Khabib Nurmagomedov - Combat Sambo Russia

Khabib Nurmagomedov (28-0, 12-0 UFC) last defended his UFC title against Dustin Poirer at UFC 242 and is scheduled to defend his title against Tony Ferguson.

Here is Khabib showing off his ground game in combat Sambo:

Rampage Jackson Power Bomb and Finish

Here is Quentin "Rampage" Jackson in his second official pro MMA fight which took place on 5/13/00 at the Huntington Beach Underground Pancrase Organization against Marco Bermudez.

While Bermudez never fought again, he sure does have a cool story. After the fight Rampage would lose a decision to Marvin Eastman before rattling off 8 straight and establish himself as the explosive power phenom he was at the peak of his powers.

Tai "Bam Bam" Tuivasa v. Brandon Sosoli

Here is up and coming heavyweight prospect Tai "Bam Bam" Tuivasa fighting Brandon Sosoli at AFC 16 which took place in Melbourne, Australia on 6/18/16.

Tuivasa (8-0, 3-0 UFC), a former pro rugby player, currently trains out of the Lions High Performance Centre and has 7 T/KO's in the first round on his resume. His recent decision victory over Andrei Arlovski was his biggest to date, even if some disagreed with the judges. He takes on Junior Dos Santos next at UFC 142.


Tuivasa drank a shoey after he KO'd Cyril Asker at UFC 221.

Ronda Rousey

Here is UFC women's bantamweight champ in a behind the scenes look at her cameo in the coming Entourage movie. After dispatching Miesha Tate and crushing Sara McMann, the UFC star will get some acting work in.


Why are they making an Entourage movie? Your guess is as good as mine. I thought the show had a couple great seasons, a couple mediocre seasons, then got very stale. The Chuck Liddell appearance in the series was one of the better cameo's. Drama got, got.

Wow, video already pulled, I'll guess I'll put a video up of her discussing it. If I were producing an Entourage movie, I'd want as much publicity as possible.

Marco Ruas – MMA Legend

By new MMA Blaster Contributor Scott Salem


Bad management is why he’s not a household name in the world of mixed martial arts. Bad management is why he never really sold a lot of UFC tickets.

Of course, he could have done both of those things if he had a manager who believed in him.

The mixed martial artist in question is the great Marco Ruas. He had just 15 professional fights and all but one occurred after his 30th birthday.

“I feel mad for that. I wanted to fight more fights.”

His professional record is 9-4-2. His was 4-2 in six UFC bouts.

His shining moment occurred in 1995 when he won the tournament competed at UFC 7: The Brawl in Buffalo. He did so by defeating Larry Cureton, Remco Pardoel, and Paul Varelans.
Ruas made Cureton and Pardoel tap out. He then captured the tournament title with a TKO of Varelans. Varelans is seven inches taller than the 6’1” Ruas and outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds.

In December, at Ultimate Ultimate 1995, Ruas defeated Keith Hackney. At the same event, he lost to Oleg Taktarov via a controversial decision. The two fought nearly a year later but the match ended in a draw.

From there, Ruas had six more pro fights. He won half of them. Two of his three losses occurred to Maurice Smith, once at UFC 21 in July of 1999 and then again at an IFL event in 2007. During the last fight, Ruas was 46.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Ruas is the founder of Ruas Vale Tudo, a mix of kickboxing and Brazilian submission fighting. While he was admired for his awesome kicking skills, Ruas brought a well-rounded style to MMA during an era when everyone was concentrating on jiu-jitsu.

“I trained everything, a long time before everybody. I trained judo, I trained karate, I trained capoeira, luta livre, jiu-jitsu. I trained everything.”

His professional record may not be as robust as others, but if you include his street fights, estimated to be somewhere between 300 and 1,000 contests, his resume easily enters legendary status.

Regardless of the number, he didn’t just fight on the streets of Rio. He won.

“In the streets, I’m undefeated. Nobody beat me.”

That leads us to his nickname, “King of the Streets.” It’s a clever play on words as Ruas means “streets” in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil.

Quotes taken from MMA Junkie article: “Pioneer Marco Ruas looks back on contribution to MMA, wishes he'd had more UFC fights.” published 12/26/16

Photo Credit: Doug Churchill on location at Emily studio on the Street Scene set. Courtesy of Flickr. Believed to be in the public domain.

Video of the Day - Cro Cop v. Bernardo

Here is Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic kickboxing Mike Bernardo in K-1's, "World Grand Prix '99 Opening Round" which took place on 10/5/99. Mirko would go to the finals of the Grand Prix via three TKO wins, eventually losing to kickboxing legend Ernesto Hoost.

Fedor v. Pedro Rizzo

Here is the end of Fedor Emelianenko fighting Pedro Rizzo at M-1 Global - Fedor v. Rizzo which took place on 6/21/12 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Fedor (36-4) returns to action against Matt Mitrione at Bellator 180 this Saturday.

Raymond Daniels v Brandon Banda

Here is Raymond Daniels v Brandon Banda in the World Combat League or WCL, which was owned in part by Chuck Norris.

Video of the Day - Miocic v. Penn

Here is Stipe Miocic fighting William Penn at NAAFS - Caged Vengeance 9 which took place on 4/16/11 in Canton, Ohio.

Miocic next fight Junior Dos Santos to defend his UFC Heavyweight Title at UFC 211.

