Direct from Microsoft, we received a reminder that beginning today, April 25th, through April 28th, it’s Xbox LIVE’s Big Sports Weekend – with all sports apps on Xbox unlocked for use by both free and paid subscribers. Of interest to MMA fans are 7  fights of Jon Jones’ and Chael Sonnen’s leading up to this bout, that have been unlocked for free viewing. Additionally, you get access to the weigh-ins and pre-fight interviews.

If you’re planning on watching the fights this weekend and have an Xbox, this might be a nice way to build up to the event. check it out.

Press release details are below, and full details are at:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/promotions/big-sports-free-weekend

“Next weekend (April 25^th through April 28^th), Xbox LIVE members in the US and Canada will get free access to some of the most popular sports apps on the service – including more than 50 MLB games and 7 UFC Fight Story fights for free.  Here are the details:

Enjoy free access to Sports on Xbox LIVE this weekend.

·       All sports apps from April 25^th-28^th will be unlocked for both Free and Gold members in the US and Canada, including ESPN, UFC, MLB.TV, NBA Game Time, and NHL Game Center.

·       Watch live coverage and highlights of the NFL Draft on ESPN, catch more than 50 MLB games for free, and watch all 7 UFC Fight Story fights in preparation for Saturday’s big UFC 159 Pay Per View fight between Jon “Bones” Jones and Chael Sonnen.

In addition, enjoy highlights, recaps, and clips from the best of the NHL as teams jockey for position leading into the NHL Playoffs, and catch up on highlights of first round clips and highlights of the NBA Playoffs.”

photo: AOA After-School Boxing Class

AUSTIN, TX, December 4, 2012 – The holiday season is always a good time of year for everyone to count their blessings and reflect on another year of success in this great world of ours. And while much of the focus around the month of December is focused on giving and receiving gifts, it’s good to know that some people within our industry have time to step away from and focus on what they can do so that others may feel fortunate as well.

Within the Texas MMA community, one of great things going on in this regard focuses on the Abundant Faith Ministry and the Abundant Outreach Association in Austin, TX.

This outreach program was initially established in the spring of 2006 as a boxing program for local area youth. Led by Pastor Art Cardenas and TDLR administrator Greg Alvarez, the AOA boxing program continues to provide an exceptional service to the community with its after-school boxing program which places a large value on teaching children positive life skills in addition to honing them in mastering boxing technique.

TDLR’s Greg Alvarez (R) and Gus Calderon (L)

As an addendum to its after-school boxing program, AOA maintains other courses as well for both kids and teens, focused on knocking out addiction, self-help, and how to positively handle daily life situations.

This holiday season, Mr. Alvarez of the TDLR has teamed up with Mick Maynard and the Legacy Fighting Championship to spearhead a Holiday Supply Drive focused on further strengthening all the great things AOA is already doing.

Together with local area gyms all around the state, the holiday supply drive is looking primarily for new or used gym equipment but will accept toys and gifts as well so the kids involved in the program can have an exceptional 2012 holiday. Basically anything will help this program out – which is open to anyone.

The AOA Holiday Supply Drive is currently ongoing until December 19th.

If you can help out, like allow for a drop box at your gym location or want to donate individually, please feel free to contact Gus Calderon at 512-228-7708.

Happy holidays everyone!

“With the UFC app on XBOX 360, you can see all your favorite fighters in their most epic moments right from your living room. You get unprecedented access to the fights with live event videos and a huge selection of videos on demand, and of course, an easy way to order the fights on Pay-Per View. The best part, it’s all streaming your way in HD. And with the power of Kinect for Xbox 360, you control the action simply with your voice or a wave of your hand, so you never miss a moment. To celebrate this weekend’s epic event – UFC 154: St-Pierre vs. Condit – Xbox 360 is offering 30% off Pay-Per-View purchases for a limited time. Go now to the UFC app to order UFC 154 and become a real fan with UFC on XBOX 360.”

For more information on the UFC app on Xbox 360, visit:
www.xbox.com/ufc

New Episode Summary

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON iTUNES! 

New Episode - We start the show talking with Jordan Gaza about her fight this past weekend. We ask her what was worse losing her first pro fight or being voted off our Tournament of Chicks? We then discuss UFC 148 and give our predictions. We then bring in the wives to judge the next round of the Tournament of Chicks, first they decide to scrap Mike “The Truth” Jackson’s previous picks. We then just BS and call it a show!

Follow us on twitter @undefeatedradio and on YouTube.

