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.

Monday, August 29

Ultimate 100: 90 thru 86

Sigh... I have to admit I already hit my limit for this and I'm just a tenth of the way through these things, but I guess if they do it in true ascending order it will only get more awesome. I don't know... MMA certainly tries to portray itself as awesome combat and the Best Shit Ever and Real Badass Fighting, but it's really kind of a stupid spectacle that's not nearly as great as it thinks itself to be. Of course the fact most of these guys are pretty tough and could kick a guy's ass who is all like, "You suck, you closeted homo asshole," but that doesn't make him not suck. You can't beat the truth out of my mind once I realized it, hardcore cagefighting bro. So let's jump back into this bullshit being foisted upon us all by Dana White and his penis head and his high school buddies' billions of dollars...
#90: CAOL UNO vs. B.J. PENN - So they are sort of engineering a story here at times, as we saw Penn fight some dude, and then we saw him beat Matt Serra to fight Caol Uno, which they are now showing me, and I can only assume this is the resulting title fight from that match I had just seen. If this was truly scientific you would think it might not play out this way, although the announcer is saying it's a rematch so maybe not. Caol Uno is a little Asian dude with highlighted hair, which means to me he probably smokes blunts and has a spoiler on his car. B.J. Penn is still Hawaiian, still betraying his possible destiny as leader of an international islander uprising to try and get rich off the scraps Dana White pays his minions of brutality, and hopefully get himself a rehabbed porn starlet wife like Tito Ortiz did. I like Uno because he just looks chill. Part of that might be one of my favorite rappers is Jackie Chain, who is an Asian-American ass stoner rapper dude from Alabama, who has long hair and pretty much stays high, like a telephone pole.
First round is already over and Penn's people are talking to him... I love the way islander people who speak in English talk, so lackadaisically gangsta. And then I was looking at weird pictures of my former step-brothers on Facebook, and realize how close to hopeless I really am. Not sure how I denied self-destruction full access considering my DNA make-up, but I am thankful. But in that time, I zoned out completely and didn't watch any of this match, with stuff happening, now it's third round, and Ken Shamrock is doing commentary, which is lulling me to sleep. "This is 21st Century martial arts. This is The Combat Sport," said other announcer dude, pushing the Best Shit Ever company talking point. Personally, I'd rather just have some DJ Screw tapes playing in the background and then DJ Screw breaks through with a warbled voice when something notable is happening, like, "Oh shit, the Jap dude is about to choke that Samoan ass dude out yall," and then it happens and Big Moe jumps on the mic and starts singing about people tapping out and celebrating with some drank and then Fat Pat starts rhyming about what color he's painted his Cutlass this week. See, that would be some next level entertainment.
Unfortunately, this is a five-round match, so we are now in the fourth round and I have to keep trying to find a way to not pay attention. My ol' lady will be coming home from being gone for five days, and I'm sure she'll come in the house and be like, "Why are you watching gay dudes fight each other?" when she comes in. I'm also freaking out a little because late last week I got stung by a Japanese hornet and it swolled my foot up and I thought I was gonna die, but I didn't, but I've been keeping an eye for those fuckers because they've got a nest somewhere around here. But one of them is buzzing in the window behind my head, stuck between the window inside and the storm window, so I'm waiting for him to find the crack by where the air conditioner is, and squeeze his little evil monster bug ass through because he sees the lights inside and is like, "Oh shit, a light. Let's go to that light. Look motherfuckers, there's a light. I love lights." And that's all he really wants, but when he gets here, I'll be here and then he'll just flutter against the light bulb and scorch himself and fall on the floor and then I'll step on him accidentally and get stung again and this time I'll die probably, with gay fighting on the TV, and my wife will come home and I'll be dead, in camouflage cargo shorts, watching ultimate fighting, and that's fucking sad. We should all check ourselves at times with our actions and think about how we would feel if we died right then and there and that's how we were remembered, or at least talked about in death.
Ideally, I would like this match commentary to end with that point, but this fucking thing won't end. They just blew the air horn to end the 4th round, which means one more stupid slow-paced pseudo-sport round to go, with no DJ Screw in the background, and the fear of a swollen foot in my mind. Caol Uno is all bloodied up, but then the Cut Man puts magic grease on his cuts, so it's like bloody but gunky, and he looks like he might be Manny Pacquiao before he grew facial hair. I know fighting to the death would be barbaric and end times Roman style, but it probably would be interesting to watch guys fight to the death, because there'd be no easy tap-outs to preserve your arm or not to choke, dudes would be fighting for their literal life to escape. I mean that's what they're building up to so they might as well go all-in and do it. I'm sure Mexican drug lords have to the death cagefighting clubs, it being the land of cockfight appreciation it is. It does sort of feel like they are fighting to my death here though, as this is the longest... fight... ever.
