The Cageside Beat Recaps and Updates

As any of you regular readers may have noticed, I've been on a bit of a hiatus from Previously Viewed over the past month or so. No big reason, just that things have been busy. Getting used to the new format at Pro MMA Now, taking care of things with The Cageside Beat, and a few other things that will be revealed soon.

As far as The Cageside Beat goes, we've had more great guests on our show and some exciting episodes. You can always listen to the shows on the embedded player in the column on the right here at PreviouslyViewed, and to download the individual episodes, click the links below.

Additionally, The Cageside Beat is now on iTunes, so head over there to subscribe to our show (for free) and automatically download new episodes as they are archived.

In the meantime, feel free to listen to and download the following episodes.

January 21, 2010: Luke and Charis Burrett of Silver Star.

January 28, 2010: WEC Octagon girl Brittney Palmer.

February 4, 2010: Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports.

Also, coming up tomorrow night, February 11, is UFC fighter Eliot "The Fire" Marshall. Make sure to tune in Thursday night at 10 PM ET.

Coming up on February 18, we will be joined by UFC fighter Matt "The Immortal" Brown.

Enjoy.

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For gloves and gear from the world's best brands, head over to EliteMMA.com - Gear for fighters.


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Previously Viewed Welcomes New Advertiser

I am happy to welcome Elite MMA as the newest advertiser on Previously Viewed.

Elite MMA brings you gloves and gear from the world's best brands - gear for fighters. Elite MMA features gear and clothing from some of the sport's top manufacturers including Combat Sports, Everlast, Sprawl, TapouT, Atama, Throwdown, Fairtex, Windy Muay Thai, KD Elite, Shock Doctor, Ringside, and Top Contender.

You'll notice Elite MMA banners and links throughout the site. Make sure to check them out!

They are even running a special right now - Free shipping on all orders over $79.

Enjoy.



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FightTicker.com: Interview With Blood in the Cage Author L. Jon Wertheim

A while ago, I posted my review of L. Jon Wertheim's Blood in the Cage. I was also fortunate enough to speak with Wertheim about a number of topics in the MMA world. What follows are the highlights from our interview. Wertheim really does a great job of putting things in perspective - in spite of how much we've all seen the sport grow, the difference in the popularity and marketability of the sport has changed a lot even in just the last few years. You can find Wertheim's first article on MMA, the one he speaks of giving him the idea to write the book, on SI.com.

FightTicker: First, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

L. Jon Wertheim: I write for Sports Illustrated, and have been for a while, and the story with this is that a couple years ago is that I told my editors I wanted to look into this MMA phenomenon and it was a whole lot of fun to work on and I came back and just sort of thought to myself, “There’s just so much material here – why not spin this into a book?” That’s pretty much how the book got started.

FT: Was there a defining moment or a particular fight that really made you say to yourself you wanted to take a look into MMA?

Wertheim: I didn’t really know much about this sport at all. I went to a UFC event in Houston, I went out to Bettendorf, Iowa to the Militech camp and I went to some amateur shows and Renzo Gracie’s gym – I don’t know if there was one defining moment. One of the first fights I saw was Roger Huerta vs. Leonard Garcia, and it was just an insane fight. It was so gripping and I told someone afterwards that I don’t think I’ve ever felt that alive. I enjoyed talking to the guys, and Dana was a trip, and this gave me eighteen or nineteen pages of material to work with and even after that I just sort of said to myself that I could just keep going and going with this stuff.

FT: Why Pat Militech?

Wertheim: We sort of hit it off to begin with and I sort of wanted to talk about who had gotten in there to help it [MMA] get where it was. The other thing is that these characters change so fast. I would tell the story where I asked someone – at this point exactly two years ago, who were the biggest names, who were the five biggest fighters? The answer I got was, Chuck [Liddell], Randy [Couture], Tito [Ortiz], Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes. And if you look at the scene right now, Randy may have fought for the last time, Tito is out of the organization, Chuck is kind of off the radar a bit. I wanted to pick a guy to base this on who I knew would still have some relevance when the book came out, so I figured with Pat, he’s working, he’s in there training guys and I didn’t have to worry that he’d be hot at the time, lose two UFC fights and suddenly get cut.

FT: The first image you throw at readers is of an offer made to you that I don’t think many people would want to take – Jens Pulver offered to break your nose to help you better understand what the fighters go through – what was the first thought that went through your mind when he offered to do that?

Wertheim: I wanted to be sure he was kidding [Laughs]. He sort of had a smile on his face, but these guys are a little different from me and you. Broken bones and lumps and bruises – they have a different approach to them than I have [Laughs].

FT: Why did you choose to start with that image?

Wertheim: I wanted to start with a bang, and you know, I knew he was sort of half-kidding, but he would’ve done it. Part of the book was just to explain the sport, but I also wanted to give people a chance – one question that always came up was “Who would do this, what kind of guy would be a cage fighter for a living?” I wanted to explain what breed of cat we were dealing with here.

