by MMA Staff Writer Geoff Mackay
www.fighting-mma.com
Mixed martial arts has come a long way from the days where everyone wanted to see what was the best martial arts discipline in fighting. I think that Brazilian Jit-Jitsu won that argument but after people began seeing the merits of BJJ, people wanted to combine that with their martial arts training.
Soon the term mixed martial arts (MMA) became popular and MMA schools began popping up all over the place. MMA clubs began combining the best part of different martial arts into on discipline to become a better fighter.
Now that we are just a little over a decade into MMA what are the best MMA clubs to train at.
Below is my top 5 MMA clubs in the world.
Minnesota
Martial Arts Academy (MMAA) is a martial arts training center in
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota that was founded in 1992 by Greg Nelson, a former NCAA Division 1 wrestler at the University of Minnesota. The academy's fight team has a winning percentage of 80%
Greg Nelson combined his background in wrestling, from college; with the Thai-boxing training he began in 1983 to form the basis of MMA.
He starting MMAA in 1992 to incorporated shoot wrestling and submission fighting to form the basis of its mixed martial arts training.
Nelson is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Pedro Sauer.
Nelson takes big strong wrestlers and refines their raw power and strength into well roiunded mixed martial arts fighters.
Prominent fighters include:
Sean Sherk- Former UFC Lightweight World Champion
Brock Lesnar - UFC Heavyweight World Champion
Brock Larson - UFC, WEC Title Contender
Jacob Volkmann - UFC, Former VFC Welterweight Champion
Nick Thompson - Former BodogFIGHT Welterweight World Champion, UFC Veteran, Strikeforce, Sengoku
American
Kickboxing Academy (AKA) is a martial arts gym located in San Jose,
California. The club was founded in the mid 80’s by Javier Mendez.
Mendez brought in Dave Camarillo, Bob Cook, Derek Yuen, Lynn Schultz,
and Ted Lucio.
Dave Camarillo is a black belt in Judo and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and got his black belt from the famous Ralph Gracie along training alongside BJ Penn. He has started his own form of grappling called Guerilla Jiu-jitsu that mixed Judo with BJJ techniques.
AKA has taken very high level wrestlers and refined and adapted their wrestling ability into mixed martial arts.
AKA has become a major MMA club in the world and their list of fighters are improving every day.
Prominent fighters include:
3 - Black House
The only top club outside of the US is Black House. Black House is a mixed martial arts fighting team and gym based out of Brazil.
Opened on November 27, 2006, Black House was started by former Brazilian Top Team members and black belts Carlos Barreto, Jorge Guimaraes and Rogerio Camoes. Guimaraes acted as the team's manager and Camoes was in charge of the team's training.
Members of Black House were former Brazilian Top Team members who were former Carlson Gracie fighters.
Brazilian Top Team had a bitter rivalry with Chute Boxe and in the end recruited former Chute Boxe Academy fighter Anderson Silva.
The gym offers classes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Savate, Muay Thai, Boxing and American Wrestling but is largely based on the aggressive top fighting mentality of the Carlson Gracie style.
Like many of the offshoots before Black House, there have been disputes over money and the club is rumored to split from Carlson Gracie to BTT to Black House to the next incarnation.
Prominent fighters include:
The second best MMA club is American Top Team
in Coconut Creek Florida. ATT was founded by former members of
Brazilian Top Team, Ricardo Liborio, Marcus Silveira and Marcelo
Silveira but there is no formal affiliation between the two teams.
ATT's main academy is in Coconut Creek, Florida but has 20 franchises
throughout the United States.
ATT is an off shoot of Brazilian Top Team who was founded in April 2000 by Murilo Bustamante, Ricardo Libório, Mário Sperry and Luis Roberto Duarte, former-members of the Carlson Gracie Academy who were expelled by Carlson Gracie to develop and create new training techniques for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, submission wrestling and mixed martial arts.
In 2003, Liborio left Brazilian Top Team to start ATT with hotel executive Dan Lambert as a partner and he took Marcus Silveira and Marcelo Silveira with him.
ATT uses the Carlson Gracie philosophy of aggressive fighting and fighting form the top. His brand of aggressive jiu-jitsu is the best for MMA fighting since they use their BJJ to fight form the top.
