The MMA Exchange Program

When I was a youngster dabbling in various martial arts in the pre-MMA era, I would sometimes visit a school and meet folks whose sole presence there - at that school, in this city, and even in this country - was to train, train, train. Get to the academy early and maybe you'd catch them rolling up their sleeping bags, or if you were one of the last students out the door maybe you'd witness them giving a far corner of the mat an extra wash because that's where they'd soon rest their head. There were Japanese kids here to study aikido or judo, there were folks from the West Coast staying for the month, and when BJJ came to town there were Brazilians crashing on the mats at Renzo's. Forget your usual semester abroad program - this was the version where you got ringworm in lieu of hooking up with chicks in the dorm, but damn did you get good at your art. Nowadays, the proliferation of fight promotions has spurned the growth of the "MMA exchange program", where fighters are brought in from far off lands to mingle with the local talent. Thanks to Renzo's ties with Gracie Barra back in Brazil, chaps like Delson Heleno and Fabio Leopoldo have competed here in the States, and when I interviewed Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro at his NYC school a couple weeks ago he mentioned bringing in some boys from Nova Uniao as well. And now we have Jorge "Macaco" Patino's Gold Team Fighters, which has a school out in Newark and is stocked with all sorts of vale tudo dudes from the old country. We on the East Coast have been blessed with some tough homegrown fighters who've mixed high school or college wrestling chops with submission savoir faire and striking. But with the MMA exchange program now in full effect, the status quo looks like it's about to get seriously shaken up.

Gegard Mousasi Joins Team Up-Kick

What do Renzo Gracie, Murilo Bustamante and Gegard Mousasi all have in common? They all like like their scotch aged and their steaks medium rare! Also, they've each won big with up-kicks! In fact, Mousasi won the DREAM middleweight grand prix in Japan earlier today with an up-kick knockout over jiu-jitsu deity Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza (thanks to Sherdog.com for the play-by-play). Who knew that when Gracie put Oleg Taktarov to sleep with the technique and Bustamante sent Jerry Bohlander to dreamland with the move that they'd be paving the way for an Armenian warrior to counter world-class grappling with a well-timed foot to the face whilst lying on his back?

Underground Profile: Harley Flanagan

Don't let the road map of tattoos and the "crazed killer" appearance fool you - Underground Combat League veteran Harley Flanagan is really a nice guy. Albeit, a nice guy who likes to throwdown and punch people in the face. Well-known in hardcore punk rock circles as the front man for the band the "Cro-Mags", the 41-year-old took the MMA plunge last year, and though the Renzo Gracie-trained jiu-jitsu purple belt wound up battered and bruised, he was all smiles. Win or lose, Flanagan clearly loves the sport.