Category — Rear-naked joke

My gut reaction upon seeing this Peeping Tom video of Chuck Liddell and girlfriend Heidi Northcott getting buff in the buff was to throw up a little bit in my mouth. There are somethings I just don’t need to see. Liddell’s little Iceman slapping thighs is one of them, even if it’s blurry.

Turns out the clip was staged. It’s a viral video advertising the new Reebok ZigTech sneakers, the only thing Liddell is wearing while he exercises. It’s actually the second Reebok video the Ultimate Fighter coach has been in – he appeared, along with a handful of other sports stars, in a video featuring Jersey Shore’s Pauly D and “The Situation.”

And while I may need a breath mint after watching it, I have to admit that it does the trick. Now I have no idea what it will do for sales of Reeboks (MMA fighters don;t wear shoes in the cage so I’m not sure how being associated with Liddell will help). But it is bringing MMA more mainstream exposure – latenight talking head Jimmy Kimmel mentioned the naked Chuck clip in his monologue yesterday.

Because it’s Friday and we could use a laugh to end the week/start the weekend, here’s a clip from a Panamanian TV show called La Cascara in which a U.S. soldier enters an amateur boxing competition (which seems to have all the randomness of an open mic night). Enjoy.

On one level this is another example of the mainstreaming of MMA. On another level, it’s funny and gives me a reason to like Keith Jardine despite his less-than-stellar performances in the octagon of late.

I’m not one to talk about how anyone else makes their matrimonial vows. I was married at the Welcome to Vegas sign by a fat 70s Elvis, the taste of tequila and stripper spit still fresh in my mouth. Looking at the woman of my dreams while trying not to throw up on Elvis’s blue suede shoes, I somehow managed to blurt out “I do.” That my wife didn’t run off with Elvis is a miracle on the level of loaves and fishes.

But I realized I was seriously upstaged when I read that Ultimate Fighter 6 cast member John Kolosci married his fiancee in the cage.

Upon reflection, the decision makes perfect sense. Both fighting and a wedding ceremony involve walking down the aisle with theme music and hopefully good people in your corner egging you on. Both involve contracts and for many cutting weight for the given event. Unfortunately, in a marriage it is next to impossible to call off the event or exact a fine if your spouse does not make the weigh in.

The only thing that really seems to be missing was one of the Buffer brothers officiating the ceremony. What truer, wiser and more profound words could be passed on to a new couple then “Lets get ready to rumble”?

A friend passed this along and it reminded me of a comment I made moments after Fedor Emelianenko knocked out Brett Rogers on Saturday. I wondered how long it would be before one of those Hitler reaction videos would pop up online with him screaming about Rogers losing. This one is just strange and poetic and silly.

This is sort of funny. Seems Julia Lillis has a little crush on Fedor Emelianenko. She’s no Sarah Silverman, but not bad.

I missed this 10.16 piece in the Globe and Mail story on the rising popularity of chessboxing in the U.K. (thanks, Vern). As you can imagine, this “sport” combines chess and boxing as two players/fighters alternate between four-minute chess rounds and three-minute boxing rounds with a winner determined by checkmate or knockout. As the story explains, “It’s like the Fight Club, only with tiny plastic queens.”

This doesn’t surprise me a bit. MMA has been described as kinetic chess. My club has a chess board set up in the reception area where members often play a game before or after rolling. Chessboxing just takes it to the next geeky level. Although sometime around the third or fourth round I think all I could manage is checkersboxing.

I’m undecided as to whether this makes Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of Tool, a colossal tool or a major bad-ass. It’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on, but if you watch carefully you’ll see a fan hop on-stage mid-concert and flap his arms like an idiot, at which point Keenan hip-tosses him to the ground, scrambles to take his back, locks in a rear-naked choke and chokes him out. All while still singing the song. The song’s title? Stranglehold. Keenan then mounts the now-writhing fan and begins tapping out the beat to the next song by slapping him. According to a wiki search Keenan has trained under Rickson Gracie. So, what’s your call – total tool or totally bad-ass?

Thanks to Scott Wallace over at the cool jiu-jitsu site Scott On The Net for pointing this out.

This video is funny all on its own but has absolutely nothing to do with MMA unless you imagine it’s either Joe Rogan (my suggestion) or the entirely more hilarious Paulo Filho (the suggestion of a friend from BJJ; thanks, Roman).

An acquaintance asked me to promote her Pillow Fight League event tonight in Toronto. No fucking way. Just because it’s got the word “fight” in the middle doesn’t make it fighting or a sport or athletic or deserving of respect in any way, shape or form. Pillow fighting is something girls do at sleepovers. In their underwear. And only in that context should there be spectators.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has posted on his official blog once again. He talks about how the UFC treated him better than PRIDE FC, how UFC president Dana White disrespected him, how Rashad Evans disrespected him, how he had a rough childhood, how his family loves him now, how his mind was something called “TRUCK status” when he fought Wanderlei Silva, how he’s a man, er, MAN, etc.  I’ve boldfaced the things I think are interesting/relevant/silly/incomprehensible. Just thought I’d pass this along for all you Rampage nut-huggers out there.

