Sigh. What a stupid fucking idea this was. Oh well...
#75: ROYCE GRACIE vs. GERARD GORDEAU - This is from the very first UFC tournament, and Gracie is actually wearing a full gi, and I guess this is the end of the tournament. Did I not see this before? I thought I watched all the early UFCs back in the day, actually a few of them with the drummer from Lamb of God back before he was a rock-n-roll drummer and was just this dude Chris and we both had wives/girlfriends, and they'd get high and we'd drink beer and play Sega or watch UFC or something. But I don't remember a Gerard Gordeau at all. Maybe this is for retro value as the main event of the first ever UFC, and to give Royce Gracie some early pioneer of our great pseudo-sport love. Gracie is slowly and methodically getting around to a naked choke, and the crowd is booing, and the announcers are explaining it, and wow, it's really funny to see how far we've been educated by these programs to know what the fuck is up. They are explaining the tap out, and I think that's George Foreman talking on commentary. Man, low budget as fuck. They even use a boxing/wrestling ring bell instead of the air horn. But they were nice enough to give us a long, boring interview with Royce, even asking about why he wore a gi, and what the rear choke was about. "There is no plan for the future. I am just Royce, that is what I am." Nice.
#74: RICH FRANKLIN vs. DAVID LOISEAU - Another Franklin fight, against the crazy black Canadian dude who I saw on some other independently made MMA comp, where he was just straight fucking dudes up with some next level fucking dudes up style. Here is in standard UFC looks, sponsors all over the place, on trunks, ring aprons, ring bars holding the cage in place, all sorts of shit. I doubt there will be some next level greatness at this point in Loiseau's career as it has been exploited already. That's the thing about climbing the levels of something like this - you start out on a little level, do crazy shit, people know you, you move up, so on and so forth, and even if you start at a good MMA school, you've got two or three levels to climb. I saw some MMA at the skating rink in Charlottesville, and Steve Blackman, former WWE karate character, was the head trainer of one of the four schools who brought fighters to this thing, his school coming all the way from Pennsylvania. His guys pretty much won every fight they were in, and were on a different level than the local MMA academies, but that was what these guys probably had to do - drive down to Virginia, run their record up to like 2-0 or 4-0 against podunk ass dudes, then move up to the next level with better competition, after learning some basic shit and experiencing a live crowd and strange opponent and all that. Levels. By the time they get to the UFC, I imagine most of their passion has been crushed from their soul, and they are just trying to not only get paid, but guarantee their position in future money-making matches. There's as much self-preservation for your future match-making position as there is protecting yourself in the fight.
That's why The Ultimate Fighter was such a great idea as a TV show, although painful to watch at times, because you bring in all these lower level guys and give them a shot to skip a level or two, on national TV, and in the process you create new stars for your MMA monopoly. Dana White is a genius at exploiting this thing to Zuffa and his self's full benefit. I'm amazed nobody has outright been like "Fuck you, Dana," from a high profile position and made a stink about the way this thing goes down.
Anyways, Franklin nails a near knockout punch on Loiseau, aka The Crow, at the very end of the first round, with the air horn going off same time Loiseau hit the mat. Second round is pretty much Franklin dominating the dude, with The Crow on constant back pedal mode. The crowd is chanting "USA! USA!" because Loiseau is Canadian and the crowd is fucking retarded.
Zoning out, and Loiseau is bleeding and Franklin was good, but as soon as I typed that, Franklin got knocked the fuck out, and The Crow went in for the kill, but Franklin regained himself and is back in clutch control. Loiseau's eye looks like it exploded, and Franklin apparently has a broken left hand. One of The Crow's eyes is almost swolled shut, which probably wouldn't be allowed to continue in boxing. When boxing is more stringent a sport than what you do, there should probably be some re-evaluation of what's going on with your sport internally.
They are in a fourth round now, and the commentator says, "And this sport is filled with really polite and nice guys." Yeah, whatever on that bro. Loiseau's eyes are swelling out of his forehead, like sickly looking, on some alien shit, and the commentator dude is like, "I have no idea how somebody could watch this and then go back and watch baseball." While I understand that, yes, baseball is boring as fuck, you have to have a certain suspension of sensory perception to accept MMA as a regular, chill ass thing. I mean, I'm a fucking social degenerate, and even I find some of this stuff (like The Crow's eyes right now) sick and disgusting. But I am also a scientist, and enjoy studying the human ability to be sick and disgusting. But they stumble around together long enough to let the clock run out on all five-minute five rounds, and Franklin is your winner, and getting pushed to the high moon in this series of 100 ultimate fights.
#73: GEORGES ST. PIERRE vs. JASON MILLER - More St. Pierre and this crazy Mayhem Miller dude. Like I think I've mentioned, I'm really not into Georges St. Pierre, and Mayhem Miller comes out the gate in the intro hype package saying his style is a combo of streetfighting, jiu-jitsu, Thai boxing, and something or other else. "Nobody in my weight class can handle my rhythm," say St. Pierre in broken English by way of French Canadia, and I think to myself "lolol".
Miller is unorthodox to say the least, and is making this automatically entertaining as fuck from the very beginning. St. Pierre through but missed a vicious backspin fist, which is the most ridiculous move ever, but still pretty awesome in MMA when it hits. Mayhem has a goofy smile on his face most of the time, or maybe he just looks like it, but it really adds to the fun of the fight, because he's kind of loopy, which he is. But then St. Pierre starts just clobbering him in the face, and Mayhem is bleeding all over the earth, yet he conceals it well and attempts to fight his way to the end. His hair is red, his face is gory, and he still has the goofy retarded smile. And when the round ended, that goofy fucker actually pulled away from the cut man for a second.
