Author: By E. Spencer Kyte

Through the opening two rounds of Friday night’s Invicta FC strawweight championship main event at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Livia Souza appeared to be on her way to duplicating the effort put forth by her atomweight compatriot Herica Tiburcio, who made her North American debut with an upset win of Michelle Waterson to claim Invicta gold.Over the first 10 minutes of her fight with reigning titleholder Katja Kankaanpaa, Sao Paulo’s Souza controlled the action, taking the fight to the once-beaten Finnish champion. In each of the first two rounds, Souza was able to take … Read the Full Article Here

Some of the best rivalries in college sports are between in-state rivals – two schools separated by a couple hundred miles that compete for the same recruits and face each other in several sports over the course of a single year.Neither side ever wants to lose. Each victory is a little bit sweeter, each loss a little more difficult to swallow because it came against that team.That’s what the rivalry between American Top Team (ATT) and The Blackzilians is like.“But if they were right down the street from each other,” Mike Brown, the former WEC featherweight champ and l … Read the Full Article Here

There comes a time in every athlete’s career where a subject they would much rather not discuss becomes one that is impossible to avoid – retirement.While the subject is raised with all high profile athletes for several different reasons – injuries, declining skills, age, rampant media speculation – there are times when the topic comes up because a combination of circumstances creates what feels like a potential Hollywood ending and there aren’t too many athletes that get to go out in that kind of situation.John Elway won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Denver … Read the Full Article Here

Ask any fighter and they will tell you going a year or more without a fight is torture, regardless of the circumstances. It doesn’t matter if it’s a crippling injury or outside of the cage adversity, spending a year on the sidelines is stressful and tough to endure.John Makdessi knows this first hand.“To be honest, this has been my roughest year yet,” the Halifax-born, Montreal-based lightweight admits. “It’s been a lot of adversity, a lot of obstacles thrown my way. It has been a whole year of restructuring my life, the people around me.”The last ti … Read the Full Article Here

UFC light heavyweight Rashad Evans is the perfect person to talk to when it comes to getting the Blackzilians’ perspective on Season 21 of The Ultimate Fighter.One of the original members of the Boca Raton, Florida fight team, the 35-year-old Evans ascended to prominence in the UFC after winning the heavyweight competition on Season 2 of the long-running reality television series. He also led a team of heavyweights opposite a squad coached by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson on Season 10, easily one of the most explosive seasons of the show.Having been a part of the rivalry with A … Read the Full Article Here

At UFC 185, Beneil Dariush shared the same fight card as his friend and training partner, Rafael dos Anjos, for the second time in his career.The first time it happened was back in the summer of 2014, when the two pupils of Master Rafael Cordeiro touched down in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On that steamy August night in “The Sooner State,” Dariush rebounded from his first professional loss with a second-round submission win over Tony Martin, while his teammate turned in one of the bigger upsets of the year, dropping former lightweight champion Benson Henderson with a stiff left hand midway … Read the Full Article Here