Welcome to the final installment of our quest to see who is the best of the best, within the MMA Fight team community. In our journey we’ve seen some of the top MMA fight teams battle it out from the likes of Extreme Couture and Team Quest all the way to Brazilian Top Team and Black House. Only two teams have made it to the finals and today we will see the likes of Marcus Silveira’s American Top Team go up against Javier Mendez’s American Kickboxing Academy.

As with our prior articles we will go three rounds, testing each team’s Team Atmosphere, Management and Quality of Training. So let’s jump right into the fray to see who will be left standing.

In the opening match ups we saw AKA take out Xtreme Couture and ATT send Jackson’s Submission Fighting packing by winning these categories. With these two determined teams going head to head it will be a challenge to come out on top.

Category: Team Atmosphere
Advantage: Draw
Why: When the level of dedication to your team rivals that of dedication to your career it becomes hard to have a clear cut winner between these two gritty and determined teams. Both ATT and AKA may be the bar that other MMA fight teams strive to be at with respect to the professional attitude and respectable manner their fighter’s exude for the individual teams.

This one is too close to call.

Now that we’ve got an even first round, let’s see if we can’t get a more decisive victor in round two. If you were asked to name 5 stars from both AKA and ATT could you do it? Could the MMA layperson? What about ten? I ask this because now we need to decide whose management does a better job at things like fighter exposure, and endorsements?

It could be argued that more so than their respective camps the fighters that call both ATT and AKA their homes have done more fight-wise to build their own brand than their management/affiliation through ATT and AKA. I’m tempted to say we know of these fighters not because they promote flashy MMA fight gear or hold lucrative contracts with other sponsors. We know these fighters because of their ability to win and skill within the cage or Octagon.

Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing- that shows both team’s members have a gritty dedication- which they’ve built their reputations with. But it doesn’t speak so well to the management affiliation through each camp.

Category: Management
Advantage: Draw
Why: I hate to do this two rounds in a row, but I just can’t see a clear cut winner here. Neither team really has an advantage in the management category. This one will be decided in the third.

Now we are down to the final round, in the final face off; quality of training. I’ll give a disclaimer on this one; truthfully I believe both clubs have a myriad of talent in coaching, training and fighters. Perhaps between the two schools, you’d be hard pressed to find a school with a more diverse or deep level of talent to hone your MMA skills with/against.

Category: Quality of Training
Advantage: American Top Team
Why: ATT has veterans and rookies alike, most of them versed in any and every discipline you could ever want in a place that’s training you how to do MMA as a career or even recreationally. Don’t get me wrong, AKA has this too, but American Top Team has more of it. Team members span from 1 year of professional experience all the way up to thirty years through their member and staff rosters.

Advantage Overall: American Top Team
Why: It was as thin as razor-thin can be but American Top Team put American Kickboxing Academy away in the final round due to their abundance of talent with what may be the most important aspect of MMA; the training.

So there you have it, the top of the heap, best of the best title goes to American Top Team.
I thank you for following along in the fun over the past few weeks as we’ve compared these high-caliber teams. And for those of you that have just been browsing and came across this article please feel free to review the ones that led up to this championship final!

By: David “Doc” Schroyer