Let me start off by saying “Fuck
the text book manufacturers of America.” So far this
semester, I’ve bought just three books and I’m already
300 dollars in the hole. Of course, this is a
load of steaming, festering caribou shit, and it needs
to be addressed in a public forum.
Let’s begin by examining the
OBVIOUS here. How much do you think that it COSTS to
manufacture a text book? If you said “about as much as
it costs to feed Calista Flockhart”, you’d probably be
right. That being said, how come I’m paying 120 FUCKING
USD for just one Vishnu-damned text book?
Well, there are a couple of answers
here. The first, obviously, is the fact that the
Houghton Mifflins of this world are a bunch of Satanic
cocksuckers (as in, they enjoy huffing on live poultry
for sexual gratification) and that the academic
powers-that-be are hell-bent on nickel, diming and
quartering the youth of this nation until we owe more on
student loans than the gross national products of
Serbia, Guam and Nicaragua COMBINED.
Let’s say you wake up one morning,
and suddenly, you’re James Swift. After you roll over
the twin Ukrainian blondes with lockjaw, you decide to
count up the money in your wallet. Now, I actually am a
pretty frugal guy, so I have a pretty tight lock on my
monthly expenditures. Let’s say that I average about
$1,600 a month on non-taxable income (NO, I DO
NOT STICK FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS DOWN BY THE RAILYARDS
ON SATURDAY NIGHTS FOR PROFIT, WHO TOLD YOU SUCH!) Of
that $1,600, $400 goes towards rent and associated
expenditures therein, $200 goes toward additional bills,
another $200 goes toward medical expenditures (I tried
to commit suicide in 2008 by swallowing an entire bag of
Scrabble pieces. The doctors told me that if I had used
the junior edition, I probably wouldn’t be here today),
$400 goes DIRECTLY into my savings account, $150 goes
towards gas, and $100 goes towards food and other
food-like substances. Now, if you’re good with the
numbers (and since you’re reading TWF, that means you
probably AREN’T), that means that at the end of the day,
I have about $150 leftover to spend on
“what-the-hell-ever” (and if I ever start dating again,
you might as well drop that number down to about $8.12).
So, as of the current, I’m AUTOMATICALLY 150 dollars
poorer, simply because the dick heads and vulva necks of
the scholastic publishing world decided to vouch for
HARDCOVER instead of soft-copy like anyone with a soul
would . Why in the fuck are we even USING text
books in the day of PDF, anyway? For just 6 bucks, I can
download an entire text book to my laptop. This is a
god-damned scientific FACT in this day and age. However,
instead of being fucking MODERN, the college world
FORCES you to go out and spend money that SHOULD be
going towards Nintendo DS games and those eight dollar
iced coffees at Starbucks on shit that, let’s face it,
you really don’t need.
Oh, and don’t even get me started
on the “book buy-back” bullshit. When I return my books
to the campus bookstore come the first week of December,
you know how much money I’m going to get back from my
initial $300 investment? That’s right, fifteen fucking
dollars. Oh well, it’s enough to go out and buy another
thumb drive, I guess.
So, in conclusion: the colleges and
the book publishers are in cahoots, and because of their
synergetic greed, we college folks are being NEEDLESSLY
prodded into additional debt accumulation when the
advent of technology SHOULD be making education more
affordable. For those of you that are keen on
aesthetics, the graph below should PERFECTLY demonstrate
the scenario:
Well, if there’s one thing that can
take my mind off the fact that my wallet is being picked
apart like a communal mandolin, it’s the Ultimate
Fighting Championship. Oh, UFC, where would I be without
your tender, reassuring presence? Tonight’s gala
probably won’t be as good as the last two shows, but eh,
who cares? We’ve got a couple of interesting lightweight
bouts on the card, four hours of fighting, and the
possibility of hearing James Toney cut the most
indecipherable post-fight interview of all time later
this evening. That dude is downright UNINTELLIGIBLE when
he’s stone cold sober, so I can only imagine the
kind of shit that will fly out of his mouth when he’s
punch drunk and missing an entire row of teeth. In case
of a flash knockout, I can only pray that the UFC has
Pootie-Tang on call to do translations for us.
Oh well, never mind the bullocks,
it’s time for UFC
118: Edgar vs. Penn 2! (*)
(*) By the way, the title of this
card is actually erroneous, since the first Edgar
/ Penn bout took place at a show entitled Invincible.
And even then, Penn was the champ going into the
first fight, so according to APA standards, this
fight should either be called UFC 118: Edgar vs. Penn
1, or UFC 118: Penn vs. Edgar 2. I hate to
nitpick, but when I see nits that big just crawling
around, I HASTA put on my picking gloves.
We are coming to you LIVE from
Boston, Massachusetts, hometown of grabbing people by
their ankles, pressing their asses into their spinal
cord and naming it after crustaceans. Uh, I could be
wrong, though.
The city is unquestionably in a
state of gloomy disbelief, no doubt catching word of
James Swift’s recent no-notice-given informal
termination this last Friday from the contractor he has
been working for since 2008.. You know, because that new
complex they plan on building from land they stole from
the Indians isn’t going to PAY itself off, am I right?
Exactly, so fuck James Swift and his meager $23,000 a
year salary. With that money, those sons-of-earwigs can
go buy the TOP OF THE SHELF mortar, the kind with gold
specks. Hell, they might even be able to afford NON
Styrofoam coffee cups, and all at the expense of the
livelihood of a 24 year old college kid that was barely
able to get through life with what the company was
giving him to begin with. So, on behalf of the entire
Internet, I would like to share this with the general
populace: [WARNING: Totally non-related political
diatribe ahead]
And that’s a SHOOT, you greedy
corporate scum bag mother fuckers.. [end of totally
non-related political diatribe]
As always, our hosts are Joe Rogan,
Mike Goldberg, and Larry Csonka (as long as you’re
watching tonight’s show with American Gladiators in the
PIP screen, that is).
Tonight’s show is being brought to
you by Liquidated Lumber. It’s the lumber with a yellow
tag, therefore, it’s damn good lumber. Pretty big house
for tonight’s show, way bigger than I thought it would
be. Either the Toney / Couture fight really is THAT big
of a draw, or it’s half price, half pint night for
undergrads. Man, isn’t it great being unemployed AND
straight-edge?
Hey, who wants some prelim fights?
Well, me too! Now, who wants prelim fights with Andre
Winner and Nik Lentz? No hands? No hands, at all?
Well, shit, maybe tonight should be the night I
fucking parachute off the wagon.
Well, tell me what this
means: Winner is a British striker, and Lentz is a
Midwestern wrestler. If you’ve watched ANY UFC event
from this year, then there are two things you have
learned to accept as the Buddha-given truth:
1. Wrestlers ALWAYS
beat Strikers (unless they have MAD BJJ skills)
And
2. BRITISH FIGHTERS
CANNOT WRESTLE.
Therefore, your winner, by
unanimous decision. . . Nik Lentz!
Wait, you mean I actually have to
wait until something happens before I can file it
as a journalistic effort? Fuck that, I’ll just go work
for the New York Post instead.
Anyway, this fight played out
EXACTLY as you imagined. Winner tries to strike, he
can’t land anything substantial, and Lentz simply
bullies him into the corner and lands some takedowns,
pretty much at will. In the guard, Lentz really can’t do
anything, so the final round was lay and pray city.
Lentz goes for a weak ass looking guillotine as the bell
expires. Sure enough, Lentz gets that unanimous
decision, just as I prophesized.. Nostradamus, lick
my sack.
BJ Penn has arrived at the
building. He looks glum. I guess he’s pretty shaken up
about me getting unceremoniously fired for matters of
financial expansionism. You know, because people are
just numbers, and numbers don’t need to eat food or
anything, right?
Frank Edgar is also in the house.
He too, is pretty torn up about James Swift getting shit
canned for reasons of intra-company cost-cutting. I
don’t see his “We Support J.S.“ wristband, but he’s
probably rocking one in a show of solidarity.
Randy Couture is here. He’s wearing
flannel. And he’s smiling. He’s also wearing a mouth
guard four hours before his fight takes place. That
Couture is a real professional.
Finally, Toney shows up, wearing, I
shit you not, a fucking K-Mart branded T-shirt. That may
very well be the funniest thing in the history of
ANYTHING.
Joe Lauzon vs. Gabe Ruediger up
next. “Creepy Joe” is a hometown boy, and a monster
favorite going into the bout. He’s probably best known
for knocking out Jens Pulver that one time, but
considering the fact that Pulver is on a six fight
losing skid now, that’s probably not something I would
boast about on my resume. Ruediger, on the other hand,
is that piece of shit from TUF 5 (I think) that couldn’t
cut weight. He also gave Lauzon a cake with the words
“Sorry for your loss” iced on at weigh-ins the day
before. So basically, Gabe Ruediger is kind of awesome.
MONSTER cheers for Lauzon. Bell
sounds, and Joe turns into the fucking TAZMANIAN DEVIL.
This dude is tearing Ruediger limb from limb, like he
just posted photos of his nephew on the NAMBLA message
boards or something. Joe goes for a guillotine. Gabe
worms out, and Joe says “fuck you” by standing up and
German Supplexing the mother fucker anyway. Joe is
raining punches on Gabe. Joe transitions into an armbar,
and Ruediger taps like a pair of Shirley Temple’s
dancing shoes. An incredible performance by Lauzon here.
Buy a PSP so that you can play
games that have never been commercially viable on a
handheld system.
Drink Keystone Light. Because you
don’t care how it tastes, just as long as it gets you
fucked up.
The GSP / Koscheck season of TUF
involves contestants fighting tornadoes, apparently.
Quick, somebody call Matt Hardy so he can slap it (and
then possible dry up the sea later on in the evening).
About fifteen minutes until the
show kicks off, so we get one more prelim fight,
featuring John Salter taking on Dan Miller. Miller is
lobbing some punches and throwing high kicks that aren’t
connecting, and Salter takes him down about two or three
times. Obvious round for Salter. As soon as the second
kicks off, Salter shoots for a takedown. Miller says
“GOTCHA BITCH!” and locks in an Anaconda Choke. Salter
taps. Well, that really doesn’t mean much of anything.
Time to flip over to the
PAY-PER-VIEW. I just caught the tale-end of one of the
pre-show hype videos, starring James Toney sparring with
a dude holding a pool floatie and wearing what appears
to be an Anti-bear suit like the one Homer wore in that
one episode of The Simpsons. Shit, couldn’t we have
watched that for the last hour instead?
Your typical gladiator opening.
Only with a LOT less sodomy.
Pumped crowd tonight in Boston. Joe
and Mike do the hard sell. Drink some shitty ass malt
liquor nobody’s ever heard of. Time for the curtain
jerker for the $59.95 show.
WELTERWEIGHT BOUT
Nate Diaz vs. Marcus Davis
Well,
this one ought to be, in two words, “rather punchy”.
Marcus Davis is a fisticuffing machine that’s been
around since the second season of the Ultimate Fighter.
He also lacks the ability to do anything OTHER than lob
sloppy ass hammer shots, so don’t expect any of that
pussy-ass “wrestling” or “defending one’s self” from the
self-named “Irish Hand Grenade”. . . which is TOTALLY
what I would call my penis if I was from the Emerald
Isle.
Nate Diaz, on the other hand, is
part of the MMA Four Horsemen (alongside his brother
Nick, Jake Shields, and Gilbert Melendez). Diaz, a
former lightweight, made his UFC debut at middleweight a
couple of months back, and shocked the shit out of the
MMA world (well, no, not really) when he beat the fuck
out of a dude that outweighed him by about six and a
half pounds on free cable television. So, what we have
here is a fighter that does nothing but serve hand
burgers taking on a dude that does nothing but lob
fist sandwiches. My prediction for this match?
That’s right, a flying heel hook finish in the third
round. NOW, WHO’S READY FOR SOME INCREDIBLY UNTECHNICAL
STAND-UP STRIKING!
Diaz a huge heel here. Diaz also
has a huge reach advantage. Nate hot dogs in front of
the crowd, and Davis takes him down immediately and
feeds him some hand sandwiches, with extra hate sauce.
Diaz back up, and he’s still shaking his
proverbial prick at Davis. Punches are traded (but due
to inflation, not at the average exchange rate), and The
Irish Hand Grenade has a right eye that resembles a
camel’s vulva. Diaz goes for a couple of takedowns, and
continues to pop Davis’ swollen socket with RUTHLESS
AGGRESSION. Obvious round for Diaz here.
The doctor takes a gander at Davis’
eye. It’s bad, but the doc allows it. Diaz continues to
sting Davis, and Davis is trying to land at least one
of his patented cement block hammer blows. Not
happening. Diaz secures a takedown as the bell sounds.
29-28 Diaz.
Davis’ eye looks like something out
of a 1980s straight to video horror film. The ref really
should stop this fight. BUT HE DOESN’T! Apparently, the
UFC hauled in some of the Strike Force officiating folk
for tonight’s event. . .
Diaz is just tagging Davis. Davis’
eye is pretty much swollen shut at this point. Dude,
this fight should be called. Just saying. Diaz keeps
stinging him, and eventually, Nate manages to land a
takedown. Diaz has his back. He floats over to a front
headlock. Guillotine. Davis goes to sleep. Diaz with the
sub late in the third.
A really, really impressive display
by Diaz in this bout, one that probably puts him top 5
in the UFC welterweight division. You know who I’d
really like to see Diaz take on? Matt Hughes. Well, him,
or the Serra / Lytle winner from UFC 119. A tremendous
display of technical prowess from the Cesar Gracie
student, and a tremendous display of technical ineptness
from the UFC officials here.
Shogun Rua is in the house. Be sure
to check out his next UFC bout in 2013.
LIGHTWEIGHT BOUT
Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard
One of
the problems MMA is having right now is the fact that
it’s a legitimate sport, and thus, has to
base its match-ups on things like records as opposed to
entertainment value. Now, there’s no denying that these
two fighters are among the top five lightweight
grapplers on the planet (especially since Shinya Aoki
only gives a shit when he’s fighting guys from Sengoku).
That being said, UFC fans want to see these two guys in
a title fight with about as much enthusiasm as a recent
prison internee would have for his first sodomizing.
Allow me to elucidate, folks.
Kenny Florian really is a
tremendous fighter, as apparent by his victory over
Takanori “I can’t make up my mind whether I want to suck
or not” Gomi earlier this year. He’s also beaten a
couple of big name competitors, like Joe Stevenson and,
uh. . .well, a couple of other lightweights that nobody
gives a shit about. He also has the (perhaps
unfortunate) trait of looking just like a humanized
version of Milhouse from “The Simpsons”, which I really
can’t decide if such is detrimental or beneficial to his
career. The thing is, Florian did have a title shot last
year, in which he was promptly handed his own asshole by
BJ Penn. Needless to say, a rematch between the two is
about as desirable as a bloody T-bone is to a Hindi.
And then, there’s Gray Maynard, a
dude that’s never lost a MMA fight. Well, there
was this one time he did kind of DDT himself against Rob
Emerson, but that’s neither here no there. The fact of
the matter is, Maynard has enough Ws on his record to
warrant a title shot, even though his victories haven’t
always been decisive ones (See: vs. Nick Diaz
from earlier this year).
So, here we go: two guys that are
technically adept that NO ONE wants to see in the title
hunt squaring off for, you guessed it, a title shot.
I hope I’m wrong here, but odds are, this thing is
going to be about as much fun as that one Atlanta /
Arizona game from 2004 where the final score was 6-3 and
nobody put any points on the board after the first
quarter.
Florian a huge favorite here,
obviously. Gray Maynard looks JUST like the baby from
the 1986 cult classic “Combat Shock”, only grown up.
Just throwing it out there. Florian begins by throwing
some punches and kicks. Maynard lobs some sloppy ass
overhands. Maynard shoots for a takedown. Florian
stuffing the attempt. Maynard gets it anyway, and stamps
Florian with a couple of shots from the top as time
expires. 10-9 Maynard.
It should be noted that Florian has
been selected as the “Most spirited fighter” of the
evening. Yeah, he’s fighting like a dude that’s
sponsored by a malt liquor company, all right.
Total Nonstop inaction to begin the
second. Maynard landing some shots. Maynard with a
takedown. And another. Maynard lands a couple of more
rib blows as the second comes to a conclusion. 20-18
Maynard.
Florian storms out in the third and
throws EVERYTHING at Maynard. Maynard says “Hey, I just
went to the mall, and you know what I picked up for you?
A TAKEDOWN!” Maynard with more shots. ANOTHER Maynard
takedown. Florian goes for a last ditch Umu plata
attempt. No dice. Twenty seconds to go, and Maynard
snoozes his way into a future LW title shot.
Unanimous decision victory for
Maynard. He talks about drinking Bud Light after the
fight and celebrating by playing Othello. Well, maybe
not the part about playing Othello. Florian is
disappointed. Maybe not as disappointed as the time his
best friend got his first girlfriend sent to an all
girl’s school, but still pretty disappointed.
Maynard’s got himself a
championship bout coming up. Florian gets to spend his
weekends anchoring a web show for ESPN. Tough break,
kids.
Dropkick Murphy’s is in the house,
to practically no ovation. Flogging Molly would’ve got a
Hogan pop, IMHO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT BOUT
Demian
Maia vs. Mario Miranda
I’m
not going to lie to you, folks: I have NO clue who the
hell Mario Miranda is, so unless he comes out wearing
overalls and a Tom Lawlor-esque handlebar mustache,
consider me DIS-A-POINTED. Demian Maia, conversely, is
that one Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy that got his ass flat
lined by Nate Marqhardt and clowned on by Anderson Silva
earlier this year at UFC 112. Needless to say, both guys
NEED a win here, so expect them to, uh, try not to lose.
Now, I’m not saying that I’m not interested in
this fight, but if I space out for a few minutes and
just play Othello on my cell phone instead of doing
play-by-play, you won’t get upset, will you?
Weird as hell: For some reason, the
local crowd here is crazy about Maia. Fuck, the?
Meanwhile, I’m disappointed to find out that Mario is
not a handle barred ethnic caricature, but rather, some
dude that kind of looks like Pez Whatley. Still has a
‘stache, though. If I had one like that, I’d totally use
it as a weapon in the Octagon. That thing could cause a
mean rope burn, if you know how to use it.
Maia goes for an immediate
takedown. He gets another. Body scissors. His punches
really aren’t doing anything to Mario. Maia goes for an
armbar, but Mario rolls out. The round ends standing,
and it is some SHITTY standing, at that. 10-9
Maia.
Some knee shots. Maia takes him
down. He gets back up. Maia takes him down again. Maia
looking for an armbar (should be on aisle 7, IIRC). He
loses it AGAIN. Miranda up, and throwing some
ineffective low kicks. Horrible, horrible round. 20-18
Maia.
Single leg takedown for Maia. Maia
goes for, you guessed it, ANOTHER armbar. And guess
what? He loses it AGAIN. Giyod-dahumn. Maia pulls guard
on Mario. Maia goes for another sub, and Mario ends the
round by landing some decent strikes. Way, way, way too
late to mean anything, however.
30-27 across the board for Maia.
This has NOT been a good show.
Wes Welker in the house. He’s
immediately intercepted by a DB for the Ravens.
Chuck Liddell also in attendance,
and the minute breeze that cascades as the cameraman
turns toward him knocks him out in the process. Jeez,
talk about having a glass chin!
Mass exodus to the urinals. The
“real” main event of the evening is soon upon us.
HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT
Randy Couture vs. James Toney
I’d be
MORE than willing to say that a good 98 percent of the
people watching this PPV bought the show JUST to see
this fight. Now, this thing has “train wreck” written
all over it, and you know what? That makes the bout all
the more tantalizing to dwell upon. There’s a lot
of history behind this one, so you guys might want to
brew a pot of coffee before I start explicating this
bout’s background.
Back in the day (and by day, I mean
“1993”), there was this thing called “boxing”. Before
the UFC came along, “boxing” was pretty much the only
“real” sport you could watch on Pay-Per-View, and it was
populated by people that you kind of gave a shit about,
like Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield,
Riddick Bowe, and Michael Moorer. Well, maybe not
Moorer, so much, but eh, he was around. Somewhere along
the way, however, boxing was hi-jacked by boxing
promoters, thusly destroying the sport and turning
it into a boring non-factor with only one weight class
out of about 20 that’s kind of worth a shit.
Whereas boxing has done pretty much
nothing but devolve over the years, the UFC has risen
like Michael Jackson’s junk in an orphanage (too soon?)
Oddly enough, boxing has kind of always been around the
MMA world, going back to the very first UFC event, where
Royce Gracie famously made some dude wearing one boxing
glove submit to, uh, something, back in ‘93.
That, and there has been some crossover between
the two sports. I immediately think of Ray Mercer
knocking the shit out of Tim Sylvia and Ricardo Mayorga
almost fighting that one time as recent examples
of MMA getting it’s peanut butter in boxing’s chocolate.
That being said, there’s never really been an incident
in which a legitimate boxer went toe-to-toe with
a legitimate MMA fighter in a genuine UFC
bout. That, my friends, is to come to extinction in
a matter of minutes.
Randy Couture is a man that needs
NO introduction to MMA fans. This guy is basically Brett
Favre, Captain America, and Verne Gagne rolled into one
human being. He’s old enough to be your dad, he has a
six pack despite the fact that’s he’s damn near fifty,
and he WOULD beat the hell out of you in a one-on-one
contest. Hell, he’d beat the hell out of you if you had
a chainsaw and the help of two friends. Long story
short, Randy Couture is the toughest old bastard you’ll
ever see, and the moment you stop making cracks about
his age is the same moment he sends your teeth sliding
down your trachea.
James Toney, in addition to being
the least coherent human being on the planet, is a dude
with some serious credentials as a pugilist. Since
getting signed in the Spring by Dana White, Toney has
done NOTHING but talk Chael Sonnen levels of shit about
Couture, giving an interview to Ariel Hewana in which he
brought out a Randy Couture action figure in a dress and
promised to make Randy his “bitch” when they finally met
in the Octagon. Judging from an April interview, it’s
also apparent that he doesn’t know the first damn thing
about the sport, as he talked about how he had perfected
the “left check kick”, which I believe is derived from
the kata of Brazilian Bull-Shit-You.
The smart money here would be on an
EARLY Couture submission. In fact, I’ll eat a bucket of
barber shop hair if this thing goes more than two
minutes without Toney getting a.) tapped, b.)
disqualified for trying to twist Randy’s head off like a
toothpaste cap or c.) choking to death on his own mouth
guard. This is going to be one of the biggest debacles
in the history of mixed martial arts, and the sort of
shameful tomfoolery that we will one day look
back upon with the same distressed disbelief that
we did when we found out that dude from See Spot Run
was given a WCW title run. Dear lord, this fight is
going to be a new shade of awful. Also, this
fight is going to be a new shadow of fucking awesome,
so consider my tickets to the car crash paid
in full for this one.
Toney comes out rocking the K-Mart
gear. No, seriously. He’s also looking kind of fat.
Well, fatter, anyway.
Couture comes out, as calm as a
Hindu cow. Huge ovation for the Natural, lots of
antipathy for “Lights Out” Toney.
Round begins. People wondering how
long before Couture shoots for the takedown. Randy
barely grazes Toney’s left leg and the dude
topples like a stack of Jenga pieces during an
earthquake. Loud-ass “UFC!” chants. That, I have to
admit, was pretty awesome. Toney is doing absolutely
NOTHING on the ground. Couture looking for an arm
triangle. It’s taking him awhile. Couture sinks it in.
Toney taps in the WRONG direction (meaning, he slams his
knuckles into the canvas instead of his palms),
and this bout is all over.
Couture gets an honorary black belt
for beating up a black man. Just kidding. Or am I? Toney
says something indecipherable, concluding that his
“ground game is good”. Yes, a “Good ground game” from a
guy that did absolutely nothing OFFENSIVE in a three
minute fight outside of tapping in the wrong
direction.
An absolute shit fest, but far and
away the most entertaining thing on the show so far.
Shaq Diesel in attendance, like
diarrhea dookie out your butt, and like pee pee out your
you-know-what. Laugh all you want, that shit sold 1.6
million copies back in the 90s.
Tom Brady also in the house. Far
and away, he got the loudest heel reaction of
anybody at the pub this evening. Yeah, that
sounds about right.
How many fucking Resident Evil
movies are they going to make? Shit, why don’t they just
make one based on “Clock Tower” instead? Hey, anybody
remember that one?
A deflated crowd after that last
bout. Can the main event deliver the goods? It’s going
to have to save this one.
UFC
LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP BOUT
Frank Edgar (Champion) vs. BJ Penn
(Challenger)
It’s
kind of hard to stay unbiased here, since I am perhaps
the biggest BJ Penn nut hugger on the Eastern seaboard.
That being said, I doubt that one goes into a site
dedicated to THE PRO WRESTLING SATIRE and expects
impartiality, so fuck it until it’s wheels fall off.
This bout here is a rematch from a
HIGHLY controversial bout back in April in which Edgar,
a massive underdog, scored a unanimous decision victory
over the gargantuan favorite Penn to “win” the UFC
Lightweight championship. Now, I use the term “win” very
loosely here, as BJ decisively owned the first
two rounds of that match-up. I’ll go with the
consensus and say that Edgar did in fact “win” the fifth
and final round of that bout, but for all intents and
purposes, rounds 3 and 4 were pretty much pushes. In a
JUST world, the first fight would’ve been a fairly
lackluster 47-46 decision for Penn, but SOMEHOW, at
least one of the assholes on the jury managed to give
Edgar a 50-45, which is kind of like scoring a football
game in favor of a team that lost by two field goals
because they had more yards per carry. It’s not very
logical, and yeah, BJ got SCREWED out of his title last
spring. (Whether or not Penn plans on going to WCW and
getting concussed by Goldberg is yet to be seen,
however.)
Frank Edgar is a pretty damn good
fighter, as obvious by that one loss on his record.
However, Edgar isn’t exactly a dude that’s known for
finishing folks, so color me the most surprised of
Crayola hues if he gets a submission or KO here. In
fact, I can pretty much GUARAN-DAMN-TEE you that Edgar
WILL NOT win this bout unless it goes to another
decision, so his best hope is that the judges in Boston
tonight lack the same abilities to do simple arithmetic
as the jury in Abu Dhabi. If not, he best start taking
those snapshots with the belt NOW.
And then, there’s BJ Penn, my
favorite fighter IN THE WORLD. I think it’s pretty much
a given that, on paper, Penn is probably the most
versatile fighter in MMA. He can box like a
technical motherfucker, he’s got submissions like a
mother fucker of a different variety, and he’s got Muay
Thai knees that would make Sagat from Street Fighter II
fucking proud. As the holder of the world’s
absolute BEST takedown defense (as well as the pioneer
of the so-called “Gumby Guard”), BJ Penn is one of the
supreme offensive AND defensive fighters of our day. The
problem with BJ is, he knows that he has a shit
load of talent, and every now and then, he simply likes
to coast instead of actually giving a shit about
his in-cage performance.
This has happened to Penn
several times in his career. He has a bad loss,
and he comes back DEDICATED as a mother fucker. He’s in
shape, he’s technically sound, and he goes in there and
FINISHES his opponent like an Oxycotin-sauced hamburger
in the mitts of Rush Limbaugh. And then, Penn starts
slacking off, and he gets creamed in a fight.
See: vs. GSP, January 2009.
Like The Undertaker, Penn keeps
coming back, though. It seems like every loss Penn
suffers makes him that much STRONGER as a fighter, and
there’s no doubt that Penn wants to make an example out
of Edgar this evening. The ultimate question, of course,
is whether or not Penn cares enough to keep his
dedication to the game going past this bout. So, in
other words, BJ PENN = JAMES SWIFT. Well, except I’m not
a rich Hawaiian dude. And I don’t live in a mansion with
like 80 other guys. And I can’t jump out of a swimming
pool. And. . .well, let’s just say that we both
have problems giving a shit, so that makes the
analogy apropos enough for my sake.
So here’s what we’re staring down,
folks: Edgar scores another razor thin decision, OR Penn
decides to carve up Edgar like a Jason Voorhees victim.
Either way, this should be a pretty interesting little
main event. All right, time to crank up the “Hawaii ‘78”
by that one dude that looks like Hurley from Lost. .
.
BJ Penn stoic as mother fucker.
Frankie Edgar is jumping around the Octagon like a
kangaroo on angel dust. There may be a style
difference here.
Penn the heavy favorite with the
crowd. He’s about twenty pounds heavier than Edgar, too.
So he’s like, a heavy favorite in more ways than
one. Yeah, I went there.
Penn doing the technical boxing.
Edgar. . .takes Penn down with almost no effort?
Holy shit, what happened to that world class
takedown defense, BJ? Penn working the butterfly guard
from the bottom. Nothing from it. Dueling chants. Edgar
fucking SLAMS Penn twice. This. . .is not good.
We get some reserved striking, and Edgar is simply
outclassing Penn. A real, real bad first round
for Penn. 10-9 Edgar.
Penn begins the second with more
calculated boxing. Edgar shoots for a takedown. No dice
this time. Penn landing some combinations. Edgar takes
him down again. Holy shit. Both up, and both
doing some half-decent striking. A closer round than the
first, but I’ve still got it 20-18 for the defending
champ.
Penn just cannot catch
Edgar. Now Edgar is rattling off the combinations.
Edgar’s takedown stuffed. He bullies Penn into the cage.
Edgar throwing some elbows. The round ends standing,
with Edgar landing the more efficient blows. 30-27 for
Edgar.
Penn has got to do something in the
fourth. Penn immediately scores a takedown of his own.
There you go. Edgar goes for a guillotine, gets nothing,
and we’re standing again. FUCKING vicious leg sweep on
Penn. Edgar is making “The Prodigy” look like a chump
tonight. Seriously, I don’t think GS-fucking-P tooled
him this badly. Penn trying to do something from
the rubber guard. Edgar is raining some hard shots on
Penn. It gets vertical. Penn lands a few combinations,
but nothing to win him the round. If you’re in Penn’s
corner, you’ve got to be sweating bullets right about
now. 40-36 Edgar.
Penn shoots for a takedown, and
gets it, to begin the fifth. He temporarily has Edgar’s
back, but Frank floats over to the full guard. Yeah,
it’s all over for Penn. Things get vertical, and Edgar
just runs out the clock. Penn shoots for a last ditch
takedown, but it means nothing. Not only did Edgar prove
that Abu Dhabi wasn’t a fluke, he pretty much made Penn
look like a jabroni tonight. A horrible, horrible
night for BJ.
Obvious 50-45 decision across the
board for the defending champ. In the post fight, Edgar
hypes the upcoming Maynard bout. . .sort of. A
crestfallen BJ tells Joe that he doesn’t know what he’s
going to do from here on out. Well, BJ, here’s an idea:
how about you get your ass off that Hawaiian compound
and try some actual training on the mainland? If
the first thing Penn does when he gets back to Honolulu
isn’t giving Greg Jackson a call, his ass
deserves to be getting drubbed by glorified 145
pounders. You’ve got a date with Gomi, Penn, and if you
don’t win that, you might as well hang up the trunks for
good. FUCKING FACT.
Well,
tonight’s show was. . .very, very lacking. In fact, I’m
kind of pissed that I have ten less dollars in my
billfold because of it. Oh well, in today’s roaring
economy, I’m sure I can recoup such a loss, and shortly
right? Oh, that’s right, I’m unemployed right now. Well,
fuck, then.
SHOW
HIGHLIGHT: Toney
getting tooled by Couture. Kind of an obvious pick, huh?
SHOW
LOWLIGHT: Probably
the Maia / Miranda fight, but Florian / Maynard was
pretty bad too.
FIVE
THINGS I LEARNED FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW
1 Giving a guy a cake the day
before a fight equates you getting your ass kicked 24
hours later.
2 Dude, it’s totally OK to keep
letting a dude fight even though half his eyeball is
hanging out of the socket.
3 Eyebrows don’t improve your
fighting technique.
4 Just because you knocked out
Evander Holyfield doesn’t mean you can beat up a 47 year
old in a
REAL fight.
5 In fights between turtles and
humming birds, you know who’s going to win? HINT: The
one that’s NOT BJ Penn.
A depressing show to cap off a
really depressing weekend. I’m not saying that it’s time
to refill the Zoloft prescription, but. . . Yeah, it’s
pretty much time to refill the Zoloft subscription. UFC
= FML.
JAMES SWIFT is a born-again atheist, an
aspiring mobile journalist, and prefers the run and gun
to the West Coast offense. His first book, “How I
Survived Three Years at a Two-Year Community College”,
was released in 2009 by iUniverse Publishing. He also
had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake.
