It's a come from behind victory for Jake "The Brick" Wells in UOC 1's Welterweight Undercard fights.

"Man, I thought I was going down that first round," Wells said to our reporter in the locker room post-fight. "I mean, dude has those punches that just kept coming, and he'd practically cruise-missile me in the face every chance he got! That's the only way to put it--He'd back up and come diving in with these huge punches!"

Wells took a serious beating in the first round, which the judges scored unanimously in his opponent's favor. Though Wells displayed an amazing takedown offense dropping the fight to the ground several times, almost all resulting in kimura attempts from his opponents, the fight remained standing for the most part.

"About the only thing that kept me up in this fight was being in good shape," he commented. "Eric's just as fast as me and man that's new. Never been against someone that fast before."

At 3:24 in the second round, Wells dropped his opponent into a flying armbar and secured victory. "Seriously, I wasn't expecting to get him or anything. I just thought what the hell? and went for it, just to show off," Wells said, pushing at the cut under his right eye, "Seriously, few more of those punches and I'd have been out."

 

------

Sort of encouraging the undercover roleplay that happens in the UOC (www.undisputedonline.net). It's funny cause nobody will admit to roleplaying there. I however, am completely unabashed in that regard. I like little blips like this cause they're fun and get my mind running.

Now Available for your reading pleasure under the "Paintball" Tag are 12 articles from back in the day regarding Commander skills and abilities for paintball teams. They're fun and were my first "Breakout" Hits as far as articles go. Enjoy!

                In UFC 2009, a lot of credit goes towards the Skills for determining the outcome of a fight, but a few blips of discussion has shown up about how the attributes come into play, and mention eventually came up that in the 70 point range during Career mode, your fighter can no longer push one attribute higher without hurting the other two. So, which will you pick?

                There are three major attributes in UFC 2009, Strength, Speed and Cardio, and each plays in differently with the six styles and how they go about their business, and of course, one in each standing and ground is tied to each.

                As far as attributes go, it is probably worth it at the level of 60 to start specializing. Obviously at that point of development, you’ll prefer certain skills over others, and it makes sense to start preferring those skills, though you won’t want to neglect any skill, as that can lead to a glaring and annoying weaknesses. As a general rule, pick one Attribute that best compliments your style, and when you’re not developing Skills, move that attribute higher.

Strength

                This is arguably the most important for strikers of all types, and if you’re standing up, this is the stat for you. Obviously, Strength governs the strength of your strikes and more than likely your takedown success, but it may have a little affect on certain submissions.  Think of this as your raw offensive power stat.

                The styles most affected by strength are Muay Thai, to maintain the clinch and deliver the famously crushing clinch moves, and Wrestling, in order to brute force your way through transitions. Though this isn’t always the case for both, they are mostly affected by the strength of the fighter.

                It almost goes without saying that all Striking and Kicking Offense skills benefit from having a high strength, but it’s worth saying anyway to prove a point: this isn’t always the case. You’ll find that a skilled fighter with lower attributes but higher skills can still mop the floor with a better athlete. I make this distinction again quoting the Shogun/Liddell demo fight, where Chuck Liddell has better overall Attributes, but Rua’s widely developed skills give him an edge overall.

                The direct benefit of strength is the striking power that a fighter gains, but the thing that suffers in the fighter the most is their staying power. A high Strength fighter will have to trade their ability to last past the second round and hand speed in exchange for absolute cannons for arms. With Strength as your highest Attribute, you’ll absolutely have to seek a dominant position in the first round of the fight in order to either end the fight there with a Flash KO or TKO, or at least damage your opponent enough to where they will not be as effective against you in subsequent rounds.

                Strength fighters will more than likely have the advantage against fighters with low Cardio, as striking directly affects energy levels. So, wearing a low Cardio fighter down is much easier than chasing down a faster, though weaker fighter.

Speed

                Sometimes, it’s better to just get out of the way, and that’s what a high Speed fighter is all about, that, and quick combinations that make up for his lacking Strength score. I speak generally, of course, because sometimes that scrawny guy will be around and in shape for much longer than you thought he could be, or be hiding good strength behind those punches.  This represents a bit of both of your raw Damage and Defense.

                Speed benefits Kick boxers and Judokas more than other fighters, as the dynamic, opportunistic nature of these styles leads to a need to get the punch or takedown there, right when you need it to be. The other benefit of speed is the potential to change how much time you have to react to changes in the fight. A faster fighter can respond faster and is almost twitchier than a slower one, and this  could benefit Grapple,  Takedown and Clinch Defense, as well as the entirety of the Submission skill pair (Think about taking advantages of moments of weakness).