Maybe the dude's hair is dyed blood red in one weird spot and he's not bleeding up top. I'm not quite sure what to make of this guy, other than he's the best shit ever. He and the War Machine should just fight every Friday night. And Miller's coach is yelling at him, "RETARD STRENGTH! RETARD STRENGTH!" because, well I don't know, but that's what they're yelling.
Georges St. Pierre fight trunks said mopal.com so I just checked it in case it was wacky fun, but it was about mortgage brokers or some shit. Just another reason to dislike St. Pierre. But he's dominating this thing in the second round, and Mayhem Miller is losing his goofy smile. St. Pierre was on Miller's back, but then Mayhem did this head tuck flip roll underneath himself to escape, which was just straight crazy, and it seems like when dudes do straight crazy awesome things they say it's jiu-jitsu so I think I just want to watch capoira motherfuckers fight in the streets of Brazil. At the end of this second round, St. Pierre had Mayhem Miller's arm bent backwards and fucked up looking, but the round ended, and Miller jumps up, without the retard smile, but shaking his head stupidly like, "I'm straight, I'm straight."
Third round starts and they talk about Miller's history working in a junkyard, stripping parts off cars for other cars, and how he claims he's one of the great redneck fighters of Georgia. Junkyard dudes doing jiu-jitsu on each other just changes how I look at this whole thing, to be honest with you. But then I notice Georges St. Pierre again and go back to dismissing MMA as closeted homosexuality-based anger expression. Then I stopped paying attention because St. Pierre was just brutalizing the dude, but Miller never stopped, and gets a standing ovation for tolerating three rounds of getting his ass kicked.
Some dude is trying to clean up Mayhem Miller with a towel and he's like, "I'm alright, man, I'm alright. Get the fuck outta my face." Beautiful. It is a shame he did not win, because I want to see like 37 more Mayhem Miller fights on this list.
#72: MINOTAURO NOGUEIRA vs. FRANK MIR - Whoa, there's an obvious Brazilian crazy man named Minotaur with brown cauliflower ears in this, and I bet he is going to be amazing as fuck. Frank Mir is just your average boring white dude MMA fighter with either weird tiny tattoos across his belly, or strange hair, or Frankenstein stitches. Nogueira has an expression on his face that makes Tony Montana look friendly. Seriously. It also makes me wish Mexican drug lords started a rival to UFC, and hopefully lop off Dana White's head.
The fight does not match my initial expectations as the Nognog dude just kind of keeps pacing forward, gets knocked down a couple times, but does not get finished. He's kind of like Jason Voorhees in that sense, except he doesn't have a meat cleaver to kill the white dude with. First round is all Mir, and he's all smiley and goomba looking, like it's no thing. He should remember Nognog is Jason though, so we move into the second round, hopefully not of all five.
I have a really large television I just realized. We don't buy things, instead just using whatever the fuck we have. My wife's brother bought us our last two TVs, this giant one, and then the previous one we got in like 1998. Fuck buying new shit all the time. This TV will last us for probably two formats beyond blu-ray.
Oh, the white dude knocked Nognog on the ground, pummeled him, and won the fight He basically just boxed the dude right the fuck out. I wish R.A. the Rugged Man did commentary for this shit. He has a boxing book coming out at some point, which I think will be the greatest sports writing of the past 20 years - way better than that stupid soccer book about the dude that loves that one soccer team and talks about it that's supposed to be so great but really isn't. I've even blocked that fucker's name out of my head, that's how much I hated that book.
Frank Mir is crying after winning the belt, so he covers his face with a hat, so he's just standing there with a garish title belt, being cheered at, and hiding his face in a baseball cap where everyone knows he's crying, and yet it looks even stupider than if he would just cry in the open. Macho fuckers are so stupid. Which reminds me, the Macho Man would fuck all these dudes up, with that elbowsmash off the top of the octagon.
#71: TANK ABBOTT vs. DON FRYE - Old school throwback fight right here, a final of one of those early ultimate fighting tournaments, so both these dudes have already fought on this night. Tank Abbott, if you do not know him, is the most awesome dude ever. I had a friend who saw Abbott in Las Vegas one time trying to get more money at a casino, and they wouldn't give him more credit, so he took them to his ATM to prove he had like $200,000 in the bank so that they'd give him more credit. I found that funny, but also wondered why Tank didn't just withdraw some money at that point. And did he pay ATM fees to just get a balance? Because that'd be a real waste. Don Frye also is awesome, because he looks like Magnum P.I. but in tiny fighting shorts, and it's a straight up 15-minute fight, with 3-minute overtimes. It was a way different MMA back then.
Tank comes out like you would expect, beer belly flopping as he slugs away on Frye, knocking him down, and this is just straight up Philo Beddoe shit right here. Tank slips and falls, and Frye is no top of him, behind him, and then almost chokes him out. To his credit, Tank escapes, but this shit is way less jiu-jitsu technical than nowadays MMA, but still Frye chokes him out. It's a shame there's not straight up bareknuckle fighting beside old boxcars anymore, because Tank Abbott would be the best at that shit. The best ever. And I really wonder what Tank Abbott is up to nowadays.
Nary a sponsor on the apron, just the old Hulk smashing fist UFC logo dude center ring. It was not as technical, but it was a simpler, more beautiful sport back then. Tank Abbott is wearing Asic sneakers I notice in the replays. Man, what a great fighting tournament nonsense thing turned into highly-produced shiny garbage by shyster businessmen. (I thought for a minute of a good Public Enemy lyric to insert, but couldn't come up with one easily, so I'm just gonna give up and leave after this parenthesis ends.)
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