FT: In the book you highlighted the fact that a number of the UFC fighters are highly educated or had various jobs one might not associate with fighters (i.e. Rich Franklin being a former math teacher), and I know these facts often surprise people – what are some of the things that surprised you when you were doing your research?

Wertheim: That was one thing – that people in the general public think a guy who fights in a cage for a living must be in there wearing an ankle monitor with his parole officer there waiting for him to get done – but the quality of guys overall, it’s probably higher than any other sport I’ve dealt with. Something else that struck me is these are some badass guys, but a lot of them were really sort of sensitive and fragile. There’s a real sort of fragile nature to a lot of these guys. Just physically they’re on a completely different level, and then you talk to them and a lot of them are kind of emotionally damaged. As strong as some of these guys were physically, a lot of them were insecure almost, a completely different person when they weren’t fighting.

FT: You interacted with a lot of different people in the industry. Besides a love for the fight game, did you see any other common denominator between the people involved with the sport?

Wertheim: A lot of these guys have similar sensibilities, but I think that something else that surprises people is there is a real diversity to the sport. The guy who came up through brazilian jiu jitsu is completely different than Randy Couture who came up an All-American wrestler who is different than GSP who is French-Canadian. A lot of these guys came from damaged homes, but not all of them. A lot of these guys wrestled in college, but not all of them. I think it’s [the diversity] is something that really helps the sport. Like with NBA players or boxing, it seems like the fighters have the same story over and over. But a guy like Roger Huerta is a guy that has a completely different story from a guy like Rampage. They’re black, white, American, foreign, and that’s something that helps the sport, it’s pretty diverse.

FT: You spent some time on the book on the history of the UFC and the rise of the UFC, and you acknowledged that during the “dark” days, it was the hardcore fans prowling the internet who did more than anyone to keep the sport alive and the UFC alive – in these days, as someone who has written about the sport – what percentage of MMA news do you think is on the internet versus the print media?

Wertheim: By and large, I still think it’s a sport that – it’s not a sport that the New York Times has a section on. I don’t think any newspapers do [have a section devoted entirely to MMA]. This is a sport that lives and breathes on the internet.

FT: Having made that statement, do you think it’s odd the UFC won’t credential websites for press passes at events?

Wertheim: Yeah, and I wrote about that in the book, about how the internet is really what saved this sport, and then I went to some of these fights and there were even very few [print media] guys [covering the event a few years ago] and that’s a little strange. I guess the UFC figures the websites are going to cover it anyway, but it’s still a little hard to figure out.

FT: You wrote about how, as the UFC has grown, they’ve signed some bigger name sponsors. However, a lot of people still refer to the sport of MMA as being in its infancy – how do you think the sponsor scene is going to change as the sport continues to grow?

Wertheim: That’s a good question. It’s going to keep growing. It’s going to be interesting to see what’s going on with whether the fighters are going to start demanding extra things [from sponsors] but it’s only going to keep growing. Even in the few years I’ve really been following it closely, in the beginning there wasn’t Harley-Davidson and sponsors like that a few years ago. Even though the sport is being de-mystified, there are still people that say, “Oh, mixed martial arts, isn’t that the sport where people die in the cage?” or “Is that real?” But I think gradually people are going to take to the sport even more.

FT: Given that, do you think that even with the expanded growth and more sponsorships and more televised fights and network deals, do you think MMA as a whole will ever get to the point where you don’t see shows hosted in these back rooms and strip clubs anymore? Do you think all the shows are going to take on a more professional appearance like the UFC does?

Wertheim: There’s always a buck to me made, and you still need a feeder system. Like if you go to an NBA minor league game, that’s really the equivalent of one of the MMA strip club shows. I think those are always going to be there. As long as there is a buck to be made, I think that’s only going to continue, to be honest.

FT: Over the last couple seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, there has been some criticism that in spite of what it does for the athletes’ exposure and the chance to get in the UFC, that the show has taken a downturn when it comes to actual content. Do you think that TUF is still more a positive than a negative for the sport?

Wertheim: There are only so many variations of the show you can do. But I think it’s good to kind of pump the pay-per-views and the fighters. Everybody knows who Josh Koscheck is now. I think maybe they need to figure out a way to spice up the show a little bit, but I think the show has done a lot for the sport.

FT: Do you still watch TUF?

Wertheim: I don’t [Laughs]. Once you realize what’s going on – everybody has seen Dana swear – I don’t know how much more they can do with it.

FightTicker: You've written books on various sports like basketball, tennis, and pool. What kind of different challenges did you face writing a book on MMA?

Wertheim: That’s a good question, because in some ways it’s hard because I wrote a book about tennis, and that’s a sport I’ve covered, so with this, I was really trying to get up to speed on a lot of this stuff. But something that was easy [with mma] was that everybody was cool to deal with. If you want to talk to Randy [Couture], you talk to Randy [laughs]. Everybody was so easy to deal with, so open and honest, you’re not running through agents and that junk. It was a little tricky just because I didn’t initially know that much about the sport. Somebody would mention Gary Goodridge and I had to google him to figure out what it was, but it was very nice to work on a project where everybody was pretty accessible.

