Hijinks Inc.

Tag: MMA

  • The MMA Minute – A Brief History of the UFC, Part 1

    We still have over a week until the MMA schedule picks up again. So in order to keep our regular schedule of a weekly Friday post, we’ll delve deeper into MMA and how it’s reached such high levels of popularity.

    In case you’re just joining us now, over the last two weeks I’ve gone over a bit of the history of MMA, with alot of help from Wikipedia. Part 1 and part 2 have covered most of what you’d need to know and I’d encourage you to at least give them a once over if you are still in the learning stages of MMA fandom.

    Wikipedia has some great info, so instead of re-inventing the wheel, I’ll just bring the best it has to offer to you, which is quite a bit. Let’s face it, the UFC is main reason why we have MMA today, so there’s alot to cover here. This week we’ll cover the UFC from it’s first event to the Zuffa purchase: (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – A Brief History of MMA, Part 2

    We return this week to our brief history of MMA to discuss some modern fighters, how the fighting styles have evolved, general rules, the main strategies and ways to win, and also the safety precautions taken to ensure these athletes are protected. Again, I want to thank Wikipedia for really helping make my research on this topic so much easier. You can find much of this article in the form of various articles on Wikipedia, I just merged them together and added my two cents.

    I mentioned at the beginning of my Part 1 post last week that I felt somewhat authorized to speak on this subject because I’ve recently gone back to watch many of the early UFC and Pride events, the two ‘heavyweights’ in the MMA world. But what’s the difference between the two? To understand that, you have to have a little better idea of where they came from, and what philosophy they were based in. We’ll get into that and more after the jump. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – A Brief History of MMA, Part 1

    Typically the MMA Minute will focus on a weekend event, either in a preview or review capacity. However, this is one of the slowest months in MMA over the course of the last year or two, and we’ve already had the only notable event, UFC 116. So instead of our usual focus on a singular event, I decided to take a little turn and focus on the world of MMA, and break it down into small portions for anyone that might be interested in learning more about this increasingly popular sport.

    Now I’m not by any means some sort of MMA aficionado, but I’ve recently gone back to watch most of the UFC and Pride events (2 of the most notable organizations in the history of MMA), so I feel I am at least on stable ground to talk about the sport.

    To start off, MMA is short for Mixed Martial Arts. As usual, Wikipedia (which I used for most of this article, merging various articles and adding my two cents in between), does a great job of summing it up quickly and precisely:

    Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that allows a wide variety of fighting techniques and skills, from a mixture of martial arts traditions and non-traditions, to be used in competitions. The rules allow the use of both striking as well as grappling techniques, both while standing and on the ground. Such competitions allow martial artists of different backgrounds to compete.

    Many detractors will write MMA off as some adrenaline infused showcase of brutality, there really is alot of artistry and strategy behind all the mayhem. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – UFC 116 Aftermath

    The greatest heavyweight fighter of all time fell last week to a triangle armbar submission. This week the two best heavyweights the UFC has to offer went toe to toe and one of them was bound to be knocked out. So of course that’s not how it turned out!

    Quick Recaps

    Win or lose Lesnar was going to walk away from tonights fight with 10 times more money than Carwin. Carwin owned the first round, taking the fight to Lesnar in a big way, but he completely punched himself out and Lesnar managed to survive into the 2nd round. Lesnar easily took Carwin down early in the 2nd and was able to keep the fight there for the rest of the round until he submitted him to hang on the the belt. Lesnar probably gets Cain Velasquez next in a title fight. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin

    Even though this card features a title unification bout, I’m not particularly worked up about the card this weekend at UFC 116, but that’s hardly the UFC’s fault. They originally had big names like Wanderlei Silva, Nate Marquardt, and the Ultimate Fighter 10 winner Roy Nelson, but a variety of things went wrong and they had to be replaced or moved to later events. Perhaps some of the biggest news regarding this event is Chris Leben filling in for the injured Wanderlei Silva and fighting on two weeks notice, after winning Knockout of the Night at the Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale on June 19.

    As the event stands now, we’ve got 5 match-ups on the pay per view main card and 2 preliminary fights to be aired live on Spike TV, check your local listings for time and channel information. Here’s the lineup per Wikipedia:

    Main card

    After a pedestrian 2-2 on my picks last week at Strikeforce, I hope to fare a little better this time around, although I’m going with quite a few underdogs. I’m picking Carwin over Lesnar, Leben over Akiyama, Brown over Lytle, Soszynski over Bonnar, and Sotiropoulos over Pelligrino.