Your winner by KTFO: "Stocky Balboa" Joey Styles!
Showing posts with label Knockout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knockout. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Friday, January 2, 2026
Monday, June 25, 2018
Tap Out Like a Bitch
OPENING LINE
Shinbone to the dome when your mama ain’t home!
VERSE 1
I see you standing across from me
A flying knee to put you to sleep
A chokehold to cut you so deep
No more breaths, your soul flies free
It’s been coming for so damn long
Think being a bully makes you strong?
Kick you hard right in the dong
Make you sing a soprano song
CHORUS
Tap out like a bitch! X2
VERSE 2
Giving black belts to pricks like you
Setting the bar lower than your shoes
Sell your medal for a buck and some change
Buy one Band-Aid for your sham pain
I’ve got nothing to prove, Mr. UFC
I’m an open book, yeah, you know me
You’re the one with the big façade
Telling everybody you’re a kind of god
CHORUS
Tap out like a bitch! X4
BRIDGE
Take the loser’s purse before it gets worse
Walk the exit ramp and take in the laughs
Do your interviews, make the world snooze
What’s your latest and greatest excuse?
EXTENDED CHORUS
Tap out like a bitch!
Feel every little stitch!
Go the fuck to sleep!
Watch your kids weep!
Tap out like a bitch!
Scream your highest pitch!
Undisputed, my ass!
Putting you on blast!
Tap! Out! Like! A! Bitch!
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Battleground
Charles McLean was a lucky man, either because of his Irish heritage or the fact that he could very well have a golden horseshoe up his ass. Only someone of his luck could say he was allowed to train at Battleground MMA Gym despite constantly knocking out and injuring his sparring partners. Did he even know the proper rules for sparring? Was he even dimly aware that knockouts and injuries weren’t supposed to happen? Did he already lose sight of the fact that it was all supposed to be practice and not an actual fight?
Ignorance wasn’t much of an excuse these days, because the only way the light heavyweight cage warrior could ever have access to the gym was after it was closed, which meant a screwed up sleep schedule and nobody would be there to return the favor of knocking him out. Believe it or not, this was the head coaches’ idea of being charitable to someone who deserved no charity at all.
It was ten o’clock at night and the red Mohawked Irish-American entered the gym in preparation for a light heavyweight championship match he had coming up. With nobody there to help him train or to coach him, he was all on his own. Charles seemed to be taking isolation a little better than most would. He went around to the various treadmills, stair steppers, and Jacob’s Ladder machines and beefed up his cardio like the super athlete he was. In a five-round championship match, cardio was the key to success.
Charles had spent two hours in the gym just working on his strength and conditioning. By the time he ran his final few steps on the treadmill, he was a sweaty mess. His bare chest was covered in perspiration, his black MMA shorts were damp, and his shoes and socks smelled like a bus station bathroom. Despite all of the hard work he put in, he stood proudly with his hands on his hips as opposed to huffing and puffing on the floor ready to pass out.
But there’s a reason why the sport was called mixed-martial arts and not cardiovascular arts: because beating the shit out of your opponent was the only way to win. Without a sparring partner, Charles thought he was going to have to clock out early. And then he noticed the boxing ring in the center of the gym had a black body bag mounted against one of the turnbuckles.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” yelled Charles to no one in particular. “What, am I supposed to fight with a dead body now? Cute, guys! Really fucking cute!” He stomped his way to the ring and stepped between the ropes to investigate this special package. Charles even gave the bag a sniff to make sure it was really a corpse. The odor was horrendous, but then he realized it was his own swampy armpits. He was definitely getting in the showers after this was over.
With mild trepidation, Charles McLean unzipped the body bag from head to toe and found something that put a whacked out smile on his face. “No way. No fucking way. Are you guys serious?” The object in the body bag was a 6’11” tall robot dressed in black gothic attire from his trench coat to his boots. Even the spiky black hair and black and white makeup was enough to give away the chilling appearance. Charles wasn’t chilled. He was thrilled.
He pulled the robot out of the bag and tossed the bag aside with excitement, for this was like opening presents at Christmastime. He looked the warrior up and down with wide-eyed excitement and heart-beating amazement. The name “Floyd” was written across the robot’s black tank top in the creepiest font imaginable.
“Alright then, Floyd. Let’s see what you’ve got!” said Charles as he looked for the on switch to this robot, which ended up being on its asshole. “That’s right, guys, laugh it up! Because this motherfucker is going to the scrap yard!” The light heavyweight brawler flicked the switch and sparks shot out of its crevices, sending the hulking brute backwards several feet.
Once Floyd the training robot stopped showering sparks, he began to look around the arena like this was all new to him. The mechanical nightmare looked across the ring at a bewildered Charles McLean with disdain and disgust. Once both combatants put their dukes up and got in their fighting stances, it was time to go to war.
Charles was the early aggressor in this sparring session as he rushed up to Floyd and threw haymaker after haymaker, each punch easily bobbed and weaved by the mechanical drone. Floyd threw one quick and stiff jab and caught Charles on the jaw, back him up a little, but doing not too much damage.