FT: When you told your colleagues you were going to write a book about mma, how did they react to that?

Wertheim: It was two years ago, and it [mma] has come a long way since then, but a reaction I got a lot was, “You’re writing a book about what?” And the people asking me this are mainstream sports journalists. It kind of gave me the sense that despite what Dana says, the sport still has a way to go. There were people from major TV networks asking if they [the fighters] used props. I think mma has come a long way, but there are still an awful lot of people who don’t differentiate it from something like a Toughman Competition.

FT: Along the way, did you have any doubts that this book was something you’d be able to parlay into a success or were you more concerned with doing it for your own edification, to inform yourself and others?

Wertheim: I think the publisher knew there was a market there, and it may not be what the 55 year old reader would like, but there was a demographic [for it]. It was hard, because I wanted to kind of write a mainstream book, and write it so the average sports fan could get a feel for what the sport was about. But I also didn’t want it to be all John McCain, human cockfighting – I wanted to make it so your readers could get something out of it. But I didn’t want it to be so specific, just talking about who triangle’d whom in UFC 11. It was sort of a balance between writing a mainstream book and also making it interesting enough so that the guy who had just been watching UFC could still get it.

FT: You used a lot of different quotations to open the chapters in the book, from Hemingway to Lao Tzu, Bruce Lee, Dana White, Sugar Ray Leonard – why did you want to start each chapter of the book with a quotation?

Wertheim: It was really a device to show different aspects of combat and fighting and competition. One thing I wanted to do with the book was just kind of clear up some of the misconceptions [about MMA]. You can like it or you can hate it, but I wanted to make the point that it’s legitimate competition. It’s not as barbaric as people might think it is.

FT: One of the topics that has been big in MMA news as of late is the fight to pass MMA legislation in New York. One of its biggest opponents, Assemblyman Bob Reilly has made some statements that MMA is more dangerous than boxing and football. Taking a sport like boxing versus MMA – do you think one is necessarily more violent than the other?

Wertheim: I think you can’t sanction boxing and not sanction MMA. I think boxing is so much worse. I think the promoters are more abusive, the fighters have harder lives afterward. Say what you will about the guys in MMA, but they’re not taking 30 minutes of non-stop headshots. They can take each other down and grapple, and with boxing you just stand there and eat leather. If you don’t like and you don’t want to see it sanctioned, that’s fine, but you can’t sanction boxing and not sanction MMA.

FT: A logistical question – the book was mainly about Militech – why the picture of Liddell in the front?

Wertheim: The author doesn’t always pick the cover [Laughs]. They [the editors] thought it [the picture of Liddell] was an arresting image.

FT: In the press packet I read through for Blood in the Cage, David Mamet is quoted as saying “As Voltaire said, ‘That’s why they invented the squeegee’”. What do you think Mamet was trying to convey with that?

Wertheim: He’s a big MMA guy, and I think he was thinking, “People bleed, it’s a part of life.”

FT: Do you have any other plans to write another book on MMA?

Wertheim: I just finished a tennis book, actually, going back to my roots a little bit. I don’t have any immediate plans to do it, but I wouldn’t be adverse to that.

FT: If people could only take away one thing from Blood in the Cage, what would you want it to be?

Wertheim: I think it depends on who the reader is. My big thing is, not everyone is going to like it [MMA], I understand that. But at least have the facts. At least understand what it is, and that’s what I was trying to do with the book. It’s [MMA] not for everyone and it’s always going to be controversial and have its critics, but I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions, what it is, what it isn’t, and you see where I stand on this. It’s here to stay, it’s not a fad, it’s not the XFL, it’s not something that we’re not going to know what it is in two years. If you don’t like it, fine, but at least know what you’re talking about.

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Wertheim was a great guy to talk to, and I really enjoyed Blood in the Cage. For a guy who claimed to have only picked up the sport a few years ago, I think he gave readers a fair and honest portrayal of the sport and one of its legends.

-PreView

(Originally posted on FightTicker.com)

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If there were ever a reason not to do steroids....

I recently wrote an article about drug use in MMA and the numerous reasons I think it's bad. However, during the span of that article, I didn't talk too much about the negative physical effects it can have. I'm sure you've all heard the stories, but I'd never run across one as bad as this. Check out the story and images after the jump, but be prepared, they're GRAPHIC.


Check out the full article here. Pictures copyrighted (not by me)



-PreView

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What Really Matters In the Olympics - Showering and 12,000 Calories

Olympic fever is fully upon us. There are judokas throwing, boxers boxing, wrestlers wrestling, gymnasts flipping/twisting/turning/jumping, and divers showering. Yes, divers showering. It is, in my humble opinion, the most homoerotic activity of the Olympics.

