FIGHTLAND

  • The Psychology of Submitting

    Mixed martial arts is unique in sports in having a major percentage of its outcomes decided by a choice: to endure pain and risk injury or to tap out. The science of how pain works within the body is widely understood. What is less clear is what happens inside the mind in the decision to fight through the pain or submit to it. Full story

    2013 Mar 9 Mike Bebernes Sports
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  • MMA with the Bourdain Family

    My husband likes to say that when we first met I was a delicate flower. I think he’s just trying to rationalize how he could find himself in a relationship with a woman who could kick his ass. Truth is, there was nothing delicate about me when we first met. Full story

    2013 Feb 24 Ottavia Bourdain Sports
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  • Ottavia Bourdain: My Jiu-Jitsu Addiction

    When I first enrolled at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York City I would hear people say how Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a way of life, how it made them better human beings, how they wouldn’t ever stop or trade it for anything else. I thought these people were a little crazy. Full story

    2013 Feb 1 Ottavia Bourdain Sports
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  • The Tornado and the Beach

    The story is as crucial as crucial could have ever been. We're talking Grimm's fairy tale crucial. A family goes out one day, in this instance to a beach, and a boy, their boy, falls asleep, face down in the sand. Then the boy wakes up to the complete and total absence of his fam… Full story

    2013 Jan 19 Eugene Robinson Sports
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  • The Ultimate Fighter's Passage to India

    The Elite Football League of India launched this summer to yawning indifference from audiences in the sub-continent and curious derision from observers in the US. Importing American football—shoulder pads, helmets, down markers, and all—to a country where even rugby is a fifth-ru… Full story

    2012 Dec 26 Krishna Andavolu Sports
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  • I'm a Man of Letters Learning to Fight with an MMA Team

    In a rash moment, I took up with an MMA team. I wanted to learn how to spar. The other week, I was caught clean with a right cross that brought tears to my eyes. I would be lying if I said it upset me. Full story

    2012 Dec 13 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • The Snowman Vs. the Cops

    Four years ago, heavyweight veteran Jeff Monson squared off with riot police at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Here's the story behind one of MMA's best photographs. Full story

    2012 Dec 10 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • MMA Enters Its Golden Age Just in Time for Fightland Launch

    Recently I decided the reason I’m such a huge fan of mixed martial arts—beyond my affection for blood-splattered knockouts and tactical submission battles—is because it gives me the only opportunity I know of to witness a sport becoming itself. Full story

    2012 Dec 8 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • No Hot Stove Here

    The perpetual nature of MMA's “fighting season” means fans can't luxuriate in their opinions about fights and fighters for too long. Events like Saturday's UFC come around with enough regularity to turn predictions into dust. Full story

    2012 Nov 20 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • The Return of Georges St. Pierre

    Reigning welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre will be back in the ring for UFC 154 on Saturday, facing interim champion Carlos Condit. Will it be a dream fight? Full story

    2012 Nov 17 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • UFC Fighters Want to Get in Bed with the Swoosh

    Junior dos Santos, the current UFC heavyweight champion, is reportedly in talks with Nike about an endorsement deal. The Nike deal would be great for dos Santos for any number of reasons, and not all of them monetary. Full story

    2012 Nov 8 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Weightless History

    MMA is so new that it’s unhaunted by the nightmare of history. There are no curses in the sport, no doomed fighters, nor tragic figures with hexes placed on them or their ancestors. And when the better fighter wins, the crowd moves on. Full story

    2012 Oct 18 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Bloody Detachment

    Moments like the Evan Dunham-TJ Grant fight, when an injured fighter leaks blood all over the cage but keeps fighting like nothing happened, are litmus tests for MMA interest. Casual fans will recoil, brutes will be delighted, but deep-down MMA fans see our shared mortality and i… Full story

    2012 Oct 4 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Necessary Violence

    I hate real fighting as much as I love MMA. I believe it's no gladiatorial free-for-all, but a real sport with rules and a value system. But fighters are predisposed toward violence, and sometimes I just want to see good fighters fight. Full story

    2012 Oct 2 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Being Forgettable Is the Deadliest Sin of All

    There’s no fate in this world worse for the enterprising and ambitious MMA fighter than allowing a fight to go to a decision. “Don’t leave it in the hands of the judges” is basically a commandment. No one wants to lose, or to be ignored. Full story

    2012 Sep 26 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • A Bad Ass in Twilight

    Trumped-up anger and staged indignation can be found anytime by anyone with a remote control these days, but true self-awareness after years of self-delusion is rare on television, but that's exactly what Phil Baroni, washed-up MMA dude, displays on Fight Factory. Full story

    2012 Sep 13 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • The Write Stuff

    On the whole, sports writers are a sedentary lot. Outside of George Plimpton, few football writers play football. But getting in the ring helps to better understand MMA fighters, and it's also strangely relaxing. My mind is never so quiet as when I’m fighting someone who’s fighti… Full story

    2012 Sep 5 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Family First?

    "My gym is my family” is a classic trope in the world of MMA. It’s one of those lines that affords the hardscrabble fighting life some nobility, but it also means fighters who should be fighting each other don’t, and messes things up worse than an elbow to the eyeball. Full story

    2012 Aug 24 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • Rising Up, Rising Down in MMA

    MMA fighters can be on top of the world one minute and in purgatory the next. One bad run can send you to the regional circuit, condemned to toil in feeder promotions like the Titan Fighting Championship, where young fighters learn their trade, middling fighters ply their trade, Full story

    2012 Aug 13 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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  • What It Means to Be a Big Mouth in MMA

    Who has time to worry about explaining to SportsCenter why they’re going to fight? Figuring out how to fight is hard enough. Only Chael Sonnen could find the energy to master both combat and marketing. Anderson Silva, meanwhile, just wants to fight. They represent the two warring… Full story

    2012 Jul 31 Josh Rosenblatt Sports
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