Author: By E. Spencer Kyte

No two records are created equal.Some fighters can build up shiny resumes with quick finishes and lengthy unbeaten streaks while never stepping into the cage to face any real competition, while others will hover around the .500 mark, alternating wins and losses, never amassing too many of one without an appearance from the other, facing a cast of the toughest competitors a division has to offer.Raquel Pennington is the perfect embodiment of the latter.Even before she drew rave reviews from UFC President Dana White for her scrappy, never-back-down performances on Season 18 of The Ultimate Fig … Read the Full Article Here

Running into those few times when there are only two events can sometimes make filing a column about the 10 best fights of the upcoming month challenging, but that’s not the case here.Between UFC 191 and the company’s return to the Saitama Super Arena on September 27, putting together this collection of killer matchups was relatively easy.Here’s a look at the best fights on tap for the month ahead.This is The 10.UFC 191: Johnson vs. Dodson II (September 5 – Las Vegas, Nevada)Jessica Andrade vs. Raquel PenningtonOriginally scheduled to face Liz Carmouche, Pennington gets … Read the Full Article Here

The UFC is set to #GOBIG over the final four months of the 2015 fight calendar, with a massive kickoff event featuring numerous champions and several of the top names on the roster scheduled to take place prior to the UFC 191 weigh-ins on Friday, September 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.But who can wait a week to start getting excited about the outstanding collection of contests penciled in to take place between now and the end of the year?Here’s a look at 10 of the best tilts heading into the Octagon before 2016 kicks off.Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson II – UFC 191 (September … Read the Full Article Here

Undefeated bantamweight prospect Cody Garbrandt won’t ever forget his experience at UFC 189, but it has very little to do with his performance against Henry Briones.Although the Team Alpha Male representative took to the cage and emerged with his second UFC win – and the seventh consecutive victory of his professional career – the truly memorable part of the event took place backstage before the fight and on the walk to the Octagon.That night, Garbrandt got to share the UFC experience with Maddux Maple, the nine-year-old boy he made a promise to years earlier when he was stil … Read the Full Article Here

Thursday’s UFC 191 media conference call had a very “Old School vs. New School” feel to it, as the four competitors that make up next weekend’s main and co-main event fights pressed pause on their final preparations to discuss their upcoming bouts.Representing the “Old School” were co-main event participants Andrei Arlovski and Frank Mir – two former champions that have turned back the hands of time to return to title contention in 2015. First expected to face each other nearly a decade ago, the veteran heavyweights are in the midst of equally unexpect … Read the Full Article Here

No matter the sport, no matter the level, a lot of coach-speak favorites are transferable. From everyone working together to accomplish the same goal to different riffs on putting too much pressure on yourself, the classics play on the ice just as well as they do on the hardwood and are easily applicable to what transpires inside the UFC Octagon as well.One of the standard lines in mixed martial arts is that you learn much more from your losses than you do your victories – a variant on the old “you have to know how to lose before you can know how to win” line you hear tosse … Read the Full Article Here