Gabriel “Napao” Gonzaga is a mixed martial arts fighter currently fighting in the UFC heavyweight division. Although he is a native of Brazil, he is now fighting out of Ludlow, Massachusetts as a part of “Team Link”. When he was in Brazil he spent time training with the highly touted fight team “Chute Boxe”, which is home to some of the best fighters in MMA. Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Murilo “Ninja” Rua are all members of Chute Boxe.

Gonzaga is a well rounded fighter with skills in BJJ, an art that he holds a black belt in, and a good arsenal of strikes. His current MMA record is 8 wins, 1 loss, and 0 draws. His only loss is at the hands of Fabricio Werdum during Jungle Fight 1 back in 2003. The biggest win out of the 8 he has racked up is surely his upset win over Mirko “Cro Cop”. A fight that saw him dish out to Cro Cop the same medicine that the Croatian fighter has given many opponents. Namely, a solid kick to the head that results in a knock out. That victory shot him into the position of #1 contender in the UFC heavyweight division. Now he is set to face the current champ Randy “The Natural” Couture for the title.

It is exciting seeing a fighter in the heavyweight class with both a well rounded fight game and the athleticism to back it up. I am sure that Gonzaga is going to be quite a force in that division for many years to come.

UFC 70 Gonzaga vs Cro Cop Preview

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Gonzaga vs Carmelo Marrero - UFC 66

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Chuck Liddell a.k.a. “The Iceman” is a light heavyweight mixed martial artist fighting out of “The Pit” in Arroyo Grande, CA. Liddell’s martial arts background encompasses many styles, Collegiate Wrestling, Kempo Karate, Koei-Kan Karate-Do, and Kickboxing. In addition to these arts, once Liddell began fighting in MMA, he went on to study Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under John Lewis and is now a purple belt.

The Iceman’s MMA career started in 1998 at UFC 17 since that time he has gone on to fight a who’s who of mixed martial artists. He has stepped into the ring/cage with the likes of Jose Landi-Jons, Kevin Randleman, Vitor Belfort, Renato Sobral and Randy Couture, to name just a few. Without a doubt, Liddell is not one to shy away from a tough fight. In fact, it’s the - I will fight anyone, anyplace, anytime - attitude that has endeared him to mixed martial arts fans the world over. Well, that and his ability to knock out just about anyone that he steps into the ring with.

Although Liddell is a well rounded MMA fighter who can fight on his feet and on the ground, his game plan for almost all of his fights is to keep the fight standing and look for the knock out. He does this because, although his ground game is good and I’m sure he could fight there, his striking is truly exceptional. He possess very good timing and accuracy, which makes him a great counter puncher. In addition to his technical ability on his feet, Liddell boasts some of the heaviest hands in the sport. This can be seen by the shear number of knockouts he has accumulated during his fight career.

As of today’s date of May 9th, 2007 The Iceman’s MMA record is 20 wins, 3 losses and 0 draws, with only 6 of the wins coming by decision. Also as of right now Chuck Liddell has held the UFC Light Heavyweight title for 2 years running, and has successfully defended it 4 times.

Chuck Liddell vs Jose “Pele” Landi-Jons

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Chuck Liddell Highlight Video

Quinton Jackson (A.K.A. “Rampage”) is a light heavyweight mixed martial artist with great skills and a truly unique persona. He is well known for his trademark wolf howl that he bellows as he walks to the ring and the large chain that he wears around his neck.

Jackson began his career fighting in smaller shows such as King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge. Later on he was invited to fight for Pride Fighting Championships in japan. In his first fight in Pride, Jackson took on the Japanese super star Kazushi Sakuraba. Despite being submitted with a rear naked choke, Rampage made a lasting impression on the Pride fans and management. This was in no doubt partially due to his unique personality and “leave it all in the ring” mentality, but not many would argue that the biggest factor was his astonishing slams. Through out the fight Quinton employed a multitude of high altitude slams on Sakuraba. This would become known as his signature technique.

During his years fighting for Pride FC Rampage fought and defeated some of the best fighters in MMA. The most notable being Chuck Liddell, Ricardo Arona, Kevin Randleman, Igor Vovchanchyn and Murilo Bustamante.