We start off the show by bringing Oscar Enriquez, CEO of Ultimate Warrior Fighting, to talk about the finale of the Tournament of Warriors on June 30th in Corpus Christi. He breaks down the fights and gives a special announcement about a fighter headed for the Ultimate Fighter house.

We also bring on Jordan Nicole Gaza, former women’s Tuff N-Uff champion, who makes her pro debut at the tournament of champions show.

We also discuss MMA news and the Ufc on FX 4.

Twitter: @jacobcalbillo  @rrangel81  @undefeatedradio

Facebook: Undefeated Radio

Click here to listen!

HOUSTON, TX, June 20, 2012

The next four IMKF events will be centered on a tournament grand prix featuring the welterweight and light heavyweight divisions, labeled as “Tournament of Immortality.”

The plan is to offer up a winner-takes-all $15,000 cash prize to the winner of each of the two divisions within this grand prix along with a championship belt to each – crowning the first welterweight and light heavyweight champion for the organization.

The selection process is already underway to determine the 32 participants (16 in each weight division) for the upcoming tournament.

See the press release below for additional details on the tournament and how fighters can submit themselves for consideration.

Tournament of Immortality Press release:

Tournament of Immortality will be the beginning of a 4 part saga tournament which just so happens to kick off October 20, 2012 for IMKF-IV.  We are running this tournament in hopes of discovering the best Welterweight and Light Heavyweight, arguably in the state of Texas.  As alluded before, this tournament will begin on October 20, 2012 with 16 Welterweights chosen for entry and 16 Light Heavyweights chosen for entry.  Round One will commence that night.  Round Two will commence sometime in January (to allow fighters to enjoy in the holiday festivities with their loved ones).  Round three will transpire in March for the Semi-Finals.  The Championship bouts will go down in May and a new 170 and 205 Champion will be crowned, along with $15,000 purse for each respective division.

Anyone interested, we ask that you post a 60 second video as to why we should select you.  Tell us your background, your fighting history, perhaps a highlight or two.  Whatever you feel will help our panel of judges decide who is given an opportunity.  Once you have the video shot, post it on our IMKFight Facebook fan page.  Time is of the essence so all videos and bios need to be submitted by July 15th.  In addition, all of your medicals/licenses need to be in or you will NOT be selected.  Each fighter will have behind the scene footage shot, leading up to the fights and on exhibit for the audience/fan base to view.

We chose these weights because we feel like it allows for those that are both below and above these respective weight classes to either cut or gain 15lbs or less, thus allowing them the opportunity to compete.  We want this tournament as an all or nothing!!!  Come strong or don’t come at all!!!  How confident are you in your skills?  Are you the best or are you just pretend.  The true put up or shut up, mentality will be on display.  Also, we feel that by doing these two weight classes, we will both directly and indirectly bring forward the best of the best.  In fact, we don’t question that at all.  The only question worth noting is…who exactly is the best???

*All events will be held at The Edge Sports Complex in The Woodlands.  This venue is the home of IMKF and we feel that it embodies everything we are about. 

As always, the purpose of our reviews here on TXMMA is to keep the community as informed as possible regarding the latest and greatest products and technology for training and combat sports life.

Classy kicked off this mission not too long ago with his impartial review of the Nike+ FuelBand during one of his No A/C jiu-jitsu classes – a post so well received it had Nike Chief Talent Scout Michael Leming jumping out of an airplane while shouting out to Classy and promising to look into truly making the product viable for the BJJ practitioner.

Now Classy and TXMMA are stepping it up even more on the review front by focusing on other products that are already present in the market and targeted specifically for BJJ.

Next up with this initiative is GI Reviews.

Review Focus – Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Gis / Kimonos

This is going to be relatively straightforward.

TXMMA and Classy are seeking to identify and test the GI and Kimono brands out there that casual practitioners and extreme competitors deserve to know about.

We’re looking to identify and highlight the brands that test well in terms of price, strength, quality of material, and design in order to give our readers and the community at-large in-depth knowledge as to what options are available to them when making their next and subsequent purchases.

Nationally but also on a local level, we are also aiming to identify brands interested in supporting dedicated grapplers worthy of their brand and vice versa with competitors that could represent said companies well.

We’ve already got a few being tested but any interested brands that want in can feel free to message Mike or Classy on Facebook to get on board.

Branding Incentives

As an added incentive above and beyond an honest review of your product for interested consumers, we’re also doing the following things for the GI company that rates the best.

1 – Three months of complementary banner ad space (300×150 spot) on TXMMA.com, the market-leading website for Mixed Martial Arts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the state of Texas but also covering the sports nationwide and internationally as well.

