Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas, (born 2 October 1993), is a chef at the restaurant Luke's Dining Room at Sanctum on the Green, in Cookham. He has appeared on a handful of television shows, including Junior MasterChef, Great British Menu, Russell Howard's Good News (in May 2013) and a BBC Three documentary about hi, entitled Britain's Youngest Chef.

Career

Thomas was born in Connah's Quay, North Wales, and began cooking at the age of 12. He has worked at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel, as well as the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai and Alinea in Chicago. He has also worked alongside several Michelin starred chefs, including Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck, Thomas Keller at a French Laundry pop-up restaurant in London, and Gary Rhodes. In 2009, at the age of 15, he won the FutureChef competition by Springboard.

In February 2012, at the age of 18, Thomas became the youngest head chef in the United Kingdom when he took over at a restaurant in Cookham. The restaurant was originally called Sanctum on the Green, but was renamed to "Luke's Fine Dining at Sanctum on the Green" under Thomas. This was filmed for television for the BBC Three documentary series Britain's Youngest Chef. Although this was the first filmed appearance by Thomas, his first broadcast television appearance was as an expert on Junior MasterChef. He also competed in the Great British Menu in 2012 against Mary Ann Gilchrist and Richard Davies, where he became the youngest competitor to ever appear on the show.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a mixed martial arts promotion company. It is the largest in the world and features most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport. Based in the United States, the UFC produces events worldwide that showcase ten weight divisions and abide by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. The UFC has held over 300 events to date. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC while brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta control the UFC's parent company, Zuffa, LLC.

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event was held on November 12, 1993 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the early Ultimate Fighting Championship competitions were to identify the most effective martial art in a fight, with minimal rules, between competitors of different fighting disciplines, including boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Sambo, wrestling, Muay Thai, karate, judo, and other styles. In subsequent competitions, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an entirely separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.

SB Nation

SB Nation (Sports Blog Nation) is a sports news website owned and operated by Vox Media (formerly SportsBlogs, Inc.). Established in 2005, the site comprises 309 blogs covering individual professional and college sports teams, and other sports-oriented topics. The site operates from Vox’s offices just off Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, as well as Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

SB Nation currently has content-sharing partnerships with Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, USA Today, Comcast and the National Hockey League (NHL)

History

The concept of SB Nation was rooted in Athletics Nation, a blog focused on the Oakland Athletics, which was founded in 2003 by Tyler Bleszinski. Bleszinski noted that at the time, blogs focused on sports were a new concept limited to "mostly baseball sites on Typepad and Blogger", and that he was displeased over how the Athletics were being covered by these sites. In the spirit of Athletics manager Billy Beane, he decided to build his own blog with an aggressive focus on the team. Athletics Nation soon became the second-largest site on the advertising network Blogads behind the political blog Daily Kos. Its author, Markos Moulitsas, was also a friend of Bleszinksi; in 2005, Bleszinksi partnered with him to form SB Nation, which would serve as a network of sports blogs with a common platform enabling community participation. Athletics Nation began hiring additional part-time writers, while the SB Nation network would absorb and acquire other sports blogs focusing on major league and college teams.

Chael Sonnen

Chael Patrick Sonnen (/ˈtʃeɪl ˈsʌnən/; born April 3, 1977) is a retired American mixed martial artist who last competed in the light heavyweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Early life and career

Sonnen was born in either Milwaukie, Oregon, United States or West Linn, Oregon (sources differ), and began wrestling from a young age. He attended West Linn High School, where he was a state runner-up. In 1996, Sonnen began training in boxing, with the hope of competing in the UFC upon graduating from high school.

After high school, Sonnen attended Brigham Young University before transferring to the University of Oregon when BYU began considering cutting their wrestling program. At Oregon, Sonnen earned All-American honors, was a two-time PAC-10 runner-up, was a silver medalist at the 2000 Greco-Roman World University Championships, and was a two-time Dave Schultz Memorial Institutional Greco-Roman winner. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology.

Wanderlei Silva

Wanderlei César da Silva (/ˈvændərleɪ/ VAN-dər-lay; Portuguese: [vɐ̃dɛɾˈlej ˈsɛzɐr dɐ ˈsiɫvɐ];Japanese: [ba̠nda̠ɽe̞i ɕiü͍βa̠]; born July 3, 1976), nicknamed "The Axe Murderer" and "Cachorro Louco" (Portuguese for "mad dog"), is a Brazilian retired mixed martial artist who has competed in Japan's Pride Fighting Championships and the American-based Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He holds the record for the most wins, knockouts, title defenses, and longest winning streak in PRIDE history. He is the former PRIDE Middleweight Champion, and the 2003 PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix Tournament Champion.

Mixed martial arts career

Early career

Silva's aggressive style is rooted in street brawling, refined with elements of Muay Thai and kickboxing which he began learning at the age of 13 in Chute Boxe Academy in his hometown Curitiba. As a late teen he joined the military and was quickly recognized for his fighting talents and rose up in the ranks. There he was asked to join Vale Tudo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu school. Silva enlisted after already winning fight tournaments in his age group in Brazil. Silva would develop scar tissue around his eyes from fighting in bare-knuckle vale tudo.