ATT also works on aggressive striking and has brought in Howard Davis Jr. who works as boxing director at American Top Team where he trains both amateur and professional boxers and MMA fighters.
ATT is a clear #2 for best MMA club in the world due to the aggressive jiu-jitsu style and striking.
Prominent fighters include:
Greg
Jackson is a mixed martial arts trainer, who operates the Jackson's
Submission Fighting and MMA training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Greg Jackson fighters from Jackson's camp have a win percentage of 81%.
Greg Jackson’s MMA club is by far the best mixed martial club in the world. Combining basic Judo locks with his wrestling Greg started to formulate his own style and style and system of martial arts and self defense called Gaidojutsu.
In 1993 Greg saw the first Ultimate Fighting Championship and realized that the Gracie family (which are well known for their very effective style of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) was much more advanced than his current ideas.
He then developed his art by adding techniques from other styles such as Wrestling, Grappling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Kickboxing. His school officially turned into an MMA school in 2000.
Greg is constantly looking for new ways to make his brand of mixed martial arts more efficient. The Jackson fighting system has been proven in both self defense and in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. To this day Greg Jackson has developed 10 world champions.
His team has won such prestigious awards such as Grapplers Quest, the Pan American games and others. Jackson's fight team is also ranked number 1 in the highest winning percentage by Sherdog.com.
So why is Greg Jackson such a great coach? He has never been a world champion nor has an NCAA wrestling pedigree or a black belt in most martial arts.
So what makes Jackson so good? In the world of MMA, Jackson is a master strategist. Not only does he provide the proper training but he goes beyond the workouts and technique training.
Jackson uses a holistic approach to training. He works on mental images and how to meditate and mental prepare for the fight with proper breathing techniques to mentally prepare for the fight.
Jackson also prepares his fighters for a game plan. Most clubs just train their fighters but Jackson comes up with a game plan on how they should fight their particular opponent. That is the difference between him and every other trainer in the world.
His fighters might not be the most talented but when they go into a fight they have a game plan and are the better fighter that night. Maybe not on paper but on preparedness and mentality they are.
Greg Jackson won two World MMA Awards for "Best Coach" and "Best Gym" in 2009 Greg Jackson was named the 9th most powerful man in MMA by Fight! magazine in 2009. Greg has competitors in Pride, UFC, Abu Dhabi, and many other prestigious events.
Notable fighters include:
Mixed martial arts has come a long way from the days where everyone wanted to see what was the best martial arts discipline in fighting. I think that Brazilian Jit-Jitsu won that argument but after people began seeing the merits of BJJ, people wanted to combine that with their martial arts training.
Soon the term mixed martial arts (MMA) became popular and MMA schools began popping up all over the place. MMA clubs began combining the best part of different martial arts into on discipline to become a better fighter.
Now that we are just a little over a decade into MMA what are the best MMA clubs to train at.
Below is my top 5 MMA clubs in the world.
5 – Minnesota Martial Arts Academy (MMAA)
Minnesota
Martial Arts Academy (MMAA) is a martial arts training center in
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota that was founded in 1992 by Greg Nelson, a former NCAA Division 1 wrestler at the University of Minnesota. The academy's fight team has a winning percentage of 80%Greg Nelson combined his background in wrestling, from college; with the Thai-boxing training he began in 1983 to form the basis of MMA.
He starting MMAA in 1992 to incorporated shoot wrestling and submission fighting to form the basis of its mixed martial arts training.
Nelson is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Pedro Sauer.
Nelson takes big strong wrestlers and refines their raw power and strength into well roiunded mixed martial arts fighters.
Prominent fighters include:
Sean Sherk- Former UFC Lightweight World Champion
Brock Lesnar - UFC Heavyweight World Champion
Brock Larson - UFC, WEC Title Contender
Jacob Volkmann - UFC, Former VFC Welterweight Champion
Nick Thompson - Former BodogFIGHT Welterweight World Champion, UFC Veteran, Strikeforce, Sengoku
4 - American Kickboxing Academy (AKA)
American
Kickboxing Academy (AKA) is a martial arts gym located in San Jose,
California. The club was founded in the mid 80’s by Javier Mendez.
