We even got to see an awesome highlight reel Ko when Barbosa spin kicked the crap out of Terry Etim. Ouch!

The main event didn’t last as long as many people had though it would, ending with only 1 second left in the very first round;  Aldo scoring the knockout via vicious knee strike.

I was really impressed with Jose Aldo’s takedown defense and reactive counter attacks. He was very fun to watch. I think if someone is going to beat him they’ve got to have fast hard hitting hands and need to get their attacks off first. As long as Aldo has the advantage in striking over his opponent he is going to be very hard to takedown regardless of the calibre of wrestler he’s up against.

As far as the MMA QUICKSTART contest goes: Congrats to Jeff Morris on making the winning prediction:

Aldo/KO/Round 1 – 1:15

Jeff wins the entire MMA QuickStart Training Program which includes over 18 1-hour workouts, 100+ instructional videos, 12 Follow Along MP3 “Shadowfighting” Audio Files and more.

These two guys had fought before as amateurs with Ryan winning a 3 round war by rear naked choke so I knew that Josh would be a tough opponent and come to fight hard.

Ryan did some great things in this fight both on the ground and standing up. Here’s the fight vid:

Ryan’s next MMA fight is in March and in February we’ve got 7 of our other MMA fighters doing battle in February. With those two and many other BJJ and MMA event throughout the year, 2012 is going to be very exciting!

My job was to put together a street fight scene so my student and I practiced for an hour or so before we headed out to Scarborough to film it.

We smashed each other! I still remember one of the crew telling us “You guys hit way harder than stuntmen!” I didn’t really think much about that until the next day when I was really sore!

You’ll see one at point in the video when Dean kicks me in the chest with a push kick. I wasn’t supposed to fall but it hit me so hard that I lost my balance. That looked good on camera though.

Anyways here’s the video (we start at 1;57ish) :

Jeff KO's Nuri Shakir at 2:15 into the 1st Round (First person to KO Nuri in 25 Fights)

A well thrown cross is almost impossible to see coming. It will knock your opponent down to the mat quickly when it’s thrown with leverage, speed, and perfect technique. Of course it has to be accurate and well timed so that it lands on it’s intended target as well.

Many people think that by trying to punch hard they can knock someone out. That’s not true. In fact the opposite is true. A punch that is thrown quickly while incorporating the details I share with you in the video below doesn’t need to have anger or immense effort behind it to get the job done.

After it lands, since you were so relaxed throwing it, you’ll be wondering where you’re opponent went. Looking down you’ll notice them asleep on the floor or dazed enough that you can move in for the TKO finish. The cross is one of my best punches and I’ve used it to score the KO many times throughout my career.

This video will help you do the same:

Want more KO Power? –> Download my FREE EBOOK “Developing the KO Punch” ==> HERE <==

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and to thank you for making 2011 a kick ass year for me!

My train at home Beginner Program, MMA QuickStart has become very popular and I now have students from all around the world learning online via videos, audio tracks, and training manuals. It’s pretty amazing to get feedback from people half way across the world saying they are punching and kicking their training partner better because of the program. It definitely brings a smile to my face.

Right now, I’m setting up the gameplan for 2012 with my goal being to provide a HUGE amount of video content that’ll help you become great at MMA! I’m also planning big things for my Hamilton, Ontario team as well which has me very excited as well!

It’s going to be an awesome year of MMA!

If you have any ideas on what you’d like to see in terms of content, shoot me a message via the contact form as I’d love to hear it.

Many people have asked me over the years about nutrition for MMA.  I usually share tips that I’ve learned and used over the years to help me get lean, strong and to my fight weight of 170lbs on weigh-in day.

What I want to do today, as a gift for the holidays, is give you the exact diet I used to get down to 6% body fat (185lbs although I made 170 for each weigh in) for my fights against Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch and Nuri Shakir.

Click Here to learn more about the Meal Plan I used.

A great mount position will enable you to wear out, frustrate and finish your opponents with strikes and submission holds.

In order to develop a great mount, you’ll need to develop skill with the many different techniques designed to shut down all of your opponent escape attempts.

It’s best to practice those fundamental techniques first against a non-resisting opponent and then once you feel ready, against someone who is REALLY trying to escape.

Here’s a breakdown of one drill that I have my students do often to improve their ability to attack from and escape the mount position:

1) First, start off in the mount position atop of your training partner.

2) Set a timer (something with an alarm to sound the end of the round will work best)  for 1 minute and start the round.

3) For the entire duration of the round, try to maintain the mount position while your opponent gives their best effort to escape. An escape is completed anytime your partner establishes their closed guard on you or rolls you over and gets on top.

4) When time expires, switch positions with your partner and reset the timer. It then becomes your turn to escape as many times as you can during the timed round.

When the second round is over, take a short break (1 minute should suffice) and then repeat the drill several times, switching partners every round  if you have the option to.

Once you’ve got a handle on the above sequence you can make things more challenging by making any of the following adjustments to the drill:

Adjustment 1: Top person can apply submission holds.

Adjustment 2: Bottom person only needs to get back to 1/2 guard to score an escape. It becomes so that any guard position (full, spider, butterfly etc.) equals an escape.

Adjustment 3: Increase the length of time that each of you spends on the bottom position.

Adjustment 4: Keep Track of Points (1 point per per escape/submission) and have the athlete with the lower point total at the end of the round do a set amount of pushups (or some other exercise) depending on the score differential (ie. with a score of 5 to 2, the losing athlete would do 5 push-ups per point differential = 3 x 5 pushups = 15 pushups)

With an equally skilled training partner, this drill becomes very challenging and fun!

You’ll find that if you lack solid mount control skills you’ll find that it’s actually easier to escape then it is to hold down or submit your training partner from the top.

Make your mount a NIGHTMARE for the bottom person when doing this drill by learning the 24 techniques in my new –> “Dominate from the Mount : Killer Control” video set

In the first two, which were beginner classes, we focused on some basic kicks and back break falls. The kids did great and seem to really like some of the drills we had them drill to practice their safe falling.

In the third children’s class, I had them drill some self defense escapes and some power kicking on the kick shields.

The last two classes of the night were adult classes, BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and MMA.

After working a few double leg takedown variations, the adults grappled for 5 or 6 8-minute rounds. A bunch of the guys pulled off the same techniques we were drilling at the beginning of class, during their time spent rolling.

MMA class, the last class of the night, was all striking. We worked on the pads and heavy bags and focused mostly on boxing combinations that blended attacks with effective head movement.

I’m off to get some sleep now. Gotta teach some classes in the morning…

Reading that Machida may have won the first round of the main event fight between him and John Jones had me wondering if he might actually pull of a win. About thirty minutes after that I read that Jones has won the fight via choke with 34 seconds left in the 2nd round. I had thought that Jones would win but was excited to see that Machida made it a pretty good scrap.

After blasting out some info about a pick’em contest, the responses came in quickly. The closest one was actually closer to the actual time of victory than any other JJ MMA pick’em contest guess has ever been. It was only 4 seconds off!

Congrats to Johnny Sanguinetti on making the winning prediction:

Jones/2/0:40

Johnny wins the entire MMA QuickStart Training Program which includes over 18 1-hour workouts, 100+ instructional videos, 12 Follow Along MP3 “Shadowfighting” Audio Files and more.

Improve your head movement skills, submission escapes, body shot, counter attacks and much more…

CLICK HERE for more info on the workshops.