Rupture Clothing would like to congratulate Arsenal/Rupture Softball for their recent 5^th place finish at the Open NIT at Kasch Park in Redmond, WA. The tournament was filled with some of the top softball teams from Oregon and Washington, and Arsenal turned some heads. As a result, Arsenal has been awarded their paid world berth to the USSSA D World Championships in Orlando, FL in September.

The Rupture Clothing Jiu-Jitsu Championships is this weekend!

SCHEDULE

EARLY WEIGN INS: 5 TO 8PM FRIDAY
LATE WEIGH INS: 7 TO 830AM SATURDAY (at venue)

SPECTATOR TICKETS

Each spectator ticket costs $10. Kids under 5 years and Competitors are FREE.

Adult match 5 minutes
Teens/Masters match 4 minutes
Kids match 3 minutes

OFFICIAL HOTEL

Ramada Inn North – $49 a night
16510 North Freeway
Houston, TX
(281) 821-257
Code: WGC

VENUE

LEGNEDS SPORTS COMPLEX
602 Pruitt Rd.
Spring, TX 77380

RUPTURE UPDATE

Grapplers and Fans,

Fight 2 Win and The World Grappling Circuit will make the following changes to the upcoming Rupture Houston Jiu Jitsu Championships on April 23rd and 24th.

We will move from a 8 mat system to a 12 mat system. In efforts to make your grappling experience even better, we will try to cut down your wait time.

Kids and Teens will start at 9am and use all 12 mats. We know that the day can be long for young children, so let’s get them up early. So Kids and Teens will have a rules meeting at 8:45am April 24th and start grappling promptly at 9am. We will announce more info on this including mat designations.

Adults will start at 10:30am. Adult rules meeting will begin at 10:15am and Grappling will start promptly at 10:30am. We will begin with No-Gi first. Stay tuned to weigh-in information and mat assignments.

Remember, REGISTER NOW and you can get 2 divisions, 1 MMA ticket and free entry to the Friday Night 8 man Superfight all for only $60. This great deal ends Friday April 16th, so act now.

Rupture will be there selling our gear at special tournament prices!

Of all the products we sell, our Rupture Signature Rash Guards are by far our most popular items.  People really love them – and it’s not just grapplers.  Surfers, runners, weight lifters, and apparently softball players.   One of our staff thought it might be a good idea to write an article on what makes a perfect compression rash guard.  Incidentally, it’s a blue print on how we make our rash guards .

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Why are compression rash guards important?  They help fight the elements, combat fatigue, speed recovery and prevent injury.  To fighters and grapplers, they’re as essential as pain killers or running shoes.

However, just like many other products in the marketplace, there are good and bad rash guards.  Below is an article on what makes a great rash guard, and what you should look for when you purchase one.

Fabric and construction

- Fabric: A nylon/lycra blend is preferred over polyester. Nylon/lycra is more expensive, but definitely worth it in the long run, for both durability and yield. It also has a much nicer hand (softness and feel). Polyester wears out much faster and tends to retain odor. One advantage that polyester offers is better moisture management, but moisture wicking technology has more than equaled the playing field.

- Construction: Look for flatlock stitching on the fabric panels and triple stitching on the sleeves and bottom piece with reinforced backing. This will ensure your rash guard doesn’t fall apart at the seams after you roll a few times.

Design vs. Functionality

- What are the top 2 complaints regarding rash guards? Without a doubt, the runaway winner is that grappling rash guards ride up on your stomach, back and sometimes chest while you roll or fight. The second is badly placed seams that chafe athletes during training. Just like the badly constructed gi jacket with the seam down the middle of the back, rash guards have similar issues. I’ve recently seen a rash guard that has a unique design with seams running in the middle of the back and chest. Guess what – that will bother grapplers when they’re rolling.

