State College, Pa. — LionHeart Management proudly announces the signing of Elite XC fighter Paul Bradley to an exclusive MMA career management contract. Bradley who was seen this season on Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter,” will represent LionHeart and train at the LionHeart MMA complex in State College, Pa. Currently signed to a 3 fight contract with Elite XC, Bradley is undefeated in the cage with a professional record of 5-0.

LionHeat owner, Chad Dubin, who signed NCAA Wrestling Champion Phil Davis earlier this month, believes Bradley will bring an important level of national recognition to his new team. “Signing a fighter with Paul’s reputation and experience is a big step forward for us. With the national exposure of an Elite XC contract, there were plenty of other opportunities available to him. The fact that Paul chose to sign with LionHeart means we must be doing something right.”

Bradley is an Iowa State High School Wrestling Champion and a two-time All-American wrestler at The University of Iowa. “I’m really excited about signing with Lionheart and I am looking forward to representing them in the octagon. This is a great place for me to further my career as a fighter and I really appreciate the opportunity Chad has given me.”

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Chicago police officer and Pride veteran Mike Russow put the clamps on Jason Guida  on Saturday with a guillotine choke at 2:13 of the first round in Adrenaline MMA’s first offering.

Before an estimated crowd of 2,500 at the Sears Center Arena, the two local fighters, backed by raucous partisans, traded shots before Russow took Guida to the mat with a single-leg takedown. Guida immediately made his way back to his feet but was quickly taken back to the mat. His next attempt to rise off the mat led to the fight-ending submission.

As Guida posted, Russow locked up a guillotine choke and began to squeeze, forcing Guida to tap out.

In other fights, Terry Martin  landed right hand after right hand in his bout with Daiju Takase . Unfortunately for Martin, Takase landed kick after kick to his groin. Midway through the second frame, referee Rob Hinds had seen enough and called the bout after Takase landed his third kick to Martin’s groin. The stoppage came at 3:35 of the second round.

Sports Illustrated recently provided a list of the “top ten up-and-coming stars in Mixed Martial Arts”… and three had US collegiate wrestling backgrounds.

Thanks to the Yahoo group Fight_Planet for providing the information seen here…

C B Dollaway - known as The Doberman, is the favorite in this season’s “The Ultimate Fighter,” and with good reason. The former All-America wrestler at Arizona State already has a perfect 6-0 record.

Cain Velasquez - The former Arizona State wrestling standout looked good in his UFC debut, and so far hasn’t shown any of the lay-and-pray tendencies of other wrestlers-turned-MMA fighters. He’s talented and explosive, and may be more so if he considers a drop to light heavyweight.

Jake Rosholt - The Team Takedown member and former three-time wrestling champ at Oklahoma State owns an impressive 4-0 record since turning pro in July 2007. After turning down the chance to be on The Ultimate Fighter, Rosholt’s moving rapidly along the path to stardom.

Johny Hendricks - Another member of Team Takedown, Hendricks was a two-time NCAA wrestling champion at Oklahoma State. So far, he’s continued his dominant ways in MMA, claiming an early 3-0 pro record, including two TKOs.

Mir defeats Lesnar in 1st round
Ex-champion spoils former WWE wrestler’s UFC debut

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira took the UFC interim heavyweight title, forcing former two-time champion Tim Sylvia to tap in the third round on Saturday night.

In the co-main event, former heavyweight champion Frank Mir spoiled former NCAA wrestling champion Brock Lesnar’s UCF debut, grabbing Lesnar’s leg and securing a kneebar that forced him to submit at 1:30 of the first round.

Nogueira took the title vacated when Randy Couture suddenly retired from the organization.

Sylvia showed superior striking, repeatedly landing punches throughout a dominant first round. Sylvia defended Nogueira’s takedown attempts and landed effective punches in the second round.

But in the third round, Nogueira reversed a Sylvia takedown and gained side control. Sylvia was able to escape side control, only to fall directly into a guillotine choke which forced him to tap 1:28 seconds into the round.

Nate Marquardt beat Jeremy Horn, finishing off the veteran of more than 100 MMA fights by guillotine choke 1:37 seconds into the second round, and Ricardo Almeida defeated Rob Yundt by guillotine choke at 1:08 in the first round.

Dave Meltzer

Brock Lesnar’s notoriety as a World Wrestling Entertainment champion and headliner has created great interest in his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut on Saturday night against former UFC champion Frank Mir.

But because his fame comes from scripted entertainment, many aren’t aware of his successes in legitimate athletic competition.

Lesnar was 106-5 in four years of college wrestling, winning the junior college national championship in 1998 and the Division I championship for the University of Minnesota in 2000, both as a heavyweight.