Finally it's over, and announcers and B.J. Penn's corner thought they had won, but the judges' scorecards went to draw, and Penn was all like "What?" as they read the scores, so I'm sure there's another Uno/Penn fight coming up, and that's why you can't trust judged sports right there.
#89: FORREST GRIFFIN vs. KEITH JARDINE - See, I'm actually stoked for this because Griffin is like a goofy Georgia boy who likes to fight, and Jardine looks and talks and acts like he'd be a drummer for a new school metal band. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen two guys just like this fight at different parties like two or three times in my life, usually with the Forrest Griffin guy winning, but the Keith Jardine dude carrying the post-fight activities better, by doing gravity bong hits with an empty 2-liter of Mountain Dew in the kitchen sink. To his discredit though, Jardine's trunks look like a Mountain Dew advertisement, which is weird because they are an advertisement, but not for Mountain Dew. They are talking about how Griffin is precise and tactical and has grown as an ultimate fighter since his first big breakout fight on one of the Ultimate Fighter finales, where he was a straight brutarian. I don't dig the learning to be smarter about bludgeoning people; it is far more stylish to just be crazy. Intelligent fighting is too slow. They should make both guys in every fight fall in love with the same woman, and then she cold shoulders them both until they fight to win her yoni's love.
Jardine just kind of started hamboning Forrest Griffin the face, and he got wobbly, and Jardine jumped on top of him and just let loose, and that was that. Game over, so now Griffin is crying. That was the best fight I've seen in this whole collection so far, because it was quick, it was brutal, and it had a pair of dudes who didn't look like total douchebags. I HOPE YOU ARE READING THIS DANA WHITE (although I doubt you are because I don't have hashtags and it's got too many characters for you to follow). Haha, as they announce the winner, Forrest Griffin is wearing a Mickey's Malt Liquor hat. I know they're a sponsor and all, but still, that makes me laugh.
#88: TYSON GRIFFIN vs. FRANK EDGAR - Oh man, Tyson Griffin is that annoying ass Mario Lopez-looking asshole I saw before. Frankie Edgar has worst more obvious tribal tattoos, but Griffin has the weird dragon blotch on his back that I'm not sure actually qualifies as a tribal design. I do like how Griffin still has a pudge belly. I went to see ultimate fighting of the local variety in my local area last year (actually it was the last night I ever drank alcohol, perhaps because I felt like I was in the happy halls of Hell a couple of times, under the red lights, watching dudes pummel each other while drinking $4 beers, ogling ugly women) and there was a local guy from Louisa County with mad belly, fighting another fat dude, and it was actually an awesome fight because neither of them were conditioned to go multiple rounds, so they just kind of started wailing away to get it over with once they got through the first round. It's like they both thought out loud at each other, "Look, we're both just gonna look stupid if we go three full rounds doing this shit, so let's just start throwing blows and let the fat dudes fall where they may, like the proverbial chips." And that's what they did. It was nice. I cheered, and drank more beer, and then wandered Charlottesville with two of my homies, and we ended up at some hipster bar's basement, and then there was a train, and I put an empty beer can in a mannequin's hand, and then I quit drinking beer, and now I drink herbal smoothies and fight pine trees on other people's properties because my pine trees are actually pretty chill, and the red maple in the field that I listen to sitting under, he told me they were cool pine trees so to not fuck with them.
I wish they could combine lucha libre's fliptasticality with MMA, because that would be the ultimately mixed martial artistry if dudes were like doing circus flips around each other's torso and then one KOs the other with a kick from like a double flip off the side of the cage. Color commentator fuckhead says, "I would hate to be an uneducated judge trying to score this fight." Why are they always acting like you have to be so educated about how awesome certain ways of brain fighting. And then, as if almost on cue, the Edgar dude kicks the asshole dude in the dick, and then starts pummeling him into the cage. But the dork commentators are going on and on about how they should've let the dude have a break for the low blow, and the other guy got some valuable points, and it's an injustice blah blah blah. Then they talk about one guy trying to mount the other, and how they are pushing it "all the way to the limit." Gross. But then the Griffin dudes catches the other guy's leg and bends it the wrong way for half a minute and the Edgar dude doesn't quit, even though he probably tore all his tendons and has to be carried around. Nothing like having your pain threshold overrule your common sense and self-preservation. They show it slow motion replay and like the dude's leg is bent the wrong way, and he's just laying there like, "Yeah, this sucks, but I think I can tolerate it for thirty second and elbow the dude in the thigh until the clock goes." And because of that stubbornness, Frankie Edgar wobbles his way to victory. Congrats bro, your leg is fucked. Honor hugs, they're out.