The primary purpose of a great rash guard is to protect the athlete wearing it, not inhibit their performance. It is the first line of defense between skin on the athlete’s upper torso and everything else. Grappling rash guards should be tailored longer and be constructed so that rolling upwards during training is minimized or eliminated. As well, seams that meet under the arm pit, across the back or across the chest make for interesting designs and bad functional rash guards.

A 6 panel fabric design is optimal for both long and short sleeve rash guards. This ensures maximum mobility and fabric yield under wet and dry conditions. Chest and back panels should be constructed of one vertical piece. Side panels should not have seams under the arms like long-sleeve t-shirts – that is the highest friction point of any upper body garment due to arm movement – and instead should run down the length of the sleeve. The last two panels should be above the shoulder area, where the athlete encounters the least amount of friction.

Chemical Treatment

Moisture wicking technology and anti-microbial treatments are standard and should be expected in any high quality rash guard. Note: anti-microbial does not mean leave your rash guard in your gym bag for a few days then wear it the next class – you know who you are . SPF protection is great for surfers or outdoor athletes that prefer to train in rash guards. It is not as important for grapplers or MMA fighters unless they train outside quite a bit.

Design or Logo Printing

Dye sublimation is preferred whenever possible. Unlinke plastisol with a stretch based additive, sublimation is permanent and will not peel off. We’ve all seen the rash guards with logos half hanging off or peeling after a few uses. Sublimation is easy on polyester and notoriously difficult on nylon/lycra, though that is changing due to advancements in technology. In cases where sublimation is not possible, a water-based ink for synthetic materials should be used during the printing process. This does not “quite” equal sublimation, but the ink will bleed into the fabric, ensuring a logo that lasts and doesn’t peel off.

The Rupture Signature Rash Guard meets all of these criteria. Our US-made rash guards have been widely recognized as the runaway leader for quality and price by the grappling and MMA community. Make sure your next rash guard is constructed and designed to these standards.

Cheers,

Nick

P.S. Some random nag points:

Hanging neck tags do not belong on rash guards. Period. One of the most annoying things about buying a rash guard with a hanging neck tag is the constant scraping across the neck by a hard tag. T-shirt manufacturers got wise to this long ago and started printing tagless shirts.

Tight compression fit across chest, loose fit bottom. Please pick one or the other. What’s the point, really?

Grapplers, if you haven’t pre-registered for the Houston Jiu-Jitsu championships yet, don’t miss your chance!!  Pre-registration gets you into the 8-man superfight and “Notorious” MMA Fight night for FREE!!  Pre-registration also saves you $20 in competition fees.

The deadline to pre-register is April 16th.  You can register now by clicking here. 

See you in April!!

After a long, tough road, Tyler Toner finally makes it to the the WEC! And as always, we’re going to be in his corner – win, lose or draw.

I’ve known Tyler for quite some time, and I’m amazed at how well he’s managed his career.  He embodies everything a sponsor would want from an athlete.  Courage, athleticism, politeness, humility, charisma – he truly has it all.  Tyler is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, and we’re extremely proud to have him as part of the Rupture family.

Below is an article on Tyler’s upcoming fight, courtesy of the WEC.

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Roughly 2,800 people attended UFC 1 at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Co. One of those intrigued spectators was a 10-year-old Tae Kwon Do student named Tyler Toner. The boy didn’t find the spectacle – which happened to be unregulated at the time — to be disturbing or violent. In fact, the only thing that shocked him, as would be the case for many who watched that night on Nov. 12, 1993, was witnessing a skinny Brazilian named RoyceGracie repeatedly conquer Goliaths to win the 8-man tournament.

Fast forward 16 years later and Toner has a sociology bachelor’s degree he never uses and is primed to make his own debut inside the cage against unbeaten Hawaiian Brandon Visher (13-0) at WEC 48.

Like Royce Gracie, the lanky Toner has been an underdog in many of his pro fights, but he keeps proving people wrong. At 10-1, 1 NC, “Thunder” boasts a pro kickboxing win over Japan’s Kenichi Ogata, a 2006 World Shootboxing Champion. The 26-year-old Coloradan, a disciple of Amal Easton, Trevor Wittman and Duane Ludwig, spoke about the path that led him to martial arts.

