On February 8, 2010, history was made as over 50 New Yorkers congregated at 250 Broadway in front of City Hall to have their voices heard about MMA in New York!

Organized by “Sambo” Steve Koepfer of the Coalition to Legalize MMA in NY, the event gained attention from members of the MMA press as well as the mainstream media. Speakers included top-ranked women’s MMA fighter Tara Larosa, Eddie Goldman of the “No Holds Barred” podcast, and former UFC and Strikeforce champion Frank Shamrock. Strikeforce, K-1 and Dream champion Alistair Overeem also came, but sadly was about 30 minutes too late as the rally had wrapped up by the time he arrived, but he did talk to “Sambo” Steve about the problems and sounded off, which you will see in the season premiere of the next season of “The Reem”.

Head to the coalition website for more info on this rally, their next rally set for Albany and more info on what you can do to help MMA in New York!

Looks like New York has a new spokesperson to help push MMA in New York, and it’s Frank Shamrock!

Shamrock, who is in the process of moving to New York and filming a reality series called “Ungloved” all about the journey, has stepped up to the plate to help educate the masses and politicians about MMA. This comes as great news after Governor Cuomo conveniently forgot that Zuffa was lobbying him to help MMA and just plum forgot to put it in his budget plan for 2011, despite the sport being proven to generate $23 million in revenue. One would assume income would be welcome in the state with deep financial debt, but I suppose not.

Frank was in Albany yesterday on the floor of the New York State Senate, talking with politicians such as Senator Joseph Griffo, Assemblyman Frank Lopez and Representative Bing, and helping them hear our pleas. Frank tweeted about the process through the day, and had one interesting quote, which was, “meeting of the minds with Rep Bob Reilly denied by his office. WTF?! But everyone is otherwise feeling MMA in NY.” So there ya’ go, MMA world. Some guys just enjoy playing the part of the villain, and New Yorkers who support MMA have known who that man is for some time. Meanwhile, as of the time of this post, the rally for MMA in NY in front of City Hall is going down and if you are in the area, you should drop by and show your support!

You can follow Frank’s new twitter at this address, which will have updates about his reality show and his push to help MMA in New York!

Merry Christmas to my gentile readers! Hope your evergreen tree is bombarded with gifts and your stockings are filled with coal… so you can hit someone over the head with it and take their gifts. To celebrate this day, I give you the gift of Frank Shamrock singing his own version of the twelve days of Christmas – MMA style. Granted, this is from 2008, but hey, we wouldn’t be fight nerds if we weren’t watching the oldies! Happy holidays!

October was a big month for MMA and a big month for me. For some reason, October seems to be the best month every year for me (out of all two years that is). The biggest news coming this month must be yesterday’s announcement by Dana White that the UFC & WEC will merge starting in 2011, with Jose Aldo defending his new UFC featherweight title against an opponent yet to be named. But really, more important news was that my UFC Undisputed 2010 video game tournament went down and it was awesome, mostly because Frank Shamrock dropped in to beat me in EA Fight Night as Mike Tyson.

One of the things that snuck under many people’s radar, but not mine since I was there, was Ring of Combat 32. This event saw Kim Couture battle against Munah Holland in a losing-three-round affair that left Kim beaten, bloodied and with a lovely 3-4 record against fighters who have mostly been making their MMA debut or have losing records already.

Here are some more of the top videos and stories this month!

UFC defeats WWE in pay-per-view buys

Boxing legend Bernard Hopkins gives The Fight Nerd a one-on-one interview… until the boxing press tries to hijack it

Bjorn Rebney on Bellator 33, Roger Huerta’s future & Bellator VS Strikeforce

I get nerdy, well nerdier, at New York Comic Con 2010 with Larry Hama, Walt Simonson, Mark Sable, Paolo Rivera, PowerGlove and more!

Video footage and nifty highlight reel of the Bellator Philadelphia try-outs, where we speak with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney once more, interview Albert Alvarez (younger brother of Eddie Alvarez who was trying out) and the winner of the tryouts, Giedrius Karavackas!

Will November be as good as October was? I would say no to that, since I am going to try to beat the pants off of October and make it wish it was as cool as November. Stay tuned, fight nerds!

On October 16, 2010, the first ever Fight Nerd Video Game Open was held at 8 Bit & Up Gaming in downtown Manhattan. The event was officially called “Fall Brawl 2010″ and that is no understatement, as eight competitors battled their virtual fighters in a dramatic and exciting double-elimination tournament for pixelated supremacy.

At last, after rummaging through the seven hours of footage, the highlight video for the event is done, including the appearance of former UFC & Strikeforce champion Frank Shamrock, and a rundown of how the event turned out. Congrats once again to our winner, Kevin Wang, and the runner-up, Alvin Colon. They won a ton of prizes contributed by The MMA World Expo, Jakks Pacific, Round 5 MMA, Skin Industries, Klutch Wear, No Surrender Fight Wear, MMA Worldwide Magazine, TapouT Magazine, M-1 Global, King of the Cage and Topps!

My goal for this event was to just have as much fun as humanly possible and make sure everyone left with lots of free stuff, and that mission was accomplished. Enough that there will be a second event, but you are just going to have keep checking out the site to find out more info about that! Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery from the event as well!