“You want to screw around with me, Floyd? Heh. Floyd. What kind of name is that for a badass robot?!” taunted Charles, an action which almost got him knocked out with a barely dodged head kick. Floyd started throwing other kicks to the hamstring, shin, and ribcage. Being made of metal allowed the pissed off robot to inflict sharp amounts of pain to the normally rough and tough Charles McLean, who was stacked from head to toe with muscles and tone.
Charles threw a few kicks and punches of his own, but Floyd kept him at bay with his height advantage, quick jabs, and leg kicks. After a while of being smacked around with metal parts, Charles was beginning to bruise up. He had a mouse under his right eye, a slash on his left thigh, and a lump on his ribcage.
But if Floyd thought for a minute that Charles was learning his lesson about treating his sparring partners better, he was dead wrong. Out of frustration, the MMA contender threw a blatant kick between Floyd’s legs and brought the mighty giant to his knees. Charles followed it up with an illegal knee to the skull that landed Floyd on his back, seemingly unconscious.
“Yeah! Who’s the man now, bitch?! I’m the goddamn man around here! Woo!” cheered Charles McLean as he danced around the ring holding his fists up in victory. His ego was inflated to the size of a hot air balloon.
And then Floyd nipped up in an attempt to deflate that ego forever. Charles turned around and immediately stopped celebrating his ill-gotten “victory” when he saw the mighty robot staring down at him with even more venom than before. Sparks were flying from his crevices like they were before, but in even greater volume and with even more rage.
Charles looked on at this angry display with paralyzing fear. If one of the sparks touched him, he would need to be rushed to a burn ward. With nobody here to call 9-1-1, it was a deathtrap in the making. Just when the final spark was about to touch the frightened combatant’s foot, the showers stopped instantly and were replaced with a good old fashioned blitz.
Floyd bolted up to Charles with superhuman speed and clutched him around the throat with one powerful hand before hoisting him to the sky and putting a spiked blade to his throat. Not even the mighty number one contender could deal with this kind of punishment and started kicking and squealing in pain to prove it.
The gothic robot put his face in Charles’ reddening face and said, “Please exit the MMA business, punk!” With one arm, Floyd tossed the 205 lb. Charles over the ropes and watched him crash land through one of the metal benches. The normally cocky fighter was rolling around on the ground clutching his back and screaming like a girl.
Such a pathetic display got no sympathy from the cold and calculating Floyd, who proceeded to slowly step outside the ring and kneel down to where Charles was writhing and squealing. With one fist held high, Floyd said in his demonic voice, “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me!” All it took was one stiff punch to the jaw and Charles was out like a light. No more writing, no more growling, only silence and sleep remained.
By the time Charles woke up, which wouldn’t be until the very next morning, his head and body were pulsating with dull pain and he didn’t want to make any effort to move his body. He thought he was in the afterlife after taking a beating like that, but he was right back where he was when he was knocked out: on the floor of Battleground MMA Gym. The only difference was that there were people there who were happy to see him broken and bruised.
One of the head coaches of the gym looked over Charles’ glassy and wet eyes and said, “You have a 13-0 MMA record, which means you don’t know what it’s like to be knocked unconscious or submitted. And then you ran into Floyd and hopefully he did more damage to your ego than he did to your body.”
“Wha…wha…what about my match? What about my championship match?” said Charles with an aching jaw.
“Your match has been cancelled due to your injured state,” explained the coach. “But it’s probably for the best anyways. I hope you learned something from all of this, Charles. Be nice to your sparring partners and they’ll be nice to you. You’re probably too out of it right now to digest all of that, so maybe you’ll learn it eventually when I make you spar with Floyd again.”
The coach patted Charles on his painful shoulder and allowed the EMT’s t take him away. There was only one thing the Irish-American could say to having his ego deflated and his body broken at the same time: “Fuck!”
Ignorance wasn’t much of an excuse these days, because the only way the light heavyweight cage warrior could ever have access to the gym was after it was closed, which meant a screwed up sleep schedule and nobody would be there to return the favor of knocking him out. Believe it or not, this was the head coaches’ idea of being charitable to someone who deserved no charity at all.
It was ten o’clock at night and the red Mohawked Irish-American entered the gym in preparation for a light heavyweight championship match he had coming up. With nobody there to help him train or to coach him, he was all on his own. Charles seemed to be taking isolation a little better than most would. He went around to the various treadmills, stair steppers, and Jacob’s Ladder machines and beefed up his cardio like the super athlete he was. In a five-round championship match, cardio was the key to success.
Charles had spent two hours in the gym just working on his strength and conditioning. By the time he ran his final few steps on the treadmill, he was a sweaty mess. His bare chest was covered in perspiration, his black MMA shorts were damp, and his shoes and socks smelled like a bus station bathroom. Despite all of the hard work he put in, he stood proudly with his hands on his hips as opposed to huffing and puffing on the floor ready to pass out.