High-level amateur wrestling is a great asset in mixed martial arts, as many of UFC’s biggest stars all have a substantial wrestling background, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Quinton Jackson, Dan Henderson, Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch, Diego Sanchez, Rashad Evans, Tito Ortiz, Clay Guida, Keith Jardine, Roger Huerta, Jake O’Brien, Frankie Edgar, Matt Hamill, Brandon Vera, Gray Maynard, Corey Hill, Matt Grice and others.

But wrestling success is no guarantee of MMA success. For every Couture or Dan Severn, both of whom competed on the U.S. national team in international competition and are among only a few fighters in the UFC Hall of Fame, there are great wrestlers, including national champions and Olympians, who have gone nowhere in MMA.

By Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports

Sam Vasquez of Houston may have become the first fighter to die from injuries sustained in mixed martial arts competition in North America.

A report by The Fight Network cited the Harris County (Texas) medical examiner’s office confirming Vasquez’s death at 8:15 p.m. Friday. The cause of death was not released.

Vasquez had been battling for his life since taking a hard right to the chin from 21-year old Vince Libardi on Oct. 20 during a Renegades Extreme Fighting show at the Toyota Center in Houston. The blow knocked Vasquez out and he was rushed to St. Joseph Medical Center, where he stayed until moving to hospice care on Monday.

The 35-year-old Vasquez was competing in the featherweight division (145 pound weight class) in the third match of a 12-match card promoted by Saul Soliz, the longtime boxing coach of Ultimate Fighting Championship superstar Tito Ortiz. The show was overseen by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Calls to the department on Sunday were not immediately returned.

For everyone who followed pro wrestling from childhood, there was always a lingering question: How would certain guys, not necessarily the biggest stars but the ones who are known by fans as real-life tough guys, do if the battle was real?

The question was more on people’s minds during old-school pro wrestling’s heyday than in recent years, largely because the Ultimate Fighter has answered a lot of questions about putting guys with different backgrounds into an arena and seeing what styles come out on top.

In the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, many amateur champion wrestlers fared well simply through takedowns and the ability to control and keep opponents on their back.
But in today’s mixed martial arts, you have to be a well-rounded fighter, with knowledge of wrestling or judo for balance, jiu-jitsu for submission awareness and avoidance, and both boxing and kickboxing techniques.
Brock Lesnar isn’t coming to UFC to answer any age-old questions. He’s coming because it’s a sport he’s watched since its inception, and now after more than a year of full-time training, after trying pro wrestling and pro football, he feels that it’s the sport he was put on earth to participate in.

Brock Lesnar, a former NCAA heavyweight champion for the University of Minnesota and former pro wrestler, has joined the UFC, it was announced on Saturday.

On UFC.com, UFC president Dana White said, “I don’t think there are any other pro wrestlers that can make the transition to MMA, except for Brock Lesnar. And if you look at his amateur wrestling credentials, his size, and what he’s done, this guy can end up being a force in the heavyweight division of the UFC.”

Lesnar is 1-0 in MMA with a dominating win over Min Soo Kim in June.

by Matt Culbertson
published on Friday, October 19, 2007

STING LIKE A BEE: Christian Grosinsky, 25, of Tempe practices a punch sequence with ASU nursing graduate Lars Havens at the Student Recreation Complex. Pankration is a form of mixed martial arts that includes wrestling, kickboxing and other forms of fighting.

“Where else can you choke your professor, slap an attorney, punch your boss or in one case kick a politician without getting into trouble?”

For Jeff Funicello, the mixed martial arts coach who posed the question, ASU Pankration is the safe and legal way for ASU students to fulfill that fantasy and train to compete in martial arts.

Four times a week, a group of mostly ASU undergraduate students meet in the Student Recreation Complex to train in mixed martial art disciplines nearly 3,000 years old, called pankration.

Funicello, a 17-year veteran of the sport, said about half of the team competes in competitions ranging from local events to international bouts.

“Where else can a Christian fight a Muslim, or a Hindu fight a Jew, and walk away good friends?” Funicello said in an e-mail about pankration.

Heavyweight champion Randy Couture has severed ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, his Las Vegas spokesman said on Thursday.

Spokesman Sean O’Heir of Couture’s Xtreme Couture MMA said Thursday that the UFC Hall of Famer had vacated his championship and resigned as an analyst on UFC television broadcasts.

O’Heir said Couture was hoping for a fight to be made against Fedor Emelianenko, who is the top-ranked mixed martial artist in the Yahoo! Sports poll. Reports surfaced Tuesday that Emelianenko had signed with a new promoter, M-1.

“He was disappointed when he couldn’t get a fight with Fedor,” O’Heir said. “That would have been his legacy fight.”

The story was first reported by Brian Knapp of The Fight Network, which has a business relationship with Couture. Loretta Hunt, its managing editor of MMA news content, is writing Couture’s biography, and Couture frequently appears on the network.

UFC president Dana White released a statement Thursday in which he said he was not surprised by Couture’s announcement.

He left the door open for Couture to fight again in the UFC as he remains under contract.