                Again, fighting with speed is all about opportunities. Flash KO’s, and submissions to an extent, rely on timing and countering, and a speedy fighter can accomplish just that in many situations. Focusing on speed is a balancing act, You won’t have the strength or the staying power, which can lead to problems against other fighters that specialize in a different area. You’ll want to master the Step (Flick LS <-/->) as a way of avoiding damage and bad situations.

                Speedy fighters carry an advantage against Stronger fighters, as they can quickly move out of the way of their lumbering strikes and come back with a quick combination or takedown. They however, run the risk of being dropped if they miss with their footwork.

                Against high Cardio fighters, the speed fighter has to bank on the fact that there’s less of a chance of knockout, but that they’ll have to use the speed to land enough strikes to level the playing field when it comes to Stamina.

Cardio

                The UFC occasionally sees a fight through to its’ completion, and the fighters that make it a full three rounds in the Octagon usually become well known for their Cardio strength, and the fact that they just won’t go down. Cardio is UFC 2009’s most direct relative to a Defense Attribute, and governs all things. Regardless of anything else, you’ll want a high Cardio, no matter what else you do. This is your “Money in the Bank” stat, and lets you keep on keeping on.

                Strangely enough, Boxers benefit mostly from Cardio, as do Jiu Jitsu fighters, both who will stand and take beatings while improving their positions.  The stat benefits Boxers by supporting their combination skills that are directly influence by their remaining Stamina. It also lets them get in close and keep taking punches while maintaining a high stamina level. (I’m beginning to believe that Cardio is linked to the Flash KO’s.)  Jiu Jitsu fighters can use a high Cardio to burn their opponent’s stamina by blocking transitions and waiting for the perfect moment to strike a submission attempt on a weakened, tired opponent.

                Though I can’t say with certainty what is affected by Cardio in terms of skills, more than likely, each Defense stat is tied to the Cardio rating, as Developers have confirmed the nature of remaining Stamina being linked to success of all actions.

                The advantage that Cardio fighters have is survival. By the time the end of the second round rolls around, a high Cardio fighter stands the chance of being in substantially better condition than his opponent, and able to control the fight because the other fighter won’t be able to keep out of the gassed state for long enough to fight them off.

                The downside is that there’s no other advantage to cardio but the guarantee that you’ll be dominant later in a fight that may not last past the first round. You have no real advantage against a Speed or Strength heavy fighter, except that they’ll be done well before you are. You simply must wait, and that’s what you’re good at.

 

                What this all comes down to is, again, a balancing act. Yes, becoming known for one stat over another has its advantages, as nobody wants to slug it out with Liddell or Rampage, but you can’t always hold to that, and keeping the balance is great. So, yes, specialize, but temper that with Skills to keep yourself from being completely overwhelmed.

Surprise kids, Green Day is at it again with another politically charged, but substantially more hopeful, 8th album called “21st Century Breakdown.” Personally, I feel that this CD is upbeat, but still carries a deep thread about two characters, Christian and Gloria, as they live in the present day.

If you can’t find a full copy of this somewhere, go shoot yourself. I suggest going to mtv.com and digging into The Leak where you can find a full version of the album ready for streaming goodness, or, be lazy and click here (http://www.mtv.com/music/the_leak/green_day/21st_century_breakdown/).

A cursory search also brings up the lyrics, which I found handy because Billie Joe, the lead singer, sort of screeches and warbles his way through the songs, sometimes almost unintelligibly.

The album is broken into three acts, with the first track “Song of the Century” not being a real part of any of the acts.

Back again are the interesting fade-in/fade-outs of the songs with radio static and other such effects, and a lot of crashes between the songs happen. I’m still sorting through the mess of the album, but I’d like to focus on “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” a catchy little number about not fucking around.

Hmm… I suppose that now would be a great time to mention that this is a “PG-13” blog? Yeah. It is.

Anyway, here’s another lazy link for you for the Lyrics (http://www.metrolyrics.com/horseshoes-and-handgrenades-lyrics-green-day.html)

So the song is a pretty standard punk ballad, but the whole song had me kind of headbanging around the entire time. It’s rather toe tapping. It follows the songs “Restless Heart Syndrome” and “Static Age” lyrics, which both scream to the forced conformity of both modern medication and media, respectively.

