While the transition to fighting came easy for Jake Shields, his road to the top of the sport was anything but. For over ten years, Jake fought around the world in various mixed martial arts promotions and competed in hundreds of grappling tournaments, before finally signing with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. While he has dealt with an immense amount of adversity to get to this level of the sport - being broke, not having insurance, and raising a daughter as a single father - he has attributed his ability to succeed and overcome these obstacles to the strength and loyalty of his team around him. It is commonplace in mixed martial arts for fighters to switch gyms and change affiliatio...

As Jake Shields continues his move back to middleweight strength training remains a very important part of his rigorous workouts. The Ultimate Fighting Championship contender talked to Dylan Falduto about how an active vegetarian lifestyle has allowed him to successfully compete in multiple divisions. "Everything is going really good. I'm in the early fight prep. Just doing a lot of fundamental striking and wrestling. Lifting a lot of weights. I am trying to bulk up, because I am moving up a weight class." Along with strength and conditioning, Shields finds himself eating much more liberally as he prepares for his return as a middleweight. "I work out so much so I have ...

Combat Sports Club returned to the Santa Ana Star Center on July 28, 2012, for the Combat Sports Expo 2012 and Southwest Grapplefest 7. The event featured not only the regular regional grappling championships for men, women, and children of all ages and skill levels in both Gi and NoGi; but also showcased its first CrossFit competition, Westside Power Gym's Strong Man demonstration, and a mitts exhibition by Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA fighters Isaac Vallie-Flagg, Buddy Roberts, Tim Means, Travis Marx, Diego Brandao and Jodie Esquibel, with assistant striking coach Brandon Gibson. Combat Sports Club's declared core purpose is "to facilitate the safe development of its athletes an...

Fight Party, one of the south's longest running and most prestigious MMA promotions, will be the first sanctioned professional mixed martial arts fight to take place in Montgomery, Alabama when it invades the Convention Center on Saturday. Packed with five professional bouts, two advanced contests, and three amateur fights Fight Party is to be headlined by three-time Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Rodney "Shonuff" Wallace against Aaron "Tex" Johnson in the 185-pound division. The night's main event, which will put the organization's middleweight title up for grabs, is surrounded by rumors that a possible UFC contract is also on the line for the wi...

Take a look back at the world of mixed martial arts five years ago. Middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva was just beginning to create his legend within the UFC, televised MMA was a privilege not a right, and youth MMA was only a portion of what it is today. With the combative sports world continuously growing each day, read along as US Combat Sports Reporter Carl Lange recounts the firsthand observations he has witnessed within the fight scene on a handful of topics.