Video: Steven Seagal talks about his students, Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida

What would MMA do without Steven Seagal? Obviously, Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida would not be the fighters they are without the sensei/movie star/border patrol agent/shooting-glasses-wearer/writer/director. Seagal talked about how important he is to MMA on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Skip to a minute in to hear him talk about the skills he imparts to his students.

He will probably be an eighth-degree black belt one day, but come on. He can't teach Silva and Machida everything he knows.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/video-steven-seagal-talks-students-anderson-silva-lyoto-194704586.html

Yoshihiro Akiyama  Gilbert Aldana  José Aldo  John Alessio  Houston Alexander

American Top Team mining NCAA wrestling for talent

Though most of the people who set attendance records at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in St. Louis last week were fans, at least one attendee was there to look for up-and-coming talent. Ricardo Liborio, the leader of American Top Team in Florida, headed to Missouri to find the best athletes who want to make the transition from wrestling to MMA.

Cagewriter spoke to Liborio, who has worked with such fighters as Thiago Alves and Tyron Woodley, about why he is looking to wrestling to find his next great star.

"The endpoint is to recruit guys who are done with their careers as a wrestler. Probably senior guys who want to start their MMA career. Some guys are not making it through their careers, the guys who couldn't make the Olympic team. And, we're open. I have some offers for athletes, depending on their caliber of what they can bring to the table. Guys like Bubba [Jenkins], we're recruiting, we're negotiating, and we're willing to invest in them. We're building them from the ground up," Liborio said.

He said he's been looking to wrestlers for years, but attended the NCAA championships for the first time last year. There, he watched Arizona State's Bubba Jenkins win a national title. Not long after, Jenkins joined ATT, where he's won both of his fights with a submission.

Liborio says wrestlers make great fighters because of the culture of the sport.

"Work ethic, athletic ability, but mental toughness of keep going, don't quit. The culture of other sports, that's not as exalted as it is in wrestling. There are great athletes with a great work ethic who are tough. They compete every weekend, they cut their weight."

ATT has created a boot camp of sorts to help athletes who have excelled in wrestling transition to MMA, but it works best when future fighters will open themselves up to learn.

"Those guys who understand they're learning a completely different discipline. Learning, striking, ground game. We have it right now as a science. All those guys who came from just wrestling and go into a kind of boot camp that makes them much better fighters."

Though several wrestlers will pursue Olympic gold this summer or in 2016, most will not make the team. With ATT and other camps looking out for wrestlers, they have a way to "go pro" in their sport.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/american-top-team-mining-ncaa-wrestling-talent-202037235.html

Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe Cyril Abidi 

Dana White?s video blog explains TUF and McCall/Johnson draw

Dana White's latest video blog answers many of your questions about the latest season "The Ultimate Fighter," including how last season's premiere was very different from how the rest of the season will run. You'll also see that the UFC championship belts are sharp.

It also takes you behind the scenes in Australia, including a dissection of the Ian McCall/Demetrious Johnson debacle. The two are expected to rematch at the TUF finale in June. You'll get to see White tell McCall and Johnson separately about the draw.

As always, plenty of NSFW language when White is involved.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/dana-white-video-blog-goes-explains-tuf-mccall-135113490.html

Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe

Spend a year with Grudge training center in new web series

Unless you're training for a fight, it's hard to understand the ins and outs of an MMA gym. Even people who train part-time struggle to know just how difficult the days and weeks are for fighters working full-time to prepare for a bout.

With that in mind, MMA Fighting's Ben Fowlkes decided to spend a year with Grudge Training Center in Colorado. Home to Shane Carwin, Brendan Schaub and Nate Marquardt, Fowlkes worked with head trainer Trevor Wittman to get an inside look at what happens in an MMA gym over the course of year, and chronicle it in the must-read series, "The Hurt Business."

What Fowlkes didn't anticipate was how eventful 2011 would be for Grudge. Marquardt went from a UFC contender to unemployed after failing to pass medicals for his UFC on Versus fight in June. Schaub's red-hot streak was stopped by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in August. Carwin lost to Junior dos Santos in June and then did not fight again in 2011 because of injuries.

Fowlkes spoke to Cagewriter, and admitted he had no idea how the year would turn out when he first spoke to Wittman.

"I chose Grudge for two reasons, really. One, Denver is close enough to where I live in Montana that I could get down there often enough," Fowlkes said. "And two, Trevor Wittman was the only trainer I talked to who seemed as interested in the idea as I was. The others I mentioned it to were like, 'Yeah, that would be cool project...for you to do at someone else's gym.'"

It was in those many days spent at the gym where Fowlkes, who has covered MMA since 2006, truly gained an appreciation for what fighters do on a daily basis.

"I feel stupid for admitting this, but I think what surprised me the most was how much work fighters put in before they ever do the work that actually gets them paid. You see Brendan Schaub in the gym two months before his fight with Cro Cop, and he's at work. This is his job. And yet, no one's paying him to be there. If he decides to blow it off for a day or two, it's on him. If he does all the work as best he can in the gym and then loses, it won't even matter to a lot of fans, because they didn't see what he went through just to get to the fight. It's one of those things where you know, intellectually, that they're working hard in the gym before a fight. But until you see that grind day after day, it's hard to really appreciate."

