aid the sport’s growth isto make it accessible to everyone as acommercial component and also have thesport side for those who ultimately wantto compete.

HDNET FIGHTS PREZ

Even as a consultant, Mezger told HDNetexecutives that MMA would be the toprated programming for the network. Theyscoffed at the notion, but Mezger wasright. Shortly thereafter, he becamePresident of HDNet Fights. The networkshowcases over a half dozen promotionsincluding K-1, K-1 Max, Dream, M-1,Maximum Fighting Championships andothers. His duties are primarily two-fold.“I make sure the promoters are takingcare of the athletes the way we believethey should be taken care of,” saidMezger, who also serves as commentatorfor many of the events in the U.S. and

abroad. As a self-proclaimed MMA geekwho studies everything he can get hishands on, Mezger loves commentating.“I know some people out there criticizeme, but at least they are listening.”(laughing)

PARTING WORDS

“I feel real blessed. I had a career withsome ups and downs, but I love the fightbusiness. And you know, I hesitate to talkabout it, but there is one fight opportuni-ty that I have that’s really just a personalfulfillment goal and you may see me onelast time sometime next year.” The onlyhint Mezger would give was the land-mark fight venue where the match wouldtake place. “I just thank everybody somuch for a great career.”

92 The World-famous

To learn more about GuyMezger’s Combat Sports Club,log onto www.guymezger.com

and for the best in MMA program-ming (call your local cable operator if

you don’t have it!), check outwww.hdnetfights.com.

i

94 The World-famous

98 The World-famous

By Bobby Pittman

I have been blessed to meet some very incredible people throughout my life. Since starting the maga-zines over six years ago, I’ve been lucky enough to not only meet some of my heroes, but sit downwith them and have them share their stories with me. One thing I have learned is that with each suc-cess story, there is a visionary…someone who sees past all of the roadblocks to witness nothing butwhat could be. A good team is needed to execute the plans on a certain level, but without a vision froman imaginative and passionate leader, the team is lost.

One of the greatest visionaries I have ever and will ever have met was Charles “Mask” Lewis, Jr. Thesport of MMA was truly blessed to have had him be part of its legacy. The vision he had for his brand,the sport and the fighters was truly ahead of its time, but that is not what has impressed me most withwhat Mask accomplished before his untimely passing. What amazes me is the impact he had on histeam and the passion and determination that is still held up among the great people at TapouT to carryon his dreams. As two of his best friends and co-founders, Dan “Punkass” Caldwell and Tim “Skrape”Katz would say, “We’re still believing.”


When looking back at the history of TapouT, I always remember thestories of their legendary times spent on the road. I would read aboutthis crazy group of guys living out of the trunks of their cars, goingfrom event to event and helping the fighters in any way possible.Regardless of what story you heard, one constant was the love andrespect that everyone from that era had for the TapouT Crew. Theirguerilla marketing in MMA had no competitors, as they wereamongst the first people to truly get behind the sport and support iton such a level. However what many people don’t always get achance to hear is just why they did it.

Talking with Punkass and Skrape, you quickly understand the visionfrom the start was about bringing the attention to the fighters whodesperately needed it. Charles always seemed to realize that if theycould help the fighters become famous, then people would want totune in and watch them fight, growing the sport of MMA. So with hisimagination, the TapouT Crew created an image that looked likesomething straight out of a comic book and their larger-than-life per-sona always demanded the attention of anyone who came into con-tact with them. However they always did an incredible job of pass-ing the attention onto the fighters. Without them, someone like asoft-spoken Chuck Liddell may not have gained so much recognitionin those early days, but the Crew always remained focused on bring-ing not just themselves, but the entire sport and the fighters into thelimelight.

To this day, the guys still reflect on the early days, showing wheretheir hearts remain. “The most memorable moments were some ofthe old times when we were all packing in one room and we werecrammed in the old suburban with bins (full of t-shirts) and bannersrunning through the middle. The old days and the hard times arewhat you remember more,” explains Skrape.

“It’s the struggle,” adds Punkass. Many people can look back on astruggle and reflect on where they came from, but don’t get confusedand think there is more than a handful of people who can evenattempt to live up to TapouT’s reputation in MMA. Their strugglebegan before any of the glitz or glamour came to MMA and moreimportantly, before there was any money. In fact, it was TapouT thathelped bring a lot of money in to build this industry. What drove

them from the start was nothing more than the simple fact that theybelieved in this sport and its athletes.

“When we were first looking at mixed martial arts and seeing whatit was, we just always believed that it was going to be this big thing.I remember thinking, we can’t be the only people who want to watchMMA this bad,” says Punkass. So with the necessary elements inplace (a vision, a passionate team and a restless work ethic), TapouTseemed destined for success. The only problem was they becamesuccessful too fast! Looking back, Punkass says, “We only knew onething for sure and that was that TapouT was only heading in onedirection… Up. We were going to grow this company until it got usinto trouble.” Well as the saying goes, ask and you shall receive.With the exposure of their first season sponsoring The UltimateFighter on Spike TV, TapouT’s business exploded in such a way thatthey weren’t quite ready for. The solution: Marc Kreiner.

