Tag: my first fight

My First Fight: Matt Lindland

Filed under: StrikeforceOn Saturday night 40-year-old Matt Lindland takes on Robbie Lawler at Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu in St. Louis. It’s a fight Lindland admits that he needs to win in order to keep his career moving in the right direction, …

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On Saturday night 40-year-old Matt Lindland takes on Robbie Lawler at Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu in St. Louis. It’s a fight Lindland admits that he needs to win in order to keep his career moving in the right direction, and it’s also one that he intends to turn into, as he puts it, “a gritty, messy fight.” But before he finds out what his future holds, Lindland sits down with us to talk about his past, including his very first taste of MMA.

He has no problem admitting it now: back then, Matt Lindland had no idea how to even begin to prepare for an MMA fight. Then a 26-year-old wrestling coach at the University of Nebraska and an aspiring Olympic team member, all Lindland knew was that other Greco-Roman wrestlers had done it and it looked like a fun way to make a couple dollars.

One day he ran into Royce Alger, a well-known wrestler for the University of Iowa who was dabbling in MMA and was said to be headed to the UFC soon. Lindland told him he’d been thinking about taking the same path, and wanted to know how to get started.

My First Fight: Yves Edwards

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveThe internet will tell you that Yves Edwards’ first fight was against a guy named Todd Justice at the World Pankration Championships on Oct. 26, 1997.

“That’s not right,” Edwards says. “I fought a few weeks, maybe a…

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The internet will tell you that Yves Edwards‘ first fight was against a guy named Todd Justice at the World Pankration Championships on Oct. 26, 1997.

“That’s not right,” Edwards says. “I fought a few weeks, maybe a month before that, in the same building. I fought this guy, I don’t remember his name, Kelly something.”

It hardly needs to be said, but they did things differently at “pankration” events in Dallas, Texas back in 1997. For one thing, there were the weight classes. They existed, in a way, but they didn’t exactly work in Edwards’ favor.

“There were no weigh-ins whatsoever. I showed up and the guy I was supposed to fight was probably about 185 [pounds] or 190. He was huge. I was probably about 160. It was just kind of like, okay. Here we go.”

My First Fight: Dennis Hallman

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveThis Saturday at UFC 123 in Detroit, welterweight Dennis Hallman faces Karo Parisyan in a battle of two MMA veterans who have 25 years worth of experience between them. For the 34-year-old Hallman, it will be his 62n…

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This Saturday at UFC 123 in Detroit, welterweight Dennis Hallman faces Karo Parisyan in a battle of two MMA veterans who have 25 years worth of experience between them. For the 34-year-old Hallman, it will be his 62nd pro fight, at least according to one version of his record, though the true number is a little tougher to pin down, even for Hallman. Now, in the second installment of MMA Fighting’s new feature “My First Fight“), Hallman looks back at his initial foray into the sport that would one day become his career.

In the winter of 1995 Dennis Hallman got a strange phone call. He didn’t know what to make of it at first, though in retrospect it probably changed the course of his life.

“There was a kid named Bobby Jacobsen who was a couple years older than me, and he was sending videotapes into [MMA organization] Battlecade of himself sparring and fighting and stuff,” Hallman remembers. “He got my number from someone in our high school and he called me up and said, ‘I want to fight you on tape.’ I was like, what? You want to fight me? For what? I don’t even know you.”