After fighting in Pride for a number of years, Quinton signed with the World Fighting Alliance. During his short stint with the WFA, Jackson would face former Olympic silver medalist turned MMA fighter Matt “The Law” Lindland. Rampage would end up defeating Lindland by split decision in a very hard fought fight.

In late 2006 Zuffa (The owner of the UFC) bought Quintons contract along with other assets from the WFA. The UFC soon announced that Quinton Jackson would be fighting on the UFC 67 card on 2/3/2007. Jackson’s opponent would be Marvin Eastman. This would be a rematch, seeing as these fighters had faced each other in 2000 on a KOTC card. That fight was won by Eastman by decision.

On Feb 3rd Jackson debuted in the UFC and avenged his loss to Eastman with a 2nd round KO.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Highlight Video

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Quinton Jackson vs Chuck Liddell

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Quinton Jackson vs Kevin Randleman

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Fedor Emelianenko is a heavyweight mixed martial artist hailing from Russia. He has held the PRIDE Fighting Championships heavyweight title from 3/16/2003 up until today’s date of 2/11/2007. Fedor is considered by many to be one of the best, if not the best heavyweight the sport has ever seen.

Not only has Fedor risen to the top of the MMA world, he is also an accomplished Judo and Sambo competitor. He was the 1998 bronze medalist in the Russian Judo Championships absolute division and the 1999 bronze medalist in the Moscow International Judo Tournament heavyweight division. In 2002 he was the Russian Combat Sambo Champion. Also in 2002 he was the World Combat Sambo Champion in both the heavyweight and absolute divisions. Then in 2005 he once again won the World Combat Sambo Championships in the heavyweight division.

Emelianenko began his MMA career fighting in the Rings organization. While in Rings he faced and defeated by unanimous decision both Ricardo Arona and Renato “Babalu” Sobral. It is also there that he suffered his one and only loss to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka due to a cut received just 17 seconds into the first round. The cut was due to an elbow which was not legal under Rings rules. Normally this would result in a no contest ruling (because it appeared to be unintentional), but the fight was in an elimination tournament and one of the fighters needed to progress. Emelianenko could not continue because of the cut, so Kohsaka was given the victory and moved on to the next round. Later on in PRIDE Bushido 6 Fedor would avenge this loss with a first round TKO.

Once in the Pride ring, Fedor immediately dispatched Semmy Schilt and Heath Herring. He then challenged Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for the Pride Heavyweight title and won.

After winning the belt, Emelianenko fought and defeated such notable fighters as Mark Coleman (twice), Kevin Randleman, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (for the second time), Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Mark Hunt.

All together Fedor Emelinenko’s MMA record as of 2/11/2007 is 25 wins, 1 loss, 0 draws and 1 no contest.

Fedor Emelianenko Highlight Video

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Fedor vs Cro Cop

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Fedor vs Mark Hunt

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Fedor Emelianenko vs Mark Coleman 2

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Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is a heavyweight mixed martial artist hailing from Croatia. His fight name “Cro Cop” comes from his work as a commando in the Croatian police anti-terrorist unit.

Filipovic started his career as a fighter by competing in kickboxing. After fighting for many years in K-1 (a premier kickboxing organization in Japan) he made the transition into MMA and started fighting for Pride Fighting Championships.

The Croatian fighter made an immediate impact in Pride and soon became known as one of the most dangerous strikers in mixed martial arts.

Cro Cop makes use of what is known as the sprawl and brawl strategy. Meaning that when someone shoots in to take him down he sprawls (defends the takedown) and forces the fight to stay standing. By keeping the fight on the feet he is able to dominate with his exceptional striking skills.

Out of all the strikes in his arsenal, he is most well known for his left roundhouse kick. That kick has ended fights with some of the best fighters in both the kickboxing and MMA world. Some of the well known fighters that have fallen to that kick are Wanderlei Silva, Igor Vovchanchyn and Aleksander Emelianenko.

In addition to the victories mentioned above, Filipovic also has wins over Josh Barnett, Hidehiko Yoshida, Kevin Randleman, Heath Herring, Mark Coleman, Ron Waterman and Kazushi Sakuraba to name just a few.