For an analysis about how people asking stupid questions about the Olympics elicits stupid answers, and for the 12,000 calorie “revolution”, keep reading…..


Among other things, there has been a discussion of answers to odd questions about the Olympics, one of the most popular being, “Why do the divers go right to the showers after diving?” And determined to keep up with the homoerotic motif, one of the NBC Diving Analysts, Cynthia Potter stated, because “they want to have fun.” Seriously? They want to have fun? Granted, I’m sure divers want to have fun, but I doubt the divers’ ideas of having fun involve showering in front of the whole world, since the showers are public, and in full view of the audience, tv cameras, everybody.

Yes, in view of everyone – didn’t China spend a ridiculous amount of money on these new buildings? I know they did – could they not have included at least some semi-public showers? They had to know what was going to be happening. Seriously.

The real reason the divers shower/rinse off after a dive is because the water in the pool is generally fairly cool, and the showers warm them up and keep their muscles loose. Hmm….that sounds like a fake reason – I’m sure it’s really the “fun” thing. I mean, seriously – I know the gymnasts, judokas, boxers, wrestlers and everybody are jealous. They too want to have fun, but it’s not as “olympically” acceptable for them to get a quick shower right after the match. Further, I think that the divers getting a shower is redundant – they just got out of clean water – why do they need to get showered by more clean water? Now the wrestlers on the other hand, or the boxers – those guys (and girls) definitely could use a shower more after a match than a diver.

This question dominated the Yahoo: Sports page for almost two days – ridiculous. In a time where there are serious things happening in the Olympics (i.e. scandal over the potentially underage Chinese gymnasts or the fact that Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian denounced his bronze medal) let’s focus on the showers, because that is where the real mystery lies.

In other news, Michael Phelps recently won his 12th overall Gold Medal; still on his way to pursuing a record-breaking 8 gold medals in one Olympics. However, the number 12 that has recently emerged as important is not his 12th gold medal, but the 12,000 CALORIES HE EATS EVERYDAY. 12,000!!!!!

Now, there is clearly a method to this madness. Phelps works out approximately 30 hours a week. And given his physique and Olympic domination, I think it’s easy to see that he works hard during these work outs, so he needs plenty of calories to make up for everything he burns.

So, for your enjoyment (or disappointment or jealousy or whatever) I’m going to post his “average” daily menu.

BREAKFAST: 3 fried egg sandwiches, 2 cups coffee, 5-egg omlette, bowl of grits, 3 pieces of French toast, 2 chocolate chip pancakes.

LUNCH: 1 pound pasta, 2 ham and cheese sandwiches, energy drink (of the 1,000 calorie variety).

DINNER: 1 pound pasta, 1 large pizza, another 1,000 calorie energy drink.

There you go – and trust me, I’m sure that’s not it. I don’t doubt for a second that he eats at least twice more per day, perhaps three times. Definitely not as much, but I’m sure he eats more times per day to keep his metabolism up. Also, for a bit of speculation, even though Phelps didn’t say what brand or kind of energy drinks he drinks, I don’t think it’s those of the Red Bull variety. In fact, I would guess it’s not what most people think of as an energy drink at all, but more of a protein shake.

I looked around at some different nutritional information and every time I tried to search something like “1,000 calorie energy drink” everything that came up were things like protein shakes for hard gainers (those who work out excessively). They need the calories because of all the energy they burn, just like Phelps. So I’d guess he’s chugging some crazy protein shakes. Regardless, it’s working.

However, I bring this up because I think everyone knows that 12,000 calories seems like a lot. In fact, it’s 9,500 more than the FDA recommends for an “active, young man”. I know that from all the food I listed above, you could tell he eats a lot, but since most people don’t have the same menu, I’ll throw some comparisons out there you should recognize.

12,000 calories equals:

- 80 cans of Pepsi

- 22 Big Macs

- 24 Large Fries, from McDonald’s

- 4 Orders Aussie Fries (with cheese and bacon) from the Outback Steakhouse.

Okay, so that last one may not seem too crazy compared to the first three, but considering the fact that Aussie Fries were voted, by Men’s Health Magazine (among others), the worst food in America, I think it’s kind of telling.

Regardless, his food intake is crazy.

So there you have it – the two most important recent aspects of the Olympics. Naturally. Showers and what Phelps eats for dinner. Is it just me or is the Olympic coverage starting to turn into an issue of some woman’s magazine? I can see the cover now. “How to have fun in the shower.” “What Michael Phelps likes for his 4,000 calorie dinner.” “How to look good in skintight spandex” and so on and so forth.

So for now, I leave you as your humble reporter for all things random in the Olympics, and true to the randomness, I’ll leave you with one more random fact. In case you didn’t know, the black stuff that’s been on Kerri Walsh’s (Puddin’s girl) shoulder, it’s kinesiotape, and the formation of it supports her rotator cuff, as she recently had shoulder surgery. Puddin was supposed to be the one to apply it, but the Chinese delegation protested his visa….but that’s a story for another day.

