Daily News Story: Underground MMA In New York

June 8th, 2009 · No Comments

Professional MMA does appear to be close at hand here in New York. However, an underground world of unregulated MMA has been alive and well in the state for some time. Click through for a link to the story and video from the Daily News about the thrills and risks involved in fighting “off the grid.”

Daily News Story

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Off The Cuff... Edgar VS. Alvarez!

In early May, I was down at Almeida BJJ to shoot and produce a feature on Frankie Edgar tied to his photo shoot for FIGHT! magazine. That video will be on Fightmagazine.com soon. While working, I was lucky to witness one of the great sparring sessions in my day. Edgar was going toe-to-toe with Eddie Alvarez who was one week out from his fight V. Josh Neer. Now, I have known Frankie for some time, so I might be biased but he did seem to control the action. Standing, his fast hands and feet allowed him to get off first much like we saw against BJ and Sherk. Each man got a couple takedowns but the overall pace and forward movement seemed slightly in favor of Edgar. Now, in Eddie's defense, he may have been only seeking to work on one element of his game V. Edgar and only trying to react or setup something only he knew of, specific to the Josh Neer fight ... so in that respect, it was not a true test of each fighting the other under the same context. That said, there was not really anything off limits - it was vicious jab/right combos from Frankie followed, at one point, by a head over heel body-throw take-down from Eddie on Frankie ... neither giving an inch. It felt like the real thing minus the the bright lights and octagon. It seemed to get harsh a couple of times but that may have just been my read. In the end, hard core sparring at play. Two of the top-5 lightweights on the planet going after each other at 110% on a lazy Thursday morning in Hamilton, NJ. After the session, what did Edgar do... relax-no, he went to use a chainsaw and chop down small trees in a friend's backyard for three hours.