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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. Trigg essentially dictated where and when the fight occurred, and Vitale had no response whatsoever. 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. The CompuStrike stats clearly underscored Triggs superiority in the fight, giving him a lopsided 41 to 7 edge in strikes landed.

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. Still feeling the effects of the liver shot, Morgan ate another hard punch to the solar plexus and gasping for breath was forced to tap out under the barrage of strikes.

UFC 92 was a high impact affair, with Rashad Evans defeating Forrest Griffin by TKO to win the light heavyweight title and Frank Mir knocking out Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to claim the UFC interim heavyweight title. The event had been dubbed The Ultimate 2008 and every one of the main cards six matches ended via TKO.

While nominally taking subordinate status to the Evans/Griffin main event the most shocking result by far was Frank Mir’s second round TKO stoppage of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Nogueira was the overwhelming favorite coming into the fight and had never been stopped inside the distance during a career where hed faced the best of the best: Fedor Emelianenko (three times), Josh Barnett (twice), Semmy Schilt and Mirko Cro Cop among many others.

Mir, meanwhile, had been on the verge of a full time move to the broadcast booth before his victory over WWE superstar turned MMA fighter Brock Lesnar. The conventional wisdom concerning Mir was that hed never fully recovered from a serious motorcycle accident in 2004 and that he was essentially a shot fighter physically, emotionally and psychologically.

Gracie family patriarch and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu pioneer Helio Gracie died in early 2009 in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 95. Its impossible to overestimate his influence on martial arts, and particularly his pathbreaking role in what is now the sport of mixed martial arts. The Gracie family name will forever be synonymous with Brazilian sports, jiu-jitsu, MMA and the UFC–not only due to Helios own accomplishments but the legacy he created both by training others and through his family.

Helio Gracie began his training in mixed martial arts early, and by his teenage years was already teaching judo. While he had no problem mastering the theoretical aspects of judo, he found that many of its techniques were less effective for a practitioner with a smaller build. Along with his brother Carlos, Gracie began to work out his own fighting system by adapting many of judo’s techniques and making them more a product of leverage rather than brute strength. This led to the creation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), frequently called Gracie Jiu Jitsu in his honor.

Gegard Mousasi looked to be on his way to a submission loss to DREAM’s self styled gator, Ronaldo Jacare, midway through the first round of their middleweight GP final match. Jacare had been successful keeping the fight on the ground, though Mousasi was able to fend off a submission. Jacare then made a fateful decision, standing up and looking for a big punch. He never knew what hit him and by the time he regained consciousness Mousasi had his hand raised as the DREAM Middleweight Grand Prix champion.

Jacare tried a Superman punch over the upkicks of the lanky Mousasi, who after missing with the first nailed his second kick perfectly and left the Brazilian knocked out cold. It was the Dutch fighters 2nd upset victory of the night, as he had submitted powerful Melvin Manhouf earlier in the event.

Jacare looked awesome in quickly dispatching of tough Zelig Galesic quickly with a slick armbar. It appeared that he was well on the way to the championship before a tactical error”and a well placed kick”changed the course of the fight.

The toughest decision a boxer of MMA fighter will face in his career is deciding to hang up the gloves. Boxing history is rife with top notch fighters that hung around too long, and in a sure sign that its matured as a sport MMA is now experiencing the same phenomenon. After his punishing knockout loss to Melvin Manhoef at DREAM 4 it has become apparent that the time has come for Japanese fighting legend Kazushi Sakuraba to retire.

Mixed martial arts is booming in America, but there’s not one specific fighter responsible for its upswing in popularity. That’s not the case in Japan, as Sakuraba is almost universally acknowledged as having brought MMA to the mainstream of Japanese sports and popular culture. In particular, his on-going feud with Brazil’s Gracie family made him a major superstar and national hero.

Sakuraba’s record definitely justifies the high regard in which he’s held, but the reality is that he’s done nothing to build on his legacy for a number of years. His last really impressive win was over former UFC light heavyweight champ Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, but he hasn’t even defeated a credible opponent of any sort since his 2003 win over Kevin Randleman.

Ever since he burst onto the MMA scene with a shocking first round KO upset of Jens Pulver at UFC 63, Joe Lauzon has been working to earn respect. For some reason hes had trouble being taken seriously as a top contender in the UFCs lightweight division. He may not fit the classical profile of a fighter, looking more like a fresh faced kid and is often referred to as a geek due to his educational background in computer science. In the main event at the UFC Ultimate Fight Night in Tampa, Lauzon withstood a game challenge from late replacement Jeremy Stephens to earn a 2nd round submission victory.

