23+ hour, 11+ min ago   (818+ words) He ducked the jab, closed into a body lock, trapped an arm and hoisted Jessie Rosas clean off the canvas before driving him head first into the mat. Rosas was unconscious on impact. The three punches that followed were mostly…...

6+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1154+ words) Amsterdam born, Tunisian on his father’s side, Dutch on his mother’s. Thirty-four years old and fighting out of Connecticut. Baby Face Assassin, and the face still does most of the work in selling it. Twenty-seven professional kickboxing wins. Three swings…...

6+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1183+ words) Most fighters spend a decade grinding through regional shows before anyone in Las Vegas learns their name. Tommy Gantt did it in a little over a year, and he did it while working a full-time job coaching college wrestlers on…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (958+ words) Brazilian Welterweight out of Rio de Janeiro. Twenty-eight years old, 5 ft 9 in, orthodox, and a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who came up under the Nova União banner before shifting his base to Canada. His professional record sits at 8-2, with seven…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (913+ words) He is not a late bloomer and he is not an overnight arrival. He is a man who has been in the same gym for a decade. Darby was 14 when his brother joined the local kickboxing club in Clongriffin and…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (658+ words) Andrusca did not come to combat sports late. He started in sambo as a kid, moved into freestyle wrestling, and stayed there for years while quietly building toward something else. He has said the switch to mixed martial arts was…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (979+ words) Jonny Parsons spent years in the corner before he ever got his own walkout. He was the Muay Thai coach at one of the busiest gyms in Las Vegas, holding pads for fighters who were living the career he wanted,…...

2+ week, 16+ hour ago   (640+ words) The nickname is Thai Panther, and there is nothing clever behind it. She hits like a Thai fighter because she is one. It worked faster than anyone expected. She had a local fight at fourteen. By sixteen she had made…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago   (1112+ words) Kropschot went to San Ramon Valley High School, and for a while that arrangement worked out fine for everybody. Then it stopped working. He was scrapping in car parks and hallways and stairwells, and the school ran out of patience....

2+ week, 2+ day ago   (753+ words) He credits his high school coach, John Hatfield, with drilling in the work ethic that everything since has been built on. Then came the part of the story most fighters skip past. Klein went 7-1 as an amateur and won a…...