- PreView

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The Olympics (and the newly established P.O.C.)

I love the Olympics. Besides the Misty May-Treanors and Kerri Walshs of the games (mine and Puddin’s girls), I love the contact sports. Judo, wrestling, tae kwon do and boxing. I know it comes as no surprise to any of my readers (all 4 of them) that I love the contact sports given my propensity to clog the blog with articles on mixed martial arts. However, as I stressed in my article on martial arts vs. mixed martial arts, I love the individual fighting disciplines as well.

While I love the all-out intensity and mixed disciplines in mixed martial arts, I appreciate experts in any art. I find the fluidity with which they work, and their devotion to a single discipline very inspiring. And frankly, in spite of the fierce competition and ethnocentricity that comes out in Olympics time, I think the overall message of the Olympics is inspiration.

Take Dara Torres, for example. She’s a 41 year old who has already proven herself as an Olympic swimmer; appearances in 4 prior Olympics, and 9 medals total (and a smokin’ hottie), and yet she’s going back to do it again, to become the oldest woman to ever win an Olympic medal. She has her detractors, and many of them. All many people can say is “performance enhancing drugs”. However, she has given herself up to a ridiculous testing procedure (in addition to all the sanctioned Olympic testing procedures), recently established, to prove to everyone that she’s drug free.

The basic principle of this new testing procedure is that instead of a normal drug test which tests urine or blood at individual points of time, this tests takes samples at various intervals during both training and competition, over longer periods of time, to first establish a baseline level of hormone and other substances, and then they measure all subsequent tests against that baseline. So, the process is much more intense, and could clearly interfere with one’s training and daily activities, but Dara has subjected herself to it because she wants to be an inspiration.

So in light of all this self-sacrifice and inspiration, I could write about intense training the athletes go through, or the skill these athletes display, or any number of other things….but instead, I’d rather address the fact that I will not be able to watch the sports I enjoy, live, because of the idiots at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and NBC.



First, kudos to NBC for getting the contract to broadcast the Olympics, and kudos to them to showing the events on their multiple networks (CNBC, USA, Telemundo). Knowing that they were going to show the sports over four channels, I thought I’d be able to fill up my DVR with the contact sports (and some shooting sports as well), but when I was looking at the TV schedule for the games, I noticed that Judo, for example, has no TV times scheduled at all. At first I thought this was just a mistake, but no, that’s not the case. It’s the same with Tae Kwon Do. There are a few wrestling and boxing matches that will be shown on TV, but only a very few.

To be fair, NBC has a scheduled a ton of live online broadcasts for everything that won’t be shown on TV, but because they’re showing them live, and because of the time difference, if I want to watch Judo, I’m going to have to get up at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday night. What the hell? Granted, I did do this to watch the US soccer team play 2002 World Cup, but to be fair, that was during the summer and I worked as a runner at a law firm during the day and as a manager at a video store at night – not the most challenging of jobs. Now my job is of a bit more importance, so I can’t do that anymore.

Will NBC archive some of this video footage? Sure they will. And was I planning on watching these events on TV live? No, I was going to DVR them. But there is a difference in watching things on my 34” TV as opposed to my 19” computer monitor.

As a quick aside, I generally don’t hate on corporate America, mainly because I whore myself out to them every time I go to Wal-Mart or any of the other multi-national conglomerates I visit on a daily basis, but it bothers me that the Olympics are on a single network. Why not dole out ALL the sports to all the major networks and then they can broadcast everything…..everything.

I guess what bothers me more than having to watch my favorite events on my computer as opposed to my TV is the fact that NBC has chosen to broadcast the usual excessive smattering of gymnastics and swimming (I don’t care about watching dudes in speedos no matter how fast they swim), and synchronized events in both, and God forbid, Trampoline. Trampoline? Are you kidding me? While I wouldn’t necessarily call these people “athletes”, I do recognize the fact that they are very skilled and are in great shape. But seriously – a trampoline?

Seeing this on the schedule made me then ask – how in the world did something like this become an Olympic sport? I checked out the ever-popular wikipedia as well as wikianswers and yahoo answers, and found out that to become an Olympic sport, among other things, a sport has to be practiced by men in 75 countries on 3 continents, women in 40 countries on 3 continents and have an international governing body for regulation. Then, if initially approved, the sport is recognized as a “demonstration sport” in which competitors compete during the Olympics (but not for medals, and they are not recognized as Olympians). Then the IOC has a committee which votes before each Olympics on what sports to include as part of the “programme”. For summer Olympics, there must be a minimum of 15 sports and a maximum of 28. Now, anything that has been previously declared an Olympic sport will remain an Olympic sport even if it’s not included at subsequent games. There are a number of sports listed as demonstration sports on the IOC website; chess, surfing, tug of war, korfball and orienteering. I’ll leave you to your own devices to find out what those are.