Mirko Filipovic Highlight Video

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Cro Cop vs Bob Sapp — K-1 Kickboxing Match

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Mirko Filipovic vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto

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Mirko Filipovic vs Mike Bernardo — K-1 Kickboxing Match

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Ronaldo Souza Dos Santos, a.k.a. “Jacare”, is one of the top grapplers in the world. He has been competing in Brazilian JuJitsu and Submission Wrestling tournaments since his teens. He has won the BJJ World Championships many times, in both his weight division and the open weight division. Although spending the majority of his athletic career on the mat grappling, he has recently fought in a few MMA events. His professional mixed martial arts record as of 12/07/06 is 3 wins 1 loss and 0 draws.

His nickname is portuguese for alligator. The name comes from the symbol for the academy where he trains. He received the name because he spent all of his time at the school training.

“The Alligator” is also know for the unique victory dance he does after each win. You will see this at the end of the following video. He drops to the mat belly down and moves across the floor like an alligator.

Enjoy the highlight clip of this skilled grappler.

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Sean Sherk, a.k.a “The Muscle Shark”, is a MMA fighter whose current record as of 12/01/06 is an impressive 31 wins, 2 defeats and 1 draw. His only 2 losses were at the hands of Georges St. Pierre and Matt Hughes.

Sherk is currently fighting as a lightweight (upper limit 155 lbs), but the majority of his professional career has been spent in the welterweight division (156 lbs - 170 lbs). While in the higher weight class he was considered a small welterweight, now in the lower weight class he is known as a very large lightweight.

The Muscle Shark has graced the cards of many organizations during his fight career. The most notable are - The UFC, Pride FC, KOTC, UCC and Pancrase. He has also had many victories over tough opponents, such as Karo Parisyan (twice), Tiki Ghosn, Gerald Strebendt, Nick Diaz and Kenny Florian. His most recent accomplishment, and arguably his greatest, was winning the vacant UFC lightweight title in a 5 round championship fight against Kenny Florian. Sherk won by unanimous decision.

Highlight of The Muscle Shark in action.

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Sherk vs Ryuki Ueyama in PRIDE - Bushido 2

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Prepare to be amazed when you watch his highlight videos.

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Sato is definitely what you would call a submission wizard. He pulls off submission holds that you almost never see in mixed martial arts competition. Such as the flying armbar, flying triangle, and the calf slicer. Of course he also regularly taps opponents with armbars, choke holds, toe holds, and knee bars.

Some of his more notable submission victories are - Yves Edwards by rear naked choke, Rafael Cordeiro by knee bar and John Lewis by arm bar.

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Anderson Silva, a.k.a. “The Spider”, is one of the most dangerous fighters in the middleweight division (171 lbs - 185 lbs). With a well-rounded arsenal of strikes and knock out power, he poses a serious threat to virtually anyone who decides to stand with him. In addition to his striking prowess, Silva has skills on the mat. In 2005, he earned his Brazilian Ju Jitsu black belt from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. These skills have led him to three championship titles during his career - UFC Middleweight Champion, Cage Rage Middleweight Champion and Shooto Middleweight Champion.

Silva is a former member of the Chute Boxe Academy, where he fought alongside the likes of Wanderlei Silva, Murilo “Ninja” Rua and Jose “Pele” Landi-Jons. In 2003 he left Chute Boxe along with Assuerio Silva and formed Muay Thai Dream Team.

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This is a Highlight Clip of Silva’s defeat of Jeremy Horn by unanimous decision on 6/27/2004 at the Gladiator Fighting Championships in South Korea on Day 2.

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The following video of Georges St Pierre, a.k.a. “Rush”, chronicles his road back to a second UFC title shot. After losing to Matt Hughes in a championship bout for the vacant UFC welterweight title in 2004, St. Pierre worked his way back into title contention. On the way back he beat some of the very best the sport has to offer. Some of the big names he defeated on the way back are Jason Miller, Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk and B.J. Penn. On 11/18/2006 GSP stepped into the octagon to fight Hughes for the title once again. He emerged victorious, with the UFC welterweight title in hand and a second round K.O. of Hughes on his record.

It should be noted that the video is missing one fight that St. Pierre had during that time. Shortly after he lost to Hughes, he fought Dave Strasser in Canada’s TKO organization. GSP won by kimura in the first round.

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St. Pierre’s first pro fight - GSP vs Ivan Menjivar

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Georges St. Pierre vs Pete Spratt

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