“Horseshoes” sounds like a break from those ideas. Trying to be free from the deathly cold of the new media age and its side effects as we try to control our broken attention spans as the world keeps spinning faster and we become more and more infused with information as technology spreads.

I’ll admit a problem about thinking deeply into “Horseshoes” is that it’s rather short. It is what it is, and is happy with that. Not to mention that it’s rather infectious. It’s definitely going to be bopping around my iPod for quite some time now.

There are five major positions and of those, three have minor positions, making for a total of eight basic positions, ignoring the left/right variations available on Side Control and Half Mount.

In addition to the eight basics, we have Rubber Guard (Offense/Defense), Back Mount (One/Both Hooks, Body Triangle), Sprawl Position (Offense/Defense), Back Side Control (L/R, Offense/Defense), and Up/Down (Far/Near).

That makes 13 positions, not including any that could possibly erupt from having Judo and Signatures from the other 78 fighters added in.

We know how to move from position to position by the Transitions, what we can do in each of these positions, and how to end the fight from each one. This is a basic toolbox for the entirety of MMA, and all of the fighters in UFC 09. But, what is the inherent advantage granted to the Offense tagged positions that aren’t available to the Defense positions, and better yet, how do we know when it’s best to get into a brawl from a position?

For this, we can dig into the game’s ground game a little more by talking about what transitions are and how to survive the ground, and get back up, or go offensive if we need to.

One of the first things you’ll notice if you ever turn the Stamina bar on is that Stamina regenerates faster during ground fights because the fighters stop moving more often, but there’s more potential for graying the bar out because the strikes aren’t avoided as easily. For instance, it can actually work to a tired ground fighter’s advantage to go for a last-ditch takedown and end up in a potentially bad spot to rest a little and then continue the fight.

So, how do we work with this? The fighter in the Offensive/Top position has the advantage of being able to completely decimate his opponent’s stamina and give himself a great head start on the knockout. He also can control when the fight stands back up, (LSB/L3 from an Offensive/Top position.

The fighter in the Defensive/Bottom position loses control of the fight (Usually—Rubber Guard is an exception) and will usually get worn out faster from trying to get up, but controls whether or not the Offensive fighter has the opportunity to stand up and get back to standing. They also have some control over the progress of the fight from there through Reversals and their own Transitions. Look at Hua’s available transitions in the Demo, he has a Signature transition to an Offensive position from almost every single position.

The fighter in Defensive also has the advantage of controlling stamina gain through the Grapple Block. Holding RS to Left or Right stops the fight from progressing much further along the pyramid. As long as the fighter holds that down, his stamina will regenerate, though it takes a little stamina (Represented by Yellow on the stamina bar) to hold the block. It does not repair the Grey damage, but it does repair the yellow damage quicker than the offensive fighter.
Note also that any transition attempt stops both fighter’s stamina, and deducts the stamina from the acting fighter, then waits about .5 seconds, then goes again.

What we can use this for is in a fight like Hua v. Liddell is using Liddell’s defenses in an offensive way. It is possible to hold Hua down after getting on top of him, and wearing him down to where Chuck can submit him, or at least win a nice unanimous for using Hua like a mop.

Anyway, back to where we were, using the transitions wisely is NOT spamming them like you would punches. Knowing when and how to act is much more effective on the ground than wildly spinning RS around until something works.
Transitions are, again, performed by cardinal and ordinal turns. A Cardinal (90’) turn (N->E or W, or S->E or W), performs a minor transition, while an Ordinal (135’) turn, NE->W, NW->E, SE ->W, or SW->E, performs a major transition. If you need help with these, you can use a pencil to trace out the compass on your controller around your RS until you learn it. PS3 owners will have to find an alternate solution (Sorry, no Sixaxxis around to mess with!)

What each movement of the stick represents is the motion of the fighter’s lower or upper body to the next position. I.E. if you’re actually going to move from Open Guard Down Offensive to Open Guard Up Offensive, you have to push your shoulders up and back, pulling past their hands and freeing your upper body (Any Minor), or to move to Side Control Right from Open Guard Up Offensive, you have to move your entire lower up and over their legs to Side Control Right, represented by the SW->E OR NE->W Major transitions. (For the NE one, think of starting the motion to break guard as starting in the shoulders and then moving the hips.)

It’s worth noting that most of the Signature transitions (RB+Transition) are usually full body motions, just to keep the analogy up.

