Jessica Long won the gold medal in the Taekwondo Individual Forms Competition at the AAU Junior Olympic Games held July 31-Aug. 7 in Hampton Roads, Va. Long, of McHenry, won in the 10 and 11-year-old advanced division. She also was the Illinois state champion. “She competed against the best in the country,” said Jerry Keys, owner of Key’s Martial Arts Academy, where Long trains. “It’s a real big deal.” Long also qualified for the AAU national tournament a year ago, but the results this year were dramatically different. “She didn’t do too well,” Keys said of Long’s performance last year. “I think nerves got a hold of her.” That experience might have played a part in her desire to push herself to train harder. Her expectations heading into the national competition were high. “I actually thought I was going to do pretty well,” Long said. “I trained very…

For UFC welterweight contender Thiago Alves, fighting is his life.

Thomas Gerbasi, UFC – It was a fairly innocuous question, but when UFC middleweight contender Mark Munoz responded to a query about his readiness for the 185-pound title picture should he defeat Yushin Okami this weekend in San Diego, one word in his response told you everything you need to know about the competitor dubbed ‘The Filipino Wrecking Machine.’

Jens Pulver: Win or Walk Away? Mar-2-2010 By Frank Curreri If you lose your next fight, will you retire? The inquiry creates a slightly awkward air for both the interviewer and interviewee. But it is to be expected. When you’re a former UFC champion and have been on a significant slide in recent years – media interviews can easily start to feel like FBI interrogations. Jens Pulver, however, does not take offense at the question, or the underlying insinuation. The fighter who for years has been, hands-down, perhaps the most compelling interview in MMA realizes that no credible reporter will interview him these days without somehow, someway, broaching the subject of whether his once-illustrious career is presently on life support. No

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D-II Wrestling Regionals Hit Mats

Keith Jardine is looking forward to testing his wrestling skills versus All-American wrestler, Ryan Bader. Don't miss Jardine vs. Bader, this Saturday, Feb. 20th Live at 7 pm PT/ 10pm ET on Pay-Per-View or UFCLIVE.com

Panama’s Celestino Caballero, who unified two of the junior featherweight titles by knocking out Steve Molitor in the fourth round in November 2008, has been stripped of one of his belts by the IBF. And one of the men who will fight for the vacant 122-pound belt? Molitor. Caballero (33-2, 23 KOs), who defended the unified crown twice, was relieved of his belt because no promoter, including his own handlers at Warriors Boxing, made an offer at either of the purse bids called for his mandatory defense against South Africa’s Takalani Ndlovu. Although Ndlovu’s handlers did not bid on the fight either, he was allowed to retain his position with the IBF and will fight for the vacant belt against Molitor on March 27 on Molitor’s turf at Casino Rama in Rama, Ontario. In 2007, Molitor made the first defense of his title reign by knocking out Ndlovu (30-5, 18 KOs) in the ninth round at Casino Rama. “We didn’t bid because we had no place to put the fight and my guy wants to go to 126 pounds anyway,” Warriors Boxing’s Leon Margules told ESPN.com…

The junior welterweight titlist Amir Khan and interim titleholder Marcos Maidana have been given a two-week extension to see if they can work out an agreement for their mandatory fight, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told ESPN.com. Golden Boy signed England’s Khan to a promotional deal last weekend and co-promotes Maidana with Universum, one of the leading promoters in Germany. The WBA had scheduled a Monday purse bid for Khan-Maidana in their offices in Panama before agreeing to the extension. There was some confusion, however, because several media outlets reported that the sides had made a deal after the WBA announced on its Web site that the purse bid had been canceled because they struck a “tentative agreement” for the bout to take place “approximately” at the “end of March or beginning of April.” That is not the case, Schaefer said. He said Golden Boy asked…

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Boxing wishes for 2010

The Weekly Wrap: Nov. 21 – Nov. 27 From the pre-fight histrionics to the post-fight verbiage, Tito Ortiz made sure his first fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship after an 18-month absence was, though a loss, something to talk about.