Q: Why fight?
Toner: I ended up training Jeet Kune Do and my instructor took us to the very first UFC here in Denver. It reminded me of going to a Denver Broncos game or something. I had been to full contact martial arts tournaments so it didn’t seem like anything new to me. I just remember me and my brother betting on who was going to win the next fight and Royce Gracie was not somebody we picked. So when he won, Brazilian jiu-jitsu stayed in my mind for like 10 years after that.

I went to college and went grocery shopping and I saw a big sign that said “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.” I remembered that from the UFC and I freaked out right away. I started training two days a week and that turned into six days a week. I fell in love with it. Fighting has taught me that I’m tougher than I thought I was. I have fought as a huge underdog and through some pretty bad positions, so my coaches say I have a lot of heart.

Q: What titles have you won in the sport?
Toner: Ring of Fire title as a featherweight. I was the national point sparring champion in Tae Kwon Do when I was 8 years old (chuckles). It was pretty exciting for me back then. It was the first fighter to score five points. Pretty much the only target they scored was chest or stomach with punches. You could get a point for going to the head but you had to pull it, you couldn’t actually make contact with the head. It taught me to learn how to manage my adrenaline a little.

Q: What was your highest rank in Tae Kwon Do?
Toner: Brown belt. My brother and I stopped training right before we got our Black Belts.

Q: Any regrets about not earning your black belt?
Toner: Not really. Football is a lot cooler to a 13-year-old kid than Tae Kwon Do was. So I played football, played some lacrosse. I came back to martial arts when I went to Boulder (University of Colorado) for college.

Q: You’re a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Amal Easton, but you’ve won half of your fights by knockout or TKO. Is your preference to stand with Visher?
Toner: I like to think of myself as pretty well-rounded but I like to stand more, just from years of training with Duane Ludwig. It’s something that I picked up more naturally. But I’ve been training Brazilian jiu-jitsu for like six years now, so I have a lot of submissions as well. A lot of my coaches say my ground is better than my standup. But I like to stand more. I think it’s more fun.

Q: What do you know about Brandon Visher?
Toner: I’ve watched videos of him. He looks like a good athlete with quick, heavy hands. He’s 12-0 but hopefully I’ll end that streak … I haven’t really thought about him being undefeated. He’s just another fighter. I don’t really care.

Q: Who are some of the people that you train with?
Toner: Eliot Marshall, Amal Easton, Duane Ludwig, Trevor Wittman, Nate Marquardt and Shane Carwin.

Q: Talk about the biggest win of your career to date.
Toner: My biggest win was over Kenichi Ogata. He was the 2006 World Shootboxing Champion. He’s fought pretty much all of my idols in kickboxing and I went in there on two weeks’ notice, fighting up a weight class (at 155 pounds), against a guy who had over 100 kickboxing fights and it was my first kickboxing match. I was a pretty big underdog. It was an awesome experience.

Q: You had the chance to watch Brandon Visher beat Courtney Buck. What were your impressions of him that night?
Toner: He always kind of does the same thing: He’s an athletic guy with quick, heavy hands and that’s what he does. I think I’m more well-rounded and hopefully I can expose the fact that he’s pretty one-dimensional.

I always like to stand in my fights. I have a more versatile standup game than him with more kicks and knees. If it does go to the ground I think I’m more well-rounded there as well.

Some people summit mountains.  Others conquer triathlons, sky dive, or chase giant waves around the world.  Whether it’s the adrenaline rush or a personal affliction, everyone has a passion that drives them.  For me, that passion manifests itself in the form of physical combat.

