Over the weekend, the girlfriend and I spent a wonderful evening watching “Waiting to Exhale” on demand. Yes, that is the movie in which Whitney Houston and friends burn their husbands’ stuff and talk about men.
In the gripping tale, Lela Rochon and Houston are in relationships with married men played by the aptly named Leon and the guy who played President David Palmer on “24” respectively. These men continually say they are going to leave their wives, but they never do. They bend the truth, because they want to keep their mistresses. As Fabolous says, “the entree ain’t as good without something on the side.”
Recently, the MMA world has been in a tizzy. The sport’s premiere smooth talker Dana White has been saying a lot of ridiculous things. However, just like Leon and David Palmer, he can’t possible believe what he says. He is just trying to get some.
“I actually find it hilarious that [Alistair Overeem is] ranked in the top 10 by some of the websites.” (MMAJunkie)
As the president of the UFC for several years now, White knows that there is a serious dearth of talent in heavyweight MMA. His promotion has even paid bar-level fighters like Neil Wain and Sean Gannon to fight. It does not take very much to enter the heavyweight top ten. I will be the first to say that Overeem does not have a signature win yet at heavyweight. However, who else should bump him from the rankings? Do fighters like Roy Nelson, Cole Konrad, Ben Rothwell and Brendan Schaub really belong ahead of him?
White wants to throw some dirt on the Overeem campfire before it really gets going. After years of answering questions about Fedor, he does not want to try to sign a guy who spends a lot of time making money in K-1.
“[Nate Marquardt] is a choker. He choked tonight. Marquardt is such a talented guy, and what I’m seeing is stuff from the Greg Jackson camp.” (Post-Fight Press Conference)
First White said this about Kenny Florian, and now he has labeled Marquardt a “choker.” Marqaurdt is clearly not a choker. He has, and has had for a long time, some holes in his game. Okami used his reach and wrestling ability to take a well-appointed decision. There was not any choking.
For a guy who seems to hate opinionated media members, White’s motivation for degrading a top-ten fighter is not clear at first. Jackson’s team does take a tactical approach, and that is not always exciting to fans with memberships at the local UFC gym. White is basically saying that Marquardt’s supposed choke and Jackson’s gameplan are to blame for a lackluster fight. However, shouldn’t the promotion be held responsible for putting on a fight between two of the most pensive fighters in the history of the middleweight division?
“We look forward to working with [Versus] to give UFC fans even more free fights in 2011.” (Official UFC Press Release)
This same press release also said that the promotion had reached a deal with Versus to air four UFC fights in 2011. This is interesting, because by the end of 2010 there will have been 10 Zuffa events on Versus. Math was never my strongest subject, but I am 99 percent sure that 10 is more than 4.
People love free fights. White is the people’s warrior, so he is bringing more free fights — even if he really isn’t.
The UFC-WEC merger is still a serious positive. The fighters in the WEC deserve proper compensation. However, this is one negative that was completely glossed over because White said he was bringing “even more free fights.”
White is a promoter, so by rule, he says ridiculous things that should makes people scratch their heads. Instead, most MMA fans take what he says at face value. I don’t want to ruin the end of “Waiting to Exhale,” but eventually Rochon and Houston wise up and ditch their two-timing boyfriends.
It’s a bit funny this Mann Talk revolves around a girly movie. LOL
Mann Talk loves the chick flicks
Shoop Shoop…
I understand the sentiment growing towards Jacksons camp. Jackson was “sure” that Guillard won a wide decision against Stephens (He shoulda got an L IMO). He was “sure” Swanson beat Semerzier and seemed visibly befuddled that it was a split decision (I thought Semerzier won the 1st and 3rd but it could’ve gone either way). Trevor Whitman (or Whipman… whatever) a Jackson protege thought, and told, Nate won the fight easily (After rewatching twice I thought Okami won the first and third with nate taking the second).
Even with the point fighting style that is getting to become the basis for Jackson’s MMA now, why are they seeing things that are out of base with reality?
I am with you on all those fights except the Guillard-Stephens one. Perhaps Jackson and his disciples are just very bad judges. However, I don’t think it has effected their coaching. They are not saying, “you’re winning, so just run away this round” like De La Hoya’s old coaches. Just because they can’t tell if their guy is winning, it does not mean they are not doing their job as coaches.
I guess that makes some sense. I mean they obviously don’t want their fighter to lose, but it just to seems to me that if a fight is close going into the third(which all of those are), you would tell your fighter that it could go either way and to fight his ass off.
It’s not like the fighters are Meldrick Taylor, and they’re gonna turn into the idiots who told him to go toe to toe with JCC.
One thing that is constantly said about that camp is how “positive” the coaches are. Justin Wren told me he’d never met anyone as positive as Trevor Whittman. Just an idea here, but maybe you can be “too” positive if you can’t let your guy know when he’s getting beat. I have no idea if that’s the case here but just an idea.
They are certainly the soma of MMA