Lauzon was in control of the fight throughout, but Stephens gave a good account of himself despite his opponents obvious technical superiority on the ground. Stephens wasn’t able to match up with Lauzon’s ever improving BJJ skills, but he used good old fashioned tenacity and some powerful punching to keep the fight competitive throughout. Lauzon appeared to be on the verge of ending the fight midway through the second with a ground and pound assault that he attempted to transition into a rear naked choke. Stephens fought back with a vengeance despite his disadvantageous position and opened a nasty cut on Lauzon’s forehead with an elbow strike.

Rashad Evans didn’t scream about demanding respect in his prefight interviews because hes smart enough to know that respect must be earned. He earned it and then some with a devastating 2nd round TKO of Chuck Liddell in the main event of UFC 88.

If Evans needed any more validation of how little respect he was getting, he could have taken a look at the UFCs text message prediction poll of the main event which favored The Iceman by a whopping 81% to 19% margin. Or he could have listened to the UFC announcers, who had all but penciled Liddell in for a return to light heavyweight title contention after his inevitable victory. Instead of complain, Evans let his fists do the talking and with a perfectly placed overhand right will likely never have to worry about a lack of respect again.

From the opening horn, Evans showed no fear of Liddells once legendary power. Instead, he danced and moved (which was dumbly criticized as showboating by the UFC announce team), using his slick footwork and speed to dart in and out of range of Liddells punches.

The oldest fight sport adage in the world is ’styles make fights’. For that reason, no one knew quite what to expect in Saturday’s WEC Interim Lightweight Championship battle between Donald Cerrone and Ben Henderson. Henderson was known for his dominating wrestling skills, while Cerrone has a reputation as a punishing striker. Instead of being a clash of styles, however, it was an instance where the differing approaches of the two competitors complimented each other perfectly. The result was a ‘fight of the year’ candidate bout that Henderson won by unanimous-decision.

Henderson opened the fight with a takedown, but quickly got caught in a guillotine choke attempt. He extricated himself from this predicament only to find himself in a triangle choke that appeared for a moment to be a potential fight ending submission. That would not be the case, however, and Henderson would take control in the last half of the round with his powerful takedowns and ‘ground and pound’ punching assault.

Rounds two and three were all Henderson, as he took Cerrone down almost at will and began to pummel him on the ground. Cerrone managed a couple of submission attempts from the bottom, and did what he could to keep Henderson off of him with upkicks but nowhere near enough to salvage either round. At times, Cerrone looked downright clueless as to what tactical approach to take.

From a business standpoint, the UFCs first trip to Germany will clearly fall short of their success in the UK. From poor ticket sales to a downright hostile German media, its been one headache after another for Dana White and company. That was all forgotten thanks to an entertaining if somewhat uneven fight card highlighted by a spectacular main event between Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva. Franklin would ultimately win the unanimous decision victory, but the fight itself far exceeded the expectations of most fans.

For the most part, Franklin picked Silva apart throughout the course of the fight (to quote UFC color commentator Joe Rogan) and deserved the unanimous decision verdict. What made the fight exceptional were the occasional glimpses of the old Axe Murderer. Late in the second and third rounds, Silva tagged Franklin with hard punches that left him clearly stunned.

Many fighters are involved in MMA nowadays. This sport is a very exciting and intriguing field since it involves different aspects of fighting. MMA basically involves different combat sports ranging from boxing, teakwando to jiu jitsu. It has continually evolved during the past decade. This can be attributed to the different people who have competed in MMA. MMA fights are very exciting since it brings different martial arts together. There are estimated to be multiple MMA events on a daily basis. It has changed how combat sports are done since many people are competing from different martial arts. For example, boxers are cross training to study jiu jitsu so that they would have both a striking and grappling game. This would serve to give them advantage. MMA fights are dangerous when people competing lack the necessary knowledge and technical information on how to compete. People could be stunned or incur dangerous injury when one would lack the proper training. That is why a lot of people involved in MMA have taken it seriously and have dedicated long hours of training so that they would be developed tremendously. MMA has changed how people view combat sports. Unlike traditional wrestling, mixed martial arts is very serious and requires real abilities on how to defend one’s self.