Really, I can’t really explain the reasons.  Five years or so ago, my Judo coach, Steve Sanford, said you had to be mentally bereft of all your senses to be a Judo player.  Of course, this point of view came from a man that used duct tape instead of sports tape because it was less expensive, but the argument stands.  Steve was a 5th dan and played Judo until a medical condition told him to take it easy.  Even then, he still visited the gym from time to time.  Another coach, Harry Doherty, the guy who took over the club, was strictly prohibited from fighting after neck surgery.  One throw and he could be paralyzed from the neck down.  Harry explained his time on the mat to his wife by telling her he never fought, which was a small lie, to say the least.  He did significantly minimize the risk by never being thrown.  Indeed, I’ve never seen Harry off his feet.   I asked Harry once why he risked so much to spend time on the mat.  He just smiled and said it was better than anything else.

After knee surgery and a long period of rehabilitation, I have recently returned to Judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  I have yet to return to boxing, but that’s coming soon.  My time away from the mat and the gym was a period of deep reflection and personal misery.  I found myself missing the little things I used to take for granted: the smell of the gym, the bruises that are inevitable after training (especially when drilling technique with less experienced athletes), the smack talk and camaraderie.  What I missed the most, however, was fighting. I found little relief in other forms of physical exercise – mentally, every leg extension was a low kick, every bench press rep a punch, every medicine ball exercise a tai otoshi or uchi mata.  I feared I would go insane.  The day I returned to the mat, a 10-ton weight was lifted off my chest.

During my period of inactivity, my personal interest in Mixed Martial Arts grew.  Certainly, this is also related to my involvement in Rupture and the interactions I have with professional and amateur MMA fighters, promoters and managers.  However, there was something else nagging at me.  And then, though a friend, a BJJ brown belt, I met Matthew Hickney.  This young film maker was the director and producer of  ”Walking To The Cage“, an award-winning documentary about Mixed Martial Arts.  I watched it three times in one day, and many more times after.  The subjects of the film – coaches, amateur and professional fighters, all shared different periods of adversity, injuries, pain and suffering – and above everything else, a genuine love for the sport.  I found that I shared their joy when they won, sorrow when they lost, distress and anger when they were hurt.   I also knew, then and there, that despite being a competitive Judoka and Jiu-Jitsu player, a piece of me wanted something else.

In the next few months, my footsteps will lead to a cage, where someone will wait to engage me in an officially sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts fight.   I have no idea who this person will be, or when the event will take place, exactly.  I’ve been preparing for this moment for a long time; maybe since the moment I put on a gi for the first time as a young boy, maybe even longer than that.  I expect to walk in the cage and have my hand raised at the end.  Maybe that will happen, maybe it won’t. But, barring another serious injury, I know it’s something I absolutely have to do.  Why, exactly? To be honest, I find most words to be inadequate.   I think the title of this story, aptly borrowed from Matt’s documentary, explains it much better than I ever can.

I actually spend a lot of time thinking about what we do on a day to day basis to live up to our slogan.  Since founding Rupture Clothing two years ago, it sometimes seems that we deliberately did everything right the hard way.  And although many things have changed as we’ve grown, our four founding pillars still remain the same:

• Make better quality gear than anyone else in the market.
• Offer it at a better price than anyone else in the market.
• Deliver greater value than anyone else in the market.
• Produce everything in the USA, under ethical working conditions.

Believe it or not, it’s relatively easy to enter the clothing business.  Try finding a company that manufactures rash guards.  A quick search on alibaba.com or tradekey.com gives you instant gratification from many foreign countries.  You’ll get promising emails, guarantees of satisfaction, desires of “long lasting relationships”, even free samples. It is a statistical fact that between 95-97% of clothing sold in America today are made overseas. Why is soft goods importing so attractive?  In a word, cost.  But what’s the price we really pay?

We all know the US economy hasn’t been great, so let’s take the US unemployment rate first:  It’s currently hovering at around 10%.  Then, there’s this:

“The number of child workers around the world remains extremely high with 73 million children from 10-14 years old now employed worldwide, more than 13 percent of all children in this age group, the International Labour Organization (ILO) announced today in Geneva.