2 – The winning brand will appear in an instructional video shot by Classy Grappler featuring the GI on Submissions 101, which has over 90k subscribers and over 40 million views and running!

3 – Print ad space courtesy of Legacy Magazine, an MMA lifestyle publication put on by HDNet’s Legacy Fighting Championship with a circulation of over 10,000 per issue.

Reach out to us today if interested. The submission deadline for consideration is Monday, July 18th.

Latest Review - Nike+ FuelBand Extreme Field Test

Complete TXMMA review for Nike+ FuelBand here.

We also have an MMA Fit class 6:00am Mon-Wed-Fri.

www.nextgenerationmma.com

DALLAS, TX, June 7, 2012

This event follows the promotion’s successful debut this past January that saw Marcus “The Wrecking Ball” Hicks return to action after a long layoff with a submission win over Josh Lee along with ten other exciting fights for the fans on hand.

Element is looking to repeat the success of their first event with their nine card slate slated for this Saturday night.

Headlining the card this time around will be two Texas fight veterans facing off in Brandon Farran (6-44) and Cleburn Walker (9-8).

Fighting professionally since 2007, the 26 year old Brandon will be going into this fight looking for his third win in a row after beating at pair of Jones (Edwynn and Jarret) in his last two fights. Meanwhile, his opponent will be looking at this bout as a means to right the ship after losing his last six fights in a row after starting his career with a promising 9-2 record.

Next up in the co-main event is a border battle between two Bellator veterans in Louisiana-based Kalvin Hackney (11-3) and Rusk, TX native Booker Arthur (2-2).

Both fighters should be desperately seeking a victory in this one after having lost their last two fights in a row. Despite those setbacks, both fighters will be looking to prove they still have what it takes to be top level fighters. Kalvin started his career 10-1 while the 21 year old Booker went 9-2 on the amateur circuit prior to turning pro and taking on tough fight s like Shannon Stack in his last fight so it’s highly likely we haven’t been the best of these guys just yet.

As for the rest of the card, it features a few other names we’d label as fighters worthy of keeping an eye on moving forward.

Here are some of them now.

Prospects to Watch

Evan Cutts

Evan Cutts (4-0) – A 21 year old fighting out of Fitness Fight Factory, Evan has been recognized as one of the top young prospects in the state in recent times. Also known as “The Butcher,” Evan gained notoriety for spoiling the coming out party of Reagan Penn at ProElite in November 2011. He followed that up with a  his recent win over Lee King on HDNet’s Legacy FC 11. He’ll be taking on Aaron Culpepper (2-1) at EFC 2 in hopes of gaining his fifth win as a pro.

Ciprian Hangan (2-1) – Known as “The Translyvanian Vampire,” this Romanian transplant was highly-touted after ending his first 3 fights (2 pro, 1 ammy) in the first round with lightning-quick KO/TKO’s – all while maintaining his judo background as his strength. Unfortunately, he was on the receiving end in his last fight against Jose Sanchez, a finish some call a quick stoppage but a TKO loss nonetheless. He’ll now look to rebound from that experience with a win over 1-0 Brandon Caldwell.

Ciprian Hangan

Tristan Grimsley (1-1) – 27 year old Tristan (Ross) Grimsley currently sports a 1-1 pro record with his most recent fight last month ending by submission in 44 seconds. As an amateur, he went 5-1 with his only loss being a decision to (now 4-0 pro) Matt Hobar. Look for him to validate his status as a prospect to watch when he takes on the debuting Aaron Robinson this Saturday.

Here’s the full card and additional info below.

EFC 2 “Full Throttle” Weigh-ins will be Friday June 8, at 3:00
McFadden’s Addison

Current Fight Card

Tristan Grimsley

170 lbs.: Brandon Farran vs. Cleburn Walker
155 lbs.: Kalvin Hackney vs. Booker Arthur
170 lbs.: Evan Cutts vs. Aaron Culpepper
185 lbs.: Brandon Caldwell vs. Ciprian Hangan
155 lbs.: Javier Obregon vs. Ali Ileiwi
265 lbs.: James Hall vs. Andrew Garza
170 lbs.: Antuan Williams vs. Chase Green
125 lbs.: Ivan Cole vs. Isaac Negrete
145 lbs.: Aaron Robinson vs. Tristan Grimsley

Fights will be June 9, 2012
Door Open 6:30 Fights Start 7:30 PM

The Palladium “Gilleys Dallas’
1135 South Lamar Street
Dallas, Texas