The sport of mixed martial arts has come a long way since the early “bare-knuckle” days of UFC 1. Through the hard work and patience of many countless pioneers, the vast majority of the population now considers MMA a legitimate sport.Unf…
The sport of mixed martial arts has come a long way since the early “bare-knuckle” days of UFC 1. Through the hard work and patience of many countless pioneers, the vast majority of the population now considers MMA a legitimate sport.
Unfortunately, “haters” still exist.
One of the most widely repeated reasons for that hatred is that, despite regulation in almost every U.S. state, some believe that the sport is just too gruesome.
At UFC 146, the gruesome outcome of the heavyweight bout between Cain Velasquez and Antonio “Big Foot” Silva only served to help make the case for those who would prefer that MMA stay a niche sport.
Early in that contest, Velasquez used his elbow to strike and open up a gash on Silva’s forehead. The wound immediately began pouring blood in what looked more like a horror movie scene than a sporting contest.
The fight was momentarily stopped while the cageside doctor inspected the laceration. After a close examination, the bout was allowed to continue.
Unfortunately for Silva, with blood puddling up in his eye sockets, he was a sitting duck as Velasquez teed off on him with fists of fury. The referee eventually stepped in and called a stop to the violence.
Imagine the controversy that would be circulating the sports universe right now if that fight had taken place on FOX rather than pay-per-view.
Silva’s face and the stained mat surrounding his body were evidence of the cold, hard fact that this is still a fight.
It was also a reminder of why so many international mixed martial arts organizations, such as Pride, had banned elbows in the past.
While Velasquez’s dominance at UFC 146 was undeniable, there have been many instances in the past where a cut from an elbow has caused a frustrating, early stop to a fight.
UFC 146 isn’t likely to change anything, but the outcome certainly begs the question—should elbows be banned in mixed martial arts?
Arguments can and will be made for both sides of this argument, so I’d like to hear from you, the reader and the avid fan of the sport.
What do you think? Do elbows take away from the legitimacy of the sport? Do they end fights too quickly when fans want the fights to continue?
Or are those who are complaining about it simply being too “PG?”
Let me know what you think in the comments section below.
The all-heavyweight main card of UFC 146 caused some controversy when it was first announced. Some believed that the sometimes laboring pace of the 205+ pounders could get boring. Were those doubters ever wrong. The heavyweights delivered on this ni…
The all-heavyweight main card of UFC 146 caused some controversy when it was first announced. Some believed that the sometimes laboring pace of the 205+ pounders could get boring.
Were those doubters ever wrong.
The heavyweights delivered on this night, delivering five finishes in five main card fights, including four knockouts and a submission. All five fights combined lasted under 23 minutes!
There were quite a few memories made during the main card as well as during the undercard. Let’s take a look back at them. Here are the top 10 most memorable moments of UFC 146.
If you’re looking to watch UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir live tonight on your computer, look no further. With the preliminary fights on Facebook and Fuel TV, UFC 146 gives fans one of the most intriguing fight cards of the yea…
If you’re looking to watch UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir live tonight on your computer, look no further.
With the preliminary fights on Facebook and Fuel TV, UFC 146 gives fans one of the most intriguing fight cards of the year.
But if it’s the pay-per-view card featuring Dos Santos-Mir and Velasquez-Silva that you’re wanting to watch on your computer, then you should strongly consider checking out the UFC’s various live streaming partners.
Yes, there may be some horrible-quality free streams elsewhere, but they can often be unreliable and there is always a strong chance of viruses and malware with any illegal stream.
So why not put all of that concern to rest and invest in an online stream that will actually work, won’t mess up your computer and won’t leave you wondering if the cops are going to come knocking on your door?
For $44.99, you can watch the UFC 146 pay-per-view from three different locations:
UFC.tv, the organization’s own online streaming service.
Yahoo! Sports, one of the world’s largest sports websites.
Or perhaps the most viewed online streaming service, UStream.tv.
Whichever option you choose, however, will provide you an excellent-quality live stream of tonight’s UFC 146 pay-per-view, which starts at 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT.
Don’t be fooled by other websites that say they are offering a free live streaming of the event.
Support the sport you love and order the event in high quality. You won’t regret it.
As the UFC’s newly-created flyweight division grows, promotions all across the country are beginning to give more emphasis to the smaller, often times more technical and even more exciting fighters. Fighters such as La Crosse, Wisconsin’s…
As the UFC’s newly-created flyweight division grows, promotions all across the country are beginning to give more emphasis to the smaller, often times more technical and even more exciting fighters.
Fighters such as La Crosse, Wisconsin’s Lloyd “Albie” McKinney (@albiemckinney) are taking advantage of that opportunity to shine in regional MMA promotions as they work toward their dreams of getting a televised fight.
“I feel like 125 is my natural weight class,” he told Bleacher Report MMA. “That’s what I wrestled at for four years in college. I feel the strongest and most athletic at that weight.”