Now, knowing that, what’s best when? One of the first rules: NEVER transition when you’re rocked. KO’s are rather prevalent from here. Your best bets is to get out of that situation however possible after you survive the Rocked status first, then QUICKLY get out of the position you’re in. The most common situation for this is Mount (Defense), in which case use a NE->W or NW-> E transition to get to the Back Mount position, or SE->W SW->E to drag him back down to defense.
Second rule: Never talk about fight clu… I mean, don’t bother with fist fighting when you’re on Defense. This is a great way to get yourself rocked. The force from the Offense positions in the game compared to the Defense positions is great because physically, the punches and strikes from Defense are coming at a cost because the fighter can’t use the ground to build force into the strike, while for the most part, the Offensive guy can.

Worry about your transitions. The game, for the most part, prevents the use of a Transition Reversal flick and a punch at the same time. Exceptions abound, but for the most part, you can’t punch and block a transition at the same time, much like you can’t punch and block a takedown at the same time unless you’re really fast.
Now, what you’ll want to do is know your fighter’s move set. One of the dangers of being on the ground in the Liddell/Hua fight is that Hua can take Liddell’s advantage away at any time by any of his signature transitions, most of which are minors. The following applies for most options on the ground, based on assumptions and outside knowledge:

Jiu Jitsu has the most ground options available, end of story. It is purely a ground art, and two jiu jitsu fighters on the ground will lead to some pretty intense jostling for position.

Wrestling is balanced. There are takedowns and options on the ground from certain positions, but for the most part, they’re great at choosing where the fight happens, ala Rampage Jackson.

Judo will probably have the most takedown options, but not as much for being on the ground. This means stopping the fight and resting and then getting back up, essentially making for using the takedown as a tactical choice for preserving stamina, and stopping a beating.

Knowing what your fighter has in his toolbox is great because you know when you can get out of situations using a specific move. Combine this with your stats, and it makes sense as to why Liddell’s Takedown and Ground Grapple defense can be used as an offensive stat by putting Liddell into a situation where he can use his better Striking skills.

For instance, though Hua can drag Liddell anywhere he wants him to be, Liddell can use his defenses to pick when he gets moved, provided the player is fast enough to stop transitions. He can then get on top with a good reversal and land himself in a Mount Up position rather quickly, and end the fight from there.

Going into release, the obvious thing will be to know the limitations of your styles. Where your ground style lacks, what tricks you’ve picked up in Career mode, and how well you can employ your strengths in the best situations possible.

With release in two weeks, there’s been a lot of talk about who’s putting themselves into the game for Career mode using CAF. Self-imaging for games has been a bit of a shallow hobby of mine, ever since the first time I played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 with its Create-A-Skater mode. It was shoddy, kind of inaccurate, but I spent hours trying to get myself to be fully into the game. The next-gen brings a lot more customization into create-a-player, and with UFC 09’s Create-a-Fighter, I thought I’d offer a few creative tips on the CAF process for bringing yourself into the Career mode.
This guide is (obviously) incomplete, because I can’t see what options in particular are available for CAF. But, you can follow along for any game with a create-a-player mode.

What you’ll need for this guide:
-Uncluttered room, or solid colored wall
-Digital Camera
-Tri-pod, shelf, or friend that’s also doing a self-based CAF.
-Photoshop or another image-manipulation program

First things first, in order to know what you are, you’ll want to have a pretty good indication of what’s there. Character designers use either the scanning process that was used for UFC 09, or a character design sheet like these examples:
ArmorBlog’s Coffee Shop Design Sheet:
http://armorblog.com/wp-content/uplo...cter_sheet.jpg
Mattegroup’s “Soldier” Design Sheet: http://www.mattegroup.com/jaser/i/pi...er_sheet_b.jpg
Drawallday.net’s Character Design Shard: http://www.drawallday.net/Gallery/Ch...sign_Shard.jpg

They show the characters from multiple directions and in multiple actions, as well as any details. Obviously, we won’t need much of that detail, but something more like the drawallday.net example, where we see one character in multiple angles and some close ups in action. We’re going to use the camera and Photoshop to create a similar sheet for you.

To start with, you’ll need to find a mostly uncluttered room, preferably with a blank wall. This is so that you can see your outline clearly enough to where it makes sense. Obviously, contrast your skin tone. Avoid browns and wood paneling, this can give you a really awkward idea of what you look like, as can mirrors and the like.

