March 2012

I pop open the top, tap out two, no, three Advils from the almost empty bottle, and wash them down with a glass of water. It’s a regular occurrence these days and a sure sign that my body simply doesn’t recover from workouts as fast as it did in my youth. It’s this realization that [...]

Finding the gate to Dan Henderson’s driveway in the darkness of the rolling hills around Murrieta, California, is harder than his chin. There are four cars and a white camper in the lot outside of a big house with a wooden stairway that leads up a separate entrance, but it’s dead quiet when a shadowy [...]

He was 16 years old when he made up his mind. One day it just happened, like something inside him ignited all on its own and couldn’t be extinguished. You can almost picture him now— a skinny high school kid, bright-eyed and eager, with that same familiar smile only sitting beneath a full head of [...]

Do you know who Zach Makovsky is? Not ringing a bell? Google “Bellator Bantamweight Champion.” His mug should be front-and-center. Zach Makovsky keeps a low profile. He’s the guy who tends to his opponent after the fight instead of straddling the cage. He’s the guy who answers questions with careful consideration, while his peers unleash [...]

Shannon Ihrke As if we needed another reason to love our military even more—Shannon Ihrke is Minnesota Nice and a former U.S. Marine to boot. This 23-year-old blonde bombshell is a straight shooter who would make Carlos Hathcock proud and has us shouting “OOH-RAH! Thank you MARINES!” What was it like growing up in Minnesota? [...]

VERBAL JAMBALAYA ENERGY OVERLOAD “If you think about it, it’s a very real interaction between two human beings, and it’s like an energy. You have a real energy, really, and I have an energy—an energy that nobody else is going to share.” —Gina Carano to Conan O’Brien on why MMA is like sex. R-E-S-P-E-C-T “I’d [...]

BRINGING COUNTRIES TOGETHER, ONE BEATING AT A TIME. GLORY DAYS United Glory—the promotional arm of Golden Glory gyms—will host a show in Moscow, Russia, on March 23 that will feature both MMA and K-1 fights. While the promotion has a reputation for not delivering its projected line-ups, Semmy Schilt and Sergei Kharitonov are scheduled to [...]

COOL KNOWLEDGE FROM THE WORLD OF MMA SON OF A GUN For all future UFC events (not those just on FOX), fighters are prohibited from being sponsored by companies related to guns, knives, ammunition, and hunting. SLICE & DICE Charles Oliveira’s calf-slicer submission over Eric Wisely at UFC on Fox 2 was the first time [...]

WE’RE NOT DOCTORS, WE JUST PLAY ONE ON TV. COMING TO GRIPS WITH IT Want to increase your forearm and grip strength like Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout? Grab a rope and start climbing. You can also work your shoulders, back, arms, and core by doing timed-hangs, weighted rope climbing, hanging leg raises, and pull-ups. [...]

A lot of people were criticizing your gameplan against Nick Diaz. Do you think part of the problem was that you didn’t put the exclamation mark on him like you have so many other opponents? I think there are a lot of different reasons why people aren’t happy with it, but yeah, that’s one of [...]

Former collegiate wrestler Chris Weidman has always known how to trim off a few pounds, but when UFC matchmaker Joe Silva called his Long Island home in January with the offer to fight Demian Maia in less than two weeks, he knew without looking at the scale that this would be the largest weight cut [...]

When things heat up between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber on this season of The Ultimate Fighter, it won’t be “Made for TV” tension. UFC Bantamweight Champion Dominick Cruz and number one contender Urijah Faber have a long history together—a rivalry that stretches back five years—and it won’t be resolved until the two fighters meet [...]

Chin-ups are not only a fantastic way to increase the size and strength of your arm and back muscles, but this posture-improving exercise can also predict a lot about your athletic potential. Chin-ups utilize more upper-body muscles than most exercises, and they are one of the best tools to assess your relative body strength, which [...]

Follow these guidelines to blast through your plateaus and find your best performance yet. The topic of strength in sports has become a hotly debated topic in recent years. Some coaches believe that you can never be strong enough, while others believe strength is largely overrated. For those that train in combat sports, they know [...]

Combat Worthy Combos As a former United States Marine, Team Gaspari athlete Brian Stann knows a thing or two about combat. A recipient of the Silver Star for his actions on the battlefield, and the former WEC Light Heavyweight Champ, Stann has firmly established himself as a formidable competitor in the UFC’s Middleweight division. Look [...]

Planning your St. Patrick’s Day green beer fest already? Have fun, but keep your training on track by knowing the effects. How exactly do those festive libations become the reason you can’t walk straight by the end of the night and get a splitting headache in the morning? Alcohol makes quite the tour of your [...]

Nashville, Tennessee, is a city where dreams thrive or die. It has long been famous as a proving ground for talented—and not-so-talented— musicians and singers to determine if they have what it takes to make it on the world’s biggest stage. While Gilbert Melendez has never fancied a career as a country musician, the Strikeforce [...]

Their nicknames may get you laughing, but LMFAO is training to party…and they know it. Sky Blu isn’t laughing right now. Actually, he’s in a little bit of pain. Home from an extensive tour in support of LMFAO’s gold-certified sophomore set Sorry For Party Rocking and performing during the halftime show of the Super Bowl, [...]

THE ART OF THE FREE HAND One of the most popular martial arts in China is Sanshou, a combat system that focuses on hand-to-hand self-defense. Other than catching a fleeting glimpse of Cung Le scissor-kicking an opponent on ESPN3 at 4 a.m., it’s a sport that most Americans are not familiar with. You know how [...]

Lighter in the pocket equals lighter on the scale. There has been a lot written about Anthony Johnson’s complete failure to come close to making weight for his UFC 142 fight against Vitor Belfort, just as there was when “Rumble” failed to make weight at UFC 104 for his fight against Yoshiyuki Yoshida. At UFC [...]

Erin Hansen Age: 30 Height: 5’7” Hometown: Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada Favorite Fighter: Anderson Silva On the Web: modelmayhem.com/erinehansen What got you interested in MMA? Rich Franklin. He is the reason i started watching it. i think most girls would agree! But now my favorite fighter is Anderson Silva. He is Amazing! What was is [...]