The first ever Fight Nerd Video Game Open wrapped up this weekend over at 8 Bit & Up Gaming in NYC and I bet you weren’t there! What happened, you used to be cool? Anyway, “Fall Brawl 2010″ was a huge success for those who came down to check it out, and what a tournament it was. Last minute additons to the roster included one of our special guests, King of the Cage flyweight champion Jimmie Rivera and speaking of special guests, the attendees were shocked to see our super secret guest – Frank Shamrock!

The former UFC & Strikeforce middleweight champion dropped in to give some advice to the gamers and to let everyone know that he is coming to NYC soon permanently to open up new schools in NY and to push hard to get the sport of MMA legalized here. If Frank Shamrock can’t get MMA legalized in New York, then who can?

The eight-man brackets became a double-elimination tournament, with Kevin Wang taking the grand prize at the end of the day. Kevin lost in his first fight of the day to Alvin Colon, and had to battle back up from the bottom of the loser’s bracket to get to the finals and avenge his earlier loss to Alvin, winning all of his final fights by TKO with powerful ground & pound skills. Alvin came in second, with Paul Jobson coming in third and Dennis Wright taking fourth place.

Big thanks one more time to all of our epic sponsors who donated an absurd amount of prizes and freebies to everyone who came! Check them all out at The MMA World Expo, Jakks Pacific, Round 5 MMA, Skin Industries, Klutch Wear, No Surrender Fight Wear, MMA Worldwide Magazine, TapouT Magazine, M-1 Global, King of the Cage and Topps!

You can see the rest of the photos at this link here and you can also find some more photos of the event courtesy of Iveta Lacane on the MMA in NYC meetup.com group’s photo area! Big thanks to everyone who came out to compete and to have fun, and thanks to Old School NYC Gamer for coming down to cover it and to Jim Genia for doing a bit of liveblogging as well! Expect some video from this event very soon, there is just so much to edit! Anybody want to be my video intern?

Hit the jump for a few more photo highlights of the event!

Last week, EA unveiled their line-up of heavyweights and light-heavyweights for EA Sports MMA video game. This week, we now have the official list of middleweight characters you can play as!

Joining the previously announced fighters are Benji Radach, Lyman Good, Matt Lindland, Luke Rockhold, Frank Trigg, Joe Riggs, Kazuo Misaki, Scott Smith, Murilo Rua, Tim Kennedy, Pat Miletich, Jake Shields, Nick Thompson, Melvin Manhoef, Robbie Lawler, Dan Henderson, Gegard Mousasi, Jason Miller, Cung Le, Nick Diaz, Frank Shamrock, and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

The big surprises this time around is definitely Lyman Good, since he is so far the only fighter representing Bellator FC in the game. In fact, I am more surprised by Lyman Good than I am by the addition of Luke Rockhold, no offense to the man. But, Good is an excellent fighter so I welcome him to the cast of characters. I assume he will be playable in the welterweight category as well. Lastly, Melvin Manhoef’s head is huge. HUGE!

Any middleweight fighters you wanted to see in the game that have not been put in?

After months of teasing, EA Sports MMA (also known as the alternative to that UFC Undisputed game that is not selling too well) announced the official roster for the heavyweights and light heavyweights in their upcoming title on their blog. We already knew a majority of the fighters in the game, but it is nice to finally confirm them. So, as Big John McCarthy would say, let’s get it on!

HW Roster (pictured above): Bobby Lashley, Randy Couture, Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, Hidehiko Yoshida, Andrei Arlovski, “King Mo” Lawal, Jeff Monson, Ken Shamrock, Kevin Randleman, Brett Rogers, Bob Sapp, Josh Barnett, Tim Sylvia, Andreas Kraniotakes.

LHW Roster: Ken Shamrock, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Bas Rutten, Randy Couture, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Gegard Mousasi, Frank Shamrock, Vladimir Matyushenko, “King Mo” Lawal, Scott Smith, Roger Gracie, Melvin Manhoef, “Ninja” Rua, Matt Lindland, Kevin Randleman, Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem.

For those wondering about in-store exclusive characters, Big John McCarthy, Herschel Walker, and “Classic” Frank Shamrock will be bonus downloadable characters in the video game if you pre-order your game with either Walmart, BestBuy, or GameStop stores respectively. More fighters will be announced next week. Any fighters you wanted to see in the game that EA missed?

In part 2 of this exclusive interview with The Fight Nerd, MMA legend Ken Shamrock explains his side of the story on UFC 9, where he fought Dan Severn for 35 minutes and lost by decision in a dull match. Ken tells us if this match was strategic or just boring, and also gives his thoughts on Frank Shamrock retiring, why he thinks mainstream athletes are now fighting in MMA, and why he doesn’t watch MMA on TV. Plus, retirement – when will Shamrock hang up the gloves for good?!

If you missed part one, check that out at this link here, where Ken talks about his fight against Pedro Rizzo and clears up remarks about steroids he said on HDNet, as well as how he would regulate steroids and why the California State Athletic Commission always seems to have problems with their drug testing.

UFC and Strikeforce Veteran Tony Fryklund makes his voice heard as we discuss where he has been in the past year and a half, why he wants to fight Frank Shamrock next, how MMA has changed since he first started and why todays fighters will not be as good as the fighters from a decade ago, and his new gym with Jens Pulver, Driven Inc Training Center.