My pictures for this, available in my photo albums here are not great examples, but I’m at school, so cut me a break! They do, however, get across the next couple of steps. One thing you’ll notice in them is that I’m wearing a pair of Tapout shorts and wearing handwraps. Being dressed similarly to how your character appears in the game is helpful to making a good rendition, because you can modify sliders in the game to adjust it to the right level.
An immediate note in this game is about the weight. As of right now, it appears that weightclass will not affect anything in CAF creation, but for the purposes of design, I know most of us will be shaving a few inches off the gut for this one, so for all pictures, tighten your stomach up. This gives a flatter appearance and can help get the exacts down a little better.

What you’ll want to do now is set your camera up far enough away from your solid wall so that you can see your entire body, and have enough room to turn. Mark this point. Have the camera as level as possible, and DO NOT MOVE IT AFTER THIS POINT. You’ll want all of your photos at the same distance and angle so you can get good similarity in the pictures (I.E. shoulders all at the same level and such).

This is easiest if your camera has a time function, usually represented by a circle with a line coming from the center. One press will usually delay the picture by about 10 seconds. Experiment to find it.

Set your camera’s timer, and stand on your marked spot looking directly at the top of the camera, or at the same point. The ideal is that you are looking at the camera head on with your head parallel to the floor so that you can get a good, level picture of your face (More on this later). It also will help arrange your front correctly against all other views, so pectoral height, torso shape, arm length, shoulder width, everything that makes your basic outline up.

Now, you’ll want to set your timer again and turn 45’ to the LEFT, to yield a front 1/4th view. This will help you line up the shoulders and head in the game, as well as assist in getting your facial profile right.

Set the timer again, and turn another 45’ to the left so that you are in profile, (right shoulder facing the camera) and get the picture. This helps again with facial and torso profile. It will also help you adjust your arm and calf size correctly in the game. This is one of the hardest parts of CAF design to get right, because it can create some really funny misproportions.

Timer again, and take another 45’ turn to reach 3/4th profile. This helps get arm shape right, as well as neck size and height.

One more timer, take one last turn to put your back entirely towards the camera. This is a shot to help get your back profile, torso height and shoulder width right. These are easier to get correct from the back because the pectorals are always tied to a separate slider than the shoulder length, even though they affect each other. This will keep you from making your top half a bodybuilder and your bottom half looking like a string bean.

Now, you’ll want to do one more important step, which is catch yourself in a fighting stance. You can look up a basic boxing stance online, or use whatever you know. At this point, I’m assuming the characters will stand like this at some point in the CAF process, so having these pictures is great for design purposes so you can make fine-tuned changes to your fighter, as many errors don’t become obvious until the character is being active in the game. I.E. My self-CAF in Smackdown v Raw 2009 had a lot of clipping issues because I hadn’t gotten the arm proportions right. I didn’t notice this until I started doing flying things in the game. Just threw it off enough to where it was weird.

The last thing you’ll want to do is repeat this process, but with close-ups of your face. DO NOT SMILE. CAF programs use a blank face for a reason: all the face muscles are relaxed and easy to adjust that way. Plus, the face is always the hardest part to get entirely correct. Part of this is that we have a different image in our heads of how our face looks than what we actually look like. Believe it or not, if you go off this image, you’ll look strange, and it will ruin the CAF.

After you have all of these taken, you’ll want to open up your favorite image manipulation program, and crop the pictures down so that you just have you on them. You want to keep them as rectangles with yourself in the center.

After that, you’ll want to arrange them from left to right in the order that you took them, with standing normally on top, and fighting stance in the middle, and face below. The face will be a little weird to line up, but bear with it and get it as lined up as possible.

It’s key that you have the ability to use layers for this, because you can bump the pictures with the “layer move” key to get them lined up just right.

Congratulations! You now have a character design sheet for yourself! Now, what exactly do you do with it?

When the game releases, keep this sheet open on a laptop, and you’ll be able to look at it against the image on the game screen to help fine-tune your CAF’s looks so that you create yourself as realistically as possible! I.E. you can use the picture to make sure that your eyes are shaped the same on your CAF as yours, the cauliflower ear matches, and all that sort of thing.

Now, what about greater questions, those deep burning ones, like “How do I take my knowledge of an art like Aikido, and transfer that into the game?” or “How do I represent a ‘good chin’ with my stats?”

A great way to approach these questions is to look again to the Attributes and Skills. Each does represent particular thing I won’t go into here, cause I already did. (Statistics Breakdown Article) However, now is the time to talk about what specific real-world styles mesh with the 6 presented in the game, and ways to think about representing them in the game.