Explaining the start of their partnership, Marc says, “When season 1(of TUF) went off, they received a lot more orders than they everanticipated, but Dan (Punkass) did a great job of managing to makeit work. But what happened is, when it progressed into the later sea-sons, the sales became so overwhelming that they far exceeded thecredit limit they had with their credit card company.” Kreiner obvi-ously saw an opportunity, but when asked what really made himwant to join the team, he said, “It really was Charles, Dan andSkrape. It was their enthusiasm. Really where all credit is due is it’sdue to them, because without them, you’re missing a big piece of thepie. I felt that with their excitement, their experience and their loveand passion for the sport, with what my abilities were, if we combinethe two and work together, we could achieve Charles’ dream of mak-ing it a billion dollar company. So what I really saw, and it’s the key,is that it’s not a business… It’s the people behind it and it’s the pas-sion. It’s the passion of those guys that got me excited.”

With Kreiner co-signing for the company to gain the necessary cred-it line, TapouT moved to the next level. Now with his backing andknowledge of growing and running a large company, the future forTapouT couldn’t have looked brighter. It didn’t take long before theTapouT Crew was signed by CAA, they put out a hit TV show on theVersus network with Pilgrim Films and increased their sales by leaps

“The best part is thepeople you meet and the

people you can affect… tobe able to tell them

that one day, if you stickto you’re dreams andaspirations then you

can do whateveryou want.”

—Skrape


and bounds. However just as things couldn’t have looked any better,the TapouT family was struck with a horrible tragedy when they lostCharles to a car accident on March 11th earlier this year. As friends,family and the entire team went through a very tough grievingprocess, many wondered what the future would now hold.

Reflecting on the tragedy, Punkass said, “You’ve got to move for-ward. Life doesn’t stop, you know, the world doesn’t stop becausesomething happened in your life. You have other people that dependon you too. You have to look at that and realize that these people aredepending on me to get up and do what I’m supposed to be doing, soyou do it. That’s your job. That’s life. And you have to determinewhat you can do to make somebody else’s life better because that’swhat somebody like Charles would have wanted. We think about himevery day, so we’re moving forward. We’re in a good place andwe’re exactly where Charles would have wanted us. We want to keepCharles involved in everything we do.”

So in the spirit of their leader, the Crew set out on a nationwide tourto keep the vision alive. Punkass explained, “At this point in ourlives, you start to reflect after you have somebody close to you dieand you start to think about what’s really important in life. This com-pany is kind of our outlet to the world where we can help people andbe able to connect with people. I know not everybody has been asfortunate as us in this down economy, so we just try to reach out.Whether it’s with the City of Hope, or the military, or the kids, we’rejust on a quest to go out there and touch people’s lives right now.”

Traveling from coast to coast, Punkass and Skrape were joined bysome of MMA’s top stars for an incredible 47 signings in less than 2months. When asked about the tour, it was very easy to see that thetwo could have had me sitting there for days to hear all the stories,but instead just decided to share one.

After that, a smile came across their faces as they explained whatthey enjoyed most about their time on the road. “It’s all about thefighters for us. Even to this day I feel weird that someone is askingme for an autograph. I see these guys that are in there fighting in thecage and really, they’re out there putting their lives on the line. Thoseguys are the true champions and I love it.

“When we have those guys with us and people go, ‘Oh my gosh man.I watched you fight last week when you knocked that guy out.’ Inthose types of conversations, I just sit back and watch these two peo-ple and we’re in a city where these guys may never, ever in their life-time meet a star. I mean we’re lucky enough that we live next to LAand Huntington Beach. Out here we can all count how many timeswe’ve walked by a movie star or seen somebody or a sports star orwhatever. These guys, in their lifetime, may never, ever meet any-body who has been on television. So for us to be able to bring some-body like that to a signing, it’s just…it’s crazy! That’s really whatthis is all about…putting smiles on people’s faces,” said Punkass.

After the memorable tour, the guys touched base back home for somemuch needed rest and family time before it was off to the StaplesCenter for UFC 104, where I met with them to witness a truly incred-ible event. With the TapouT tour bus on location, as well as the entireteam from TapouT, over 6,000 fans were on hand to take place in aworld-record breaking “Thriller” dance dedicated to MichaelJackson. With TapouT donating thousands of shirts and proceedsgoing to the City of Hope, it is hard to imagine Charles without aproud smile on his face, looking down on his best friends and histeam as they carry on his legacy and his vision. From what I’ve seen,everyone at TapouT is “Still Believing.”

