American Top Team

American Top Team is one of the top mma places to train on the planet. Many top fighters train and come out of this gymm the most notable as of late being Mike Brown who recently knocked out Urijah Faber in the first round of their WEC featherweight title bout where Mike took Urijah's belt. Another fighter who is hoping to do something similar to what Brown did is Thiago Alves who is the number one contender for the UFC welterweight title which is currently held by Georges St. Pierre. GSP is set to fight UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn on January 31 in UFC 94, and if St. Pierre wins then Alves should be first in line to fight him.

One reason that the gym is so successful is because they have some of the top coaches for each of the individual disciplines; jiu jitsu, boxing, wrestling and muay thai. Ricardo Liborio is co-owner of the facility and one of the jiu jitsu instructors. In 1993 he earned his black belt under Carlson Gracie and in 1996 he claimed a Brazilian jiu jitsu world championship. The boxing instructor is Howard Davis Jr. who not only won a gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Games, but was also named Val Baker Award for most outstanding boxer during the '76 games
in a class of Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Spinks, and Leon Spinks. The wrestling instructor is Daryl Gholar who was a college wrestler for the University of Minnesota. As an athlete Gholar was a three time United States Greco-Roman National Champion, alternate on the 1988 Olympic team and captain of the 1986 U.S. World team. When the modern Olympics celebrated 100 years of competition in 1996, Gholar was ranked number three in career wins for the U.S. at the 180.5 weight class. Mr. Gholar went on to become a successful professional fighter. As a pro fighter Gholar was the 2000 World Vale Tudo Championship, middle weight champion … vacating the title in 2001 when he retired from professional fighting. Daryl has been involved in mma for many years and spent 7 years living in Brazil training and coaching fighters.