So, back to my new favorite sport to hate – trampoline. It was first approved as an Olympic sport in 1999 and debuted at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Both the NBC website and the IOC website have a list of medal winners and such, but since I hate this activity, the PreView Olympic Commission (POC) will not be recognizing it as an activity, nor recognizing its medals winners. Clearly, the trampoline athletes will be forever crushed when they realize this, and the IOC will appoint me to a determining committee, or at the very least NBC will let me help decide their future programming schedule….or, I’ll just continue ranting and raving on my blog and nothing will happen.

So, about this “activity”, I feel compelled to ask – are there really men in 75 countries on 4 continents and women in 40 countries on 3 continents practicing this activity? And if so, I wonder how long it would take me to go around to all the men in these 75 countries and kick them in the nuts? And taking this line of thought to what I feel is clearly the next logical step – POC will now designate another sport to take the place of the Trampoline “activity”. My first choice would be cornhole; second would be watching people try to avoid having their faces eaten by my dog, Boo – just ask Puddin’ – when she unleashes the fury, she can’t be stopped.

Seriously – there are plenty of gymnastic type sports, tons of variations, and apparently, NBC is broadcasting all of them….and most of the rounds, preliminary and otherwise – why not sacrifice some of the preliminary rounds with the lesser-knowns and show some Judo? Seriously. Further, I think the Olympians who medal in any sport should be recognized, and the “medal rounds” should be broadcasted. I don’t think anybody would mind not seeing the 764th gymnastics ribbon floor routine if they could see somebody medal in wrestling.

However, not all of the blame can rest with NBC. I also blame Beijing. China is a country whose culture is steeped largely in martial arts – and since they’re hosting, they surely have some say on what sports are broadcast, so why didn’t they pick judo and tae kwon do?

Now, I further realize that even though POC is the second most preeminent authority on the Olympics, that not everyone would go along with the suggested POC viewing schedule. However, I know that I’m not the only person who would want to see these events. Not to mention, ESPN broadcasted some of the wrestling qualifying rounds after seeing them triumph on a national level, I’d like to see them triumph on an international level. Oh yeah, and I’m American, and POC is an American based committee – and America has the most overall medals so I, as an American, should be able to decide which sports I would like to view at what time. Right? Right.

So, in an effort to showcase the sports I feel are under-emphasized, I will posting as many videos, or links to videos, that I am able (and legally allowed) to post in hopes of showing everybody else what I love so much. Yet another thing I can do because it’s my blog, and I can do whatever the hell I want. And maybe I’ll write the IOC a letter, and see if I can get the POC established as sort of an anti-governing body, to undesignated sports as Olympic Sports…..Trampoline – look out – you’re first on the list.

-PreView

By the way, Puddin and GAM are automatic members of POC, if they choose to accept their appointments. Others may send their applications to me. Beware, though, any good application would include a 1000 word essay on why "Trampoline" should be abolished.


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The Speedbag Skunk

I came across this video the other day, of the "Speedbag Skunk". Not the most attractive name, I'll say, but this guy can work a speedbag like crazy, so I thought I'd post the video because it impressed me.

He doesn't really get going until about 1:10, but it's worth the wait.

-PreView


And here is the rest of it.
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Puddin's Sportsisms in the News

There is an article about Gina Carano by Kevin Iole on MMA Junkie.com. It's a decent article. And for the record, Ms. Carano is seriously putting pressure on my current Top 5.

Well, if you read the article, and you're familiar with this blog, something will jump right off the page. I won't build the suspense. Rather, I'll post one of the comments following the article...
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bigd342 [Unregistered] on May 29, 2008 at 2:33 pm ET

STOP WITH THE "METORIC [sic] RISE" TERM. IT IS HORRIBLE
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Apart from the All Caps and spelling error, this post delighted me to no end. The term was used twice in the article. Twice! The term is horrible, indeed. Thank you for helping spread the word, bigd342.

~Puddin'

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Sports Sayings That Have To Go (Installment 3)

A quick recap of what's been covered so far:

1. We (they) hit them (us) in the mouth.
2. Pace.
3. Meteoric rise.
4. Here's a guy...
5. Literally.
6. Mathematically Eliminated.

Flat out. This phrase is nearly always used in the following context: "Here's a guy who can flat out hit!" Basically, the phrase is a ridiculous way of saying "really." To fix what's wrong with the aforementioned phrase, an announcer would simply have to say, "[Player's last name] can really hit!" It gets the same point across, but in fewer words. I guess many of the phrases cited here are a result of on-air broadcasters having an inappropriately enlarged sense of self-importance. I think they also fear that they have to constantly be saying something in order to earn their paycheck. I suppose it's a culture thing among broadcasters to come up with dumbass modifiers and metaphors. Just use plain English, dammit! It may be hard to believe, but most of the sports fans out here think that most announcers just get in the way of watching a game! If you (I'm speaking to most announcers here) feel you have to state the obvious, keep it short. Tell me, after Votto's 3rd home run, that "Votto can really hit!" Sure I already know, but now you feel better about having said something, and I can get back to enjoying the game sooner. Win-win. Regardless, the rampant use of such sports-isms is out of control. For fuck's sake, they even made a video game called "Flat Out." They should have just called the game "Really."