Thank you to everyone at TapouT for all your contributions in mak-

ing this story possible. I couldn’t feel any prouder than I do now to

call myself Publisher of TapouT Magazine and I will do my best to

carry on the dream through our pages.

For more photos from TapouT’s tour, please go to www.combat-

lifestyle.com or www.tapout.com. Thank you Tracy Lee!

Also be sure to stay tuned to www.tapout.com for the launch of our

newsletter on December 1st where we will take you behind-the-

scenes of this story, share even more stories from the tour, showcase

the “Thriller” event and much more.

But most importantly… SIMPLY BELIEVE!

“To hang out with these guys for 3or 4 days or a week at a time, I’vegot to say that we’ve got the best

job in the world and I wouldn’twant to be anywhere else.”

—Punkass

FIGHTERSCARLOS CONDIT

RYAN BADER LEONARD GARCIA

COWBOY (DONALD CERRONE)SEAN SHERK JENS PULVER

ROBBIE LAWLER HERSCHEL WALKER

KENNY FLORIAN COLE MILLER MIKE BROWN

WILSON GOUVEIADAN HENDERSON BROCK LARSON

NATE MARQUARDTHOUSTON ALEXANDER

FRANK SHAMROCK

Total number of signings= 47

Lloyd Irvin’sMartial Arts Academy

AMERICA’S BEST GRAPPLING ACADEMIES:

By Kirik Jenness

104 The World-famous

As Commissioner of the North American GrapplingAssociation, I have traveled to hundreds of events in dozens ofstates, watching athletes from virtually every grappling academyin the USA. I also have the pleasure of regularly rolling atschools nationwide. This provides a unique opportunity to writedefinitively about America’s Best Grappling Academies.

So what is the best martial arts school in the USA?

Many would immediately answer with the school where theytrain. Maybe you would name a school with UFC, Olympic, AbuDhabi, and Mundial competitors? Or perhaps your personalgoals are a little less lofty than the UFC, where you will startfighting for a few thousand bucks, and if you win everything,you might end up in a cage with Anderson Silva, GSP or BJPenn. In that case, you might look at a school that focuses on allthe students, one that produces the most NAGA belt and samu-rai sword winners in all the emerging ranks.

If you consider martial arts more than technique, the best schoolwould have to maintain the development of character as a cor-nerstone of its efforts. More children than adults practice martial

arts, so maybe you would choose a school that produces themost extraordinary children.

Based on this criteria, I hereby nominate Lloyd Irvin’s as thebest martial arts school in America.

Last weekend at NAGA DC in Women’s NO-GI Advanced

Lightweight, the winner was Aarae Alexander, who defeatedthe superb Brigitte Narcise from the superb K-Dojo. This 14-year-old has won more Advanced divisions than any otherfemale competitor in NAGA.

Aarae is part of a kids team under the direction of Team LloydIrvin Instructor Donnie Achnick out of Camp Springs,Maryland, who has taken the NAGA Team Title for nearly fiveyears in every event they fielded a full team (12+).

Her extraordinary teammates include:

BJORN BROOKS: Recently profiled in The Washington Post,Bjorn has swept the Advanced division twice, and he is legallyblind.


CEDRIC BRYANT: He is a nearly-unstoppable submissionmachine with a 90% tapout rate.

CARLO LEVELL: This 4.O student is undefeated at allNAGAs for over two years.

RYAN VILLOGRAM: One of the first competitors to enter theteam, Villogram recently defeated an adult black belt at a topcompetition, and like all his teammates, he is an honors student.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the program at CampSprings is that competition is emphatically not the focus. In anage that values success over character, competition at TeamLloyd Irvin is seen as a privilege and a reward, not a priority. Thefocus is so strongly on developing character and defensive skillsthat members of the team have to maintain a 3.0 or improvinggrade point, and there can be no reports from home of any disre-spect, or there is no competition to win.

The kids are only half the story at Lloyd Irvin’s…literally. Theadult programs are equally dazzling, honing competitors like

UFC contender Brandon Vera, judo Olympian Dr. Rhadi

Ferguson, Mike Easton and Nyjah Easton (the best brother/sis-

ter in the history of the sport), Muhsin Corbrey, Mike Fowler,and many others. Team Lloyd Irvin now has 11 affiliates, includ-

ing BJJ United under Jared Weiner, Crazy 88 under Julius

Parks, Ivey League MMA under Danny Ives, Nova MA under

Jeff Ruth, Paramount under Brad Court, and Top Flight under

Ron Stallings AKA “The Choir Boy”.

You cannot discuss Team Lloyd Irvin without talking aboutLloyd Irvin, an inaugural member of the Grappling Hall of Fame.Master Lloyd started his martial arts journey at age three, took upwrestling in 1983, and earned a black belt in BJJ in only three anda half years. He additionally holds black belts in sambo and judo,a unique distinction on the entire planet. Further, he has heldnational or world titles in all three disciplines. How good isLloyd? I don’t name names, but a well-known UFC competitorsaid of rolling with him, “I have never been wrecked like that inmy life.” Lloyd Irvin is not simply elite, he is the elite of the elite.

