Should The UFC Use A Minor League System Like MLB?

The other day a friend of mine and I were talking about the up and coming talent of the UFC and even though there are some good ones coming up there isn’t a lot of them. To fix this issue the UFC could start creating smaller organization throughout the U.S. to help raise, train, and harvest the best MMA fighters for the big show.

Self Sufficient Clubs

By Jillian Bullock

Although several MMA fighters, including Vitor Belfort, Kenny Florian, Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, Rich Franklin, Chris Leban, Cung Le, and Nick Diaz, fight as southpaws some of these guys were born a lefty and some are “deliberate southpaws.” They taught themselves to fight as southpaws because they found it to be an advantage to their mixed martial arts career.

Looking back in history, however, many cultures considered a person evil if he was left-handed. In fact, in Latin the word for left is sinister. Over the years the stigma surrounding being  left-handed grew. Re-education of lefties was promoted by everyone, including clergy, parents, the media, and others. And how many adults can remember growing up and attending Catholic school where nuns swatted their knuckles if they even reached for a pen or pencil with their left hand? Today, with ten percent of the population being left-handed the stigma has waned in most countries. And in sports, especially boxing and martial arts, being a southpaw can be advantageous.

Unless you have been under a rock it is likely you have heard about the death of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il. Although he was a very strange leader and had strange personal habits he always took his safety very seriously. He demanded that he have the toughest and most skilled bodyguards who trained all their waking hours to protect the eccentric leader.

This video from Lifeleak.com shows the regimen of the bodyguards which is built around becoming a rock like the comment by one man saying we hit things from the moment we got up until we went to sleep. They also have something over President Obama’s bodyguards in that I bet the U.S. bodyguards don’t practice dodging ‘shuriken’ commonly referred to as throwing stars. Check out this video to see the incredible work of Kim Jong-il’s bodyguards.

Over at Jeff Joslin’s blog he wrote a terrific on a mount grappling drill.  Most of us have experienced the basic grappling drill where you start off in a mounting position on top of your training partner.  You then have a specific amount of time and the fighter on the bottom works to free themselves and the one on mount works to keep the mount position.  When the time period is over the one who stayed in their starting position the most will win the drill.  This is a pretty basic drill in any wrestling practice that yields a great deal of learning and understanding on the part of the wrestler’s in the drill.

However, there are ways that you can shake this MMA Training drill up and make it more challenging and this is the part of the post that got my attention.  Jeff points out 4 different variation that you can do to spice things up when the original drill gets boring.  A couple of them are: Have the person on mount apply a submission hold as opposed to staying mounted.  The second variation is allowing the person on bottom to score when they get to 1/2 guard rather then to a full escape.  Third, is to switch and change the amount of time of the drills duration.  Fourth and last is to allow for a point system.   You can see the full article to see an example Jeff gives.

By Jillian Bullock

When people look at MMA champions Georges St. Pierre, Jon Jones or Anderson Silva, many MMA fans, commentators and reporters believe they are pound-for-pound the greatest mixed martial arts fighters in their division. Many also believe that since they are superbly dominant as fighters and they have the ability to go through each opponent who stands before them that there are no other MMA fighters who can actually beat these amazingly talented warriors during a bout.

The 29 year-old Welterweight champion, St. Pierre, 22-2, hasn’t lost a match since 2007. To understand how impressive St. Pierre is as a fighter, it should be noted that he has not lost a round, not one round, in over three years. What St. Pierre has going for him other than his unrelenting MMA cardio conditioning, which includes gymnastics in his regimen, but his striking game is superior. He is also considered one of the most disciplined athletes in the world, which helps St. Pierre stay focused even when his opponents trash talk him. He doesn’t give in to the mind games.

By Dennis Fratella

We all know ways to cut for a fight. Whether that is an easy way, hard way, as long as you weigh in at what you’re fighting at, that’s the ideal goal for fighting. Right? Not so much.

We’ve all seen fights where someone just doesn’t look like they’ve got anything strength-wise, and perhaps could be a result of that cut, and it usually is. I have a couple of suggestions to keep the weight off, while not compromising strength or your workouts, which probably go overlooked while cutting, and still getting you to weigh in right:

Always try to keep the high-glycemic carbs (sugars, breads, cereals) separate from the low-glycemic carbs. In fact, research is now suggesting that high-glycemic carbs while cutting is not the best route because it has been said to lower your blood sugar levels, resulting in quick depletion of glycogen (carbs in your muscles), making you tired – a lot faster.

By Jillian Bullock

When it comes to MMA training to become a top notch fighter the old way of training has become obsolete. Utilizing only basic weights, treadmills and elliptical machines have become old school. To build optimal strength and conditioning, along with the skills necessary to excl in Muay Thai, Jiu-jitsu, boxing and grappling, mixed martial artists must always look for new and different forms of exercises and equipment to aid their training skills and help them reach the next level in their fight career.

Below are some of the best pieces of equipment to help increase your strength, power, speed, agility, and endurance, along with transforming your body into an elite athlete and a MMA fighter, which will give you an edge over your opponent.

By Jillian Bullock

There’s no denying that mixed martial arts fighters, males and females, are some of the toughest athletes in the world. When they prepare for a match it’s like they are going to war. To match the intensity their body will have to endure to prepare for a fight most MMA practitioners also realize that nutrition is a vital part of their training process and proper foods, along with vitamins and supplements, will help repair muscles, strengthen joints, reduce injuries and illness, and help them with recovery.

Why Nutrition Is Vital

Written By: Jillian Bullock

Whether you are an amateur or professional MMA fighter there is no getting around the dedication you must have to prepare your mind and body to face off against an opponent in the ring or cage. It is no secret that mixed martial arts is one of the most demanding and challenging sports out there, and leading up to a competition takes a great deal of preparation, especially if you want to win.

It’s amazing to think that MMA was just a baby 10 years ago. MMA has moved from a little-known sport to a billion-dollar industry. The roots of this exploding sport is found in Brazil’s Vale Tudo and Japan’s Shoot-fighting. When the Ultimate Fighting Championships came on the scene in the early 90s, spectators got to witness fighters from different styles competing with no time-limits, no weight classes, and almost no rules. Since then, the UFC has risen to the top as the premiere organization in the sport. Rounds, referees, and safety rules have been created to make MMA a safe and legitimate combat sport.

Striking & Grappling