I apologize... This isn't really a sports-ism, but it's a widespread occurrence in sports. It comes in all different shapes and sizes, and yet, it rarely means anything. It's a pathetic PR attempt by an athlete to cover his ass after knowingly doing something wrong and getting caught. If any of these guys were truly sorry, they wouldn't do the shit in the first place. I want an apology when Football Player X backs over his neighbor's chihuahua in his driveway after not checking the mirrors on his Land Rover. Apologies are for when people fuck up, not when people purposely violate laws or common decency. Or, I could accept an apology when an athlete does something wrong, but admits to it before he is caught. Yeah, kinda like having a conscience. The idea for this entry came to me after listening to Roger Clemens' bullshit blanket apology for "mistakes" he had made. Apparently those mistakes are between him and his family, which is why he didn't disclose them in said apology. Mind you, Clemens' apology came on the heels of the report that he was banging a 15 year old when he was 28. (Roger, come on man... you gotta pay attention to the details.) So while Roger was in Cy Young form, he was fucking this:

Now, in fairness to Roger, that used to be this:

All the same, he knew (or should have known) that what he (allegedly) was doing was wrong. Don't fucking apologize 20 years later because you were outed, you bastard. But Clemens is just one example in a litany of cases in which athletes knowingly do something wrong, then ask for forgiveness once they are caught. Save it... fake apologies are more obvious than when a woman is in denial about having facial hair.

On the hot seat. This phrase is usually used to reference the tenuous situation in which a coach finds himself when his team underachieves (although there is/was a Sportscenter segment where an anchor would lob softball questions to an athlete/coach in rapid succession, thereby creating the illusion of hard-hitting sports journalism). A coach on the hot seat may or may not be fired. Again, a stupid metaphor rears its ugly head thanks to today's sports media pundits and broadcasters. I understand the metaphor... one cannot sit on a hot seat very long. Ever sat on a black vinyl driver's seat when the car has been in the sun all day? You almost have to peel your melted skin off of the seat. Still, can't we reign in the sports media and have a return to plain English? The only hot seat I care to hear about is this one (or one like it):

Maybe more entries later.

~Puddin'

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Sports Sayings That Have To Go (Installment 2)

In case you were wondering, there is a heated debate going on in the comments section of my previous post.

Just to recap, here are the first 3 entries:

1. We (they) hit them (us) in the mouth.
2. Pace.
3. Meteoric rise.

If you don't like my entries or my thoughts about them, go to hell and post on your own blog. Or post a comment. Whatever.

Also, I've found a running theme through all my posts. The theme is that with each post, I have posted a picture of an attractive female celebrity. I like this theme, and I will make it my M.O. for the duration of my involvement with the blog.

And for the next 3 sports-isms that I despise...



"Here's a guy..." This phrase was coined by John Madden circa 1998 (75 lbs. and 2.5 head sizes ago). Al Michaels uses it now. That pussy Joe Buck uses it now. Even Chris Welsh uses it now. It was kinda cute when Madden said it, because Madden could say anything at any time. It was a quirk of his that should not have been adopted by other announcers. Other announcers don't say "BRAK!" do they? No, they do not. Look, Mr. Welsh/Buck/Michaels et al., when you are talking about a player, and you have made it clear who this player is by using his name or by some other means of reference, there is no need for the superfluous "Here's a guy..." Just use a simple pronoun or his last name (not his first, unless used in conjunction with his last... that's a separate entry). There is no need to reintroduce the person about whom you are already speaking. And even if you have not made it clear about whom you are speaking, just fucking tell us!

Literally. While 82% of all statistics are made up, 99.9927% of instances of the word "literally" in sports broadcasts occur in situations when the announcer, in fact, means the exact opposite. Example: "He literally bulldozed his way into the endzone!" Broken down, the announcer is LITERALLY saying that the ball-carrier brought a piece of heavy construction equipment onto the field, got in the cockpit, fired it up, and then proceeded to operate this piece of equipment in such a way that he made it into the endzone, clearing out all in his path. The announcer means to say that the ball-carrier ran into the endzone despite several opposing players trying to prevent him, by physical force, from doing so. Thus, said ball-carrier NOT LITERALLY bulldozed his way into the endzone. Just drop the word "literally" and you have your metaphor. Sometimes less is more.

By the way, Megan Fox is literally as hot as the sun.

Here's a girl who looks good in and on yellow!