But there’s a reason why the sport was called mixed-martial arts and not cardiovascular arts: because beating the shit out of your opponent was the only way to win. Without a sparring partner, Charles thought he was going to have to clock out early. And then he noticed the boxing ring in the center of the gym had a black body bag mounted against one of the turnbuckles.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” yelled Charles to no one in particular. “What, am I supposed to fight with a dead body now? Cute, guys! Really fucking cute!” He stomped his way to the ring and stepped between the ropes to investigate this special package. Charles even gave the bag a sniff to make sure it was really a corpse. The odor was horrendous, but then he realized it was his own swampy armpits. He was definitely getting in the showers after this was over.
With mild trepidation, Charles McLean unzipped the body bag from head to toe and found something that put a whacked out smile on his face. “No way. No fucking way. Are you guys serious?” The object in the body bag was a 6’11” tall robot dressed in black gothic attire from his trench coat to his boots. Even the spiky black hair and black and white makeup was enough to give away the chilling appearance. Charles wasn’t chilled. He was thrilled.
He pulled the robot out of the bag and tossed the bag aside with excitement, for this was like opening presents at Christmastime. He looked the warrior up and down with wide-eyed excitement and heart-beating amazement. The name “Floyd” was written across the robot’s black tank top in the creepiest font imaginable.
“Alright then, Floyd. Let’s see what you’ve got!” said Charles as he looked for the on switch to this robot, which ended up being on its asshole. “That’s right, guys, laugh it up! Because this motherfucker is going to the scrap yard!” The light heavyweight brawler flicked the switch and sparks shot out of its crevices, sending the hulking brute backwards several feet.
Once Floyd the training robot stopped showering sparks, he began to look around the arena like this was all new to him. The mechanical nightmare looked across the ring at a bewildered Charles McLean with disdain and disgust. Once both combatants put their dukes up and got in their fighting stances, it was time to go to war.
Charles was the early aggressor in this sparring session as he rushed up to Floyd and threw haymaker after haymaker, each punch easily bobbed and weaved by the mechanical drone. Floyd threw one quick and stiff jab and caught Charles on the jaw, back him up a little, but doing not too much damage.
“You want to screw around with me, Floyd? Heh. Floyd. What kind of name is that for a badass robot?!” taunted Charles, an action which almost got him knocked out with a barely dodged head kick. Floyd started throwing other kicks to the hamstring, shin, and ribcage. Being made of metal allowed the pissed off robot to inflict sharp amounts of pain to the normally rough and tough Charles McLean, who was stacked from head to toe with muscles and tone.
Charles threw a few kicks and punches of his own, but Floyd kept him at bay with his height advantage, quick jabs, and leg kicks. After a while of being smacked around with metal parts, Charles was beginning to bruise up. He had a mouse under his right eye, a slash on his left thigh, and a lump on his ribcage.
But if Floyd thought for a minute that Charles was learning his lesson about treating his sparring partners better, he was dead wrong. Out of frustration, the MMA contender threw a blatant kick between Floyd’s legs and brought the mighty giant to his knees. Charles followed it up with an illegal knee to the skull that landed Floyd on his back, seemingly unconscious.
“Yeah! Who’s the man now, bitch?! I’m the goddamn man around here! Woo!” cheered Charles McLean as he danced around the ring holding his fists up in victory. His ego was inflated to the size of a hot air balloon.
And then Floyd nipped up in an attempt to deflate that ego forever. Charles turned around and immediately stopped celebrating his ill-gotten “victory” when he saw the mighty robot staring down at him with even more venom than before. Sparks were flying from his crevices like they were before, but in even greater volume and with even more rage.
Charles looked on at this angry display with paralyzing fear. If one of the sparks touched him, he would need to be rushed to a burn ward. With nobody here to call 9-1-1, it was a deathtrap in the making. Just when the final spark was about to touch the frightened combatant’s foot, the showers stopped instantly and were replaced with a good old fashioned blitz.
Floyd bolted up to Charles with superhuman speed and clutched him around the throat with one powerful hand before hoisting him to the sky and putting a spiked blade to his throat. Not even the mighty number one contender could deal with this kind of punishment and started kicking and squealing in pain to prove it.
The gothic robot put his face in Charles’ reddening face and said, “Please exit the MMA business, punk!” With one arm, Floyd tossed the 205 lb. Charles over the ropes and watched him crash land through one of the metal benches. The normally cocky fighter was rolling around on the ground clutching his back and screaming like a girl.
Such a pathetic display got no sympathy from the cold and calculating Floyd, who proceeded to slowly step outside the ring and kneel down to where Charles was writhing and squealing. With one fist held high, Floyd said in his demonic voice, “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me!” All it took was one stiff punch to the jaw and Charles was out like a light. No more writing, no more growling, only silence and sleep remained.
By the time Charles woke up, which wouldn’t be until the very next morning, his head and body were pulsating with dull pain and he didn’t want to make any effort to move his body. He thought he was in the afterlife after taking a beating like that, but he was right back where he was when he was knocked out: on the floor of Battleground MMA Gym. The only difference was that there were people there who were happy to see him broken and bruised.
