Posts Tagged ‘sports writing’

The Axe Murderer Bids Aaaahhhhdieu

Posted: September 30, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
9/30/2014

One of the greatest and most exciting fighters with the undisputed most intimidating nickname in the history of mixed martial arts retired recently.

Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva called it a career with 35-12 record in the middle of September 2014.

Silva retires with a wimper rather than in a blaze of glory, the opposite of how he fought and will be remembered by mixed martial arts fans worldwide. Silva retired by posting a video online, which was picked up by the mma and sports press. Shorty after the video announcement, Silva received a $70,000 fine and lifetime ban from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Silva blasted the UFC for underpaying him and all fighters in the video, also saying they killed his love of the sport by making him fight too much. Dana White responded by saying Silva was paid $9.7 million for six fights in five years.

It is unfortunate the way Silva’s career has ended. Regardless of specter of PED use and fight ducking that will hang over his retirement, Wanderlei Silva’s legacy and place in mixed martial arts history is forever intact thanks to his historically entertaining run through the Pride Fighting Championships of Japan from 2000-2007.

I originally became a fan of the UFC during their first few shows in the mid 90s but then like the majority of people, stopped watching. There are three fighters that made me a fan of the sport again; Wanderlei Silva, Frank Mir, and Tito Ortiz.  Ortiz for his ability to hype fights, Mir for his submission skills, and Silva for his insanely entertaining knockout ability.

During his prime Silva was a textbook knockout artist. Truly an artist. He KO’d top flight competition with his fists, elbows, knees, and kicks. He fought in the wild wild far east of Japan. Silva routinely fought people above his weight class in a promotion that was about the big fight atmosphere and freak match ups. In that environment and era, Silva was the king of the freaks and the big fights.

His middleweight title run (Pride’s equivalent to the UFC light heavyweight title) alone is worth looking into PrideFC. Silva was everything that fight fans want a fighter to be whether they admit it or not. Throwing caution and safety to the wind for the sake of either knocking out his opponent or getting knocked out in the process in the name of entertaining the people who paid to see him fight.

Silva is one of the last of a dying breed in mixed martial arts. A fighter first, martial artist second. He fought in bare knuckle fights years before he entered sanctioned competition. He wanted spectacular KO finishes rather than grinding out a decision victory to get a payday and a padded record. He fought heavyweights and super heavyweights rather than only fighting people he had a distinct size advantage over. He competed in tournaments regularly both before and during his championship reign.

2004 was the peak of Wanderlei Silva‘s career. He was the undisputed best fighter in the sport that year. Taking multiple awards/honors for fighter of the year and fight of the year from publications such as Sherdog, MMA Fighting, Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and Sports Illustrated.

No one who saw Wand’s prime will care about the checkered ending to his career. Our memory of him is too full of images of knockouts and Silva screaming into the camera after administering said knockout or as I like to think, the way a person who gets paid to be a fighter should be remembered.

The #UFC178 Main Event is All Bluff and No Stuff

Posted: August 5, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
8/4/2014

Nothing says illegitimate boxing or mixed martial arts prize fight like a fight at a press conference.

UFC 178 was supposed to be headlined by a rematch between Jon Jones vs Alexander Gustafsson for the Light Heavyweight Championship. Their first fight at UFC 165 was a legit contender for greatest fight of all time. Jones won by decision, people like me (Jones haters) consider the decision to be controversial. But it was a unanimous decision, not a split, so it isn’t as controversial as people like me wish it was.

Both men looked not just impressive, but genuinely great in their five round slug fest for the ages. Because Jones defended his belt, there was no guarantee of a rematch no matter how much the UFC fan base salivated for one. Gustafsson removed all obstacles by winning his next two fights, clearing his way for another shot at the light heavyweight crown. Unfortunately, Gustafsson suffered a knee injury during training and had to withdraw from the fight.

Daniel Cormier has been announced as the new opponent from Jones in September. Cormier is a very worthy contender, as he is undefeated in both UFC and Strikeforce. Cormier is so undefeated, he hasn’t even lost a round in fifteen professional fights.

The but in this case is a very big but.

Daniel Cormier needs knee surgery.

Now that he has a world title shot and a huge payday waiting for him in less than 60 days, of course Cormier doesn’t need surgery anymore.

UFC just canceled a pay per view due to an injury, they don’t want the egg on their face of having to do it again. More than the egg on the face, they certainly don’t want to lose all the revenue that would be lost from canceling two world title fights in three months.