If you know of a better place, come argue with me on TheUnderGround Forum, but I say Lloyd Irvin’s is the best martialarts school in America.


With all the fight cards todayin MMA, it’s hard to get lostin the shuffle, but there is oneconstant that always comesthrough. The WEC is themost exciting, unpredictableand surprising promotion outthere today. My grandfather,a boxing purist, always toldme “Beware of the lighterweights; they are sparkplugs!”

The WEC is full of bad menand Benson “Smooth”Henderson is what grandpawould call a very bad man!He fights with bad intentionsand he’s tougher than as***house rat. After sittingdown with Benson (Ben forshort), all I can say is don’tconfuse smoothness withtoughness!

In theLaband

Beyond

Ben Henderson

By Ricky Bonnet


MMA WORLDWIDE: Tell me a littleabout your background and how you gotinvolved in mixed martial arts.

BEN: As a kid growing up, I was fascinat-ed with martial arts and I began taking taekwon do at an early age. I was able toachieve a black belt in TKD before transi-tioning into wrestling. I was a pretty goodwrestler, but an emotional one who wasdared to fight in MMA; the rest is history.

Since getting into MMA, I have found ahome at the MMA Lab in Glendale,Arizona. The LAB as we call it has reallyprovided me the tools I need to get to thehighest level. With the LAB's help, I wasable to attract the attention of MagneticMarketing Associates, and eventually, theygot me on a salary so all I do is train tofight. When I do not have a fight lined up, Itrain the basics and work on improving mygame. When I have a fight, we build campsaround the specific fighter we are facing.Being a part of the MTX Fight Team givesme a lot of freedom to push myself to thelimit.

MMAW: As a Christian, how does faithplay a big part in not only who you are as aperson but as a fighter?

BEN: I let my faith guide me in life. I knowwith the Lord’s guidance that I can do allthings. I have faith in all things and all peo-ple.

MMAW: Tell us more about the MMA Labfacility and some of the people that helpyou prepare for a bout?

BEN: It really is a great facility with someof the best trainers, equipment and trainingenvironments in all of Arizona. We haveover 400 students who make the LAB agreat home to train.

My training partners are a combination ofguys that train with us daily and the opendoor policy that brings other gym ownersand their students through our doors. Wehave no egos, just real training with realtrainers focused on improving fighters.

The LAB has just about 14,000 square feetand has instructors like Rick Rufus, ThomOrtiz, Rob Monroe and John Crouch.

MMAW: Many fighters gravitate toward


the super camps such as Xtreme Coutureand Jackson Submission Fighting. Docamps really matter that much or is it morethe fighter than where he trains?

BEN: I think that all camps, if run proper-ly, are great. The ones you mention are elitebecause they focus on the fighters anddeveloping opportunities for the fighters.Thing is, most gyms do that with guys whoare getting their start in the UFC, whereasthe LAB is building fighters from theground up. They will be a super campsometime soon.

MMAW: You just came off a five-roundwar with Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone atWEC 43 where you were able to pull out aunanimous decision. What was it like goingthat many rounds only to end up the victor?

BEN: Well for me I focus more on therounds that I lost and the things I need to doto improve. I am thankful and blessed tohave made it through that fight without tak-ing on too much damage. My trainers got tosee me in a 25-minute war and we walkedaway with a laundry list of things to work

on. From my manager to my trainer, I waschewed out several times post fight. I knowthey care and they want the same thing thatI want (to be great). Greatness requires a lotof hard work and a little luck.

MMAW: There were a few situations inthat fight that looked like you might notmake it out of. Do you attribute your sur-vival to the mental part of your game or thephysical part?

BEN: A combination of both.

MMAW: You are currently on a nine-fightwin streak, your last win being an interimtitle match. Where do you think this putsyou in the division?

BEN: I think Donald and I were fightingfor that number two spot. I think I am nowthe contender for the WEC belt. Varner is atrue champion who has won and defendedhis belt, so I expect a battle when we get tomeet up.

MMAW: After your win against Cerrone,you had a few trips to the hospital due to

injuries sustained. This led to rumors spec-ulating that you might not be reader to faceVarner for the championship as soon as theWEC would like. Is there any validity tothese statements?

BEN: If I do not hear it from my manageror the WEC, I don’t listen to it. I try to stayoff the Internet. Donald will fight for thetitle again; he is a top 155-pound fighter.

MMAW: What’s next for Ben Henderson?

BEN: Jamie Varner, hopefully in Arizona,but I am training for a fight with the champ.

MMAW: Is there anyone you would wishto thank?