While he prefers fighting in the flyweight division, McKinney has also competed at 135 pounds as a bantamweight in order to get better opponents.
“Whatever the best opportunity is at, I’ll fight at either 125 or 135. It just depends on the opponent and the situation,” he said. “The 125 class is still developing, but I think by the time I’m ready to go to a bigger organization, that’s definitely the weight I’ll be at.”
McKinney is coming off of two fights already in 2012, the first being a win against Kurtis Ehrhorn back in February. While most had McKinney winning on the scorecards at the time, the fight was actually called due to a disqualification in the second round—when Ehrhorn repeatedly spit out his mouthguard during the bout.
“That was definitely the strangest, most unique situation I’ve been in, in any competition I’ve ever been in,” he said. “It was more frustrating because I trained for six weeks, hard, and I feel like I was just finding my rhythm and he was kind of fading. Instead of letting the fight play out, he just kind of took the easy way out.
“I don’t want people to think that I’m a dirty fighter, but I feel like he should’ve had that situation sorted out prior to the fight.”
After that controversial fight, McKinney battled Bill Friday in April, a contest which saw him get submitted by a guillotine choke in the second round.
“I knew it was in deep, but I didn’t know it was in that deep,” McKinney admitted. “It was kind of a learning experience.”
Since that lesson, he has been training extensively on how to keep utilizing his great wrestling while avoiding putting himself into risky situations.
“I’ve been working on my guillotine defense a lot. I’ve made adjustments in training where I’ll do sparring where I’m going for the feet, going for the takedown and guys will jump for guillotines,” he said. “It really just comes down to me implementing better takedown strategies. I don’t always need the double-leg. I can get a single-leg or I can get into a clinch position, where my neck is not as vulnerable, and get it down from there.”
He hopes that his improved submission defense will serve him well in his next bout against Jon Barker on May 18th, 2012’s “Driller Promotions: Downtown Showdown V” event from the Hyatt in Minneapolis, MN. It also helps that he got to train daily with Barker’s most recent opponent, Tony Belvedere.
“[Barker] is a real tough fighter, he was ranked No. 1 in Wisconsin,” McKinney continued. “Tony Belvedere, one of my good friends and training partners, beat him in his last fight. I was sitting cageside for that one, so I got to see his skills first-hand and I think he’s a very good fighter. Obviously I think there are some things that I can exploit in his game and I don’t really want to show my hand, but I wouldn’t have taken the fight if I didn’t think I could win.”
Known primarily for his wrestling, McKinney remains confident in his standup and believes he can finish fights from there as well.
“If I can put my hands on his chin, I can put him in some danger,” he said. “But Travis is a very durable fighter. Tony hit him with some good shots and he took them. I didn’t get to see much of his grappling, so that might be something that I want to test the waters with.”
After a loss, many fighters look to take a step back and gain some confidence against a lower-level opponent who they are more likely beat. McKinney doesn’t see it that way, though. He’d prefer to fight better opponents, even if things don’t always go his way.
“I just want to fight quality opponents. I want fights on my record where, win or lose, people can’t just say, ‘That was a can.’ I’m not trying to pad my record. I want fights that will help me grow.”
Jon Barker definitely brings that to the table and it will be interesting to see whether McKinney’s improved game is enough to do what his teammate Tony Belvedere did, and get a big win over a high-quality opponent on Friday night.
Tickets are still available for the show and they can be purchased online or at the door on Friday night.
For more MMA news, fighter interviews and opinions, follow Nick Caron: @NicholasCaron.
United States Army veteran Mark Bascovsky will make his mixed martial arts return on Friday night at Driller Promotions’ Downtown Showdown V from the Hyatt in downtown Minneapolis, MN. Bascovsky, 9-2 as a professional, left the sport over five y…
United States Army veteran Mark Bascovsky will make his mixed martial arts return on Friday night at Driller Promotions’ Downtown Showdown V from the Hyatt in downtown Minneapolis, MN.
Bascovsky, 9-2 as a professional, left the sport over five years ago to join the Army, where he was deployed in Afghanistan and stationed in Alaska. When he got back to the states, however, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to continue with the path he was down as a mixed martial artist.
“I almost thought I wasn’t going to fight anymore,” he told Bleacher Report MMA. “It kind of seems like there’s a lot of politics involved now. I just didn’t really want to deal with it. Not only that, but I really didn’t make that much money doing it, when you start adding up all of your normal bills on top of training, it made it hard to be able to do it.”
In the end, though, it was the members of his platoon who convinced him to get back into the sport. During their time together, Bascovsky rolled with members of his platoon who would reiterate how strongly they believed that Bascovsky should fight again.
“I guess we’ll see what happens. I’m hoping the game hasn’t passed me by,” he said. “I still want to make a splash in the sport, but it’s been a long time since I fought, so who knows how it will work out?”
His return fight will be against Bruce Johnson, a fellow Minnesotan who is known for his unpredictable and borderline wild striking.