One of the head coaches of the gym looked over Charles’ glassy and wet eyes and said, “You have a 13-0 MMA record, which means you don’t know what it’s like to be knocked unconscious or submitted. And then you ran into Floyd and hopefully he did more damage to your ego than he did to your body.”
“Wha…wha…what about my match? What about my championship match?” said Charles with an aching jaw.
“Your match has been cancelled due to your injured state,” explained the coach. “But it’s probably for the best anyways. I hope you learned something from all of this, Charles. Be nice to your sparring partners and they’ll be nice to you. You’re probably too out of it right now to digest all of that, so maybe you’ll learn it eventually when I make you spar with Floyd again.”
The coach patted Charles on his painful shoulder and allowed the EMT’s t take him away. There was only one thing the Irish-American could say to having his ego deflated and his body broken at the same time: “Fuck!”
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Finn Cosgrave
NAME: Finn Cosgrave
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Heavyweight Mixed-Martial Artist
CANON: It’s Just a Joke
I can be quoted as saying that people shouldn’t choose combative occupations for the sake of finding romance. If you join NCIS thinking you’re going to walk out with Ziva David as arm candy, you’re dead wrong. If you become a cast mate on The Ultimate Fighter, you ain’t leaving with Ronda Rousey. And if you join the FBI, the other half of your bed won’t be occupied by Dr. Temperance Brennan. Nobody knew this better than Finn Cosgrave. After all, he didn’t need distractions going into his match with Chris Johnson. Seeing as how Finn had lost three fights in a row, if he lost one more, he would be fired.
So if Finn Cosgrave is fighting for his career and making very little money doing so, why would a marketable female fighter named Zelda Lee want to flirt with him in the gym? She has championship gold around her waist and an undefeated streak to go with it. Shouldn’t she be chasing someone higher on the food chain? Maybe Zelda likes Finn for his “charming personality” even though they hardly know each other. Finn has the muscles and height to be a Gary-Stu, and yet he feels like he has a huge mountain to climb to deserve a woman like Zelda.
Even though the two of them are technically supposed to be cutting weight for their upcoming fights, Finn and Zelda eat at Subway anyways. While there, a horny fan asks for Zelda’s autograph and verbally abuses Finn. The newfound couple work together in verbally dismantling this loser fan and leaving him embarrassed and lonely. Somehow, this is all some sort of motivation tactic to Finn to train harder in the gym and eventually win his match against Chris Johnson, which he does and therefore keeps his job.
Here’s one of the things that made “It’s Just a Joke” so unrealistic in my eyes: so Finn fights his ass off to earn a knockout victory over Chris Johnson and keep his job. And then later in the evening, he quits. He quits because Zelda’s opponent for the evening, an Amazon lady named Cameron Gillespie, kills her with an illegal up kick. There’s no clarity as to whether Cameron will get suspended, fined, or even jailed for her actions. There’s even some blame being placed on the ref for not stopping the up kick earlier. Finn Cosgrave apparently doesn’t care where the blame goes, because he’s so disenfranchised with MMA that he wants to quit due to losing the “love of his life”.
Good for you, Finn. You’re standing up for what you believe in and you let the whole world know that you’re not to be fucked with. There’s just one problem: you’re unemployed and MMA is the thing you do best. So now what? What other options are there for Mr. Finn Cosgrave? Washing dishes? Pumping gas? Selling Little Debbie cakes? Or maybe he can go into professional wrestling where more people die there than in mixed-martial arts. And if Finn does live through it all, he’ll still have a permanently aching body, a relentless travel schedule, and weird ass storylines. He might have a little bit of a push due to his MMA background and his heavyweight build, but other than that, he won’t like the transition.
There are two routes I can go down with Finn Cosgrave should I decide to use him again in a short story or novel. One of them is to keep this background story and have his emotional profile made up ahead of time. The other is to give him a fresh start and have him be a typecast big guy such as a bouncer or a cop (because he’s technically a hero). Whatever role he has, he might have to take a backseat to someone else lest he be considered a Gary-Stu. He can be the Chewbacca to someone’s Han Solo or the Deus Shadowheart to someone’s April Farrow. I don’t know what Finn Cosgrave’s role will be in the future, but all I can say is when this emotionally charged train is on the tracks, you’d better move out of the way.
***ADVICE OF THE DAY***
If you’re unemployed or ashamed of your job, the next time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them, “I work with underprivileged children in the Democratic Society of Who Gives a Fuck.” That’ll raise a few eyebrows, maybe get a few chuckles.
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Heavyweight Mixed-Martial Artist
CANON: It’s Just a Joke
I can be quoted as saying that people shouldn’t choose combative occupations for the sake of finding romance. If you join NCIS thinking you’re going to walk out with Ziva David as arm candy, you’re dead wrong. If you become a cast mate on The Ultimate Fighter, you ain’t leaving with Ronda Rousey. And if you join the FBI, the other half of your bed won’t be occupied by Dr. Temperance Brennan. Nobody knew this better than Finn Cosgrave. After all, he didn’t need distractions going into his match with Chris Johnson. Seeing as how Finn had lost three fights in a row, if he lost one more, he would be fired.
So if Finn Cosgrave is fighting for his career and making very little money doing so, why would a marketable female fighter named Zelda Lee want to flirt with him in the gym? She has championship gold around her waist and an undefeated streak to go with it. Shouldn’t she be chasing someone higher on the food chain? Maybe Zelda likes Finn for his “charming personality” even though they hardly know each other. Finn has the muscles and height to be a Gary-Stu, and yet he feels like he has a huge mountain to climb to deserve a woman like Zelda.
Even though the two of them are technically supposed to be cutting weight for their upcoming fights, Finn and Zelda eat at Subway anyways. While there, a horny fan asks for Zelda’s autograph and verbally abuses Finn. The newfound couple work together in verbally dismantling this loser fan and leaving him embarrassed and lonely. Somehow, this is all some sort of motivation tactic to Finn to train harder in the gym and eventually win his match against Chris Johnson, which he does and therefore keeps his job.
Here’s one of the things that made “It’s Just a Joke” so unrealistic in my eyes: so Finn fights his ass off to earn a knockout victory over Chris Johnson and keep his job. And then later in the evening, he quits. He quits because Zelda’s opponent for the evening, an Amazon lady named Cameron Gillespie, kills her with an illegal up kick. There’s no clarity as to whether Cameron will get suspended, fined, or even jailed for her actions. There’s even some blame being placed on the ref for not stopping the up kick earlier. Finn Cosgrave apparently doesn’t care where the blame goes, because he’s so disenfranchised with MMA that he wants to quit due to losing the “love of his life”.
Good for you, Finn. You’re standing up for what you believe in and you let the whole world know that you’re not to be fucked with. There’s just one problem: you’re unemployed and MMA is the thing you do best. So now what? What other options are there for Mr. Finn Cosgrave? Washing dishes? Pumping gas? Selling Little Debbie cakes? Or maybe he can go into professional wrestling where more people die there than in mixed-martial arts. And if Finn does live through it all, he’ll still have a permanently aching body, a relentless travel schedule, and weird ass storylines. He might have a little bit of a push due to his MMA background and his heavyweight build, but other than that, he won’t like the transition.
There are two routes I can go down with Finn Cosgrave should I decide to use him again in a short story or novel. One of them is to keep this background story and have his emotional profile made up ahead of time. The other is to give him a fresh start and have him be a typecast big guy such as a bouncer or a cop (because he’s technically a hero). Whatever role he has, he might have to take a backseat to someone else lest he be considered a Gary-Stu. He can be the Chewbacca to someone’s Han Solo or the Deus Shadowheart to someone’s April Farrow. I don’t know what Finn Cosgrave’s role will be in the future, but all I can say is when this emotionally charged train is on the tracks, you’d better move out of the way.
***ADVICE OF THE DAY***
If you’re unemployed or ashamed of your job, the next time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them, “I work with underprivileged children in the Democratic Society of Who Gives a Fuck.” That’ll raise a few eyebrows, maybe get a few chuckles.
Monday, March 9, 2015
UFC: Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis
MATCH: Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis for the former’s Women’s Bantamweight Championship
PROMOTION: Ultimate Fighting Championship
EVENT: UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida
YEAR: 2014
RATING: TV-14 for violence
GRADE: Pass
If you’re a UFC fan and you’re looking to make some quick money in Las Vegas, you would be a fool not to bet in favor of Ronda Rousey. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, here’s the deal with this badass chick. She’s undefeated in mixed-martial arts. She’s the current UFC Bantamweight Champion. Every fight she’s been in with the exception of one has ended in the first round. She’s earned a shit-load of awards from the MMA community. She’s an Olympic bronze medalist in judo (her main fighting style). She has movie deals with the Expendables and Fast and Furious franchises. She’s hotter than hell. She has so much going for her that her list of achievements would easily become a novel if I spouted them off to you.
Her opponent for UFC 175 isn’t anybody to sneeze at either. She is Alexis Davis. To earn her shot at Ronda, Alexis had to defeat three badass chicks in succession, which isn’t easy to do by any stretch of the imagination. Those three badass chicks are Rosi Sexton, Liz Carmouche, and Jessica Eye, all three of which have been in MMA for a long time and could destroy anybody in the blink of an eye. Granted, she beat those three via decision, but the argument will always be made that decision victories show how much endurance a fighter has. Alexis Davis will need a ton of endurance if she wants a victory of Ronda Rousey.
And now the field is set for what is sure to be an epic confrontation between two demon slayers. It is the co-main event of the evening, so the pressure on both ladies is especially high. The minute referee Yves Lavigne starts the match, Ronda and Alexis don’t waste any time in engaging with each other.
They throw punches, kicks, knees, and live to tell about all of those shots. And then out of nowhere comes the beginning of the end for Alexis Davis: a judo hip toss to the mat, which is not only a hard landing, but also a squashing technique since all 135 lbs. of Ronda Rousey’s body comes crashing down on Alexis Davis’ chest. With her arms trapped, Alexis has nothing to defend herself against the Armageddon-style rain of fists that come pouring down on her forehead. After ten stiff shots, Alexis’ arms go limp and that’s when Yves Lavigne stops the fight and awards Ronda a knockout victory.
There are two things about Ronda’s victory that are particularly amazing. One, after Yves Lavigne pulled Ronda off of Alexis, the latter was grappling with him thinking the match was still going on. That’s right, folks: Alexis was so punch drunk that she mistook a bald elderly referee for a smoking hot blond chick. And Alexis was really holding on tightly until Yves Lavigne explained to her over and over again that the match was over and she was knocked out.
And then of course, there’s the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to Ronda’s eventual Performance of the Night award: the judo queen won in only 16 seconds in the first round. Think of all the things one could do in 16 seconds of his or her life: make a cup of coffee, sign an autograph, eat a candy bar, just basic stuff. You know what Ronda Rousey did in 16 seconds? She beat the living hell out of another badass chick.
If you’ve read my review of a WWE match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus at Wrestlemania 28, you would have seen that it got a failing grade due to the shortness of it all. And yet, Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis in the UFC gets a passing grade even though it was only 16 seconds long. It seems hypocritical on the surface, but it’s not. In the WWE, we as an audience expect a long and dazzling battle complete with acrobatics and stiff shots.
In the UFC, if someone gets a fast victory over a legitimate fighter, it’s not scripted; it’s goddamn incredible. If Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader had a light saber fight that only lasted 16 seconds, we would all be disappointed because Star Wars is fictional and the writers have all the leeway in the world to create a war between those two. UFC is as real as it gets. It’s not pretty. It’s not dazzling. It’s just honest hardcore violence.
The phrase “don’t blink” has become used to many times in sports that it’s considered a cliché. And yet, for this match, it’s so true that you need Clockwork Orange eye bracers to keep from missing a single part of the match. And speaking of which, if Alex De Large watched this match while undergoing aversion therapy, the brutal violence would send his body into shock. No nausea, no shaking, no dizziness, just cardiac arrest.
Thank you, Ronda Rousey for putting on a judo clinic and giving the audience another reason to cheer for you. Thanks for doing it again at UFC 183 by defeating Cat Zingano in 14 seconds with a straight arm bar. If you’re going to watch a Ronda Rousey fight these days, make sure your watch has a second hand on it.
PROMOTION: Ultimate Fighting Championship
EVENT: UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida
YEAR: 2014
RATING: TV-14 for violence
GRADE: Pass
If you’re a UFC fan and you’re looking to make some quick money in Las Vegas, you would be a fool not to bet in favor of Ronda Rousey. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, here’s the deal with this badass chick. She’s undefeated in mixed-martial arts. She’s the current UFC Bantamweight Champion. Every fight she’s been in with the exception of one has ended in the first round. She’s earned a shit-load of awards from the MMA community. She’s an Olympic bronze medalist in judo (her main fighting style). She has movie deals with the Expendables and Fast and Furious franchises. She’s hotter than hell. She has so much going for her that her list of achievements would easily become a novel if I spouted them off to you.
Her opponent for UFC 175 isn’t anybody to sneeze at either. She is Alexis Davis. To earn her shot at Ronda, Alexis had to defeat three badass chicks in succession, which isn’t easy to do by any stretch of the imagination. Those three badass chicks are Rosi Sexton, Liz Carmouche, and Jessica Eye, all three of which have been in MMA for a long time and could destroy anybody in the blink of an eye. Granted, she beat those three via decision, but the argument will always be made that decision victories show how much endurance a fighter has. Alexis Davis will need a ton of endurance if she wants a victory of Ronda Rousey.
And now the field is set for what is sure to be an epic confrontation between two demon slayers. It is the co-main event of the evening, so the pressure on both ladies is especially high. The minute referee Yves Lavigne starts the match, Ronda and Alexis don’t waste any time in engaging with each other.
They throw punches, kicks, knees, and live to tell about all of those shots. And then out of nowhere comes the beginning of the end for Alexis Davis: a judo hip toss to the mat, which is not only a hard landing, but also a squashing technique since all 135 lbs. of Ronda Rousey’s body comes crashing down on Alexis Davis’ chest. With her arms trapped, Alexis has nothing to defend herself against the Armageddon-style rain of fists that come pouring down on her forehead. After ten stiff shots, Alexis’ arms go limp and that’s when Yves Lavigne stops the fight and awards Ronda a knockout victory.
There are two things about Ronda’s victory that are particularly amazing. One, after Yves Lavigne pulled Ronda off of Alexis, the latter was grappling with him thinking the match was still going on. That’s right, folks: Alexis was so punch drunk that she mistook a bald elderly referee for a smoking hot blond chick. And Alexis was really holding on tightly until Yves Lavigne explained to her over and over again that the match was over and she was knocked out.