BEN: The man upstairs who makes all ofthis possible, my family, fans, MMA Laband MTX Audio.

You can read more aboutBen and his team by

logging ontowww.mmalab.com

i


It has been a topsy-turvy career for the lost

member of TapouT. A ten year career of

high hopes sank in the minor leagues of the

flourishing Southern California fight scene

as Mike Guymon piled up win after win

with no call from the UFC. Now signed,

sealed and delivered, Guymon recounts his

trek to the big time, complete with sob sto-

ries to make you cry and gags to make you

laugh. After all…he is The Joker!

MMA WORLDWIDE: WHAT FIRST

GOT YOU INTO MMA?

Mike Guymon: Training with some friendsand that was about it. Well actually, I leftbaseball and I didn’t really have anything tomotivate or challenge me because I wasalways pretty competitive. So that’s why Igot into MMA.

MW: HOW DID YOU END UP WITH

THE TAPOUT GUYS?

MG: We came to meet, mostly hangingout at nightclubs where I was workingand them coming in and we would takecare of them. One day Charles [Lewis]came up to me and said, “Hey, you’rereally good with people and we see howyou make them laugh. You know, you’rereally good at what you do. Do you thinkyou can come on the road with us?” I waslike, “Sure I’m game for it,” since I waswatching the UFC. I went on a UFC tripwith them and after that, he was like,“Hey you’re on. Your one of the crew,”and we just took it from there so to speak.

MW: WHAT WAS THAT EXPERI-

ENCE LIKE, HANGING OUT AND

TRAVELING AROUND WITH THE

TAPOUT CREW?

MG: It was the best days in my life.(laughing) It was just positive. There wasPunkass, Skrape and Chuck, and wewould go stop to stop in the mobile homejust hanging out or goofing around in thehotels late at night. Any room we entered,we could just control and have fun withwhat we did.

MW: HOW DID THAT ALL COME

TO AN END?

MG: Me and Charles didn’t see eye toeye on some things. Where I was at in mycareer, I was hard up for money andwhere we were at with TapouT, weweren’t really making any. I had that fork

No Joking Around: Mike áThe Jokerà GuymonBy RJ Clifford

Photos by Frank Capwell - TapouT


in the road where I had a choice ofwhether I’m going to work on my busi-ness or work for free for a while and fig-ure out how I’m going to pay my bills. SoI chose to go with my business and therest is history. Actually Sprawl contactedme; Steve Marino and Steve Brennangave me a great home over there. Withthe recent passing of Charles, it just mademe realize all that stuff is trivial in theend and now I’m back with my old crew.

MW: WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE

BACK WITH THE OLD CREW

AGAIN?

MG: So happy! I don’t know whether Iam happier about that or signing the UFCdeal.

MW: WHEN YOU COME TO THE

UFC, ARE YOU GOING TO

APPROACH IT ANY DIFFERENTLY

FROM ANY OTHER FIGHT?

MG: If it’s not broke then don’t fix it. Ihave been winning with the strategy I’vebeen using, just putting pressure on peo-ple and just being tenacious whether it ison the feet or on the ground, so I’m notgoing to change anything. The only thingI will change is probably my strength andconditioning because I need to bestronger.

MW: YOU HAVE 11 WINS, ALL FIN-

ISHES. WHERE DOES THIS STYLE

COME FROM THAT ENABLES YOU

TO FINISH YOUR OPPONENTS?

MG: It’s the art of war to me, with yourposition winning the war. I focus on that,on the feet by using my angles, and onthe ground I use pressure. Just pressureand position, and I just get the finisheswhether they’re going to give me the sub-mission or they’re going to get hit withsome shots. So I just wear them downlike that.

MW: YOU HAVE TRAINED ALL

OVER THE PLACE AS WELL AS

WITH YOUR GYM. TELL ME

ABOUT WHERE YOU HAVE

TRAINED AND WHO YOU HAVE

TRAINED WITH?

MG: I have my gym but then we have

James Wilks who won The Ultimate

Fighter. He has a gym that he recentlyopened in Lake Forrest, so I kinda gobetween the two spots. Then there’sAlliance Gym. In all, we have MarkMunoz, Jason Lambert, James Wilks,Mitch Maloney, Adrian Matthews…I cango down the list forever. Oh, I forgot MoLawal and Dale Christian. I have allthese crazy guys to go with, whetherthey’re jiu-jitsu or crazy wrestlers or allaround MMA guys. I’ll feel really confi-dent when I go in there to fight because Ihave the right tools to react to whatever isgoing on in there.

MW: TELL US ABOUT EXPANDING

YOUR CURRENT GYM.

