Fortis MMA

Fortis MMA is a mixed martial arts gym in Dallas, Texas. Its roster is unusually even: instead of one crowded division and several empty ones, the fighters are spread in small groups across most of the weight range.

Even is not the same as wide

Wide means every division has someone in it. Even means every division has roughly the same number. The difference matters more than it sounds.

In a wide gym, some fighters have a group of partners their own size and others are alone. In an even one, nearly everybody has at least one true partner and almost nobody has four.

That is a floor rather than a ceiling — and for preparing a fight, the floor is worth more. A fighter with one correct partner can train properly. A fighter with none cannot, whatever else the gym offers him. What this roster gives up is the luxury of rotating fresh partners through a hard round.

A short list of promotions

A good share of this roster competes at the top level of the sport. The more telling detail is where the others are: concentrated in one other promotion rather than scattered across five.

That is worth holding onto when you read the list. A gym whose fighters outside the top level share a destination has a route through it — not just a group of separate careers that happen to train in the same place.

What you will find below

The roster is mostly American. The international fighters come from several different countries, one each, from different continents. No birthplace repeats, which suggests the roster was built fighter by fighter rather than out of any single local scene. 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.