Much like a young Luke Skywalker, “Jedi” Josh Muller has set about on an adventure that will see him battling droves of daunting foes and overcoming insurmountable odds. While Skywalker’s fictional adventures took place in an alien world, Muller will face real adversity in the familiar setting of the MMA cage. At [...]

For the first time ever, Hayabusa has perfected an ultra-light, triple-weave ripstop fabric that offers a truly unique array of top-tier technical benefits. Each Hayabusa Gi is individually cut with an anatomically tailored multi-piece anterior and single back panel for a precisely tapered fit.             Hayabusa has also seamlessly integrated [...]

Smacktalk explores the relevance of the gi in MMA, and chats to prominent South African fighters for their opinions.

There has been lot of talk being generated among the martial arts community regarding the department of sports and recreation’s combat bill. According to the srsa site the bill was posted last year in July. There is an online petition ( http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/opposing-the-proposed-combat-sports-bill—south-africa/ ) that is being circulated by concerned martial arts connects in  a bid [...]

The last time we saw accomplished MMA veteran Chris Bright in the cage he swiftly dealt with opponent Ian “Chucky” Swart by sinking a lightning fast triangle in the first round. “Ian comes from a striking background, so the plan was to avoid the stand-up, close the distance and get him to the mat as [...]

The hype that is generated leading up to an mma event, raises the expectations of eager fight goers. Fans anticipate action packed wars between evenly matched competitors. Operative phrase: “evenly matched”… The last thing most spectators want to see, is a spate of one sided school yard beatings. (TV show Bully Beatdown will scratch the itch [...]

The late Bruce Lee was a huge inspiration to many Martial Artists today to explore combat arts, and rightfully so as Bruce Lee was way ahead of his time and era. Lee was a great innovator and technical analyst when it came to functional martial arts in terms of “absorbing what is useful and rejecting [...]

After a difficult 2010 seeing Smacktalk go through many changes, most of which behind the scenes, we emerge somewhat battered and bruised but still very much alive. The difficulty in any new publication is to find its feet within the industry to which it serves and although far from being the de facto MMA publication [...]

Cheboub against Bentley, this could go either way.. Cheboub who, is certainly no slouch in the cage, looks to be super confident coming off a victory in EFC 04, while the ever humble Bently is searching for redemption after a demoralising loss against Cost Ioannou at EFC 05 . One would be sorely mistaken should [...]

ADAM SPEECHLY vs. ABDALLA HAMDAN (LEB) JACQUES JOUBERT vs. WADE HENDERSON Plus ALEX CHEBOUB vs. WILLIAM BENTLEY LEO GLOSS vs. IAN SWART And ANDREW VAN ZYL vs. RAYMOND AHHANA (NG) Johannesburg (South Africa) –The headline fight at EFC AFRICA 06 will see no 1 ranked welterweight Adam “the Prodigy” Speechly take on top Lebanese fighter [...]

The fight started slowly with both contestants hesitant to engage. The stalemate was ended by Chad with a solid take down on Nolan, who quickly wriggles out. In a flash they were both standing exchanging leg kicks, displaying their respective kickboxing and karate backgrounds. Soon afterwards Nolan had control of Chad on the ground. As [...]

The Angolan Goliath enters the cage extremely cool, calm and collected. He stood awaiting the culinary combatant like a 4×4 ready to take the mountain. Chef enters the ring visibly tense but with a knowing air born of hard work and technical confidence. The buzzer goes and Chef goes for the take down. Mikixi manages [...]

Will this been the brutal match up everyone is expecting or a one punch fizzle the heavy weights are known for? We think not.  With Chef looking the way he is, he is bound to be faster than we have ever seen. Perhaps he can avoid the buffalo like stampede of the stronger Mikixi? Either way we [...]

Johan van Staden vs Karl-Heinz Thieroff Welterweight After Thieroff’’s unsuccessful EFC debut he made a brief appearance against van Staden, who had also had a disappointing recent performance in the Fight Force welterweight title fight. Although both were clearly hungry for a win, the fight began tentatively until Theiroff landed a strong low kick. Van [...]

Cecil Smith vs Marius van Vuuren Light heavyweight Van Vuuren took this fight on just a few hours’ notice. After finding their range with a few jabs, van Vuuren unloaded two solid low kicks and Smith fired a nice right. Smith took the fight to the floor, worked to mount and pounded van Vuuren before [...]

There is only room for one welterweight lion in the Fight Force jungle, and that’s what Leon ‘Iron Lion’ Mynhardt and Ryan ‘the Lion’ van Niekerk are going to settle when they fight tooth and claw at Fight Force: Born & Bred on 16 September. Mynhardt now has a record of 3 wins, 3 losses [...]

 This week we focus on what must be the most commonly used Jits move in MMA – the Rear Choke.  It is simple and effective and ends fights more often than not. For more info on Bobby and for personalised training info please visit www.bjmma.co.za.  Bobby and his wife Jenny run one of the best [...]

Guys, We have good news and we have bad news. The good news is that Smacktalk has officially broken into the TOP 5 rankings of Sports Blogs in South Africa according to AMATOMU (ahead of the likes of SA rugby and Mail & Gardian’s “Thought Leader”)!  We are also now ranked no 42 OVERALL!  We [...]

After the long awaited EFC 04 and equally needed long weekend, here are the post fight interviews from the event. We have already had some debate fired off on the site, lets hear what the fighters have to say.

From our first introduction the thing that stood out most about Meyer he is humble, hard working and seems to have his head screwed on right.  He is yet another rising talent to emerge from the Fight fit Militia team and we caught up with him just before fight night. The first question that needed [...]