“Bruce Johnson has really heavy hands. He throws some really unorthodox punches. Looping hooks, uppercuts,” Bascovsky continued. “I just made sure that I’m prepared for that. I just had my teammates throwing those kinds of strikes at me to make sure I could react.”
The game has changed quite a bit since Bascovsky’s last fight in 2007. He noticed a big change in even his training partners when he came to the Academy. That has inspired him to up his game a level and expand his horizons as a fighter.
“It seems like everyone is an all-around better fighter now,” he said. “It used to be that I was kind of a one-trick pony. All I did was take people down to the ground and either hit them or tap them out.
“Thanks to my training partners now and thanks to my trainer Greg [Nelson], I’m going to be able to do everything. I’m a lot more well-rounded. I’ve got fast hands, I hit hard and I’m confident standing…and that actually helps with my ability to take people down because I can setup my shots a lot better.”
As a more well-rounded fighter, Bascovsky could be more dangerous now than he was after 11 professional fights in 2007. Still, the unpredictable nature of the sport makes this a very interesting bout.
“I’m about as nervous as my first fight,” he admitted. “It’s been so long and I haven’t been in front of a crowd in so long. I’m just hoping I don’t go out and have a big adrenaline rush and gas out in the fight.”
Bascovsky’s platoon will be anxiously awaiting the video of the fight which they have already planned to put on a projector in the conference room to watch together. However, if you’re in the Minneapolis area, you don’t have to wait—you can buy tickets to the event online today or purchase them at the door on Friday.
For more MMA news, fighter interviews and opinions, follow Nick Caron: @NicholasCaron.
There are many advantages to living in a small town. The community is typically very tight, family is close, things move at a more leisurely pace, the air is clean. But for someone looking to start a career in the sport of mixed martial arts, it’…
There are many advantages to living in a small town. The community is typically very tight, family is close, things move at a more leisurely pace, the air is clean. But for someone looking to start a career in the sport of mixed martial arts, it’s not always the best place to get started.
This has been the case for Pat Magdaleno, a 23-year-old from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, who has spent the past two years competing as an amateur.
“I come from a small town, so really there’s not even an MMA gym in town,” Magdaleno told Bleacher Report MMA. “The closest real MMA gym is about three hours away. I didn’t have any management. Pretty much the last year of fighting, I’ve been doing it all myself. I didn’t even have a coach. I’ve been training with my sister.”
Yes, you read that right—while he had a boxing-specific coach, he’s been working with his sister as his primary training partner.
A former high school wrestler and an amateur MMA fighter with a 2-0 record herself, Magdaleno’s sister is no slouch. But the reality is that in order to get into top shape, he needed to join a real MMA gym.
“She’s a lot smaller than me. It was better than nothing, but it wasn’t what I needed,” he said.
Magdaleno made the choice to stay with his cousin for the past month while he trained at one of the top MMA gyms in the country, Roufusport Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Milwaukee, Wis.
“When I got to Roufus’ gym, and I rolled with some real jiu-jitsu guys, it was a whole different world,” he said. “To actually have real training partners is just a big difference.”
In the short time that he has been at Roufusport, Magdaleno has already seen substantial improvements in his overall game.
“When I first got to the gym, I didn’t really setup my takedowns. I’d just kind of shoot in. They’ve been teaching me a lot about how to mix it up and set your takedowns up with your hands,” he said. “I’ve been learning a lot from that gym. It’s a lot different, so I’m just soaking everything up that I can and it’s awesome. I can actually see myself improving every day that I’m there.”
Along with moving to the new gym, Magdaleno also signed with his first management agency, Sterling Entertainment Group, and they began looking to setup a professional fight immediately.
“I needed a good manager. I didn’t just want to jump into the pro’s by myself. I got hooked up with [Jeremy Bjornberg] and I was like, ‘Yeah! I’m ready to do it!’ “
With 12 amateur fights under his debut, Magdaleno had been chomping at the bit to get into the cage and have his first pro fight.
He’ll get that opportunity on Friday evening, May 18th, when he battles Dan Wales at Driller Promotions’ Downtown Showdown V at the Hyatt in Minneapolis.
While he believes that he is ready for the jump to the pro’s, Magdaleno does admit that there are some butterflies in his stomach about it.
“There’s a lot of pressure. If I don’t go out there and win this one, then not too many promoters are going to go out there and look at an 0-1 fighter,” he said. “He’s got five pro fights and he’s got a little experience on me, but I’m young and I’m hungry. I’ve been working hard for this. There’s not much that’s going to stand in my way.”
From training with only his sister a month ago to joining one of the top gyms in the country thereafter, Magdaleno’s journey to the professional level will be highly anticipated—both by himself as well as by fans.
The sport of mixed martial arts has come a long way since the early “bare-knuckle” days of UFC 1. Through the hard work and patience of many countless pioneers, the vast majority of the population now considers MMA a legitimate sport.