These figures only tell part of the story, warns the ILO. No one really knows how many children under 10 are working and no statistics are available on the number of girls engaged full-time in domestic work. If all were taken into account, the total number of child workers around the world today might well be in the hundreds of million.”

These are staggering statistics. Can you imagine sending your 7 year-old to work in a factory instead of going to school? Here’s a video of a child working in the Hanes factory - I could not make it halfway through.  Global competition for cheaper commodities feeds this vicious cycle.   Someone said to me once: “My clothes come from China, and my tax money go to weapons factories.   I don’t like either one, but that’s reality.”  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of truth in that statement – it is up to us to change that.

A lot of you know the reason behind our company’s name.  It originated from a torn pair of board shorts, incidentally made in China.  Our slogan, however, is an entirely different story.  Being “A Genuine American Brand” is something we take extremely seriously.  And it comes at a price, both monetarily and from an opportunity standpoint.  Finding overseas manufacturers is easy.  Now try finding a decent cut and sew facility that does the same in the United States – your luck starts running out quick.  Anything from grappling shorts, T-shirts, hoodies, even packing accessories and hang tags.  Your choices are extremely limited, because soft goods manufacturing in the USA is close to extinction.  And, just as in every other industry, there are the good companies and the not so good companies.  Finding the great ones from a smaller sampling is quite a bit more difficult.

US-based manufacturing is not only more expensive, it limits the products we can offer.  Expanding our product line is our most difficult undertaking.   We receive hundreds of requests a month for sparring gear (gloves, shin guards, etc.), gi’s, even shoes.   We could probably triple our business overnight and cut costs in half by outsourcing the manufacturing of our products to a third-world country.   The monetary incentives are there in black and white.  So why haven’t we sold out?

Well, because of this: We’re pretty damn proud of the fact that every time we sell a product, an American gets to keep their job, or an American family gets to send their son or daughter to school rather than to a factory.  We have dealt with the same US-based suppliers and manufacturers since we have been in business, and everything we make is proudly made in the USA. We also take an enormous amount of pride in the quality of the products we make.  To date, we have had two single returns in two years out of the thousands of products we have sold, and only one was due to a manufacturing defect.  Every day we exist, we prove that America can still compete, even in an industry where it’s outnumbered by over 9 to 1.  And not only compete, but crush the competition.  We not only promise uncompromising quality and durability, we deliver it – day by day, garment by garment.  Our gear constantly rates higher than every other company, and we’re the fastest growing brand in athletic apparel, specifically in MMA and grappling.

It’s not easy to do the right thing.  It hardly ever is.  But the feedback we get from our customers for being a true “Made in the USA” company is overwhelming.  We can’t change the way our government spends our tax dollars, but we don’t have to perpetuate the problem of importing goods made under unethical conditions.   On the contrary, in the coming months we will announce efforts sponsored and funded by Rupture Clothing to combat the problem of child labor.   After all, we’re a company started by fighters.  And we’re not about to back down from this fight.

Here are Rupture Clothing, one of the most frequent requests we get is for gear samples.  So we’ve thought of a way to do just that:  We’ll be giving away free gear every month to a few fans of the Rupture Clothing Facebook page.

All you have to do to be eligible for the free Rupture goodies is be a fan of our Facebook page.  So if you’re not one already, what are you waiting for? Once you become a fan, you’ll also get exclusive fighter news, gear specials and much more!! So click here and connect to us today!

It’s not often I actually get to see one of our fighters fight in person.  I have an awful fear of flying and hate smoke and noise, which explains why Las Vegas is my least favorite city in the world.  So I don’t miss a chance to go to the local shows to see our fighters, especially Josh Calvo.  At barely 21 years of age, his game is simply on another level.  It’s scary to think where he could be 3-4 years from now.

