Meet Mike Yanez, Louisville's own Tito Ortiz, and a veritable Miami Beach Bad Boy. Lots of people know who Mike is; some of them even like him. One thing is for certain, Mike is confident. Why shouldn't he be? His team, Highlander Fight Team, is one of the top groups in the area with a combined record of 79-18; and his achievements in grappling are legion. In 18 years of grappling Yanez has earned a Florida State Championship, 3 times Arnold World Champion, and 4 time NAGA champion; not to mention a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Say what you will about the man himself, he has accomplished a lot. Yanez wrestled in high school, but when he attended the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale (where he earned an associate's degree in Computer Animation) he felt like he was missing something and that his conditioning was being lost. He had seen the UFC and had really enjoyed what Royce Gracie was doing to people. That year at Spring Break Yanez ran afoul of the law, getting into an altercation that lead him to do some soul searching and when one of his closest friends called to tell him that he enrolled in a Brazilian jiu jitsu class, Yanez decided that maybe this would be a good way to focus his aggression and keep his conditioning up. Yanez had no idea that he had just signed up to train with some of the best grapplers in the world. His training was straight from Brazilian Pablo Popovitch and Yanez had to struggle to keep up, classes were done almost exclusively in Portuguese and fighters such as Hermes Franca and the Noguerra brothers trained in the same gym.

Then, six years ago Mike decided to check out the Kentucky Derby. Mike really liked his first taste of Louisville. He met a girl, had a hangover, and has been here ever since. Mike trained with the small group of people in Louisville that knew jiu jitsu. For Yanez, who was used to the Brazilian styled competition-oriented system that he had studied under Popovitch, felt that the situation in Louisville was just too commercial and not focused enough on the competitive aspects of the sport. This prompted Yanez to strike out on his own and seek to form something more along the lines of what he had enjoyed in South Florida. "I have trained with all the top guys in Louisville, they can say what they want; but, they know my technique is solid,' says Yanez, "Louisville has grown a lot in six years as far as MMA goes. There are probably ten places you can train now. I still feel like an outsider though." Yanez says that he thinks this alienation results from his different approach to the sport. "I think my team's success and my own success prove that there is something to the way I do things. I approach jiu jitsu with a little bit of arrogance maybe. Show me one Brazilian with a black belt that is not arrogant. It is just the nature of the sport. It is how I learned." That self-assured attitude in combination with the rapid rise to success of Team Highlander seems to have created a strain on Yanez's social life. "There are people who dislike me that have no idea who I really I am," says Yanez. In truth, says Yanez, he is somewhat saddened by being perceived as the bad guy. "I do not have a lot of friends here in Louisville. But I will say this, if my jiu jitsu was not as good and my team not as successful, would anyone even care what I have to say?"

Now, after hearing plenty of doubters, Mike Yanez has decided to return to the cage. His first cage fight was not a successful one. Yanez faced off with Krav Maga instructor Rolando Hadad and got stopped by strikes after a questionable fence grab by Hadad that Yanez says prevented his takedown attempt. Yanez seeks to prove that he has learned that jiu jitsu alone does not a Mixed Martial Artist make. He wants to show that the Mike Yanez that lost to Hadad is not the fighter that he is today. He also wants to support what he considers the top Mixed Martial Arts organization, the Revolution Fight League. "I want to do everything I can to ensure the success of the RFL, they are a great organization who appreciates what my fighters do and they show it," says Yanez. "I can bring some great fighting talent from south Florida and I think my fighters and I can put on a great show for the fans and the RFL."

Watch Mike Yanez as he returns to the cage on April 26, at Broadbent Arena. Whatever happens inside the cage at Hostile Takeover, it should be a great show!