journal.wiredreflexes.com

.: Butterflies
I remember very vividly that when I was young and I was still living with my father, there was a large tree in front of our house in which, during summer, massive amounts of white butterflies mated. (I think. Seriously, I was four years old and they were just, sort of sitting there. What the fuck do I know.) Anyway, massive amounts of butterflies. Since then pollution has caused their numbers to seriously dwindle. Only recently do you see a few. I think I see, maybe, two butterflies a year, which is sad. In Italy I saw a bunch more and was fascinated by the myriad of colours and sizes they came in. Later, I was convinced to go to the zoo, which I’d rather not do on general principle and had, by far, the most fun in the butterfly house. See-through butterflies for the win.

.: Fight Club
Mental note: don’t listen to the Dust Brothers while in public transport. You remember the scene where Tyler and Jack are in the bus going somewhere? Jack’s narration says something to the effect that now that he’s in fight club he starts looking at people differently. Today I could feel the fuck-offedness creep across my face as I was listening to the Dust Brothers. Weird, innit? I guess I should listen to Mike Flower Pops or something. It occurred to me how important that film has become in shaping me. Not that I’m anywhere near the overzealous, back to primal kind of guy, but still, I got a lot of ideas and I have made a lot of changes since seeing that film. Most of those things have gestated for a while before coming to the fore. A good example is my sense of minimalism and acceptance of particular Spartanisms.

.: MMA
The other day I couldn’t finish my MMA class. Actually, I couldn’t even finish the warm-up. They worked us pretty hard, and while I was doing circuit-training and was running up and down the hall with a 200 pound guy in a fireman grip, I felt nausea overtake me and I had to stop. That was frustrating. I’ve not really felt 100% for a while now. Later, we did a lot of striking, which went well and it’s necessary, but I’d rather focus on wrestling, to be honest. I think it’s something that I’m lacking, especially take-downs and control. I never did any judo, which really would’ve been a big boon. I’ve considered taking up judo, but it’s really something you should take up when you’re younger. Still debating it.

.: Inheritance
Jody and I are busy taking care of everything resulting from my mother’s passing. It’s not easy, to be honest, and it requires quite a bit of investment to get everything legalised. There are some life-insurances that need to be passed down to us, for instance, which requires an investigation into the legitimacy of our claim as heirs. On top of that, the bill for the cremation and everything surrounding it came in. Dat was even slikken. My mother had an insurance, but there are some complications with that due to the funeral agent we chose. Hopefully there won’t be too many further complications.

Also, my sister has been offered an apartment that she seems very happy with. I’m glad to hear it, since now the real clean-up can commence. I can’t wait to throw shit out and reduce the clutter and drag from this much [big] to this much [tiny]. :)

.: Headphones
It bugs me that this nanny-culture has gotten to the point where I can’t buy headphones that could burst my eardrums if I crank my iPod up really loudly. The headphones that are supplied with the iPod have a sound-dampner on it, that, even when I put the iPod on full-blast, hardly drown out the sound of traffic when I’m sitting in public transport. Very, very annoying. I noticed it, too, with the headphones supplied with my PSP, and a pair I tried out in a store a while ago. I have some older headphones that still allow the loudness, but they’re getting old, the wires are wonky and the sound quality isn’t what it used to be. Ugh.

.: The Guts
A bit of Eva-like TMI; when I eat, say, a bowl of porridge and a banana in the morning before I leave for work, it’s amazing at what it does to jumpstart my bowels. I basically feel hungry all day long, but generally I feel better. Sadly, I’m still a bit of a boob, and I don’t always take the time to have some proper breakfast; sometimes I walk out the door with barely a glass of water in my stomach. I shall have to start an Improvement Project to see if I can make some changes in this regard. (An IP worked wonders for my push-ups.)

I know it might be a little much to post two MMA entries in as many days, but breaking news; Randy Couture will be back in the UFC and take on the genetically modified behemoth Brock Lesnar later this year. There’s so much going through my mind right now. In no particular order:

Randy Couture left two fights on his contract, the heavy weight belt, an employment contract for his on-screen commentary, and one of the most lucerative contracts in the UFC because he was dissatisfied with the pay and the terms and conditions of his contract. The UFC is extremely fierce when it comes to their contracts; from all information, one of the clauses in the contract states that the UFC also gets rights over your likeness, which basically means that while you’re under contract you have to get permission to go to another event, lest you be caught on camera at an event for another promotion. It also means you can’t sell posters, DVDs, or anything else with your image on it because, well, that’s not yours to sell. Essentially, this is how the Affliction promotion got started, because the UFC – probably engaged in a contract with another clothing line, like Tapout – banned Affliction t-shirts from their on-air shows. That basically took a large chunk of cash out of the fighter’s pockets. These fighters don’t make a lot of money to begin with. The highest payout so far was to Tim Sylvia when he fought Fedor at Affliction’s inaugural Banned show (named so because they got banned by the UFC), and he made $850k, which is nothing compared to pro-boxing. Most guys get 10 to 50 thousand dollars, and rely heavily on sponsorships (even going to the point of having “Condom Depot” stenciled on their ass, which is super-queer), or dropping the name of a club that they’ll have their post-fight party at. If you take away that ability to generate revenue, then they’ll get a little ticked off. Tito Ortiz left, Tim Sylvia left, Andrei Arlovski left, Randy Couture left. These are top names, each and every one of them.

So, the UFC basically tied Couture down and was very comfortable in keeping him in a legal stranglehold. Jitsing him in court took its toll on the guy and finally he threw in the towel. He’s fourty-five years old, and he can’t afford to throw away a year and not fight. He started his pro-MMA debut at the age of 33 (think about it, Tito Ortiz is 33 now!) and he’s defied all the nay-sayers by showing them that even at his age he can pull of victories that nobody saw coming. He’s a six-time UFC champion (three time light-heavyweight, two time heavy weight, and one time interim light-heavyweight), and he did all of that after the age of 33. The older you get, the harder it becomes for your body to access oxygen when under pressure. You can offset this by rigorous training, but only so much, your ability to draw oxygen is still declining as you get older. The dude is in time trouble.

Another reason why he left was because he wanted to fight Fedor, and the UFC couldn’t or wouldn’t make it happen. UFC president Dana White has, on several occassions, claimed that Fedor was a farce. He said he wanted to see him fight a top name before he wanted to pay Fedor what he wanted to get paid. (The UFC and Fedor’s management have been in negotiations before, resulting in Fedor’s management publicly stating that White is off his rocker.) After the Banned show, where Fedor dismantled Tim Sylvia, a two-time UFC heavyweight champion, in 36 seconds, Dana White had to admit to the legitimacy of Fedor’s number one status. White has agreed that when Fedor’s contract with Affliction is up, he’ll be ready to negotiate again, and that he really wants Couture to get the fight that caused him to leave the UFC to go in search of.

In the meantime, all this publicity, and Fedor’s fight, as well as the many times Couture and Fedor have been seen together in the last year, have generated a massive amount of interest among the slightly more casual fans. Dana White would rather see a big fight like that at a UFC show than at one of his rival promotions. There’s money to be made, and White is in the business of making money.

I am not sure why Couture would fight Lesnar, who is 3-1, 1-1 in the UFC. It seems like Lesnar is the next UFC superstar in the making, but I doubt he’s proven himself to be in the title contention range yet. I have to admit that his win over Heath Herring was a bit of a shocker and he looked pretty good, and that even in his first round loss to Frank Mir by submission he didn’t look bad, but to give him a shot at the title already? I guess the heavyweight division isn’t what it used to be. Sylvia is gone, Vera went down to light-heavyweight, Crocop left, Congo is getting more and more dissatisfied with the fodder he has to plow through, Arlovski is gone. But we still have Nogueira, Coleman is supposed to come back, Mir is still solid, and maybe they can even entice Barnett to come back if they can loosen up the contracts just a tad. It’s not like it’s a dead division.

The International Fight League debuted in 2006 and have since closed their doors with a 36 million dollar debt. Pro Elite, the umbrella corporation for EliteXC, King of the Cage, Cage Rage and ICON sports is still going, but have, according to the SEC, a 55 million dollar deficit. Affliction had a massive inaugural show, which scored well, but they paid out a massive amount of money to the fighters, something they won’t be able to keep up if numbers don’t go up for them. Of course, the UFC scheduled a Fight Night free on Spike TV programmed directly opposite Affliction’s PPV show, so numbers are skewed. In the end, if these fighters are to be paid a little more, someone needs to challenge the UFC for their crown as the biggest promotion in the industry. Until that happens the UFC can do whatever they want, however they want, feeding the fighters just enough for them to not stop fighting. Randy Couture’s legal battles, though they only lasted for a year or so and didn’t amount to anything substantial, have lead to a recognition on everyone’s part that the fighters need a little bit better treatment. Even the UFC is changing a few things, with Lorenzo Fertitta, founder and major shareholder of Zuffa, the company that owns the UFC, and known to be more generous than Dana White, the company’s president, going to work for the UFC full-time in order to straighten things out. Hopefully it’ll lead somewhere.

