Not many clothing items are as hot as mixed martial arts, or MMA style t-shirts. It is easy to see why this in ornate style of shirt grips the key male demographic. These shirts exude qualities in which the wearer wants to portray: toughness, confidence and style.

While there are several MMA brands out there, many of them share the same, successful formula for popular shirts. After studying about a dozen different MMA clothing brands, I've found a few patterns and trends that successful brand names have in common. Here are 5 essential parts of a good MMA shirt.

1. Soft, distressed shirt.

The Hanes Beefy Tee and other heavy, blocky shirts are out. The modern guy wants a shirt to be softer and more form fitting. Many popular brands like Affliction, Sinister, Warrior and even other non MMA brands have realixed this and adapted to it. In addition to soft, form fitting shirts, some distressing is always good. It gives it an even more broken in feel and makes the tee look unique.

2. Traditional and gothing symbols.

These symbols are found on a good number of MMA shirts. Symbols like skulls, barbed wire, knives, swords, brass knuckles, chain link fence, stars, wings, crosses etc. fit the MMA product and key demographic very well. This is nothing new, as most of these symbols are very popular from tattoos to custom paint jobs on cars and motorcycles. Talented graphic artists and clothing designers have done a great job in making these classic icons look fresh and new.

3. Tattoo-style font.

Any graphic's person will tell you that the font is as important, if not more important than the picture. Your font is what is going to convey your brand name to your customer base and demograpic. Fonts of choice for the MMA community and clothing designers are gritty, gothic fonts. Fonts like Olde English and traditional tattoo fonts. Words are also becoming used in graphical purposes as a backdrop for symbols on shirts.

4. Lots of black and gray.

The primary colors of MMA clothing is black, gray and white. Once again, they are sticking with a very traditional, tattoo-esque pallette. This color scheme is a good choice, because black illustrates grit and toughness. In addition to this, you can wear black and white with almost anything from a pair of torn jeans and sneakers to dark jeans, dress shoes and a blazer. Secondary colors are usually red, silver and gold...but black and white stays as number 1.

5. Several layers.

There is a reason that all popular graphic design programs are based around a layer concept. By layering colors, fonts, graphics on top of eachother using several effects, you can create a really sleek, unique look. This style is prevalent in MMA shirts today, as there are several ornate layers on many different shirts. A shirt with one graphic or word in the middle has a good effect, but can get boring. This is why the layers method works with MMA...it fits the style.