I'm sitting here in a sub shop in Kent, OH where my buddy Zeb and I have taken over a row of tables as we are uploading videos in this free wifi setting. I am on the last leg of my latest trip and fly home tomorrow to catch my breath for a few days. I started out by going down to south Florida to cover a WEC fight which ended up getting postponed due to Hurricane Ike's threat. Not to worry though, I got to spend a couple days at American Top Team. WOW, what a place to train, top notch facility and awesome fighters. There were so many Brazilians there and some of the practices were actually in Portuguese. I also got to stop by Marcelo Garcia's new gym while I was there and see a jiu jitsu workout, that guy is amazing, period. I stayed with JP Reese, a college teammate of mine who lives right by the ocean and I'm not gonna lie, those waves beat me up pretty good when I went swimming.

From there I went to State College, PA to see LionHeart mma and fitness gym where they had a 3 day training camp going on. This facility is really nice and was just recently completely redone, it would be an awesome fitness gym on its own, or an outstanding mma facility on its own, but it's both. Chad Dubin, the owner, is a great guy who made the drastic improvements happen. He really seems like the kind of guy who can make things happen. Mark Miller, who trains at Xtreme Couture, came into town to help run the camp. I didn't know what to think of this lanky bald guy who was covered in tattoos at first. The first thing he did when we met was get in my face and tell me how I need to learn how to spell muay thai (I spelled it wrong in one of my videos). Then when we were going home I called shotgun and he said he would fight me for it, I sat in back. But over the next few days I understood how he likes to bust people's balls and was actually a real cool guy, he also has an amazing story so if you haven't seen the "Bionic Fighter" interview you should watch it.

I then caught a train to New York City. The 2 train stations I was at were polar opposites, I got on the train in the middle-of-nowhere PA where there were maybe 18-20 year olds basically making out on the benches (I witnessed more than 1 couple do this), and I got off the train in Penn Station. For those of you who haven't been to Penn Station it's crazy. People are running around all over the place, and when I say running around I mean literally running around, like you see in an airport when someone is late for a flight, except nearly everyone was hustling like that. I managed to find all the right trains to get out to Long Island. I stayed a couple of days with another former teammate of mine Justin Spates. We stopped by Matt Serra's gym one night and Justin actually jumped in with the class. Justin had zero jiu jitsu experience and when it was time for live rolling he was going balls to the wall at a wrestling pace not jiu jitsu pace. Needless to say everyone just kind of looked at him like he was crazy.

I went to Ohio the next day and covered a fight in Columbus last night. LionHeart members Matt Kocher and Phil Davis each won their fights, Matt's was his first fight ever and Phil's was hopefully his last amateur one. Phil has a ton of potential to make some noise on the professional level. He is an extremely gifted athlete and as a wrestler was a 4X all-american and 2008 NCAA Champion for Penn State. Since I was in Columbus I went to my first ever OSU Buckeye football game. They really like their football here and I stood out like a sore thumb because I was one of the only people in the stadium not wearing red, on top of that I had on a bright yellow shirt.

Like I said I leave tomorrow but will get back at it as I will travel to St. Louis to cover another fight. 2X all-american wrestler Tyron Woodley, another gifted athlete will make his professional debut at this fight and the venue should provide for an entertaining evening of fights. Well they have put the food away, are cleaning the sub shop and basically telling us to leave, so I gotta go.

Until next time...