In the meantime, I can’t wait for Randy Couture to step into the octagon again. Even though it’s a bit strange that he would take on Lesnar and not Nogueira who has the interim belt, I hope it’ll all get sorted out and Couture get a shot at Fedor somewhere in 2009.

Got Chrome?

Dear Tito,

A few days ago I watched the August 29th episode of Inside MMA, where you were part of the panel, together with Guy Metzger and Josh Thomson. Ever since you completed your last fight on your multi-fight contract with the UFC and became a free agent, I’ve been eagerly following the news regarding your further career. I’ve been especially curious about which organisation you’ll sign with. Personally, I like to see you sign with Affliction, hopefully boosting their pay-per-view sales to a point where they can keep contending with the UFC. There’s been a lot of speculation about who’ll you be signing with, but Tom Atencio, VP with Affliction, has publicly stated that Affliction isn’t in negotations with you, and that the way things stand now, it’s more likely to sign Tito Jackson than to sign you. That’s a pretty big slap in the face, don’t you think? I wonder what happened there, from what I could see, you were sitting in the front row at Affliction’s inaugural Banned show, right next to Affliction’s biggest investor, Donald Trump. It kinda looked like you were schmoozing. So you schmoozed and then Tom Atencio says something like that? Who did you piss off, man?

It’s not like you don’t bring anything to the table. You’ve been the UFC Light Heavyweight champion, and you’ve been one of the UFC’s biggest draws, offering a significant pay-per-view bump to every card they signed you on. You’ve got a 15-6-1 record, the last three fights resulting in two losses and a draw. You’ve been part of the longest-running fued match between you and Ken Shamrock, all three fights you won rather resoundingly, in my opinion. You’ve also got notable wins over Wanderlei Silva, Guy Metzger, Vladimir Matyushenko, Vitor Belfort, Patrick Cote and Forrest Griffin, and were in some memorable fights with Couture and Liddell, so it’s not like you haven’t fought any big names.

So Affliction hasn’t signed you yet. Check. EliteXC hasn’t signed you yet. And it’s unlikely they’ll be able to pay you what you’re worth. Strikeforce is probably too small to sign you. And the UFC, well, they’re probably not going to be a viable option for you if you want people to believe you have some balls. The IFL is dead, so that’s not an option, and YAMMA is too small to afford you. So it seems like Affliction is the only real option, right? So why did Tom Atencio speak out against you so rudely?

Perhaps…perhaps, I don’t know, perhaps it’s because you’ve got some image issues. Perhaps people don’t believe that you’ve still got it. Perhaps people look at your record and wonder if you’re still up to the task. Dana White, your one time friend and manager and president of the UFC, a man you’ve been in an ugly, much publicised fued with for a while, has criticised you for not having your head in the fight game for a while. If you look at MMA fans, the real hardcore fight fans are no longer in your corner. The average fans still like you but that could be because you’ve got a name they remember, not out of any real admiration for your sadly dwindling skills. It’s been obvious from your name-dropping and the way you constantly try to remind us that you’re a top name fighter, that your celebrity status is all you can bank on right now, and perhaps it might be a good idea for you to stop and take stock of your recent record for a moment and perhaps reevaluate your gameplan. You seem more eager to sign a big contract now, with a large likelihood that you’ll disappoint rather than sign a smaller contract now and focus on fighting your way back to the top. Seriously, people will respect you for it, the fans you still have will stick by you, and the audience that sees the devastating ground-and-pound you posses will rally to your side. Perhaps you do have to fight your way up a bit, defeating some good names in order to validate the belief that you’re a markee fighter. In your last three fights you got TKO’d by Liddell, you had a draw against Rashad Evans due to the fact that you kept holding the fence and you got frustrated to a decision by Machida. These are all upper-middle to upper echelon fighters, but not the best of the best, so wouldn’t it be fair to rank you as a middle to upper-middle fighter, considering you lost two fights and pulled a draw in one fight?

Seriously, I enjoy watching you fight, but you’re a bit of an arrogant douche. I can’t keep rooting for you, especially not after that episode of Inside MMA. I really can’t. Sign a short one or two fight contract with a smaller show and beat the shit out of their light heavy-weight top guys. Then let Affliction sign you so you can go up against some great fighters and get a great paycheck out of it. You’re penny-wise and pound-foolish, man!

Hugs and kisses,

Dennis

PS: Congratulations on Jenna getting pregnant.

This is why Capoeira sucks as a martial art. Great dance and acrobatics, but a lousy combative art: