In his second fight in just over a month, Frank Trigg dominated tough veteran Falaniko Vitale wire to wire en route to a unanimous decision victory at Strikeforce: Payback. Trigg looked very sharp in easily handling Makoto Takimoto in Tokyo at Sengoku 4 on August 28th, and his victory here was every bit as impressive. Aside from a 2nd round takedown, Vitale mustered precious little offense and spent most of the fight trying to counter Triggs sharp striking and takedown attempts.

In the co-main event, Duane Bang Ludwig earned an explosive TKO win over Sam Morgan. After an evenly contested first minute, Ludwig quickly took control with a series of Muay Thai knee strikes which set up a perfectly placed bodyshot to the liver that floored his opponent. Ludwig quickly pressed his advantage and never gave Morgan a chance to recover.

In perhaps the most entertaining bout on the card, highly touted Billy Evangelista survived his second big scare in as many fights to remain undefeated. After a split decision victory over Nam Phan in June, Evangelista found himself in grave danger of a TKO loss early in his bout with tough veteran Luke Caudillo. Caudillo”who goes by the nickname Lil Hulk”opened the fight with a flurry, knocking Evangelista to the canvas three times in the opening minute. Via some combination of wits and toughness, Evangelista managed to survive the barrage and began to take over the fight late in the round with his superior technical striking.

As the rest of the fight unfolded, Caudillo made the mistake of becoming a headhunter looking for a KO punch which allowed Evangelista to take over the fight. Evangelista continued to score with crisp combinations and as the bout progressed demonstrated his superior conditioning”a major factor at the high altitude of the Broomfield, Colorado fight venue. Evangelista would eventually earn a unanimous decision victory though the 30-27 score awarded by one judge was questionable considering that he spent the first half of round one being bounced around the cage like a beach ball.

A highly anticipated womens match took place early in the evening, with former Hooters waitress Michelle The Karate Hottie Watterson easily defeating an overmatched opponent in Tyra Parker. Parker, whod lost her pro debut six weeks ago, may have been rushed back into action too quickly but she came out fighting gamely swinging for the fences with wild, powerful punch attempts. Watterson easily figured out her opponent, however, and The Karate Hottie quickly took over with her more disciplined striking approach. The dnouement came when Watterson landed several big knees from the clinch, took her opponents back and locked in a rear naked choke for the tapout win.

The event marked Strikeforces first visit to Colorado, and another in a series of very entertaining fight cards. Scott Coker and his team deserve a lot of credit for their matchmaking”even in the lower card fights they have a knack for putting together bouts that more often than not are exciting and competitive. Strikeforce is a well managed, first rate promotion that is definitely going places.

Ross Everett is a widely published writer specializing in mixed martial arts, judo, soccer betting, falconry and fantasy role playing games. He is a well known expert on sports betting and has made countless TV and radio appearances. He lives in Las Vegas with his Asian houseboy, three Jack Russell Terriers and a retired racing wombat.

The bizarre career path taken by Croatian striking machine Mirko Cro Cop will continue on New Years Eve in Tokyo as he faces 72 Korean kickboxer Hong-Man Choi in what should be the final addition to the K-1/DREAM combined show called Fields Dynamite!. The matchup adds even more striking firepower to a lineup that already includes K-1 mainstays Peter Aerts, Mighty Mo, and Semmy Schlit along with top DREAM fighters including Shinya Aoki, Joachim Hansen, Eddie Alverez and Gesias JZ Calvan Calvacante.

For Cro Cop, its another stop on what has seemed like a meandering professional course full of much talk and little action since his departure from the UFC. In September 10, 2007, Cro Cop had just won PRIDE’s Open Weight Grand Prix in dominant fashion.

Cro Cops upset UFC loss to Gabriel Gonzaga changed that tune and his career his never really recovered. In what was supposed to be a “tune up” bout, Gonzaga smothered Cro Cop and roughed him up on the ground before unleashing his own version of Cro Cop’s.

Since the loss to Gonzaga it has been almost impossible to keep up with the various twists and turns in Cro Cop’s career. After another UFC loss, this by unanimous decision to Cheick Kongo where Cro Cop looked listless and gun shy, his management announced that he had suffered a broken rib in the first round and was having trouble breathing.

