MMA

MMA commonly refers to:

MMA may also refer to:

In business and commerce

In medicine

Conor McGregor

Conor Anthony McGregor (born 14 July 1988) is an Irish mixed martial artist who competes in the featherweight and lightweight divisions of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He is the current UFC Featherweight Champion and the former Cage Warriors featherweight and lightweight champion. As of 14 December 2015, he is No. 3 in the official UFC pound-for-pound rankings and ranked as the No. 1 featherweight and No. 5 pound-for-pound fighter in the world by Sherdog. He is currently on a 15-fight win streak, 14 of which have not made it past the second round.

Early life

McGregor was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was raised in the South Dublin suburb of Crumlin and attended a Gaelscoil and Gaelcholáiste at both primary and at secondary level in Coláiste de hÍde in Tallaght where he also developed his passion for sport playing association football. In his youth, he played football for Lourdes Celtic Football Club and supported Manchester United in the English Premier League.

In 2006, McGregor moved with his family to Lucan in west Dublin, attending Gaelcholáiste Coláiste Cois Life. Following that, he commenced a plumbing apprenticeship. While in Lucan, he began sparring with future Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Tom Egan who taught McGregor how to grapple and ignited his passion for mixed martial arts. McGregor's walking weight is around 170 lbs.

Bellator MMA

Bellator MMA (formerly known as Bellator Fighting Championships) is a mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion in the United States. Bellator was founded in 2008 by Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney. Bellator features "The Toughest Tournament in Sports", which has a single-elimination format that awards the winner of each eight-person or four-person tournament a check for $100,000 and a guaranteed world title fight against the current Bellator world champion in the applicable weight class.

In December 2011, Viacom acquired a majority stake of Bellator and in January 2013, all Bellator events began airing on Spike TV. Bellator produced nearly 25 live events annually until 2015, as well as shoulder programming including fighter features, highlight shows and reality-based programming.

In May 2014, Bellator hosted the company's inaugural pay-per-view event from the Lander's Center. The event featured a Bellator Light Heavyweight Tournament Final fight between Rampage Jackson and King Mo, Michael Chandler vs. Will Brooks for the Lightweight Interim World Title, Alexander Shlemenko vs. Tito Ortiz, the Bellator Season 10 Heavyweight Tournament Final between Alexander Volkov vs. Blagoi Ivanov and a feature fight between Ricky Rainey vs. Michael Page.

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.

Paul Daley

Paul Anthony Daley (born 21 February 1983) is an English professional mixed martial artist and kickboxer currently competing in Bellator's Welterweight division. A professional competitor since 2003, Daley has formerly competed for the UFC, Cage Rage, Final Fight Championship, Strikeforce, EliteXC, ShoXC, BAMMA, Cage Warriors, Cage Contender, Shark Fights, Pancrase, and Impact FC. Daley is the former Cage Rage World Welterweight Champion and the former Cage Rage British Welterweight Champion.

Background

Born and raised in England to parents from the Caribbean, Daley began training in karate at the age of eight before later transitioning into Muay Thai. Also a former member of the military in, Daley was a reconnaissance driver for the British army household cavalry. At the age of 18, Daley began training in mixed martial arts.

Mixed martial arts career

Early career

Daley made his professional debut in 2003 and compiled a record of 2-2 before signing with upstart promotion Cage Rage.