Ronda Rousey attracted many spectators to Mixed Martial Arts. Obviously, with the help from Dana White, she created a following for and an interest in viewing women fight in the UFC.  Since early childhood, Ronda’s mother, AnnMaria De Mars, has been an extremely influential part of her life. Especially, in terms of being heavily interested in and practicing Judo. De Mars has won a World Judo Championship in 1984. Ronda began practicing Judo with her mother at the age of eleven years old. Then, at the age of 17 she won a Gold medal at the World Judo Juniors Championships. Eventually, Rousey was an Olympic Judo Bronze medalist in Beijing in 2008.

Keep Reading

Heather

Combat Sports & Martial Arts Writer| Partnership Marketing and Digital Strategy Lead (Combat Sports)
I have been an avid viewer of Boxing and MMA for decades. I have had an interest in MMA since 2001. I had a 25 year career in healthcare, and now I am pursuing my hobby. I enjoy writing about combat sports and martial arts for FightMatrix.

www.fightmatrix.com

Mark Kerr was born in Toledo, Ohio on December 21, 1968. He’s a down to earth person and a well known former heavyweight champion of the UFC. Even prior to joining the UFC and starting his MMA career, Kerr was good friends with Mark Coleman – another early UFC heavyweight champion.  Coleman was a big influence on Kerr and is one of the reasons that Kerr decided to practice mixed martial arts.

Keep Reading

Heather

Combat Sports & Martial Arts Writer| Partnership Marketing and Digital Strategy Lead (Combat Sports)
I have been an avid viewer of Boxing and MMA for decades. I have had an interest in MMA since 2001. I had a 25 year career in healthcare, and now I am pursuing my hobby. I enjoy writing about combat sports and martial arts for FightMatrix.

www.fightmatrix.com

Former two-time UFC Heavyweight champion, Tim ‘The Mainiac’ Sylvia was one of the original big men of the Octagon.  At 6’8″ in height he was one of the tallest individuals to compete in the UFC at the time. Prior to entering the Octagon, Tim Sylvia won several local tournaments in Iowa, defeating multiple opponents on the same night on two occasions.

Sylvia came into the UFC with an undefeated record. Additionally, he won his first UFC fight with Wesley ‘Cabbage’ Correira due to Technical Knockout (TKO) when Cabbage’s corner threw in a towel, which happens to be quite an infrequent situation. Only on three other occasions has a UFC fight been stopped due to a corner throwing in a towel mid-round.

Keep Reading

Heather

Combat Sports & Martial Arts Writer| Partnership Marketing and Digital Strategy Lead (Combat Sports)
I have been an avid viewer of Boxing and MMA for decades. I have had an interest in MMA since 2001. I had a 25 year career in healthcare, and now I am pursuing my hobby. I enjoy writing about combat sports and martial arts for FightMatrix.

www.fightmatrix.com

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), primarily the UFC, is littered with well-educated people. It’s common for people to think that the UFC is just a lot of people with more muscles than brains, but these fighters break the stereotypical mold.

Wanting to finish a degree is a common thing for many people. You could pay people to do your homework, and getting HW for money may be used as an easy way to land a degree. I’d hire someone to do my homework if I could spend more time training. It’s not wrong to pay someone to do my homework if I’m too busy preparing for a fight.

These MMA fighters demonstrate that having a degree as a fallback position is an excellent choice for an athlete. Being a competitor means learning more about the world around you. According to Angelina Grin, a writer and editor at Studybay, certain fighters’ academic backgrounds have likely played a significant role in defining their strategic approach to combat, allowing them to predict and neutralize their opponents’ moves with pinpoint accuracy.

These fighters are well-trained athletes, but they never neglect their mental abilities in favor of it. Let’s look at some of the most educated UFC/MMA fighters.

Keep Reading

When it comes to Irish MMA stars, there are none as exciting as Conor McGregor. Back in 2014, he managed to defeat Diego Brandao at the Dublin O2 Arena. At that point, he became a famous name in the MMA scene, and went on to become the very first “Champ Champ”.

At that fight in 2014, five different Irish MMA fighters managed to win their matchups as well. At this point, it looked like Irish fighters were going to become the biggest names in MMA, but since then we haven’t seen the same success from them. This has been especially disappointing for those in the betting scene, who were hoping to see more from Irish Fighters. Irish bookmakers seen at Betfree.ie offer betting on pretty much every MMA event, but unfortunately at the moment not many Irish stars are listed. With MMA becoming a bigger deal and no one in betting, Irish punters want to bet on the home fighters.

Now though, there are several different MMA fighters who are looking to replicate that success and become the top names in the sport. Here are just some of these fighters that you need to be watching right now.

Keep Reading

These days, it’s not enough to hold a title in a major MMA organization.  Why not two? Hell, Anatoly Malykhin is currently simultaneously holding the middleweight, light-heavyweight, and heavyweight titles at ONE Championship. And so every new major title holder seems to ignore the realities of defending their freshly won divisional title, preferring to immediately chase the ‘champ-champ’ status.

This craze began with Conor McGregor becoming the first UFC champion to hold title belts in two divisions at the same time.  There have been others before him, though none simultaneous. In this article, we will look back at every fighter who has held more than one divisional title (whether simultaneous or one at at time) in the UFC history, in chronological order. Interim titles count; tournament titles do not.

* indicates titles held simultaneously

 Randy Couture

Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture was a pioneer of MMA in many ways.  One of the first well-rounded fighters who sucessfully utilized more than one discipline, Couture was also the first fighter in the UFC to win multiple titles. The Natural made his UFC debut in 1997, winning the UFC 13 Heavyweight Tournament. He then defeated young ‘Phenom’ Vitor Belfort in a title eliminator, before capturing the UFC heavyweight title with a decision win over Maurice Smith. Couture never did defend that belt, vacating it amidst a contract dispute with UFC, which saw Randy going to fight over in Japan for a period of his career. Upon returning to UFC in 2000, Couture immediately won back the heavyweight title and defended it twice.

After dropping two fights at heavyweight, the aging Couture decided to try his luck at 205 lbs. Making his light-heavyweight debut at UFC 43, Couture stopped Chuck Liddell in the third round for the Interim title (the real title having been held by Tito Ortiz at the time), becoming the first man in UFC history to win title belts in two different divisions. Couture unified the belts in a routing of Ortiz, but then dropped it in a rematch with Vitor Belfort, due to a cut on the eyelid of Couture caused by the very first strike thrown by Belfort. After winning the title back from Belfort, Couture lost his next two battles to Chuck Liddell and retired from the sport.

Couture’s retirement didn’t last long: a year later, he returned to the heavyweight division, shocking the world with a dominant decision win over a much larger man in Tim Sylvia. Randy defended the heavyweight title once, before losing it to Brock Lesnar.  He didn’t fight for another title after.

Keep Reading

The UFC has seen some truly incredible fighters over its storied 31-year history, but only the best of the best have been able to see periods of sustained dominance over an entire weight class. While there is plenty of nuance that goes into a long win streak in the UFC, namely the quality of opponents, at some point a run of victories becomes so long that we as viewers have no choice but to appreciate greatness. The UFC, with its 625 million fans, is a top-viewed combat sport. This popularity has brought in online sports betting brands, giving fans a fun way to be part of the action.

A quick note before we get started, six fighters are technically tied for 4th place. Demetrious Johnson, Max Holloway, Islam Makhachev, Georges St. Pierre, Jon Jones, and Khabib Nurmagomedov all have recorded 13 fight win-streaks. Still, we’ve decided to highlight just the below that we think come with important caveats that put them above the rest.

Keep Reading