Oct
24
2009
5

MMA World Expo

By Eric Kamander Subscribe to Articles by Eric Kamander

I just came back from New York City’s first ever World MMA Expo.

It was filled with the usual things you would expect at this sort of event: grappling demonstrations, MMA clothing merchants, supplement dealers, scantily clad ring girl wannabees. Overall I have to say the whole things was a bit unimpressive. That said I still had a good time for the few hours I hung around.

Wanderlei Silva was there all day signing autographs in an octagon, and the line out side it was so long I think it might have taken me that long to get one. I settled for this picture from outside the cage.

I talked to Rich Clementi for a while. He was really cool. He has a fight coming up in Cage Wars. I asked him about the fight between Anthony Johnson and Yoshiyuki Yoshida at UFC 104 tonight (considering that Rich submitted Anthony Johnson at UFC 76). He was pretty down on Johnson for not making weight, but he predicted that Johnson will still knock out Yoshida, as this was why the fight was made. I’m glad I got to tell him that I for one enjoyed his fight with Gray Maynard (and that’s the truth).

I met Phil Nurse, the trainer from Jackson’s Fighting Systems who recently appeared in an episode of The Ultimate Fighter. He was really nice. I wanted to ask him if he would take a picture with me rubbing Vaseline on my chest, but after watching the Muay Thai demonstration he had done earlier I didn’t think it was a good idea.

I got to meet Scott Jorgensen, who is currently ranked #10 in MMA Ratings’ Bantamweight Rankings. Another cool guy, which I already new from his recent interview posted on MMA Ratings. It was good to meet him and let him know that all of us here at MMA Ratings thought he won that fight with Antonio Banuelos.

While I was there I met with Dr. Silk. He gave me a free posture check and realignment. It was all good. But I have to say that Miguel Charles from 24/7 Bodyworks, the man in the picture, really worked some magic on my back and gave me some words of wisdom that I really appreciated. I highly recommend looking him up if you have some back or neck pain!

When you’re hitting the heavy bag, do you ever wish that the bag would move like a real opponent? Like when you throw a kick and then you have to step back and reset? I always wished I had a heavy bag that would move around when you hit it. Well these guys over at GlideBoxx have made that machine. If you look at the contraption holding the heavy bag, it allows the bag to move in every direction and adjustable bungees let you modify the give. We all tried it out and it works exactly like you would hope. Kudos to them.

There were also some cool Muay Thai, BJJ and Judo demonstrations. I was originally planning on going tomorrow, but I think I’ll take my kids to the zoo if the weather holds up.


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