THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN
These guys are among the toughest in South Florida. Heavily-muscled, heavilytattooed gym rats. Soon, these extreme sportsmen of Palm Beach and Broward counties will brawl on a national reality show for dominance and bragging rights. Which county has The U
It’s an age-old battle: Broward vs. Palm Beach.
And it’s fought nearly everywhere across the two counties’ 4,000 square miles. It’s St. Thomas Aquinas vs. Dwyer. Las Olas Boulevard vs. Clematis Street. Jupiter beach vs. Fort Lauderdale beach. The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale vs. Town Center at Boca Raton.
But this neighborhood rivalry is about to take a bruising turn.
Broward and Palm Beach are on a collision course, and in the drivers’ seats are 16 heavily-muscled, tatted-up gym rats split into teams — mixed martial arts pros from two internationally renowned South Florida gyms.
In a cross-county rivalry that’s no joke, someone’s bound to get hurt.
In one corner, representing Broward County, are fighters from American Top Team in Coconut Creek. In the other, weighing in for Palm Beach County, are the dreaded Blackzilians out of Boca Raton.
The two sides, each ornery as hell and straining to bust loose, will be locked in a house in Fort Lauderdale together for six weeks. With no TV, no Internet, no com-
munication with wives or children or anyone in the outside world. Just one team and its archrival. Let out only to train and then go to battle.
When it’s time, they climb into the cage, and whether grappling, kickboxing, using techniques from judo and karate, or outright brawling, it’s full-contact mayhem.
And for what? For $500,000 and a trophy, but even sweeter, for winnertakes-all South Florida bragging rights.
On Wednesday night, Broward and Palm Beach go toe-to-toe with the premiere of “The Ultimate Fighter 21,” a reality series on Fox Sports 1 that lasts six brutal weeks and will end with the fireworks of a finale fight fest on July 12.
“This is Alpha male vs. Alpha male, this is fighting,” said Hayder Hassan, a Fort Lauderdale resident and Cardinal Gibbons alum who fights for the eight-man American Top Team squad in Broward. “You don’t play fighting. You play basketball. You play football — but fighting is something you don’t play. Everything’s bad intentions.”
This may be a battle between two of the best mixed martial arts gyms in the world, but it’s a confrontation that hits home — right in the gut, where the Broward County line ends and Palm Beach begins.
This isn’t make-believe. It might be a smackdown, but it ain’t the WWE, that entertainment-driven pro wrestling soap opera.
ATT and the Blackzilians have a blood feud and it starts at the very top and trickles down.
The team each another.
Dan Lambert, of Fort Lauderdale, who opened American Top Team in 2001, says Robinson poached ATT fighters to open his own gym — just 13 miles away in Palm Beach County.
“He wanted to be successful and relevant and cool tomorrow,” Lambert, a classic fightgame baddie, said of Robinson. “So on Day One, he goes and walks into our gym and offers a bunch of guys money to leave. And all of a sudden his team is born overnight.”
Robinson countered
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‘The Ultimate Fighter 21’
ON THE AIR TV: Fox Sports 1 Premiere: 10 p.m. Wednesday (90 minutes) Series: Wednesdays at 10 p.m. (one hour)
For the first time in its 10-year history, “The Ultimate Fighter” will leave Las Vegas and head to South Florida. The reality show’s 21st installment pits two of the top gyms in mixed martial arts against each other: American Top Team out of Coconut Creek and the Blackzilians, based in Boca Raton.
The teams will be made up of eight up-and-coming welterweights (170 pounds) from each gym who will live together in a house in Fort Lauderdale for the duration of the series but will continue to train separately in their respective gyms.
The show will follow a single-elimination tournament format throughout the season, with fights taking place at one of the gyms each week. The winning fighter earns home-gym advantage for his team for the next week. Fighters won’t learn whom their opponents will be until matchups are revealed at weigh-ins.
The show will wrap up with the conclusion of the tournament and the season finale, set for July 12 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. The winning gym will earn the first Ultimate Fighter trophy and $500,000. ON THE WEB
For more “The Ultimate Fighter 21” and MMA coverage, visit SunSentinel.com. bert’s jab, saying the truth is that the Blackzilians were born in 2011 of fighters unhappy with their fortunes in Broward.
“What this is all about is jealousy,” said Robinson, adding a right cross of his own. “When those guys quit, they quit because they weren’t happy with him.”
American Top Team is the undisputed champion of MMA gyms, home to UFC welterweight champ Robbie Lawler, top contender Tyron Woodley and legendary Octagon favorite Thiago “Pitbull” Alves. They’ve had a slew of champions and title contenders. Even Kimbo Slice, Miami’s backyard brawling YouTube superstar, once called Broward County home, training at ATT.
“We’re the biggest team in [Ultimate Fighting Championship] right now,” said Ricardo Liborio, ATT’s head instructor and a founding father. “We have more professional fighters in the UFC than any other team. Just in the 170-pound division, we have more than seven guys — and some of the best in the world.”
Broward will be home, too, to all of the Ultimate Fighter cast members, who will spend the season in an eight-bedroom, 17-bathroom waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale.
And the Blackzilians are no suckers when compared with the Broward brotherhood.
In just four years, they’ve developed impressive weapons of mass destruction: Rashad Evans, the former UFC light heavyweight champion; top light heavyweight contender Anthony Johnson, and serious up-and-coming lightweights Michael Johnson and Eddie Alvarez.
The young upstarts on the north side of the county line stand stubbornly in the face of the mighty ATT. They think they have what it takes to beat ATT and to be declared the best gym in the world.
“It’s a recipe for success and I’m glad to be part of it,” Alvarez said. “I don’t care how it was established or what went on in the beginning. I know what we are now, and where we’re going in the future.”
And the better the Blackzilians get, the deeper their cross-county blood feud with American Top Team goes.
“It’s almost family versus family,” Hassan said. “It’s that type of in-house rivalry. Like in baseball you have the Red Sox versus Yankees.”
That is just what Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White wants in South Florida.
“We kill it on pay-per-view down there, we kill it on television ratings,” he said. “And it’s been a hotbed for MMA for years.” chperkins@tribpub.com or @chrisperk