Its been an eventful year for Hong Man Choi as well. 2008 began with a loss to Fedor Emelianeko on the Yarrenoka New Years Eve event, in which the Russian fighting god briefly struggled with Choi’s 7′2″ 330 pound frame before submitting him. In April, he joined the Korean army for his compulsory military service only to be relived from his duties after medical tests discovered a brain tumor. The tumor was removed in June, and Choi was back in the ring in late September.

Tanikawa’s comments notwithstanding (and with the realization that they may be as much storyline as anything else) Choi is really the same as hes always been. Hes a physical mismatch for any opponent and while his striking style is awkward at best, it has proven to be reasonably effective. His reach is insane, and his size allows him to get a ridiculous among of leverage from his knee strikes.

This fight isn’t about competition as much as it is about commerce. Cro Cop remains one of the most popular foreign fighters in Japan, and with the proven success of freak show matchups this may have been the most attractive opponent for him from the promotions standpoint.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer and respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former energy secretary Donald Hodell.

Not too long ago, Mark Coleman headlined UFC 109 facing Randy Couture. Several days later, he’s apparently no longer good enough to remain in the UFC at all. On Wednesday, following a lopsided loss to Couture the UFC released Coleman from his contract and cut the veteran heavyweight. Coleman is now free to sign with any other promotion, but at 46 years of age his most likely-and most advisable-course of action is retirement.

Coleman became the first UFC fighter to be cut immediately after headlining a PPV event. Others have left due to drug test failures or for other opportunities, but none have ever been cut from their contract. Sources close to the UFC suggest that it was a decision no one wanted to make, but that all felt was unavoidable due to Coleman’s age and deteriorating skills.

While the fact that Coleman is a shell of the fighter he was at his prime, the UFC’s suggestion that they have his best interest at heart is somewhat duplicitous. He was kept around and booked into last Saturday’s fight-a fight that no one particularly had any interest in seeing in the first place-simply because he was a fighter that Randy Couture could beat. Were the UFC interested in the well being of their aging fighters there’s several others on the roster that should also be cut for the same justification as Coleman. Couture, Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell are all well past their prime but they’re still under contract and will all likely fight again.

Coleman’s age has never been a secret and his diminished skill level was evident to anyone who has watched his recent fights. If the UFC was really interested in his physical well being, the main event against Couture should have never taken place. The fight itself wasn’t exactly one that UFC fans had been clamoring for and one that met with derision from the MMA media from the time it was announced.

While retirement would be in Coleman’s best interest, he may attempt to fight in a smaller US promotion or in Japan where he’s well known from his time in PRIDE. He’s already a member of the UFC Hall of Fame with a 26-10 career record and has fought the best in the world including Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko Cro Cop. He has a family and kids so his best future would be out of the ring but few fighters have been able to make a clean break from the sport.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer and respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

One of the stranger sports stories of the past is that of Rick Ankiel. Ankiel became a vital cog in the starting rotation of the 2000 St. Louis Cardinals and as a lefthanded pitcher possessing both velocity and wicked breaking stuff his upside was unlimited. As the playoffs began, injuries had decimated the Cards starting rotation forcing Tony LaRussa to use Ankiel as the game 1 starter against the Atlanta Braves and their ace, Greg Maddux. In the course of an inning, it all fell apart for Rick Ankiels career as a starting pitcher. In the third inning of game one, working with a 6-0 lead, Ankiel allowed 2 hits, 4 walks and 5 wild pitches before being pulled with two outs. Initially, he wrote it off as a bad outing until history quickly repeated itself in game 2 of the NLCS against the NY Mets. He threw only 20 pitches in that game, 5 of which went past catcher Eli Marrero. For the next several years he tried to fix the control problems that suddenly manifest themselves on baseballs biggest stage but was unable to do so. Compounding the frustration of Ankiel and his team was the fact that his control problems werent physical or mechanical, but strictly psychological.

Andrei Arlovski has experienced the opposite problem”after starting his career as the Belarusian wildman who devastated opponents with his aggressive, free swinging style and KO power he suddenly gained too *much* control. After trading victories with Tim Sylvia and two short, explosive and exciting bouts, a rubber match was scheduled for UFC 61 and during the fight disaster struck: Arlovski all of a sudden became a tentative and boring fighter. The five rounds looked like a boxing match, only without all of the punching as Sylvia and Arlovski tentatively exchanged jabs. This inevitably benefited Syliva with his freakish reach, and he won the bout by unanimous decision. The real losers were the fans, and Sylvia/Arlovski 3 is quick to be mentioned when talk turns toward the worst championship bouts in the history of MMA.