Video of the Day - Mercer KO's Sylvia

Here is Ray Mercer ending former UFC Champ Tim Sylvia's night at Adreneline 3. Rich Clementi and Jeremy Horn also notched victories on the card. Mercer's KO was the first major upset by a former boxing champ in MMA.

Jeremy Horn versus Forrest Griffin

Here is Jeremy Horn fighting Forrest Griffin at IFC Global Domination which took place on 9/6/03 in Denver, Colorado.

In that event, Forrest (19-7) had submitted Chael Sonnen in his previous bout. Horn (91-22) had submitted Mikhail Avetisyan. Forrest would go on to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame following his epic TUF 1 match-up against Stephen Bonnar and career victories over Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson and Rich Franklin. He retired after a 2012 win over Tito Ortiz and has been working for the UFC ever since.

Horn probably has officially retired from competition after tapping due to strikes against Egidijus Valavicius in 2015. Horn had a 19 year career which included wins over Chuck Liddell, Gilbert Yvel, Josh Burkman, Chael Sonnen and Dean Lister.

Michael "Venom" Page v. Ben Dishman

Here is the pro debut of Michael "Venom" Page, who fought Ben Dishman at UCMMA 26 which took place on 2/4/12 in London, England.

Page (12-0, 7-0 BFC) next fights Derek Anderson at Bellator 179 which takes place on May 19, 2017 at Wembley Arena in London, England. Page puts his karate on full display during the finish.

Finish:

Full Bout:

Valentina Shevchenko's Early Bouts

Here are some of Valentina Shevchenko's early MMA bouts. The first is against Mi Choi Kim at WXF which took place on 12/3/03 in Seoul, South Korea. The second is against Roza Kalieva in KFP which took place on 3/22/05. The last is against Kyung Aeh Kim at WXF on 7/9/05.

Valentina (14-2, 3-1 UFC) recently submitted TUF champ Juliana Pena at UFC on Fox 23 via armbar, and promptly did the victory dance in the second video. In the bout prior, she defeated Holly Holm in a dominant unanimous decision. She will likely be looking for a rematch against Amanda Nunes next. Valentina has a litany of muay thai, kickboxing and tournament titles.

Andy Hug and the 1996 K-1 World Grand Prix

The 1996 K-1 Grand Prix which began with a field of 16 competitors, including Peter Aerts, Musashi, Cro Cop, Jerome LeBanner, Ernesto Hoost and Mike Bernardo.

The Opening Round took place on 3/10/96 at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan. Hug would fight Bart Vale, who took place in the infamous no holds barred fight against Mike Bitoni.

The next three rounds all took place on 5/6/96, again at the Yokohama Arena. Hug began by next fighting the lanky Duane Van Der Merwe, an alternate.

In the semifinals, Hug would meet Ernesto Hoost in a hard fought bout.

In the finale, Hug fought Mike Bernardo to complete his epic journey.

Igor Vovchanchyn's Bizarre World Vale Tudo 5 Run

Here is Igor Vovchanchyn fighting Tulio Palhares, Elias Rodrigues and Nick Nutter at the World Vale Tudo Championship 5 which took place on 2/3/98 in Brazil.

At the time, World Vale Tudo's rule set was no holds barred/NHB without rounds. Vovchanchyn (55-10), an MMA and combat sports legend, fought almost exclusively in tournaments until entering the Pride organization. Vovchanchyn hold career victores over Mark Kerr, Yuki Kondo, Gilbert Yvel, and a very fatigued Kazushi Sakuraba.

Tulio Palhares, his first opponent that night, does own a TKO at UFC 17.5. The rest of his career wasn't much to write home about. No clue what happened at the end.


Vovchanchyn next fought Elias Rodrigues who was brought in supposedly after UFC veteran Patrick Smith could not continue after his bout. It features maybe the most non nonchalant tap outs I've seen.


In the finale, Vovchanchyn fought NCAA All American from Ohio State Nick Nutter, and the rest is history.

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 - Boyle v. Popov

Here is Derek Boyle fighting Alex Popov in RITR 15 which took place on 9/9/11 in Alberta, Canada.

Textbook flying knee? Check.

Vitaly Bigdash versus Igor Svirid

Here is Vitaly Bigdash fighting Igor Svirid fighting for the One FC Middleweight title at One FC 32 - Tigers of Asia which took place on 10/9/15 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Bigdash (8-0) will return from a year layoff to defend the title against Marcin Prachnio (12-2) on January 14, 2017. The well rounded Russian fighter appears to have been training in Thailand since the bout.

Video of the Day - Noons v. Bennett

Here is KJ Noons against Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett fighting in the short lived Elite XC promotion which took place on 2/10/07 in Southaven, Mississippi.

Noons, a former pro boxer, has career victories over Sam Stout, Nick Diaz, Yves Edwards and Conor Heun. He last fought in the UFC, dropping a decision to Josh Burkman. Bennett is also preparing for a comeback.

Bennett is coming off a 7 second KO of Minoru Kimura in Rizen FC. His biggest victory was a KO of Yoshihiro Maeda at Pride Bushido 7. At 30-30, Bennett always brings it, though he does get submitted fairly regularly.

*This is the best version currently available, others have been taken down. Starts at :48.

Tim Elliot v. Jens Pulver

Here is former UFC lightweight champ Jens Pulver fighting TUF 24 champ Tim Elliot at RFA 1 which took place on 12/16/11 in Kearney, Nebraska.

Elliot, the current Titan FC 125 pound champ, won The Ultimate Fighter 24 earning himself a title shot against Demetrious Johnson this Saturday.