Marine Corps veteran Brian Stann added another line to his impressive resume this month, as the Silver Star recipient, mixed martial arts champion, UFC and college football commentator, Hiring Heroes CEO and real-estate executive rejoined the cage-fighting club via the front office of the Professional Fighters League. Stann will serve as head of the fighters and competition/rules committee for the PFL, playing a key role in the organization’s plans to become a “fighters first” league, according to a news release. A PFL primer for non-MMA addicts: The group will kick off what amounts to a series of yearlong tournaments next month,…
Browsing: MMA
Service members around the globe will be able to watch events from the Bellator mixed martial arts promotion on American Forces Network in June, beginning with a “heavyweight superfight” that may interest longtime MMA fans … even if it’s a few years past its use-by date. Bellator announced the deal on Memorial Day, offering few details on time slots or AFN channels but promising that the network will carry Bellator 138, a June 19 card in St. Louis that will feature Ken Shamrock vs. Kimbo Slice in a heavyweight main event. Shamrock, 51, fought on the first Ultimate Fighting Championships card…
Five quick midweek military sports links, starting with an appreciation: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCliUYT6PQc[/youtube] 1. NFL Films and sprint football. Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films, son of its founder and one of the reasons so many people watch professional football on Sundays, died yesterday at 69 after a long fight with brain cancer. Read more about him from our friends at USA Today here. The video above, a 2004 NFL Films short on sprint football, features an Army-Navy showdown and showcases the NFL Films style football fans have come to love — up-close action, a soaring soundtrack, eyeball-gripping interviews, seamless edits, all…
We’ve written about former Army reservist and current professional mixed martial artists Kris “Savage” McCray before. Don’t believe us? Shortly after that feature appeared in the Military Times print publications, “Savage” finished second in The Ultimate Fighter 11, submitting to a Court McGee choke in the second round of the season’s final match. It was his first of three UFC losses in nine months. After dropping a decision to Josh Hathaway last March, McCray was out of the top-tier fighting league. He’s won two fights since, via decision, in lower-level promotions. But a report from Sherdog.com has McCray heading back…
For those of you sick of the latest service academy basketball news (either here or here), try these combatives links: Army (Superheavyweight) Strong: Staff Sgt. Brandon Sayles gets a nice video treatment from the folks at HDNet before his fight tonight at XFC 16: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNGJRdwqkUA[/youtube] Sayles, a three-time Army Combatives Championship winner, will face Chase Gormley live on HDNet; the fights start at 10 p.m. ET. Also on the card is former Marine Dustin West — check out an XFC news release on his work with the Wounded Warrior Project here. Not sure if you get HDNet? Click the “subscribe”…
A few military-themed (and almost-military-themed) notes before Saturday’s prime-time UFC card. A word from an ‘El Conquistador’ sponsor: Former soldier Jorge Rivera retired last week after stopping Eric Shafer in the second round at the inaugural UFC on FX event. The win wrapped up a mixed martial arts career that began in 2001 and ended with a 20-9 record, according to Sherdog. We could try to recap his time in the cage, but instead, read this from Rivera’s longtime friend and sponsor Nick Palmisciano, the founder of the Ranger Up apparel line. Military Times EDGE has profiled Palmisciano before –…
