Who was Andy Hug?

Andreas "Andy" Hug was a superstar Swiss karate fighter who lived from September 7, 1964 - August 24, 2000. Andy was the first karate fighter to win the K-1 Grand Prix, which he did in 1996. K-1 is hands down the best kickboxing organization in the world. He was runner up in 1996 and 1997.

Hug was revered by the Japanese public, who admired his courage as he usually was the smaller fighter in the ring against much larger kickboxers. He was nicknamed "Blue Eyed Samarai" by the Japanese. Outside of K-1, Hug fought in numerous full contact karate matches, winning various titles around Europe and Asia.

His trademark axe kick was perfected to epic proportions as you will see in the highlight reels below. Andy also possessed a brutal spinning back fist, and nasty spinning high kicks and low kicks. In his last big K-1 match on June 3, 2000, he defeated Mirko "Cro Cop" Filopovic at K-1 Fight Night in his native land of Switzerland. Sadly, Hug died of leukemia a short time later. He was rewarded an honorary samurai title by K-1 founder Kazuyoshi Ishii and was considered to be the bravest K-1 fighter of all by the Japanese public.

Hug notched K-1 wins over all the top K-1 stars in Jerome LeBanner, Musashi, Mike Bernardo and Masaake Satake; K-1 Champs Ernesto Hoost, Peter Aerts, Branco Cikatic, Ray Sefo; and UFC Champ Maurice Smith. He even KO'd Duke Roufus of Roufusport.

Video of the Day - Too Small

Here is a highlight video of the lightweight division created by Bestrafer7.

Video of the Day - Chuck Liddell

Here are some Chuck Liddell highlight videos.

Vid of the Day - "What is Muay Thai"

Muay Thai uses hands, shins, elbows, forearms and knees extensively. It's elements are used frequently in MMA. Check out this video, it is pretty entertaining.

Video of the Day - Art of War

This video shows highlights of Art of War 6. Will it be the next Pride?

Paul Buentello v. Alistair Overeem

Profile by the Blaster

Paul "The Headhunter" Buentello (23-9) possesses brutal knockout power and has plenty of KO's on his resume, as does fellow kickboxer Alistair Overeem (25-11). Both have got definate power on their feet. On November 16th the Strikeforce heavyweight title will be up for grabs. All of Paul's 23 wins have come via KO or submission, an he has won four straight. As Alistair is also a kickboxer, don't worry about the fight hitting the ground, check out what Paul said on mmafighting.com,

MMAFighting.com: Do you see any scenario at all where this fight could end up on the ground at some point?

Paul Buentello: I don’t know. I’ve never taken anybody down in over thirty matches so I’m not looking for a takedown.

Don't know about you, but this is a fight that I am excited to see. Paul Buentello has wins over Tank Abbott, a vicious KO of Justin Eilers (18-6), Bobby Hoffman (36-10), Rueben Villareal, Carter Williams (3-2), Mike Kyle (9-5), Kevin "the Shaman" Jordan (9-5), Andy Montana (18-10), and the late Gilbert Aldana (6-2). (3-1) UFC record.

Alistair Overeem is a powerful kickboxer who stands tall at 6'5". He has fought at 205 and heavyweight, probably giving up around 25 pounds to Buentello. He has some notable victories over Bazigit Atajev (16-1), Michael Knaap (14-12), 2 times against Vitor Belfort (16-8), an aging Igor Vovchanchyn (16-9), Roman Zentzov (16-11) and split with Sergei Kharitonov (15-3). The knock on Overeem as that he tires out after the first few minutes. I am pretty sure he will be bringing his A game despite going 4-6 in his last ten fights (all losses to top notch opponents).

Here are some highlights:
Official HL


Scott999 from Sherdog

Happy 14th Birthday UFC!

Happy Birthday by the MMA Blaster

The UFC was officially born on November 12, 1993, when Teili Tuli had his tooth brutally knocked out of his mouth. Ken Shamrock broke Patrick Smith's leg that night with a heel hook, and afterwards Ken was choked out by Royce Gracie. Royce took that first tournament with ease. It was the first mainstream broadcast of mixed martial arts to the United States. At this point it was still "no holds barred" or NHB. At that point, everything was legal except biting, attacking the eyes and attacking the groin (legal in UFC 2). It is good that the rules have made the sport safer, but I hope the various states keep MMA as close to a real sport as possible.

Happy birthday UFC, lets see 14 more years.



Royce Gracie Highlight


*It is also the 14 year anniversery of Art Jimmerson wearing one boxing glove to fight Royce Gracie. Don't think this tactic has been duplicated since.