And then of course, there’s the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to Ronda’s eventual Performance of the Night award: the judo queen won in only 16 seconds in the first round. Think of all the things one could do in 16 seconds of his or her life: make a cup of coffee, sign an autograph, eat a candy bar, just basic stuff. You know what Ronda Rousey did in 16 seconds? She beat the living hell out of another badass chick.
If you’ve read my review of a WWE match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus at Wrestlemania 28, you would have seen that it got a failing grade due to the shortness of it all. And yet, Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis in the UFC gets a passing grade even though it was only 16 seconds long. It seems hypocritical on the surface, but it’s not. In the WWE, we as an audience expect a long and dazzling battle complete with acrobatics and stiff shots.
In the UFC, if someone gets a fast victory over a legitimate fighter, it’s not scripted; it’s goddamn incredible. If Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader had a light saber fight that only lasted 16 seconds, we would all be disappointed because Star Wars is fictional and the writers have all the leeway in the world to create a war between those two. UFC is as real as it gets. It’s not pretty. It’s not dazzling. It’s just honest hardcore violence.
The phrase “don’t blink” has become used to many times in sports that it’s considered a cliché. And yet, for this match, it’s so true that you need Clockwork Orange eye bracers to keep from missing a single part of the match. And speaking of which, if Alex De Large watched this match while undergoing aversion therapy, the brutal violence would send his body into shock. No nausea, no shaking, no dizziness, just cardiac arrest.
Thank you, Ronda Rousey for putting on a judo clinic and giving the audience another reason to cheer for you. Thanks for doing it again at UFC 183 by defeating Cat Zingano in 14 seconds with a straight arm bar. If you’re going to watch a Ronda Rousey fight these days, make sure your watch has a second hand on it.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Cameron Gillespie
Is there really any way a 6’1” African-American woman can cut enough weight before a big MMA fight in order to conform to the flyweight division’s 125 lb. standard? Does it even matter that this same woman has pumpkin-sized muscles and the longest reach of any female fighter in history?
Every time Cameron Gillespie gets in the cage, she might as well be playing with a GI Joe in there. She’s only been defeated twice in her career and both of those losses were due to controversial split decisions. But those are just two matches. You want to know how many times Miss Gillespie won? Twenty, all of those victories being obtained either by KO or TKO. Bottom line: this woman is a killing machine and can make the bantamweight limit just as easily as she regularly makes the flyweight limit so miraculously. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
So why is it that I refuse to let this wrecking ball of a woman be a part of American Darkness 1 or 2? Because the story she was a part of didn’t do her justice at all. She was originally part of a short story where she only had one page worth of action and the actions she took were despicable enough to make her an unredeemable villain.
The story was called “It’s a Joke” and was supposed to be an MMA romance between struggling heavyweight fighter Finn Cosgrave and basically a Ronda Rousey parody named Zelda Lee. I thought I was being revolutionary by creating an MMA romance, because not many authors do it. Turns out there’s a reason for that: because there’s no love in war, only pain.
That pain came when Zelda Lee was forced into a fight with Cameron Gillespie, who towered over her like…well…a bell tower! Zelda landed a beautiful takedown and hand Cameron on her back in defensive mode. Zelda then put her hands on the mat to engage Cameron in a ground game. That’s where shit went south in a hurry.
Did you know there’s a rule against kicking somebody in the face while that person is in a kneeling position? If Zelda would have survived the kick to the face from Cameron, the New Orleans-born giant would have been either disqualified or deducted two points at least. Zelda didn’t survive. She was pronounced dead by the referee.
For whatever reason, I decided to have Cameron Gillespie show no remorse for her actions and not go to jail for this “accident”. Zelda Lee was the first person in MMA history to die during a fight and the sport looks even worse than it did before after Cameron Gillespie’s heinous behavior.
That’s not the road I want Cameron to go down. I see a lot of potential in this character and I want her to have the best role I could possibly give a jolly black giant like her. I know that if I include “It’s a Joke” in American Darkness 2, that book will get a low rating and few buys.
I’m not saying I want Cameron Gillespie to be a heroic warrior, but I also don’t want her to be a monster from the depths of hell. What kind of role could she have? A harsh trainer? A drill instructor? How about an incumbent world champion who’s deemed a villain because she’s held the title for so long? Maybe, just maybe she could be the world’s tallest voodoo priest. Can you imagine being that fucking huge and having magical powers to go with your awesome body? It’s overkill, but it’s an overkill people can easily accept.
