UFC light-heavyweight Brandon Vera has been called many things during the course of a nine-year mixed martial arts career. The list goes something like this. 'The Truth', mercurial talent, danger man, underachiever, deceiver, flop and, most recently, comeback kid. Now 34 years of age, Vera appears as though he's packed...

The recurring playlist of eighties disco and soul music had run its course and stopped. He'd been training for nearly three hours and pools of sweat by his feet were a testament to the intensity. So too were the grunts and cries heard each time he sent a left or...

For four-and-a-half rounds in 2010 Chael Sonnen looked the clear number one middleweight on the planet. In fact, it was beyond dispute. His nearest rival, the once seemingly invisible Anderson Silva, bowed to his aggression and brilliance for every second of every minute of their middleweight championship showdown to such...

They call it the old switcheroo. On Monday evening, UFC world middleweight champion Anderson Silva starkly switched from mellow to malevolent in the blink of an eye, taking everybody, not least of all opponent Chael Sonnen, by surprise. Speaking on a conference call hosted by UFC President Dana White, the...

Sometimes a fighter can lose six of his last nine fights and still be considered both watchable and admirable. And sometimes reputation is greater than record. In the case of Wanderlei Silva, both statements are true and if you don't believe me, listen to the wall of sound that greets...

Rich Franklin has been called many things in his life. 'Ace'. UFC middleweight champion. Mathematics teacher. Company man. Southpaw. He's also a wise man.

I was lucky enough to taste a sample of this wisdom in June 2009, when travelling on a mini bus with Franklin and team en...

Last July I sat and watched new IBF world super-middleweight champion Carl Froch re-construct a tea sandwich. It was more exciting than it sounds. First he removed the cocktail stick joining two pieces of bread, and then he snatched at two slices of yellow cheese and clawed away excess grease...

He may be snugly wrapped in the gold of the UFC world heavyweight title, but there was nothing golden or, indeed, snug about Brazilian Junior dos Santos' upbringing. No silver spoon in sight, either. Rather, the puppy-eyed, perennially-smiling heavyweight -- unbeaten in his UFC career to date -- was raised...

One thing was certain -- UFC 146 would feature heavyweights. Some big, some small, some great, some not so great. That was the plan from the get-go. A main card dominated by heavyweights, with bouts carrying varying degrees of importance, from pivotal title scraps down to thrilling three-rounders with little...

For better or worse, the heavyweights are making themselves heard again. Big, clumpy, unsightly footsteps left in the ground of combat sports, the type that stick and cast shadows over those with less power and size. And, it's true, heavyweights make the world go round. When the division is rich...

For the sake of the entire light-heavyweight division, I sincerely hope 'Suga' Rashad Evans is able to, at the very least, show a way of one day solving the Rubik's Cube that is current UFC 205 lb champion Jon 'Bones' Jones this coming Saturday (April 21) at UFC...

Okay, so the last time I offered ten reasons why so-and-so may be the future of something-or-other, my forecast came true. It was July 2010 and the fighter's name was Jon Jones. The 24-year-old New Yorker has since become UFC light-heavyweight champion and the most feared fighter on the planet....

A staggering 14 of the 24 fighters competing at the UFC's first ever event in Sweden next month are European. They include home hero Alexander Gustafsson, England's Brad Pickett, Germany's Dennis Siver and Italy's Alessio Sakara. Not bad going. Moreover, this upcoming event on April 14, televised live on Fuel...

The UFC's Ultimate Fighter (TUF) reality TV series returned to our screens last Friday night, but arrived with a twist -- as well as the fastest knockout in its history, at just eight seconds. While the show carried the same format and dangled the same prize at the end of...

Character arcs are vital components to the success of any story. Find character, develop character, introduce character to conflict and then, by the end of act three, the character should have changed, for better or worse, as a result of aforementioned conflict. Writers of books, films, plays and television spend...

Roll up, roll up, all flyweights welcome. If you want to be a star, the newly constructed UFC flyweight division could be the place for you. Well, so long as you're able to cut to a fighting weight of 125lbs and match the pace of some of the most frenetic...

Japan has been good to Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson. Scene of such crimes as 2003's knockout of Kevin Randleman and 2004's epic slam victory over Ricardo Arona, as well as a series of Grand Prix showings, Yokohama, Saitama and Tokyo were offered a taste of Rampage long before he became one...

Recent main events have promised plenty beforehand, but delivered little when the talking stopped and fists threatened to fly. The light-heavyweight five-rounder between Rashad Evans and Phil Davis carried a bucketload of trash talk and bad blood, while the welterweight clash between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz paired off two...

If the Ultimate Fighting Championship awarded world title belts for sheer fitness and intestinal fortitude Nick Diaz -- who fights Carlos Condit for the interim welterweight championship in Las Vegas on Saturday -- would have felt the weight of gold around his waist many years ago.

While some fighters...

Heavy on foreplay, but little in the way of prolonged action, the Ultimate Fighting Championship's debut on Fox lasted all of 64 seconds. That was all it took for Brazilian threshing machine Junior Dos Santos to cuff Cain Velasquez around the ear and rip his UFC heavyweight title from his...