After a layoff of nearly 6th months, Arlovski returned to the octagon and scored a first round KO of overmatched Marcio Cruz. Another snoozefest ensued at UFC 70, where he decisioned Fabrico Werdum. Arlovskis contract with the UFC was up about this time and Zuffa management quickly made clear that they had no interest in resigning him.

During the past few years many questions have been raised about Arlovskis desire to continue his fighting career and several retirement rumors have made the rounds. The premise underpinning this talk goes like this: Arlovski is more interested in enjoying his newfound fame and wealth after his difficult youth and adolescence in Eastern Europe. Hes got more money than hes ever dreamed of and a nice life in his adopted hometown of Chicago.

Arlovski insists that hes anxious to continue his MMA career and has enlisted the services of one of boxings best trainers, Freddy Roach. Roach has been charged with trying to find a middle ground with Arlovski, somewhere between the wildly reckless style of his early career and the tentative, plodding style of his recent fights. Furthermore, Arlovski has also appeared to have trouble letting his hands go of late and if Roach cant fix these problems no one can. Theres even been talk of Arlovski pursuing a career as a heavyweight boxer which makes a good deal of sense. Arlovskis more tactical striking game would serve him well in the sweet science and the wide open heavyweight division means that he could quickly put himself in a position of a contender.

Baseball fans know that the Rick Ankiel saga has taken a positive turn of late. After giving up his pitching career in 2005, Ankiel transitioned to the outfield and has reached the major leagues *again* at his new position. Maybe this is the type of change that Arlovski needs and one that boxing would afford him. Despite a solid fundamental groundfighting base (Sambo, wrestling and BJJ) Arlovski has never shown much of a desire to take the action to the mat. It could also be the case that MMA has passed him by”dont forget that he entered the sport along with one dimensional fighters like Ricco Rodriguez, Wesley Cabbage Correira and Vladmir Matyushenko. While on paper Arlovski has a well rounded game, for all practical purposes hes a standup specialist. Unlike some of the other fighters that the rapidly changing sport has left behind, Arlovski has the youth and the skill set to transition into boxing where his standup skills would serve him well. It could be that Arlovski still has the heart and desire to fight, but needs to change sports to get back to a championship level of competition.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and noted authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

Being a mixed kung fu skills fighter takes more than talent. You also have to have all the proper MMA gear both for coaching and for competition. The amount of gear you purchase will depend upon what gear is available at the gymnasium and whether you want to train at all at home. Most training gyms will have all of the larger gear you want, for example the grappling dummies and heavy pads. You will have to get the smaller stuff, like your gloves, clothing, head gear and pads. The way in which you select the gear all is dependent on what you want and how cosy they feel on you.

The protective MMA gear that you’re going to need for coaching and competition are gloves, groin protectors and head and mouth guards. These all are necessary for any fighter, with no regard for his talent level. Most of this gear is reasonably self-explanatory when it comes to choosing them. You just go with what fits and feels comfortable. The only one that is different is the gloves. You are going to want separate gloves for training than you’ve got for fighting. The explanation for this is as the coaching gloves generally are bigger in shape than the contest gloves. Having separate pairs will make for better fighting.

For training, you might want to think about using knee and elbow pads. This is optional MMA gear, but it is the best way to protect yourself from injury before you actually get into the ring. You do not want to get hurt in practice because you thought you were too good to wear protective pads. Another optional gear is handwraps. Many people wear these in place of gloves during training because they feel they are more comfortable. Also, it gives them the break to really feel their competitor, which many wrestlers like.

If you are not already net savvy, shopping online for MMA Clothing and Fight Gear can be an overpowering process. Fortuitously though, it does not have to be. I’ve written this guide to assist in easing you thru the process of choosing the right online MMA retailer to shop with the first time, so that your web shopping experience is a good one.

Select an online store with a big choice of product. If you’re like me, you do not need to have to buy at 3 different net stores to find everything that you would like. I really like to pick a major retailer ( or 2 maximum ) and stick with them throughout the buying process.

Let’s accept it for most of us price is something that we need to consider. When shopping on the net, it’s very advantageous to your wallet to be conscious of the price tag as it can ( and actually does ) vary significantly from site to site.

