There was always someone available to help you realize the poor choice you’ve made.
So how did all that turn into a clothing brand?
My girlfriend and I spent more than a decade designing and screen-printing T-shirts for bands around Los Angeles. She later became my wife, then my ex-wife. That’s a longer story than we have room for here.
We also designed and printed shirts for our local gym. One particular design still makes me laugh.
I brought it into the dojo, and everybody seemed to like it. Well, almost everybody. One guy noticed that the person throwing punches from the mount looked a lot like me. He also thought the fellow on the receiving end looked suspiciously like him.
He was right on both counts. Sorry/Not sorry Josh!
Our first No Holds Barred shirts: 1994
Martial arts and screen printing were already big parts of our lives. Making our own NHB fightwear brought the two together. In 1994, we rolled out those first shirts with designs drawn from the world we knew firsthand.
It was a raw time. Different styles were meeting on the mat, people were testing what worked, and the sport was still taking shape. We felt like cowboys on the frontier of something. No gloves. No Holds Barred. Those early shirts came out of that atmosphere.
Life changed. The promise stayed.
As the years went on, fightwear changed. Brands like TapOut came onto the scene, the designs got louder, and tribal artwork seemed to be everywhere. I still couldn’t tell you which tribe.
My own life changed, too. I became a single father, and there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to keep the clothing business going. I loved it, but the business had to go on the shelf.
I kept everything, including the domain name. And I made a promise to my best friend and training partner, the late Lodune Sincaid, that I would bring the brand back.
That promise stayed with me. Bringing Choke Athletic back means keeping it. The same with donating 10% of all profits to a dog rescue (that meant a lot to Lodune).
Vintage MMA apparel, back for a new chapter
Today, our vintage MMA apparel returns to the style that started it all. The collection includes No Holds Barred, Vale Tudo, and Submission Club designs across shirts, tanks, hoodies, and youth apparel. Some revisit our original artwork. Others are brand-new designs with that same old-school flair: distressed lettering, classic grappling illustrations, and a connection to the early days of MMA.
All Choke Athletic apparel orders are fulfilled by Amaze Commerce, with garments manufactured to our specifications using quality materials.
Find your next classic
Whether you remember those days yourself or found your way into martial arts much later, welcome. Take a look through our T-shirts and tanks, hoodies and sweatshirts, and youth apparel.
We’re keeping it legit like it’s 1994.