MG: Yeah we have our own gym rightnow and we’re going to be moving into alocation in the same parking lot that weare at right now. So it’s going to be threetimes the size it is now. Mark Munoz willhave his wrestling camp out of the gym;Andre Julian will be sharing his hand inthere; and I will be teaching the jiu-jitsuand striking classes. I’m really lookingforward to that because now we can real-ly spread our wings. We will haveenough guys in there, an Octagon, at leasttwice as much mat space and weights.We have a fully self-sustained facility sothat we will be really great and I’m look-ing forward to it. This has just been areally amazing year; it began down butnow ending with this amazing up.

MW: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SOME

OF YOUR DOWN MOMENTS?

MG: Having a hard time managing mylife basically. I was running the gym,home life of being married…you name it.I had it on my mind and I couldn’t sleep.Finally it just came to a halt one nightwith my wife where the next morning Iwas like, I need to check out of here…notout of a hotel, but out of life. Fortunatelyfor me I had my wife prevent me fromchecking out so to speak. A good buddyof mine, Jim Amormino from the LosAngeles Sheriff’s Department, alsostopped me and got me out of troublewhile picking my life up. He got me thehelp and my wife got me the help by put-ting me in therapy, class group counsel-ing and really good drugs. (laughing)They got me in the right place to takecare of my problems and see things from

the right angle. Since then I have been acomplete opposite of where I was beforeand I want to use that whole story to turnit into a positive like, “Hey, it is possibleto go from the lowest of lows, and ifyou’re patient and get the right help, youcan live out your dreams.” That’s whereI’m at right now because I got my dreamto fight in the UFC. On top of that, it’sgetting back with my old crew TapouTagain as well as working out everythingwith my wife. I’m just happy with every-thing!

MW: HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO

LOOK AT ANY FOOTAGE OF YOUR

OPPONENT OR HAVE ANY

THOUGHTS ON HIM SO FAR?

MG: I have no idea. I have no footage onhim; I don’t know if he is a southpaw ororthodox. I know he’s a strong submis-sion guy and he is a black belt. I know hisstriking is good, but I don’t know whathis hair color is, what his sign is, whatbeach he likes to walk on…nothing! Idon’t even know his favorite music. So ifwe went on a date, I would know noth-ing.

MW: SO INSTEAD OF A BLIND

DATE, YOU GOT A BLIND FIGHT?

MG: Yeah, basically…

MW: ONE LAST QUESTION, WHAT

HAPPENED TO YOUR FAMOUS

TRI HAWK?

MG: Yeah, you know, from TapouT I hadthat tri hawk, but now that I’m back withTapouT you might see that tri hawkagain. Now that I’m older, it might be atri hawk with a circle in the middle of it.

MW: ALWAYS EVOLVING, JUST

LIKE MMA.

MG: Yeah my loss of hair and my gray-ing has a lot to do with that.

Mike would like to thank his friends and

family, his wife Nicole, Jim Amormino,

his sponsors and Zack Smith.

For more on Mike “TheJoker” Guymon, log onto

www.jokerswildfighting.com.

i

DeonnaMarie


HometownHollister, Ca

Height5'5"

Measurements34D-24-32

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Favorite Food: Micky D's

Dream Vacation: Fiji

Favorite Activities: Pilates,Golf, Motocross, &Modeling

Turn Ons: A smart, funny,outgoing, and opinionatedman who gives goodmassages! :)

Turn Offs: Men with lots ofjewelry, metrosexuals,and cocky guys!


This month we’ve mixed it up a little and decided to give some folksringside (at least part of the time) a chance to voice their opinions ona very controversial subject: MMA commentating. Fans have theirfavorites, everyone can be an armchair warrior, but these four men

have been doing it for years. Stephen Quadros served as commen-tator for Pride Fighting Championships, EliteXC, Strikeforce and a

host of smaller shows. Frank Mir, when he’s not preparing for a

UFC fight, provides insight for the WEC. Ron Yacovetti is a stand-up comedian turned sports writer who recorded countless interviews

for proelite.com. Frank Trigg is a former Pride commentator whocan be heard daily on taggradio.com; he’s also preparing for his nextUFC match.

What were you doing prior to MMA commen-

tating?

FRANK MIR: Fighting MMA.

STEPHEN QUADROS: I was playing drums in various rock n’ rollbands, starring in television shows and co-starring in a few lowbudget films.

FRANK TRIGG: Fighting. (laughing)

RON YACOVETTI: I like Jim Rogan who I very much admire as acommentator. I did stand-up comedy for 12 or so years and I’ve writ-ten and produced television shows. I was with EliteXC and Pro Elitefor the two or so years they were around; I did a majority of theirinterviews with fighters from the IFL, Affliction, Strikeforce and theUFC. I did pretty much everything and I was the face of their socialnetworking site. I also worked some boxing in the past and was awriter for some boxing shows, including Heavyweight Explosionand Thunder Box.

In order to become a certified commentator,

what steps did you have to take?

