KrakenMT,
Great thread. The vids are a great resource. Thanks for collecting them all on the first page.
The pose sketch is slick. I vote no shield, since, I believe, there's a no shields allowed rule in the UFC, and it just feels discourteous for a professional mixed martial artist to be toting around an indestructable metal disk that blocks punches and hurts his opponent's knuckles. His sensai would smack him in the head.
Anyway, awesome work and tutorials so far.
Keep making us look bad. :)