Not all corners of the Net are regarded as equal. When buying online, be sure to read about the retailer on their “about us” page and learn all you can. It may also be useful to look up reviews in the major search engines, and spend some time surfing gear & equipment forums. Spending even only a few mins to analyze can really tell you a lot about a company, and whether you would like to spend your hard earned money with them or not.

in general though, all MMA shorts have two things in common. Do your old gym shorts wick away sweat and moisture? Are they cut to boost your mobility for grappling? Have they got split seams making your striking vis knees and kicks more effective? Are you keen on getting your hands caught in pockets or a baggy pair of shorts while grappling? If you answered “no” to 1 of these questions, then that should be sufficient reason to speculate in a pair.

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I inspire anyone who needs to lose fat, build lean muscle and get into “fighter shape” to start to train with their own version of MMA work-outs. It isn’t surprising that MMA wrestlers all appear to have that lean, ripped, and athletic look, like Brad Pitt in Fight Club.

It’s imperative that we learn from these world class sportsmen. If you want to appear like an MMA fighter who’s in glorious shape, you actually have to be in excellent shape yourself. Unfortunately, we cannot cut corners and the only way to get a ripped MMA body is to put in difficult work via your own MMA-inspired exercise routines.

In my opinion, the ripped Hollywood look is the only one to go for. Big and bulky is going out of style. Generally, one can see from watching MMA athletes compete, that having barely less muscle mass is favorable to an impressive performance. These fighters have the perfect blend of power, explosiveness, endurance, and overall athletic ability.

If only strongman competitions were more conventional then bodybuilding then perhaps more mixed martial artists would incorporate better strength and conditioning exercises into their MMA exercise routines without the need of learning or knowing why.

One of the commonest mistakes MMA wrestlers make when the are new to the theorem of adding strength and conditioning to their MMA exercise programs is they carry around the perspective of a weightlifter. They go to the gymnasium thinking they need to do all sorts of exercises for each muscle group and the only method to get a productive workout in is to get a good “pump.”

But if you wanted a general concept of what kind of strength and conditioning you want to develop with your MMA exercise programs, then think of the type of exercises strongmen do : picking up heavy and awkward objects, carrying heavy weight for long distances, performing extremely strong and heavy lifts as many times as practicable in a certain time period, to name a few.

These types of exercises are more functional and carry over very well to MMA fighters when it comes to the sort of strength and conditioning they require. The explanation being is that in a MMA fight your opponent, unlike a balanced barbell, is a constantly shifting his ungainly weight that you’ve got to steadily push and pull from both balanced and unbalanced positions,eg the kind of resistance a heavy and awkward object would give you.

if you would like to be an MMA fighter, you must train like one. This indicates you will have to learn the elements of an MMA workout. Though self-defense skills has been around for hundreds of years, the game of mixed karate skills is still in its infancy. Mixed kung fu skills is growing big leaps with the increased acceptance of the ultimate Fighting Championship ( UFC ) and the real life TV show, The ultimate Fighter.

there are several facets to designing a good MMA workout for anybody looking to become a pro fighter, or for someone just hoping to get in shape. A good workout includes coaching in some, or all, of the following areas, conditioning, striking, grappling, wrestling, or submission talents. These talents can be both offensive and defensive in nature.

MMA training workouts MMA training workouts MMA training workouts

If you need to be an MMA fighter, you must train like one. This suggests you will have to learn the elements of an MMA workout. Though self-defense skills has been around for centuries, the game of mixed martial arts is still in its infancy. Mixed karate skills is growing leaps and bounds with the increased popularity of the final Fighting Championship ( UFC ) and the reality television show, The final Fighter.

There are many aspects to planning a good MMA workout for anyone looking to become a professional fighter, or for somebody just aiming to get in shape. A good workout includes training in some, or all, of the following areas, conditioning, striking, grappling, wrestling, or submission talents. These abilities can be both offensive and defensive in nature.

Professional MMA fighters are top-class athletes. The talents and conditioning that are required for mixed martial arts is hugely different than that of other sports. Many athletes from other sports have tried to cross-over into the MMA arena with minimal success. This is as skills in another sport, such as soccer, baseball, or basketball, don’t always interpret well into MMA. One of the most notable cross-over athletes is Brock Lesnar, a former university and professional wrestler.

