American Top Team

American Top Team is a mixed martial arts gym in Coconut Creek, Florida. Its fighters compete in almost every weight class, from the lightest divisions up to heavyweight, and a large share of them were born outside the United States — Brazil especially.

Why a wide roster matters

Most gyms cluster around two or three neighbouring weight classes. That is usually not a choice but a limit: it is what a coaching staff can prepare properly at once. A gym that covers the whole range works differently. A fighter here can normally find a training partner close to the size of his next opponent, whatever that size happens to be.

That matters more than it sounds. Sparring with someone much lighter teaches the wrong timing. Sparring with someone much heavier teaches the wrong distance. Partners of the right size are the one part of a fight camp that cannot be improvised, and a wide roster is how a gym supplies them.

It cuts the other way too. In a room this broad, the person next to you is often preparing for a completely different kind of fight, so the training is less shared than it would be in a smaller, tighter gym.

Fighters from several countries

The foreign fighters here did not arrive one at a time. The Brazilian contingent in particular tends to come from the same few scenes, and a group brings its habits with it — ground work built one way, striking taught another.

So fighters who train at this gym do not all look alike. A room that takes in groups absorbs their styles rather than replacing them with one house method. That is worth knowing before you read the list: two names below can have very little in common technically, even though they train in the same building.

What you will find below

Most of the fighters listed here compete at the top level of the sport. The rest are spread across regional and international promotions. Both men's and women's divisions are represented.

The pages below list every fighter in this catalogue whose most recent bout came out of this gym, with their weight class, nationality, record and how each of their last five fights ended.