Mendez brought in Dave Camarillo, Bob Cook, Derek Yuen, Lynn Schultz,
and Ted Lucio.Dave Camarillo is a black belt in Judo and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and got his black belt from the famous Ralph Gracie along training alongside BJ Penn. He has started his own form of grappling called Guerilla Jiu-jitsu that mixed Judo with BJJ techniques.
AKA has taken very high level wrestlers and refined and adapted their wrestling ability into mixed martial arts.
AKA has become a major MMA club in the world and their list of fighters are improving every day.
Prominent fighters include:
- Jon Fitch
- Josh Koscheck
- Paul Buentello
- Mike Swick
- Cung Le
- Cain Velasquez
- Josh Thomson
- Billy Evangelista
- Herschel Walker
- Daniel Cormier
- Bobby Lashley
3 - Black House
The only top club outside of the US is Black House. Black House is a mixed martial arts fighting team and gym based out of Brazil. Opened on November 27, 2006, Black House was started by former Brazilian Top Team members and black belts Carlos Barreto, Jorge Guimaraes and Rogerio Camoes. Guimaraes acted as the team's manager and Camoes was in charge of the team's training.
Members of Black House were former Brazilian Top Team members who were former Carlson Gracie fighters.
Brazilian Top Team had a bitter rivalry with Chute Boxe and in the end recruited former Chute Boxe Academy fighter Anderson Silva.
The gym offers classes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Savate, Muay Thai, Boxing and American Wrestling but is largely based on the aggressive top fighting mentality of the Carlson Gracie style.
Like many of the offshoots before Black House, there have been disputes over money and the club is rumored to split from Carlson Gracie to BTT to Black House to the next incarnation.
Prominent fighters include:
- Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira (Former Pride FC heavyweight champion and former UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion)
- Antônio Rogério Nogueira
- Anderson Silva (Current UFC Middleweight Champion)
- Lyoto Machida (Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion)
- Junior dos Santos
- Jose Aldo (Current WEC Featherweight Champion)
- Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante (Current Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion)
- Paulo Filho (Former WEC Middleweight Champion)
- Nino "Elvis" Schembri
- Pedro Rizzo
- Andre Galvao
- Mark Muñoz
- Wagnney Fabiano
- Chase Gormley
- Ronaldo "Jacaré" Souza (Current Strikeforce Middleweight Champion)
2 – American Top Team (ATT)
The second best MMA club is American Top Team
in Coconut Creek Florida. ATT was founded by former members of
Brazilian Top Team, Ricardo Liborio, Marcus Silveira and Marcelo
Silveira but there is no formal affiliation between the two teams.
ATT's main academy is in Coconut Creek, Florida but has 20 franchises
throughout the United States.ATT is an off shoot of Brazilian Top Team who was founded in April 2000 by Murilo Bustamante, Ricardo Libório, Mário Sperry and Luis Roberto Duarte, former-members of the Carlson Gracie Academy who were expelled by Carlson Gracie to develop and create new training techniques for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, submission wrestling and mixed martial arts.
In 2003, Liborio left Brazilian Top Team to start ATT with hotel executive Dan Lambert as a partner and he took Marcus Silveira and Marcelo Silveira with him.
ATT uses the Carlson Gracie philosophy of aggressive fighting and fighting form the top. His brand of aggressive jiu-jitsu is the best for MMA fighting since they use their BJJ to fight form the top.
ATT also works on aggressive striking and has brought in Howard Davis Jr. who works as boxing director at American Top Team where he trains both amateur and professional boxers and MMA fighters.
ATT is a clear #2 for best MMA club in the world due to the aggressive jiu-jitsu style and striking.