The event is at a beautiful casino about 30 minutes from my house.  I’m flying solo, since our videographer is sick, and carrying a bunch of equipment I know very little about.  After the usual “I have no idea where your all-access pass is”, someone eventually finds it and I head to the locker room.   On the way there, local vendors display their gear – lots of aggressive names with demonic goth designs that somehow manage to blend rhinestones and dragons on what appear to be menswear.  One booth has an actual plastic skull with eyes that light up.  I shake my head and move on.

I get to the locker rooms and find my way to the red corner.  Josh is taking a nap and I feel bad about waking him up.  He gets up and greets me with a hug and a smile.  I’ve never seen this kid sad.  He’s in the co-main event, but he doesn’t really seem to care.  We chat about Guam (where he’s from) and his training.  He’s fighting up in weight class, and fighting a kid that won in Strikeforce, seven years his elder.  His MMA coach had told me they are looking for tougher fights for him, since he’s been steamrolling the opposition.

One of Josh’s team-mates comes in.  Foster’s BJJ and Combat Sports and Fitness have 3 guys on the fight card.  Tough decision loss.  Coach Foster and Jeff Hougland walk in behind him.  Someone’s asking for ice.  No cuts, but he’s got a really nasty bump above his left eye.  Josh gets up to give him a hug.  There’s an awkward moment of silence in the locker room, but inevitably, someone says something funny and the tension disappears.  We start talking training.  Josh is cracking jokes.  Coach Foster and I venture into the crowd to watch Josh’s second team-mate fight.  He wins by a spectacular armbar in the first round.  I realize it’s the first time I ventured into the venue.  It’s totally sold out.

We go back – Jeff Hougland is taping Josh’s hands.  After much trouble with what appears to be an extremely complicated DSLR camera, I get a group shot of Josh and his corner.  Then the warm-up begins.  They start stretching a bit, then Josh starts shadow-boxing.  Fast, fluid movements.  The mitts come out, and he begins to let his hands fly a bit.  Josh’s speed and accuracy frighten me.   He’s gotten even faster since his last fight, and he’s moved up in weight.  Jeff is calling out combinations.  ”Give me a 1-2-3.  Now 1-2-3-4.  Watch the counter.”  I feel my pulse quickening a bit.   The fight is minutes away.

Suddenly, someone calls out “Calvo!”.  Instantly, the nice, easygoing demeanor is gone, and Josh turns into… something else entirely.  He bolts out of the locker room so fast we’re all running to catch up.  I finally go find my seat inside the ropes, by one of the cageside photographers.  The crowd loses control when Josh walks out and the announcer calls his name.  He’s the hometown hero, and his opponent is from Portland.  Josh is no longer smiling.  He basically sprints into the cage, waiting for his prey.

The fight is a 3 round war.  Josh’s opponent – John Heath - wants nothing to do with his power and speed, and shoots for takedowns at every opportunity.  His strategy is ground and pound, but Josh catches him with several submissions and sweeps twice  - with the second sweep going into mount.  For the educated fan, the fight is a thing of beauty.  The crowd is in a frenzy.  His opponent is tough though, and doesn’t submit.  In the end, the decision goes away from Josh due to the takedowns.

There’s not much to say afterward.  A loss is a loss.  John Heath comes in to shake hands and offer respect.  He has a huge bag of ice under his right elbow and it looks like it’s popped.  Josh isn’t even breathing heavy, and there’s not a scratch on him.  He’s asking his coaches for advice on what went wrong, what he could have done better.  ”He fought a smart fight and studied you well”, Jeff Hougland says slowly, and everyone agrees.   There’s still a lot of work to do.

I look at Josh and tell him to stop saying “I’m sorry”.  He’s afraid he let everyone down.  I tell him we’ll be there for him for his next 10 fights, or however many he plans to have.  It’s the truth.  Within 15 minutes, Josh is already thinking of his next fight, and what he needs to improve upon.  And about where to eat.  I tell him I’ll take him out for steak next week, and the grin is back.

Josh Calvo and his corner - Rumble At the Ridge VIII - Hostile Intent