#87: CHUCK LIDDELL vs. JEREMY HORN - Look, Liddell was the face of UFC for a long time, which made him great friends with Dana White. Hard to say which came first in that, the chicken or the egg, meaning Liddell being the most hyped dude and him being White's real life homeboy. But Jeremy Horn is a real ass dude, the type of guy you'd probably still see fighting in one of those local XTREME CAGEFIGHTING 19 at the Augustaland Expo Center where they usually have chicken shows and tractor pulls. And I never really liked Liddell anyways because the close-cropped mohawk is such a tool hairstyle, no matter how awesome you might think you are. Unless you are a drunken British kickboxer from 1987, you can't really rock that hairstyle and not look stupid. Liddell has that same serious business but I grew up with hip hop in the background look that all major sports-related douchebags like Dana White and Jim Rome have nowadays. Meanwhile, Jeremy Horn looks like a roofer. He looks like he talks all day about how great it would be to drift a Lotus, but actually drives a small Nissan truck with weird modifications done to it that look like he kind of knew what to do, but not really.
First round's first half is slow, normal for a five-round five-minute per round fight, where the two dudes sort of feel each other out. Crowd is chanting "Chuck! Chuck!" and then Horn gets rocked with a punch and then pummeled until he finally regains himself after taking a serious ass beating. There's like a minute and a half and I would be surprised if Horn finishes this first round, as he is 100% wobble-minded. His face is red welts, but he's on his feet and looks like he'll survive this first round. Actually, somehow he's recovered and it's not over, but Liddell loops him with another loper, but it doesn't get ended by the end of the round.
The slow motion replay of the pummel part is amazing, because basically you, as Jeremy Horn, are getting concussed, lose control of your legs, and have to fight through the haze and black-and-white blur vision to regain composure and keep this thing going, for maybe a six figure paycheck if you're one of Dana White's friends. I'm not seeing the math in this lifestyle.
Second round has Horn trying to bring Liddell to the ground, but Liddell resists. His Iceman trunks are the stupidest shit ever though. And the announcer fills into my mind that this was Liddell's first ever title defense, so I'm going to assume he wins this, which I already assumed being he's Dana's boy, so even if he lost he would've won. It is respectable that he has a little bit of beer belly, and again he knocks Horn down and pummels him, but once Jeremy Horn regains his self enough to guard, Liddell backs off to get it on their feet and make it a straight punchfest. Crowd is booing because Horn keeps wanting to take it to the ground, but what the fuck would you do? But he made it through two rounds of getting outright whooped.
Third round, Horn starts mixing in some kicks, and I feel stupid watching this shit and writing about it. So I'm just gonna vibe to the human cockfights, which aren't as beautiful as real cockfights, because roosters are way more aesthetically perfect when they fluff out their neck feathers and fly at each other, turning at the last second to leg whip each other. Two dudes with bad tattoos holding fists up just ain't the same. Third round was boring as fuck anyways, crowd chasing the clock with boos.
Fourth round starts and Horn is just outlasting him, not beating him in any one round yet. More pacing around each other, and I hope this wasn't the main event... oh announcer just said, "This is our main event for the evening," and what a slow and painful main event it is. That's the problem with ultimate fighting sometimes - besides the momentary flurries of physical mayhem, it can be outright painful to watch. And it is. Then Horn gets whomped one more time and doesn't get knocked out but tells that Big John dude he can't see anymore so he has to stop. Apparently, he was having double vision, and the color commentator is like, "Well, Jeremy's very intelligent," which I doubt very highly. Forgive me if I'm being stereotypical about these dudes though.
#86: PHIL BARONI vs. EVAN TANNER - Tanner is the most unhappy looking dude ever, and Baroni has on those tight gay white shorts which looks stupider because they're not covered with 39 sponsors. You see how social conditioning works? I would never in my right mind endorse dudes having a bunch of stupid sponsors on their trunks, but then I get so used to it when it's not there, I'm all like, "Wow, that's weird looking." Tanner gets his eye busted open and is bloody right from the beginning, and Baroni looks like your normal New York/New Jersey/Connecticut white nightmare, the type of dude I mouth off to after too many Gennesee Cream Ales and he kicks my ass in a piss-stained alley while a Puerto Rican girl I was flirting with is like, "Stop it, Papi, you done beat his ass!" and I look up through my own blood and see her hoop earrings and those Lisa Bonet lips and I think that I love her. But I don't.
I'm not sure if anybody would actually be reading this far into a stupid stream of conscious thing about MMA, so I could probably write anything at this point and nobody would know. Except it would be inside the internet so computer programs would swift swoop troll through it and grab snippets of context for their algorithmic madness. So I will babble for those algorithm hunters, being I am bored with writing about actual stupid fights. My sexual fetish is mathematical, specifically right angles. There is something so sexy about that square root sign.
Haha, actually the Tanner dude was on top of Baroni, elbowing his face, and the ref stopped the fight, which Baroni didn't want, so he punched the ref. I'm not sure if this fight is actually over or they'll restart it or what. Wow, that's weird though, a questionable referee decision to stop a fight in a cagefighting match in Las Vegas. You'd never really expect that, would you? I mean, all those things are so honorable and trustworthy.
Man, I'm only up to #86? This is going to be fucking painful.

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