Have you seen the bodies on the UFC fighters? Not one of them has an ounce of fat on them and they’re ultimate sportsmen. I didn’t think I could reduce my body fat and get one of those ultimate bodies. So I searched on the internet to find a program that would help me to reach my goal.

I never even suspected that I could find a workout program that would help reduce blubber with an MMA workout. When I discovered a site promoting an MMA workout, I was shocked to find out how even a regular guy could get the body of a final fighter. I figured these guys spent 8 hours a day, 7 days every week in the gym getting into shape.

Like you, I was holding onto a little more bag than I had wanted. My subcutaneous fat index was over twenty percent and I had the love handles. I believed, if I could reduce fat by doing an MMA workout, i would not only look better, but I would also have some fun and be engaged enough to keep going. After all , mixed martial arts is one of my fave sports.

I chose to jump in and get the program. After reading what the workout entailed, I was shocked to find out that many of the routines might be done at home without even stepping foot into a gymnasium This was great news, since my day job kept me working boring hours. And I was right, the workout was exciting and fun. Instead of running on a treadmill to try and reduce body fat, I learnt the simple way to build muscles that could actually help if I ever made a decision to step into the ring.

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One of the most important things a superior martial artist can have, inside the ring or out, is the gunfighter mentality. The best fighters, like BJ Penn and Rashad Evans, have this intuitively in their personality. The second place guys don’t.

Interestingly enough, the Gunfighter Mentality used to be part of the training in the classical martial arts. I remember training back in the middle of the last century, and everything we did was geared towards this ability. While there were many factors involved in the death of this principle, people like Bruce Lee probably drove home the spike.

Bruce Lee added circling and bouncing to the martial arts. The Gunfighter Mentality depends on stillness, being coiled like a snake, and here was this fellow acting like Mohammad Ali, circling and jabbing and destroying the mindset of the Gunfighter. Now Bruce Lee would have won most any fight anyway, but a generation copied him, and they gave up the deadly zen stillness of the Gunfighter.

Now stillness is what it is all about when it comes to true martial arts, and there are several good reasons or this. There was much interchange between karate and zen principles in Japan, and people practiced zen for long hours began to see the benefits of sitting, waiting, and cultivating silence. In the silence ones perceptions worked better, and their intuitive nature could take over.

When one is silent, just sitting, when one just relaxes, the senses begin to work better, and the world begins to open up. Try it, just sit in a chair comfortably and just relax for a while. The world will start to make itself known, tell you things, and you will become brighter, sharper, calmer.

Once the student begins to appreciate that his perceptions, and thus reactions, will work better, the real work can begin. In the silence we used to corkscrew our stance downward, into the ground, and search for the best set of the leg, the best position to spring from. In the silence we would examine the angle of the hip and the turn of the foot, trying to make every single part of our bodies into totally responsive and explosive mechanisms.

Freestyle matches, instead of moving all around and wasting energy, would be subtle shifts of the body and edgings toward the opponent. Instead of throwing a hundred punches, most of which missed the target, we would set up to throw one punch, but every ounce of our might would be instilled in that one punch. Most important, we left the training hall as different people, aware people, patient people.

The Gunfighter Mentality in the martial arts is pretty much unknown now, and it is too bad. I believe that if the fighters of today began building the characteristics of a good Gunfighter the Martial Arts would take a turn for the better. This might not be good for mixed martial artists in such places as the UFC, however, as the techniques might become too dangerous to be used.

Al Case has examined martial arts for forty years. A writer for the magazines, he is the originator of Matrixing Technology. You can get his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.

So here are 10 interesting facts you may not know about the UFC.

1. Original promoters of the Ultimate Fighting Championship wanted to include such sensational side shows as alligator moats and electric fences surrounding the ring. UFC Doctors of course warned against them due to the dangers the fighters could face.

2. The UFC was founded by Rorian Gracie and Arthur Davie. It was created to promote the Gracie family’s martial arts school. Before the UFC the Gracie’s were known for inviting fighters of any style to compete against a member of the family or one of their students to prove that Gracie jiu-jitsu reigned supreme.

3. Originally Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that purchased the UFC, was only going to hold one UFC event. The event was so successful they immediately began to plan more tournaments. Good thing it was so successful.