QUADROS: Usually people who don’t know anything about com-mentating have to go to broadcasting school and still don’t knowanything about commentating. As my friend and partner, I'm

Q

Q

by Deshalen Barber

Experts Roundtable

FRANK MIR

MMA Commentators


inclined to believe what Mauro Ranallo says: “You basically justhave to go out there and start doing the work.” It’s like somebodywho is sitting home watching UFC and Strikeforce events, andbecause they watch it, they think they can just got out there and fight.You actually have to go out there and start doing jobs to get hands-on experience. I think hands-on is the most important thing of all.

YACOVETTI: Be familiar with what you’re looking at. You have toknow what’s happening before your eyes. I think it’s foolhardy toassume the commentator will know everything. It takes fightersyears to know all the nuances in training, especially in MMA whereyou’re talking about more than one fighting style. BoxingCommentary, when you have been around it and done it, is a lot eas-ier to grasp on discipline. When you’re talking about MMA, I thinkthe commentators are somewhat on the line with the fighters. It takestime to know everything that’s going on out there, but doing it is def-initely a huge step in learning it. By watching and hearing other peo-ple commentate, you get a good grasp of it that way. There are a lotof good ways to broaden your horizons and part of it is just havingbroadcasting experience. That is something I had heavy in commen-tating and on-camera stuff too. It’s a nice fusion of everything com-ing together at once.

MIR: I got experience in and outside of the cage, plus I have beeninvolved with MMA my whole life. I also started to pay attention toother sports commentators.

TRIGG: There’s no such thing as a certified commentator. You haveto look good on-camera, you have to speak well on-camera and youhave to talk about what you’re seeing. My job as the color commen-tator is I have to tell why it just happened. The play-by-play guy tellswhat just happened. It’s a generalized rule. The easiest way to breakit down is Mike Goldberg saying “that was a great leg kick; that wasa great punch to the head.” Joe Rogan will then tell you why that justhappened or what led to that happening. That is my job and that iswhat I do.

QUADROS: Writing is the bottom line criteria for anyone whowants to get into broadcasting. I started writing articles for maga-

zines like Blackbelt, which ultimately led to being an editor for anMMA-centric magazine called Blackbelt Presents Fight Sport with

Stephen Quadros in 2002. Of course people jumped on the band-wagon in 2005, a lot of people would not know about this because itwas three years before that turning point in our sport. Once I devel-oped a voice, and I was already comfortable in front of a camerathrough acting, it was natural to become a commentator. Plus I wastraining and teaching martial arts. So those things combined mademe a package that promoters wanted to sign.

Why did you decide to become an MMA com-

mentator specifically?

TRIGG: Because I’m a fighter, I look good on television and I cantalk about it. That’s basically what happened. I got a shot by Pride todo it, and then Fox took a shot on me and discovered that I can actu-ally do it very well. I’m pretty good at being on-camera and talkingabout it. I'm also very good at being quick-witted when I’m on“live.” To be honest with you, commentating chose me; I didn’tchoose to do this and got dragged kicking and screaming. I mean, Ididn’t want to do it, but it just kind of happened and I ended up being

Q

STEPHEN QUADROS


good at it. Ryan Bennett actually is one of the reasons why I gotpulled into commentating. He and my wife forced me into doing it.(laughing)

YACOVETTI: It’s almost second nature from when I was callingboxing. I always had good instincts to know what was happeningand what I was looking at even if it was not on the surface. You cananticipate two styles conflicting between two fighters. So it was kindof instinctual or second nature to do it, and once you get to do it —if you have that kind of passion — it really is enjoyable.

MIR: I probably wouldn’t venture out to other sports because I havebeen involved with MMA my whole life, and being a technical ana-lyst, I feel that is where my expertise falls. So I wouldn’t be able togo into other sports.

QUADROS: Because I'm not interested in other sports.

During your career, which fight stands out

the most and why?

YACOVETTI: Probably the last Called Out MMA show with JaySilva who just fought his first UFC match against C.B. Dollaway. Ithink I was his first career post-fight interview and he was 5-1 at thetime before the Dollaway fight. I had followed his career from thebeginning when people did not know a lot about him, even thoughhe had been training with Team Rampage. I knew the guy had a lotof talent and I liked the guy. When I called his fight against RayLizama, it was a strike-fest between the two of them and Silva wasjust dominant and would not be deterred. That was probably themost fun I had doing it because I had a certain amount of personalemotion invested in it. When I find somebody I really believe in, ona sub-level I want to root for him, but you have to be objective whenyou’re calling a fight. You have to give kudos to anyone doing any-thing good. But that fight was probably the most fun I had because Icaught somebody early on in his career starting to really showcasemore skills. I felt like I had a little bit of a heads up on what this guyis capable of doing.

MIR: With the WEC, who I commentate for right now, there are toomany explosive battles that are always going back and forth with ter-rific fighters. I was there when Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver,Miguel Torres faced [Takeya] Mizugaki and of course when BrianBowles took on Torres…and then you have Donald Cerrone vs. BenHenderson. Really I can’t just pick one fight.

QUADROS: I’m going to answer it with two and break the rules onthis one. First I’d say the 2000 Pride battle between Royce Gracieand Sakuraba because it was 90 minutes; it was a serious martialartist against a wise-cracking pro wrestler. It was a battle of ideolo-gies and there were a lot of things that played in that match. It was aturning point for the sport. The other one would be the first fightbetween Fedor Emelianenko and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.Nogueira was considered at that time the best fighter in the sport andhe was beaten at his own game by that time an unknown Russianfighter. Up until then, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the guard game wasreally dominate in MMA, but Fedor proved to have a perfect foil forthat game. It was like Ali vs. Frasier because you had two great fight-ers meeting and it was a true heavyweight championship fight.

TRIGG: I’d say Crocop vs. Wanderlei in Pride because Crocop

Q

FRANK TRIGG


almost kicked Wanderlei’s head right off his body. Then probably I’dsay Mark Hunt vs. Josh Barnett. I picked Hunt to win becauseBarnett used to have trouble with guys who had the big overhandright. He wanted to prove to everybody that he could stand in frontof a guy and just beat him up. He basically got out of that mindsetand changed things up, growing as a fighter. He took Mark Huntdown very easily; it was the biggest surprise for me at the timebecause he changed as a fighter.

Do you ever find yourself crossing the lines

from being a professional to a fan while

watching fights?

MIR: Yeah I do sometimes. When I realize what I'm doing, obvious-ly I will try to pull back and be as unbiased as possible. I think some-times it turns out to be a good thing when you’re watching it from afan’s point of view because I think it shows more emotion and moreexcitement and that carries over to the commentating. I think theonly time it ever becomes a problem is when you show “bias.” It’sthe one disadvantage that I sometimes have, because as a fighter, Isometimes train with other fighters I get stuck commentating for. It’ssometimes difficult to not make the mistake. I understand that I have

made the mistake of not completely stepping back, but like anythingelse, you want to improve and I continue to work on that.

QUADROS: No, because both professional and fan lives within me.I can be a fan and not show bias. Just because you’re a fan doesn’tmean you’re required to show bias. I think the effective commenta-tors that have an effective, lasting impact on the sport are both. Lookat John Madden. He's a huge fan of football, but obviously he's aserious professional by being a highly-decorated coach and analystfor so many broadcasts.

TRIGG: No, because in my job, I’m allowed to be a fan; I’m allowedto be biased. People don’t understand that the color guy is allowedto have some bias. You’re supposed to be one way or the other withwhat we do. So for me it’s OK. I never really cross over that line, atleast to my knowledge, but if I do, it just kind of happens that way.I always try to stay professional.

YACOVETTI: I have not become the commentating human beat-box that I know of. If I have, it’s probably far and few between, butI don’t think that I ever have. The reason I say that with certainty isbecause, when I am watching a fight as a fan and I’m not strappedwith a headset, I'm still in that moment watching the fight. I getsucked in the process out of sheer admiration for what these guyshave to do.

What do you find to be the most difficult

aspect of commentating?

QUADROS: Probably having a good hair day only to have some-thing happen to where my hair gets all jacked up the day of the show.I’m like, “Man, yesterday it looked so freaking good…what hap-pened?!” I should probably do like Bas does and shave it all off so Idon’t have to worry about it. Maybe even then my eyebrows willstart trying to play tricks on me.

TRIGG: Building that timing. If you take Goldberg and Rogan, theyhave that timing together and they understand how each other work.Actually [Mauro] Ranallo and I got that timing in Pride just beforehe left the company, so I was just getting comfortable with his tim-ing. I knew where he was going to go and what he was going to say.The most difficult aspect is working with somebody that you reallyhave not worked with that much or spoken with that much.

YACOVETTI: Mastering of the material. I’ve experienced many ofthe fighting styles involved with MMA and jiu-jitsu is probably theone I’ve done the least on, but I’m putting the most emphasis on. Itend to be a sponge when I’m geared up with passion for somethingI don’t know enough about. It’s something I dive into with full forceto really pick it up and I never have an ego with that kind of stuff. SoI would say BJJ because it’s the most complex and something that Ihave to continue to study, but it’s very fun to learn.

MIR: Watching a fighter get devastatingly beat. There always has tobe a winner and loser in every fight, but I will never appreciate —regardless of whether I like the guy on a personal level — I don’twant to see him get knocked out viciously. I hate that, you know,twitching on the mat or anything like that. I can tell if a man is goingto be on a highlight reel and he's not going to be too happy aboutthat. That’s difficult for me because that still can hurt a fighter’scareer and his spirit. I feel for him when I see it happen like that.

Q

Q

RON YACOVETTI


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