Fighter Spotlight

Philadelphia has always been known as a fi ght town. It’s where Bernard Hopkins was born and raised, where Frazier trained to fi ght Ali, and the same place Rocky Balboa ran up that endless staircase before fi ghting Apollo Creed for…

Octagon Iraq

In this Octagon, you will fi nd no bigname sponsors, no high-paying advertisers, and no sexy ring girls holding signs to announce the next round. What you will fi nd are raw materials, raw talent, and raw ambition. This particular Octagon…

Affliction

Many business principles translate across industries, but that doesn’t mean all businesses are the same. However, casual clothing company Affl iction will attempt to make the jump from apparel to fi ght promoting on July 19 at the…

The Real Chuck Liddell

I returned from an eight-day NFL Pro Bowl trip, checked out my house, which I believed had been vacant following a raucous Super Bowl stint, and suddenly felt I was Kato Kaelin-ized. I opened the door to the master guest room in my house…

Don Caballero

Inside the Palms Resort and Casino, the crowd roared when Clay Guida fl oored Roger Huerta with a fl urry of strikes, but Huerta’s world was silent. “I was out for the fi rst three to fi ve seconds. Everything was red,” he…

Brazil Part 1 – Great Masters

On June 7th 1494, at the Treaty of Tordesillas, in an act of monumental hubris the nations of Spain and Portugal divided up the known world outside of Europe. Spain got everything west of the Cape Verde Islands and Portugal got everything…

Living The All-American Dream

His start should go down in MMA lore. First Lieutenant Brian Stann, US Marine Corps, was winding down his fi rst tour of duty in Iraq. Although he was in the midst of war, with the threat of death around every corner, he could not help but…

Rising Son

But sometimes, a fi ghter and trainer can make a connection that transcends the pettiness and the ugliness of such a seedy business. It starts when an old pro sees something in the young man standing before him, something that everyone else…

Backstage At The IFL

The calm before the storm. An hour before showtime at The Izod Center, in a spartan backstage locker room just big enough for two warm-up mats and couple of tables, twenty people congregate. The mob includes the six men who will be fi…

The Basement Legacy

“It’s gonna be crowded tonight,” a skinny guy in glasses says in an almost indecipherable language known as Bostonian. Eighteen students sprawl around a former basement apartment in various stretching positions, preparing…