Prominent fighters include:
- Jorge Santiago SENGOKU Middleweight Champion
- Hector Lombard Bellator Middleweight Champion
- Mike Thomas Brown WEC Featherweight Champion (2008-'09)
- Gesias "JZ" Calvancanti Middleweight Grand Prix champion (K-1 HERO's 2006, 2007)
- Antonio Silva Heavyweight (Elite XC 2008)
- Jeff Monson Heavyweight (Cage Warriors Heavyweight Champion 2004)
- Marcus Aurelio Lightweight Grand Prix Champion (ZST - Japan 2004)
- Denis Kang Middleweight (Spirit MC 2004)
- Marcelo Garcia (DREAM)
- Ben Saunders (UFC)
- Thiago Silva (UFC)
- Din Thomas (UFC)
- Luigi Fioravanti (UFC, MFC)
- Thiago Alves (UFC)
- Gleison Tibau (UFC)
- Wilson Gouveia (UFC)
- Roan Carneiro (UFC)
- Cole Miller, (UFC)
- Rafael Dias (IFL, BodogFIGHT)
1 - Greg Jackson Fighting Submission
Greg
Jackson is a mixed martial arts trainer, who operates the Jackson's
Submission Fighting and MMA training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Greg Jackson fighters from Jackson's camp have a win percentage of 81%.Greg Jackson’s MMA club is by far the best mixed martial club in the world. Combining basic Judo locks with his wrestling Greg started to formulate his own style and style and system of martial arts and self defense called Gaidojutsu.
In 1993 Greg saw the first Ultimate Fighting Championship and realized that the Gracie family (which are well known for their very effective style of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) was much more advanced than his current ideas.
He then developed his art by adding techniques from other styles such as Wrestling, Grappling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Kickboxing. His school officially turned into an MMA school in 2000.
Greg is constantly looking for new ways to make his brand of mixed martial arts more efficient. The Jackson fighting system has been proven in both self defense and in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. To this day Greg Jackson has developed 10 world champions.
His team has won such prestigious awards such as Grapplers Quest, the Pan American games and others. Jackson's fight team is also ranked number 1 in the highest winning percentage by Sherdog.com.
So why is Greg Jackson such a great coach? He has never been a world champion nor has an NCAA wrestling pedigree or a black belt in most martial arts.
So what makes Jackson so good? In the world of MMA, Jackson is a master strategist. Not only does he provide the proper training but he goes beyond the workouts and technique training.
Jackson uses a holistic approach to training. He works on mental images and how to meditate and mental prepare for the fight with proper breathing techniques to mentally prepare for the fight.
Jackson also prepares his fighters for a game plan. Most clubs just train their fighters but Jackson comes up with a game plan on how they should fight their particular opponent. That is the difference between him and every other trainer in the world.
His fighters might not be the most talented but when they go into a fight they have a game plan and are the better fighter that night. Maybe not on paper but on preparedness and mentality they are.
Greg Jackson won two World MMA Awards for "Best Coach" and "Best Gym" in 2009 Greg Jackson was named the 9th most powerful man in MMA by Fight! magazine in 2009. Greg has competitors in Pride, UFC, Abu Dhabi, and many other prestigious events.
Notable fighters include:
- Georges St-Pierre – UFC Welterweight champion
- Rashad Evans – former UFC Light Heavyweight champion, The Ultimate Fighter heavyweight winner
- Nate Marquardt – former 7-time King of Pancrase; UFC veteran
- Diego Sanchez - The Ultimate Fighter middleweight winner
- Kenny Florian - The Ultimate Fighter middleweight runner-up
- Shane Carwin – former UFC Interim Heavyweight champion
- Keith Jardine – The Ultimate Fighter 2 contestant
- Joey Villasenor – PRIDE, Elite XC veteran
- Jon Jones – UFC
- Roger Huerta – UFC veteran, Bellator Fighting Championships
- Donald Cerrone – WEC veteran
- Leonard Garcia – WEC, UFC
- Joe Stevenson – UFC veteran,The Ultimate Fighter 2 welterweight winner
- Brian Stann – former WEC Light Heavyweight champion, UFC
- David Loiseau – UFC veteran, TKO, Elite XC veteran
- Kyle Noke – Elite XC, Warriors Real, cast member on The Ultimate Fighter 11
- Jason MacDonald – UFC, TKO veteran
- Yoshihiro Akiyama – UFC, HERO'S
- Carlos Condit – former WEC Welterweight champion, UFC
- Melvin Guillard – UFC Veteran
- Damacio Page – WEC Veteran
- Cub Swanson - WEC Veteran
- Andrei Arlovski – Strikeforce, former UFC Heavyweight Champion
- Brendan Schaub – runner-up on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights |
- James McSweeney – cast member on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights
8 comments:
Very good blog and informative for mix martial arts training for juniors.
Thank you!
Thanks For sharing this information it will really help us for MMA
Regards,
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