Dan Henderson took the spotlight at UFC 93 and earned the win over Rich Franklin! This is just the start of big things to come for the Metal Mulisha in MMA…as you will see below.

Josh Grant had another amazing start in Anaheim. Grant was in second place, right behind Kevin Windham. Their two way battle for the lead, quickly became a four man battle with Villopoto and Stewart. Grant was able to hold off a hard charging Stewart, until a mistake in a technical rhythm section allowed Stewart to make the pass. So far this season, Grant’s rookie performance has been exceptional. The only rider in the field doing better is defending champion Chad Reed. The series goes to Texas this weekend, where Grant finds himself just 3 points out of first place in the standings. Way to go Josh!

Check him out rocking the dip on the start line haha! Photo: TWMX

Metal Mulisha has teamed up with ESP Guitars and they are now selling a full-on Metal Mulisha guitar. It’s sick! We’re doing a HUGE giveaway with ESP where 1 winner will get a FREE trip to X Games, a FREE 2008 CRF250, a FREE Metal Mulisha/ESP Guitar, and a ton of other cool junk…check back soon for more details. Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is that Deegan went to the NAMM trade show (similar to Dealer Expo or ASR, but for Music) to hang out and sign autographs (alongside Tom Araya of Slayer!) to promote the contest and the guitar. Here’s a little video we got before the camera ran out of batteries:

Download (QuickTime 9.9MB)

Derek Garland, Wes Agee, Justin Homan, Ox and Lusk were all out in Bend, Oregon riding. Haven’t heard much about how the show went, but here’s a pic of them standing around looking cool.

What has Maddo been up to since his New Year’s Eve madness? Find out from the man himself, courtesy of TWMX:

Ok, that was a lot. And now…this is what is happening this weekend:

The Metal Mulisha is coming out swinging with MMA for 2009 with three fighters marching into battle this weekend!

Thursday, January 22 – Metal Mulisha MMA newcomer Kyacey Uscola makes his Palace Fighting Championship debut in Lemoore, CA , against Xavier “Professor X” Foupa-Pokam. Kyacey has competed against and beat some of the best there is to offer in the Middleweight division, including Pride Veteran Akira Shoji, and looks to add his sixteenth professional win against “Professor X” who is no pushover himself. “Professor X” sports a record of 19-9 after fighting all over the world. Make sure you tune into Sherdog.com on Thursday at 6pm PST for the live stream of this fight, and all the other great bouts from PFC 12 “High Stakes”.

Saturday, January 24 – Renato “Babalu” Sobral will once again fight on the world stage as he takes on Rameau Thierry “The African Assassin” Sokoudjou at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, in Affliction “Day of Reckoning”. Babalu, who comes into this weekend with a record of 31 wins, and only 7 losses, is also riding a 4 fight winning streak. Winning the Strikeforce Light Heavyweight belt less than 60 days ago wasnt enough for Babalu, he wanted to take revenge on Sokoudjou in the name of Brazil. MMA fans worldwide remember when Sokoudjou shocked the world not once, but twice, when he KO’d both top 10 fighters, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Ricardo Arona in Pride. Affliction “Day of Reckoning” is available on Pay Per View.

Sunday, January 25 – Dominick Cruz does not have to go far to do his job. Dominick will be competing in the WEC against the always-tough Ian McCall in San Diego, CA. Dominick’s one and only loss on his way to 11 wins in MMA was to the much heralded Uriah Faber, at 145 pounds. Now coming down to 135 pounds, Dominick hopes to put himself into immediate title contention with an impressive win. Make sure you tune into the Versus network at 6:30pm PST to watch the WEC.

Other than all this MMA craziness going on, the Metal Mulisha will be at the ASR trade show in San Diego this weekend, so if you’re going you better stop by our booth, check out the Summer & Fall lines and have a beer with us. Speaking of beer, I think I earned one after this damn blog post!

HUGE thanks to Chris Ackerman for lending his massive archive of old tapes and footage!

Here, the General, Brian Deegan took the 1999 Freeride Moto-X Championship!

Download (QuickTime 17.3MB)

Download (QuickTime 9.2MB)