Who’s the baby?

Make no mistake the UFC treated me a lot better than Pride. If you get hurt in training in a UFC fight then will send you to the best doctors. If you get hurt in a Pride fight most of the time they will tell me “oh you better take care of that!” The UFC will always let you know in a timely matter who you will be fighting & give you enough time to train but with Pride if I knew 4 weeks ahead I would be happy cause most times they just give you a 2 weeks notice.

Pride will rip you off on your merchandising but the UFC would find someway to hook you up on merchandising deals. Pride will make fights easier for certain fighters inside the ring (like standing up fights early). With the UFC whatever happens happens. The only thing I see the UFC needs to fix in this area is to get better judges. Ones who know about MMA & not from the boxing world.
The reason why I’m talking about all this is that I feel like this whole situation could have been avoided if UFC would have respected me more & rescheduled the fight about a month or more in my hometown, which I know fights can be rescheduled because of the Matt Hughes & Matt Serra was postponed due to injuries. Instead, Dana went on the internet & started talking bad about my decision. All we had to do was come to a certain type of argreement or understanding, which later came after a lot of trash talk from Dana.

My manager flew to Vegas & talked to them & tried to work things out like a MAN. & still I keep quite & I didn’t talk trash back on the internet. The only reason why I’m even talking now is because I feel like I owe my fans an explanation because I am a MAN, a real MAN. Yeah I made good money with the UFC more than Pride, but I made both shows more money than they made me. I didn’t care too much about Pride treating me like crap cause I was an American in a Japanese company. Now in my own country, I feel like I’m being disrepected. Everything is not about how much money you make. You could be the richest man in the world but if nobody repsects you then it don’t mean shit. You can’t buy respect. It should be earned. & thats what I’m all about.

Now Rashad wanna put his two cents in. Rashad remains to be a boy under me. He wins a few fights, and some of them I thought the judges fell asleep during the fight & woke up & saw him playing with his nipples & guessed he won. He knocked Chuck Liddel out when Chuck wasn’t even the same man anymore. & now he thinks he’s on my level. Yeah he talks about how he beat Forrest & I lost. But when I fought Forrest that was the worst Rampage I had ever seen. & I still know in my heart I won that fight. So now he’s Mr. All Cocky & says I got a big mouth & talk a lot of smack. If my memory serves me correctly, he’s the one that got into my face after the Jardine fight & started talking trash when he was the one that was originally supposed to fight me that night, but he told Dana on the phone he didn’t want to fight. He wanted to keep his belt longer.

Now, I’m not saying wether or not I would have beaten Machida, but I wouldn’t have went out like a bitch like the way he did. So I’m the one that was looking forward to the Rashad fight the most. I have always been a fighter my whole life. As a kid my family treated me like shit which made me the person who I am today. This is why when I meet people I treat people the way I want to be treated (unless they approach me wrong or piss me off). I grew up thinking that I wasn’t even important to my family which made me not even care about myself. That’s why I can get knee-ed in the face 15 times & come back for more. That’s why I can get my legs seriously hurt in a fight & still try to win. Thats why I can get my ribs broken in a fight & not tap out because my whole life I never thought I mattered to anybody or anybody cared about me.

But now I have kids that love me & care about me & I’m not used to people caring about me but it feels good! I’m a very loyal person. Wolves are the most loyal animals on the planet. I was very loyal to the UFC, but now I owe all my loyalty to my kids… the ones who really care for me. The majority of my fights on the street I fought for free & they all were with emotion. I am a fighter, I will always be a fighter but my professional fights that were fought with emotion, I ended them all in devestating fashion. I am the wrong fighter that should fight pissed off professionally. I don’t even consider it fair. So Rashad says he will fight me for free. I will gladly meet him at any gym & fight him just to shut his mouth up. & I mean that for real!

When I told Dana I did not want my belt back & that I just wanted to make money, it was around the time when they gave me Vanderlei & actually it was around the same time when my mind wasn’t right (my mind was at TRUCK status) & that’s the way I felt because I felt I had been robbed out of my belt. After the Jardine fight I did want my belt back because my family was so proud of me when I was champion & I want to make my family proud cause now I finally feel like my family cares about me & they accept me & this is what I’ve been wanting my whole childhood… for my family to like me. If I got to beat some ass for my family to like me, so be it. But now, I’m a grown man & I’ll be damned if anybody disrespects me. I’m not having it, it’s not happening!

A little old but worth a quick look. Again, though, some people have way too much time on their hands.