Yael Grauer is a freelance writer who’s been working with independent media since 1996. She writes regularly for Sherdog, and her work has been featured in Ultimate MMA magazine, T-Nation, Experience Life, Bitch magazine, and the Performance Menu: Journal of Health and Athletic Excellence, where she also serves as the Managing Editor. Yael trains in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Find her on the web at yaelwrites.com

Eric ‘Red’ Schafer will be facing Jorge ‘El Conquistador’ Rivera at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller in Nashville, Tennessee this Friday. Schafer, who will be fighting on the undercard on Fuel TV, has been working on his footwork and speed. Special thanks to Nathan Schafer for the video. Rivera holds a record of 19 [...]

The second event of MMA Playground’s season 12: The Dirty Dozen is in the books, and our welterweight team’s current season rank has moved up from #86 to #83 in the Welterweight division. We went 7-2 as a team. Not bad. We were correct about Aldo, Belfort, Barboza, Pyle, Tavares and Gonzaga, ranging from 56 [...]

The January 2012 Women’s MMA Rankings have been released, reflecting fights taking place through January 7, 2012. In the strawweight division, the previously unranked Sachiko “Sachi” Yamamoto comes in at #6 due to her defeat of Tamada, who is now ranked #7. Jennifer Berg falls off the rankings. In the flyweight division, Hamasaki (previously #9) [...]

It is nearly impossible not to root for Kaitlin Young. As a professional writer, I try my best to maintain at least an appearance of neutrality when covering events. And although the local fight community in Minneapolis knows Young as one of the hardest working fighters training at the Academy (which, of course, is one of [...]

Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol. She’s not the first fighter to test positive for the substance. That honor (sarcasm) goes to Phil Baroni, who tested positive after fighting Frank Shamrock at Strikeforce: Judgement Day in June 2007. K-1 fighter Zabit Samedov tested positive for stanozolol a few months later. Tim [...]

Former UFC fighter Hermes Franca was convicted of sexually abusing a minor at the Oregon martial arts academy where he was then teaching, according to an article in the Oregonian. The former UFC lightweight contender turned himself into police last May after a warrant for his arrest was issued. He was originally wanted on seven [...]

MMA HQ’s very own Yael Grauer joined Kwame, Dino and Cory of Two Couch Potatos to discuss UFC 141 on the 12th episode of their podcast, We Are Still the Wizzards. The first 24 minutes of the podcast were all MMA: We discussed Fitch and GSP’s fighting styles, Nate Diaz’s attitude, Brock Lesnar’s retirement, Jimy [...]

Megumi Fujii is something of a legend, not least for her incredible record of 25-1-0 (with her one loss being an extremely controversial decision.) Fujii’s also well-known for her quick submission finishes, and her New Years Eve fight for DREAM was no exception. Watch below as Mega Megu scores a victory in just 75 seconds.

The Women’s MMA Press Association has announced the 2011 winners of the Women’s Mixed Martial Arts Awards. (To listen to three podcasts of recipients accepting their awards, tune in to the Wombat Sports podcast.) Submission of the Year went to Miesha Tate for defeating then-champion Marloes Coenen via 4th round arm triangle last July. Coenen [...]

The very first event of MMA Playground’s season 12: The Dirty Dozen is complete, and our welterweight team’s current season rank is #86 in the Welterweight division. UFC 141 was a tough card to call. As a team, we overwhelmingly favored Donald Cerrone to Nate Diaz and were proven wrong as we saw the Cowboy [...]

To wrap up the year, we’re going to take a quick look back at the top posts on MMA HQ over 2011. 1. Leaked! Ultimate Women Challenge Disaster: Filming Plagued by Lack of Food, Funds, Training. The most popular post of the year was this blueprint for slimy producers: when screwing fighters out of their [...]

The WMMA Press Association has announced the annual WMMA award nominees for 2011, and we’ve been releasing details each day this week. We’re wrapping up this series by posting Fight of the Year Award nominees. Here are the 9 fights and video footage. Rosi Sexton vs Roxanne Modafferi at Cage Warriors 40  Marloes Coenen vs Liz [...]

The Grappler’s Manifesto: The Guide to Strangling, Torquing & Bludgeoning Your Way to Victory in the Cage, written by Lance Freimuth, is the latest in the series of instructional books offered by Victory Belt Publishing. The book is about 350 pages long, and we’re talking no-gi grappling for MMA, not just grappling for tournaments. The [...]

As we mentioned, the WMMA Press Association, a gathering of journalists from MMARising.com, MMA HQ, TheUltimateFemaleFighter.com, Real Women’s MMA, Women’s MMA Today, WMMA Round-up, and Wombat Sports, has announced the annual WMMA award nominees for 2011. We listed Submission of the Year Award candidates on Monday, KO of the Year Award candidates on Tuesday, and [...]

The WMMA Press Association has announced the annual WMMA award nominees for 2011. We’ve already posted candidates for the KO of the Year and Submission of the Year awards. Here’s the picks for female fighter of the year, divided by weight class. (An overall female fighter of the year will also be selected.) Female Featherweight [...]