I’m referencing these in extremely simple, generalized ways. Also, I’m assuming that if you’re looking to represent a single art, you’ll focus on either your standup or ground game, not both.

Boxing
This is the mysterious one of the Striking styles, because we haven’t seen it. However, one can guess from promo material we’re dealing with midrange strikers here.

“Dirty” boxing: A subset of boxing using semi-illegal tactics and close up striking to win knockouts. Clinch Striking Offense and Standing Striking Offense are good for recreating this, as well as a decent Strength.

Tai Chi: These guys may seem to move slow, but every fiber of their bodies are primed to explode at any second. Speed and Strength are the high points here, along with Standing Striking pair also being high.

Muay Thai
Close up, personal, and a lot of long range techniques to close distance make up the Muay Thai toolbox. Arts that are represented here are great at keeping themselves in the distance of their choosing.

Hapkido: A Korean striking art that uses kicking and punching effectively against opponents at both probing and clinch ranges. Takedown and Clinch Offense are high, as well as Submission stats.

Krav Magna: Israeli special forces self defense system, usually ends with an opponent incapacitated, in handcuffs or deceased. Extreme focus is placed on all Offensive Striking and Takedown stats. Defenses focus on Clinch, Takedown, Ground Grapple and Submission.

Kickboxing
With Kickboxing, we’ve already seen that Kenpo Karate can be recreated ala Chuck Liddell, but so can the following arts:

Savate: Meaning “Old Boot”, Savate focuses on powerful, momentum driven kicks with the tip of the feet. High Speed and Standing Striking Kicks are representative of this style, as well as a good all around defense.

Tae Kwon Do: Obviously, this doesn’t work that well in MMA, but, you never know what from this flying kick style can be useful. Speed and Cardio are hallmarks here, as well as Standing Kicks Offense and Defense.


Jiu Jitsu
The Gracie Family started a huge thing with Jiu Jitsu, spawning hundreds of variations around the world, wherever their students settled. It’s also hard to say which specific art is used for the Jiu Jitsu in the game until we see it.
10th Planet: Speedy, based on Rubber Guard. You’ll want Rua’s “Jiujitsu 3” for the Rubber Guard, as well as focusing on Speed, the Submission Pair, and Ground Grapple Offense.

RGDA: A lot slower, more thoughtful about its positioning than 10th Planet. High Cardio, Submission Defense, Ground Grapple Defense and Clinch Grapple Defense. Their Submission pair should be high.

Judo
Again with the mystery, we’ll have to see what specifically this entails, but, you should be able to get Aikido out of the Judo subset.

Aikido: Art I’ve heard it be called “Fat man jiu-jitsu” before, but straight up about submitting opponents. Combine a high Speed and general Defense with a high Takedown and Submission Offense to recreate this art.

Wrestling
The old styles of the Greeks and Romans made for the ring and testing strength.

Greco-Roman: Different from Freestyle in the more rigid rules. Straight Takedown goodness with Ground Grappling cover, and Cardio to back it up.

Freestyle: Same as Greco-Roman, but more open ended. Ground Grappling Offense added with Submission Offense and Defense more than Takedown strengths.

“Hybrid” Arts:
These are arts that didn’t seem to really fit one, but I thought might be interesting ideas to chew over.

USMC Combative System: (Muay Thai/Judo) Forgive me if I got the name wrong, but you can beat me over the head later if its’ not right. But, this style focuses on taking down opponents permanently with elbows and throws that plant them into the ground. Focus on a high Strength, as well as all Striking Offenses and Takedown Defenses.

Sanshou Boxing: (Kickboxing/Judo) This art focuses on catching kicks and the like, and (usually) stops at the Takedown. Cung Le uses this style. Recreating a Sanshou Fighter requires a high Speed, as well as Takedown Offense. Standing Kicks Offense would also likely be a benefit to a Sanshou-lookalike.

Brawling: (Boxing/Wrestling) Not really a martial art, but more of the bar brawler variety. Think Wolverine in the first X-Men movie for this one. High Strength and all Offenses put through the roof without any defense to think of.

Amateur MMA: (Muay Thai/Jiu Jitsu) Sort of the granddaddy of all, a generalized grab bag of useful techniques that can be taught anywhere in America. I call this one only on noticing that there’s no Amateur with any real specialty. Keep the skills generally even and there you go.

So, get ready to create, and I’ll see you all, personally, in the Octagon.