Fowlkes originally hoped to write a book out of his time with Grudge, but decided it would work better as a web series. In the first installment, he wrote about Grudge in January of 2011, when everything seemed to be humming along smoothly for Wittman and his fighters. As the series unfolds, readers will learn about a year that was anything but typical.

"[Readers] should expect a lot of change, for one thing. Grudge at the end of the year was nothing like Grudge at the beginning. They should also expect the story to move around a lot, to UFC 128 in New Jersey in the second installment, to Vancouver for the Shane Carwin-Junior dos Santos fight, and even to Brazil for Schaub's fight with Nogueira. We're also going to get more into the economic realities of the gym, who's paying who, and how much, and how that causes friction. Of course, Nate Marquardt's whole situation with TRT and getting fired from the UFC will be covered. And there's also some stuff about the lesser-known fighters at the gym, the ones who are struggling to make their way and finding out how tough it can be."

Follow Ben Fowlkes on Twitter for updates on "The Hurt Business." Follow Cagewriter, too.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/spend-grudge-training-center-series-160411650.html

Dean Amasinger  Jimmy Ambriz Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè 

ONE FC: ?War of the Lions? to Air Free on YouTube

Singapore: ONE Fighting Championship? (ONE FC) is excited to announce that CEO Victor Cui has decided to extend a gift of appreciation to all MMA fans around the world by broadcasting the entire, star-studded fight card for ONE FC: War of the Lions on March 31 free-of-charge on the ONE FC YouTube Channel.

Source: http://mmafrenzy.com/28055/one-fc-war-of-the-lions-to-air-free-on-youtube/

Gilbert Aldana  José Aldo  John Alessio  Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida 

Spend a year with Grudge training center in new web series

Unless you're training for a fight, it's hard to understand the ins and outs of an MMA gym. Even people who train part-time struggle to know just how difficult the days and weeks are for fighters working full-time to prepare for a bout.

With that in mind, MMA Fighting's Ben Fowlkes decided to spend a year with Grudge Training Center in Colorado. Home to Shane Carwin, Brendan Schaub and Nate Marquardt, Fowlkes worked with head trainer Trevor Wittman to get an inside look at what happens in an MMA gym over the course of year, and chronicle it in the must-read series, "The Hurt Business."

What Fowlkes didn't anticipate was how eventful 2011 would be for Grudge. Marquardt went from a UFC contender to unemployed after failing to pass medicals for his UFC on Versus fight in June. Schaub's red-hot streak was stopped by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in August. Carwin lost to Junior dos Santos in June and then did not fight again in 2011 because of injuries.

Fowlkes spoke to Cagewriter, and admitted he had no idea how the year would turn out when he first spoke to Wittman.

"I chose Grudge for two reasons, really. One, Denver is close enough to where I live in Montana that I could get down there often enough," Fowlkes said. "And two, Trevor Wittman was the only trainer I talked to who seemed as interested in the idea as I was. The others I mentioned it to were like, 'Yeah, that would be cool project...for you to do at someone else's gym.'"

It was in those many days spent at the gym where Fowlkes, who has covered MMA since 2006, truly gained an appreciation for what fighters do on a daily basis.

"I feel stupid for admitting this, but I think what surprised me the most was how much work fighters put in before they ever do the work that actually gets them paid. You see Brendan Schaub in the gym two months before his fight with Cro Cop, and he's at work. This is his job. And yet, no one's paying him to be there. If he decides to blow it off for a day or two, it's on him. If he does all the work as best he can in the gym and then loses, it won't even matter to a lot of fans, because they didn't see what he went through just to get to the fight. It's one of those things where you know, intellectually, that they're working hard in the gym before a fight. But until you see that grind day after day, it's hard to really appreciate."

Fowlkes originally hoped to write a book out of his time with Grudge, but decided it would work better as a web series. In the first installment, he wrote about Grudge in January of 2011, when everything seemed to be humming along smoothly for Wittman and his fighters. As the series unfolds, readers will learn about a year that was anything but typical.

"[Readers] should expect a lot of change, for one thing. Grudge at the end of the year was nothing like Grudge at the beginning. They should also expect the story to move around a lot, to UFC 128 in New Jersey in the second installment, to Vancouver for the Shane Carwin-Junior dos Santos fight, and even to Brazil for Schaub's fight with Nogueira. We're also going to get more into the economic realities of the gym, who's paying who, and how much, and how that causes friction. Of course, Nate Marquardt's whole situation with TRT and getting fired from the UFC will be covered. And there's also some stuff about the lesser-known fighters at the gym, the ones who are struggling to make their way and finding out how tough it can be."

Follow Ben Fowlkes on Twitter for updates on "The Hurt Business." Follow Cagewriter, too.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/spend-grudge-training-center-series-160411650.html

Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe