RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Wednesday, August 31

Ultimate 100: 80 thru 76

I am going to keep watching these things and keep babbling my babbles and the only thing that is going to stop me is the Ultimate 100 being reduced to nothing in my Netflix queue, although I got to admit, both East Bound and Down Season 2 and Sons of Anarchy Season 3 came out this week, so there'll probably be a lapse in programming. But this site is all about lapses - in motivation, in focus, in attention, in judgment, in execution, in reason. I am nothing if not a cluster of lapses. So let's watch the people fights...
#80: RICH FRANKLIN vs. EVAN TANNER - Hey, I've seen both of these guys. Evan Tanner is the weird looking fucker who I think won against some dude a few fights ago, and Rich Franklin is the guy they push as "so smart he used to teach school and has a degree from a for-real university, not like online college." But before I could even think of more stupid shit to say, I checked into my Netflix queue, and then this was over as Rich Franklin knocked the dude out. They are really setting up some Franklin vs. somebody else fight further along, showing all these first round ass-kickings by the dude.
#79: GEORGES ST. PIERRE vs. MATT SERRA - Oh snap, a pair of secret gays, instead of the normal secret gay vs. guy who openly hates gays battle. This should be interesting. I like Serra here, because although both are foreigners to me - a yankee American gay fighter dude and a French Canadian gay fighter dude, at least Serra and me share a citizenry.
Oh man, St. Pierre has one of those French Canadian symbols tattooed on the back of his calf, but just as I was trying to figure out what it was called, Matt Serra got St. Pierre off his feet, and then just punched the dude in the gay French Canadian face until the ref stopped the fight. That's two quick knockout fights, which means they are probably about to drop like a painfully slow 30 minute long "chess match" on me here in a minute. Serra won the title off this, and the belt was as tall as him.
#78: CHUCK LIDDELL vs. KEITH JARDINE - They are laying out these fights like a wrestling promotion, as both these guys have only won in previously viewed fights in this Ultimate 100 fights, meaning in my mind as I watch this in order, I am thinking, as the casual fan, "Oh shit, who's going to win?" I could be wrong but anybody who has lost a fight on this list has not resurfaced in a later fight. Jardine, like I said before, looks like he'd play drums in a metal band, so I have to like him more than the stupid Iceman, who is not really the Iceman, because he is not named King Parsons.
Jardine is trying to nail kicks, and Liddell is doing his stalk and punch thing he always does. Jardine does have a creepy looking hematoma on the left side of his face. Hematoma and cauliflower ears - pure sexy. And when Liddell does snake in for the pummel, Jardine actually flurries back, which is impressive, because usually these UFC dudes just run from Liddell's fists. Jardine is worse for wear after one round, with that hematoma looking like a big ass bee sting with a black spot right in the middle, just waiting to get popped open and evil baby hornets fly out and start assaulting the crowd. Jardine has cuts on his forehead, under his eye, but clocked leg kicks on Liddell, who's game plan will probably continue to consist of laying back and then trying to knock a motherfucker out. Jardine actually knocked Liddell loopy enough to hit the mat, and Jardine almost got him on the ground, which I honestly don't know if I've ever seen Liddell really do for any serious length of time in a fight. (It should be noted, I do not claim to be an expert, but any fringe sport like this desires nothing more than what I am - the average passerby fan who can be blossomed into a full-blown loyal supporter who will waste my limited discretionary income on their pay-per-views and associated products and on the related products of their advertising partners. That's how this all works.) The side of Jardine's head is a blood flow now, on his bald head, making him look like a horror movie character, just in really stupid clothes. Liddell did a spinning back fist, which is the stupidest fighting maneuver ever, but is really funny looking when it actually knocks somebody else. That's MMA posterizing when that happens, although I don't think they actually sell MMA posters. I'll check next time at the county fair trying to win a new cocaine mirror. Second round ends, and Liddell is a little lost, going to the wrong corner and not even realizing it.
