Then and Now: What has changed in MMA since 2005?

A long term dynamic develops in every sport that sticks around for a while. A section of the fan base will inevitably compare the play of today to their heroes from yesteryear.  Whether it is the baseball fan that longs for the day where they didn’t have to worry about someone using performance enhancing drugs after every home run, or the football fan that yearns for the era of hard hitting and less complaining in the NFL. One thing is a common factor; this group wishes things would go back to

Georges St-Pierre is medically cleared to fight, will battle Condit at UFC 154

Georges St-Pierre will return to the Octagon on November 17 in UFC 154, in Quebec, Canada. The WelterWeight champion will face UFC Interim Champion Carlos Condit. The Welterweight Champion has been cleared by doctors to start fighting again.St-Pierre wrote on his Facebook page today: “Yesterday was the final chapter of my road to recovery, I’m now medically cleared to compete in professional mixed martial arts.”With his ACL surgery behind him and receiving his medical clearance, St-Pierre can return

The five biggest UFC bouts that never happened in 2012

Obviously 2012 has been a year that held huge potential for MMA. While I wouldn’t say it was a horrible year for fighting, the insane amount of injuries and other controversy that wrecked cards is unprecedented. From main events all the way down to preliminary cards, we saw an unheard never of fights shifted, canceled, and just generally thrown into the muck. UFC 151’s cancellation was just the icing on the cake in what was the weirdest year MMA has ever seen.  And it’s not over yet. Let’s take a look

Can Ronda Rousey carry WMMA on her shoulders?

Ronda Rousey will step into the Strikeforce cage this weekend to defend her Women’s Bantamweight for the first time this Saturday night. Facing former champion Sarah Kaufman, Rousey will look to extend her incredible streak of brutalizing first-round submission victories. However, there will be much more at stake than just another win for her. If she does win with her signature move, her popularity as the new face of Women’s MMA will skyrocket for certain. WMMA has been lacking in a certain star quality

Dethroning Silva: Could one of these five fighters have what it takes

Anderson Silva (32-4) is the reigning UFC Middleweight Champion. He has been called “a mutant”, a “freak of nature” and “the greatest martial artist of all time”. With 15 straight wins in the UFC spanning over 6 years, the question I am most often asked by fans, fighters and fellow scribes is “What is it going to take for someone to defeat Anderson Silva?”
There is no quick or easy answer. A shift up and down to the wrong weight class could be his undoing, likewise age could start to catch up with him, but

Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson gets his coaches approved for The Ultimate Fighter

Roy “Big Country” Nelson is slated to be a coach on the newest installment of The Ultimate Fighter against Shane Carwin, which begins taping in a few days for a September broadcast. Unfortunately for Nelson, he had been having a hard time getting his coaches approved.Nelson told MMAWeekly: “I’m excited. I’m just over here hoping that I can actually bring all my coaches that I want to be my assistant coaches and bring on. I might just have to do it myself. You never know. I don’t

Thumbs Down: 5 fights that didn’t happen in 2012

It is midway through 2012, and it seems to be a bad year for injuries in the UFC. Five important fights have been cancelled or postponed this year due to injury, surgery, illness or suspension. These things are all part of the fight game and have been since day one. The nature of the sport is brutal, but injuries are not isolated to fights. Most fighters suffer their injuries in training.  As well-rounded as a UFC fighter is expected to be, it is quite easy to “overtrain”, that is, put the body

Where Are They Now? 2007 Pound-for-Pound Rankings Edition

Where Are They Now? A Look Back At The 2007 P4P RankingsIt’s truly amazing to see how fast the landscape can change in a sport that continues to grow as rapidly as MMA does. It’s been 5 years since 2007, which in this sport is practically a generation bordering on an eternity. And yet without fail, our surroundings are once again drastically different from what they were. Jon Jones, Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz, Frankie Edgar and Ben Henderson are all newly prominent parts of the p4p picture,