4. With the exception of UFC 9, every UFC up until UFC 18 used the tournament style format. UFC 23 also used this format. Eight fighters would compete to start out the tournament. The four winners would then compete in semi-final matches. The two semi-final winners would compete for the championship belt. If a fighter could not continue at any point an alternate was brought in to take his place.

5. Early on the UFC would hold events in states without athletic commissions to avoid regulations. In the beginning there were no judges either. When judges were added eventually there were no clear parameters on how to judge the fight.

6. For the first couple UFC events, the referees had very little power. They could not even stop a fight. There only purpose was to make sure that the few rules that existed were enforced. The only rules at that time were no biting, fish hooking, eye gouging or throat strikes. Fortunately after the first few events refs were allowed to stop fights.

7. In 2000 SEG and the UFC almost went under. The face that SEG marketed the sport as brutal and bloody almost led to the UFC’s demise. Luckily an amateur boxer and promoter named Dana White convinced the Fertitta brothers to buy the failing organization. The UFC has since flourished to unbelievable heights.

8. Dana White managed Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz in the early days of the UFC. He also owned three gyms in the Las Vegas area.

9. After many years of “bad blood” Dana White and Tito Ortiz were going to settle things in the ring with a 3 round boxing match on March 24, 2007. Surprise, surprise the fight never happened as Tito Ortiz was a no show at the weigh ins.

10. In 2006 the UFC generated $222,766,000 in revenue, braking the PPV industry’s all time record for a single year of sales, surpassing wrestling and boxing. The largest events reached nearly 800,000 viewers.

I bet you didn’t know some of those facts!

If you a fan of The Ultimate Fighter show TUF then make sure you check out ufcultimatefighter.com. UFC Ultimate Fighter for MMA Videos and MMA news.

Mixed Martial Arts gladiators circling the octagon, searching for the chance, and, BAM, somebody is punched out. The roaring crowd, the price of the ticket, the cost of good brewski, it is all worth it if you can see a good knock out. What most people don’t realize is that a good knock out, given a little thought and hard work, is actually easy.

Four decades ago, in Kang Duk Won Korean Karate my instructor told me that A tight fist is a heavy fist. Man, that was just what the doctor ordered! Just curl the fingers into iron bands, tie them together with a thick thumb, and, zingo bingo, you have yourself a board breaking fist.

The trick, of course, is to be totally relaxed before, and to be totally empty after. This is the idea of focus, and if you understand it you can knock an opponent all the way out. Hard to do it the way they put fists in gloves before a fight, but there it is.

imagine it like this, a radar station is scanning the open skies for incoming targets, it is scanning, and what would happen if the radar screen suddenly filled up with static? The radar operator wouldn’t be able to find the incoming targets for all the static. So when you make yourself loose and empty, and make your fist totally relaxed, you are trying to get rid of the static, make it so you can see what is going on around you.

Then, your perceptions picking up the path of an incoming fist, the emotion, the very intention of the attacker, your fist will move faster because it is empty, and it will hit harder when it becomes tight. Muscular tension will not bind your motion and slow down your fist, and it will fly fast, your radar will better help it find the target. The moment of truth and your fist gets tight, and that increases the weight and mass of the fist, making it hard enough to knock somebody unconscious.

So there are two things a fighter, whether in the UFC or on the street, must do if he is going to get knock out power. The first, of course, is to be empty, loosey goosey, not tied in place by his own muscular tension. This frees the inner radar to pick up the attack, and enables the MMA fighter to move faster because he is not thinking of his body as weighty and heavy.

The second thing is to tighten the fist upon impact, and loosen it immediately afterwards. This is real microsecond stuff here, but it is guaranteed to work. The energy focuses, the power comes to bear, and that which was empty and quick suddenly becomes full and heavy.

If you are an MMA fighter in the UFC or strikeforce, or even a spectator, think about the physics I have described here, and figure out how to use them in your strikes. Empty/full is actually a classical concept from traditional Karate, and it is used extensively in the ancient Shaolin types of kung fu like Hung Gar or Choy Lee Fut. Emptiness and focus, these are the keys that will lay anybody out for the ten count!

Al Case has dissected Kung Fu for 4O++ years. He has written hundreds of articles for the magazines, and had his own column in Inside Karate. You can pick up a free ebook at Monster Martial Arts, or get the straight skinny on hitting harder at Punch ‘Em Out