Third round, the final one, and even though he was a bloody mess just a minute ago, I'd give this thing to Jardine at this point. Liddell's just throwing haymakers, and getting kicked, and there's only two and a half minutes left. I wonder what Chuck Liddell does now that his fighting career is over? Being he's Dana's boy, he's probably an ambassador for the sport. Every sport should have a mohawked fu manchu retard with Japanese character tattoos on his head as their ambassador. Fuck man, Jardine is just like punching the dude right in the middle of his face. Crowd is getting loud at the end, Liddell is swinging for the fences, Jardine is fighting it off with leg kicks, and they go to the end. Liddell throws his arms up, knowing you have to pretend for the judges you have won, even if you didn't win. Jardine certainly doesn't look like he won, balded and bloodied. Commentators are thinking Jardine won a decision, but the judges will make the call... Keith Jardine. But it's one of those wins where Liddell didn't really outright lose, with a split decision, and it was a non-title fight so Jardine didn't win whatever title Liddell holds, which means this was probably an elaborate set-up to sell the rematch to the public. It's fucking weird how much of UFC, when laid out in a 100 match compilation like this, is exactly like wrestling. Champion takes on the hungry challenger, but not for the title, champion seems like he might not take it completely seriously, challenger is tough and upsets champion, but champion is still champion and they will now have an actual title fight, for more money, and you pay more to see, in a few months, and it will be for real this time. Shit should've been for real the first time. Fuck this bait and switch, it doesn't count until the rematch, which if Liddell wins, means they have to have a third match since it's 1 to 1 at that point. Fucking bullshit man.
#77: ANDERSON SILVA vs. JAMES IRVIN - Silva is the superstar of UFC right now as we speak, and an allegedly unstoppable fighting machine, so I am guessing this is going to be a blowout that shows the awesomeness of Silva. You don't want to be fucking with no black Brazilians, bro.
Oh man, James Irvin has some really bad tattoos, and Anderson Silva is pretty much hyped up by the commentators from the start of the fight as the probable winner of this shit, and Irvin is a longshot at best. Silva is quick and big and like watching a dude two levels beyond his opponent. Yep. Irvin gets kicked to the ground, then punched into oblivion, less than two minutes into this thing. Silva dances a black man from Brazil dance, and Irvin's eyeball is drooling blood all over the place. Game over.
#76: MATT HUGHES vs. SEAN SHERK - A lot of bad metal and long video hype jobs precede this here fight, which being they are showing me ten minutes of hype leads me to believe I'm about to watch about 20 minutes of fight. Not sure how stoked I am about all that. Hughes is a wrestling machine, while Sherk has your normal bad tattoos. They are on the ground right away, and Hughes is grapple-boxing him. Not sure if grapple-boxing is a real style, but it seems like it should be. Not as good as other made-up styles like pitfighting or kempo, but still. I didn't really pay attention much but every time I looked up in the first round, Hughes was on top, and when the air horn went off to end the round, I looked, and Sean Sherk looked like an IED had gone off inside his left eyeball.
Man, I'm totally zoning out on this whole fight, and Sherk got on top somewhere (I'm now in round 3) and Hughes is bleeding from his ear, or has blood dripped all over his ear, or something. The fact they are showing a full-on long ass five-round championship fight at the end of a five-block of matches shows me they knew people would break these things apart in such ways in their minds, like I am reviewing/responding/ranting off of. But I really don't care about this fight. It may or may not be a great fight, but there's a lot I just don't care about going on - two vanilla midget white dudes pretending they are ultimate fighters because they eat ridiculous nutritions and practice punching steel weights with old guys from ancient boxing gyms... I need more than this to remain entertained. I mean, if this was two vanilla midget white dudes fighting in a barn somewhere in some small town in Iowa or Nebraska and I had to drive out there and stay in a cheap hotel and soak in the small midwestern town culture, including the sad cute young women and lost white boys of the American nightmare, where I make friends with sad souls and we enjoy sad times in a terrible environment watching two well-trained athletes bludgeon each other for our amusement, to take our minds off the depressing overwhelming unending sadness - that I could enjoy. This is just spectacle - a long and boring spectacle, with commentators trying to explain to me how wonderful what I'm watching is, contradicting my gut intuition about the whole thing.
And finally it is over, five rounds of forever, and Matt Hughes is wiped down by his seconds and has a sponsor's visor and tank top on and looks like he hasn't done shit. Finally. UNTIL NEXT TIME FAKE FIGHT FAN TALKING ON THE INTERWEBS READING ABOUT IT SHIT FAN, TAKE IT LIGHT, AND KEEP IT LIGHT, AND LIGHT ANOTHER, OR YOUR FIRST, OR WHATEVER!

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