Please accept Cameron Gillespie into your hearts and imaginations, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t let her become a stereotypical clerk at the DMV. Don’t let her be a stereotypical gangster woman either. I want this character to have substance, and that substance isn’t cocaine or heroin. And before you ask, no, it isn’t steroids either.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“I dare Ahmed Johnson to say ‘Mother Smucker’ ten times fast.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
Every time Cameron Gillespie gets in the cage, she might as well be playing with a GI Joe in there. She’s only been defeated twice in her career and both of those losses were due to controversial split decisions. But those are just two matches. You want to know how many times Miss Gillespie won? Twenty, all of those victories being obtained either by KO or TKO. Bottom line: this woman is a killing machine and can make the bantamweight limit just as easily as she regularly makes the flyweight limit so miraculously. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
So why is it that I refuse to let this wrecking ball of a woman be a part of American Darkness 1 or 2? Because the story she was a part of didn’t do her justice at all. She was originally part of a short story where she only had one page worth of action and the actions she took were despicable enough to make her an unredeemable villain.
The story was called “It’s a Joke” and was supposed to be an MMA romance between struggling heavyweight fighter Finn Cosgrave and basically a Ronda Rousey parody named Zelda Lee. I thought I was being revolutionary by creating an MMA romance, because not many authors do it. Turns out there’s a reason for that: because there’s no love in war, only pain.
That pain came when Zelda Lee was forced into a fight with Cameron Gillespie, who towered over her like…well…a bell tower! Zelda landed a beautiful takedown and hand Cameron on her back in defensive mode. Zelda then put her hands on the mat to engage Cameron in a ground game. That’s where shit went south in a hurry.
Did you know there’s a rule against kicking somebody in the face while that person is in a kneeling position? If Zelda would have survived the kick to the face from Cameron, the New Orleans-born giant would have been either disqualified or deducted two points at least. Zelda didn’t survive. She was pronounced dead by the referee.
For whatever reason, I decided to have Cameron Gillespie show no remorse for her actions and not go to jail for this “accident”. Zelda Lee was the first person in MMA history to die during a fight and the sport looks even worse than it did before after Cameron Gillespie’s heinous behavior.
That’s not the road I want Cameron to go down. I see a lot of potential in this character and I want her to have the best role I could possibly give a jolly black giant like her. I know that if I include “It’s a Joke” in American Darkness 2, that book will get a low rating and few buys.
I’m not saying I want Cameron Gillespie to be a heroic warrior, but I also don’t want her to be a monster from the depths of hell. What kind of role could she have? A harsh trainer? A drill instructor? How about an incumbent world champion who’s deemed a villain because she’s held the title for so long? Maybe, just maybe she could be the world’s tallest voodoo priest. Can you imagine being that fucking huge and having magical powers to go with your awesome body? It’s overkill, but it’s an overkill people can easily accept.
Please accept Cameron Gillespie into your hearts and imaginations, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t let her become a stereotypical clerk at the DMV. Don’t let her be a stereotypical gangster woman either. I want this character to have substance, and that substance isn’t cocaine or heroin. And before you ask, no, it isn’t steroids either.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“I dare Ahmed Johnson to say ‘Mother Smucker’ ten times fast.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
Sunday, May 11, 2014
"The Room of Ancillary Dreams" by Harold Budd
When you play “The Room of Ancillary Dreams” by Harold Budd on your MP3 player, stereo, computer, or whatever the case may be, one of two things will happen to you. If you’re in bed trying to relax, not only will you enter the dream world, but you’ll be a gatecrasher for your own subconscious. If you’re trying to write a piece of literature on your computer, you will be free of distractions while having your musical needs satisfied to the fullest extent. I use this ambient piece of music for both purposes.
All you need in order to reproduce it is a piano and a wah-wah pedal. It’s a slow-paced song, so it’s easy for anybody to play regardless of their skill level. If you’re a piano player and you need to put on a concert for your audience, choose this song. Your audience will be knocked out within the first few seconds and you can get out early to catch a show of your own. Hell, they might even need blankets and pillows just to get through the entire show. The song is that relaxing.
I dare you all to go to You Tube right now and look up “The Room of Ancillary Dreams” right now. If you’re going to do it, make sure there’s a buckwheat pillow resting on your computer desk. Don’t worry about snoring too loudly, because it’s just another part of the restful ambience. There’s a good chance you sound like a cat purring when you snore. If you sound like a helicopter, though, that’s not a problem either.
Why exactly am I going to great lengths to sell you this wonderful piece of music? Because as an avid listener, it’s my obligation to do so. Realistically though, this is a song I always keep on my MP3 player in case I go for a long road trip or airline flight. My mom is on the verge of retiring and when she does, the vacations will come more often.
Riding in the car or on an airplane isn’t the most fun experience you’re going to have. If you’re on a six-hour flight, your ass will get sore and you will get cranky. But if you have a neck pillow and a copy of “The Room of Ancillary Dreams”, your long journey will seem like it went by in only a few seconds.
It used to be that I always requested sleeping pills during long trips. I may not need them in the first place now that I’ve discovered this blissful combination. If you’re going to a writer’s retreat in Tuscany or a reader’s conference in the Bahamas, do you really want to be awake for the entire thing? Absolutely not. Even if there was a terrorist takeover of your flight, being asleep is the best way to survive.
Grab your pillow and get some Z’s, people, because with this song in your headphones, even the UFC can’t rack up that many knockouts.
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What do Nintendo characters use to get high?
A: Donkey Bong.
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