21+ hour, 28+ 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, 13+ 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…...

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, 2+ day ago   (744+ words) Iranian born, Canadian based, and heavier now than he ever was in a judogi. Javad Mahjoub is 35, stands 6ft 1in and carries his frame at the top of the Heavyweight limit. Five professional MMA fights, five wins, three of them stopped by…...

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, 14+ 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, 1+ 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, 1+ 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…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (802+ words) He is not a prodigy and never pretended to be one. That work ethic had to carry him a long way, because the early results were grim. Anheliger turned pro in December 2010 after a short amateur run and lost. He…...