Mathematically Eliminated. I am referring to the use of this phrase in relation to qualifying for the playoffs, in any sport. I suppose that the term is a contrast to the term "practically eliminated." The difference, as I see it, might be that a team 10 games back with 12 to play is practically eliminated, though is not mathematically eliminated. And yet, the concept of elimination is understood as binary... like being pregnant or being dead. You either are, or you aren't. There's no gray area. So, if an announcer said that "the [insert my favorite team, because I hear it every year with all my favorite teams] are eliminated," I would immediately conclude that there is no scenario in which they can make the playoffs. It becomes a mathematical inquiry. Thus, to say a team is "mathematically eliminated" is entirely redundant. I understand the use of "practically eliminated," but its counterpart should simply be "eliminated."

By way of analogy, let's suppose you have a friend who has been married almost 3 years, whose wife talks incessantly about her nieces and nephews, she's forced her husband to repaint the guest bedroom with pastel colors and to get his Playboys and Jenna Jameson collection out of the closet, and she bought a book of baby names when she was shopping for Tide (with bleach) at Target last weekend. If this were my friend, I would chide him by saying that his wife is "practically pregnant." He understands what I am trying to say. Sure, she's not really pregnant, but for all intents and purposes, it's a done deal. Now let's say the same friend's wife stops using birth control for a month and gets knocked up when she mysteriously changes her hair color, buys new slutty lingerie, and actually lets him do her in the butt for a few minutes first, notwithstanding the epic horror show that ensued the last time they tried it. Then she's pregnant. You wouldn't call her "scientifically pregnant" or "biologically pregnant." No. You'd call her a fucking bitch. And still, she's just pregnant. No need to modify that adjective. Herein lies my point.

I hate when an individual person redundantly repeats himself over and over. Really annoys me.

Maybe more entries later.

~Puddin'

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Sports Sayings That Have To Go (Installment 1)

I love sports. I watch sports all the time. I spend way too much of my time with sports (or so my wife tells me). That being said, there are a number of sports-isms, if you will, that make me want to launch the remote control through the TV. For the record, I could not afford (literally) such an expression of my ire. Anyway, I am going to compile a list with these sports-isms, including a blurb about each. Though there may be some overlap, I promise I am not stealing any of this from Bill Simmons.



"We (they) hit them (us) in the mouth." This expression refers to one team being tougher and more physical than the other team. You will almost always hear this from 1 of 2 possible sources. 1) Football players in a post-game press conference, describing why his team either won or lost. 2) Keyboard warriors on football message boards, describing what it will take to win in a given week. (See: Steelers/Ravens fans, whose teams play ugly fucking football, but use illegal tactics to appear tough and win anyway.)

OK, we get it. Football teams have to be tough to win. But why the mouth? Why not the nose? Or the ear? Why not "kick in the teeth"? Joe Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks (yes, the NBA Atlanta Hawks) just used that in a post-game press conference to describe why Boston was beating Atlanta early in Game 4. So now this saying has spread to basketball?? If it's being tougher and physical-er (wait, that doesn't sound right... oh well) than your opponent, can't we all agree to just use plain English instead of some ridiculous metaphor? And if you have ever typed that on a message board, you're a douchebag. Because you're probably a Steelers fan.

Pace. I've watched golf for many years. I love having lazy Saturdays or Sundays where I can flip back and forth between golf and some other sporting event. There's something soothing about the soft voices of the announcers, the music going to and coming from commercials, and the green grass everywhere. But when I hear an announcer or golfer say the word "pace," I almost lose it. For years, people used the appropriate word: "speed." Then, I think some time between the end of the season in '02 and the start of the season in '03, they (the PGA Skulls, of course) had an underground meeting and decided that no one associated with professional golf can ever use the word "speed" to describe how fast a ball is traveling toward the cup. Just like that, everyone and their grandmas started saying, "That putt has good pace!" or "He didn't put enough pace on it!" It's not pace... it's fucking SPEED! How fast did the ball go? Did he hit it hard enough? Those are the important questions. But "pace"??? I know it means essentially the same thing as "speed," but it's ridiculous that everyone says "pace" now, when they used the more accurate and appropriate word forever before that fateful day in the dungeoned halls below Augusta. Happy Gilmore would never say "pace." It's phony. I hate phony.

Meteoric rise. Tracing the etymology of this term, I found that it dates all the way back to 2003, when Brian Goldberg thought he was being clever in a UFC broadcast. Even if you don't follow the UFC, you may recognize Goldberg from his extensive work on FSN announcing beach volleyball. Because I love the UFC, and I have a crush on Kerri Walsh (pictured below), I am very familiar with his work.

Anymore, the phrase is used to describe musicians, movie and tv stars, even business big wigs. Some people may tell you that the phrase was used before Goldberg, but they are dirty liars. So listen to me, not them. Anyway, the phrase sucks because 1) Goldberg has no other way to describe a fighter's early success in the UFC; and 2) we don't see meteors unless they FALL into our atmosphere. That's right, boys and girls. Sometimes you hear the phrase "meteor shower." What about that makes you picture something rising? Nothing. Meteors don't rise. End of story. Sweet, sweet Goldberg... I beg of you... please do not use this phrase ever again!

More entries later.

~Puddin'
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