Jon Jones is not a paper or fluke champion. There is a case to be made that he is the most dominant champion in UFC or mixed martial arts history. Therefore, putting anything short of an equal parts worthy and healthy contender against him is a full-fledged sham. It is not easy to say that a 15-0 contender getting his earned title shot is a sham, but if he needs knee surgery, then he will be a shell of himself.

Not to mention, how do you replace a fighter with a knee injury with another fighter with a knee injury?!

When substance is lacking, style and ballyhoo take over (see Michael Bay movies). Daniel Cormier has probably uttered two sentences of smack talk during his entire career, now he’s fighting people at press conferences? Give me a break. This fight is a joke, the UFC knows it, the fighters know it, and they are ratcheting up the hype machine to fool casual fans and themselves that the UFC 178 main event is legitimate. Jones vs Cormier is a money grab, pure and simple. It might as well take place at this year’s WWE Summerslam.

Jones has been eating up and spitting out worthy, healthy challengers for years. What is he going to do to someone who just a month and a half ago needed surgery in two different parts of his knee?

Jose Abreu Further Proof of #ESPN’s Coastal Bias(es)

Posted: July 22, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
7/22/2014

If you have watched ESPN for more than 30 seconds in the past year, you’ve likely seen at least two feature segments on Yasiel Puig.

Puig was a bonafide rookie phenom last year who gave the Los Angeles Dodgers the spark they needed to get into the playoffs. His equal parts high level talent and high level charisma made him and instant star and darling of sports fans and networks alike. Puig provided tremendous numbers and intagibles to help his team get over a slump that many speculated would lead the their manager (Don Mattingly) being fired. There was even a strong push for him to be name to the NL All Star Roster despite Puig starting the season in the minor leagues.

If ESPN portrayed Puig as the new face of Major League Baseball, then what is Jose Abreu this year who has better numbers than Puig had last year, this year, or both combined?

Whereas Puig plays for the number one baseball franchise in the second biggest media market in the country, Abreu plays for the number two baseball franchise in the number three media market. Chicago sports teams and their players have been getting the shaft from ESPN for as long as it has existed, Abreu is just the most recent egregious example.

In the pregame coverage for this year’s All Star Game, ESPN did a side by side comparison of Puig and Abreu’s numbers and even admitted that Abreu has proven to be the better player. Yet turn on Sportscenter, Around the Horn, and/or Pardon the Interruption and Abreu seemingly has a segment on something he did right, wrong, or outlandish carved into each show’s format.

Perhaps if Abreu made some more arrogant base running errors or came up with a crazy story of being snuck into the country (like Puig) he could get a little more national play. But I’m sure he and the White Sox will be content with him playing better than Puig consistently and thus paying him more than Puig.

When one ESPN home base is a two-hour drive from Yankee Stadium and the other is literally down the street from Dodger Stadium, I suppose it is hard to expect equal coverage for a player who plays hundreds or thousands of miles from each. Perhaps if ESPN put a home base in Chicago things could change, but that is an expensive endeavor. It’s not like ESPN is owned by a hundred billion dollar company or anything.

Somethings never change. The mindset of Illinois being a fly over state and therefore everything in it apparently is one of them. The Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs, and White Sox are all franchises that make money, have large traveling fan bases, and routinely compete for and win championships (minus the Cubs of course). There is no reason what happens in Chicago sports shouldn’t routinely be the lead story on ESPN programming. One can point to population theory all they want but anything more thorough than a surface level glance at ESPN programming will show that a third tier sports story in New York, Boston, or LA trumps everything short of a Chicago franchise winning a championship. That is wrong and can’t end soon enough, though much like the Cubs chances of winning a World Series is likely more fantasy than reality.

#BellatorMMA is officially the new #Strikeforce, is the same fate inevitable?

Posted: June 24, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
6/23/2014

Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. True in life, movies, and mixed martial arts.

PRIDE also comes before the fall, that is doubly true in mixed martial arts.

Bellator MMA was founded by Bjorn Rebney in 2008. The majority stake in the company was sold to Viacom in 2011 as part of a deal to get the promotion onto MTV2 and later Spike TV. Bellator crafted a niche in the mixed martial arts world by running tournaments. Initially tournaments to crown their champions, then tournaments to crown number one contenders to fight their champions. Title fights, attraction fights, and “super” fights are used to round out the cards.

Bjorn Rebney, Bellator MMA founder

Bellator’s unique format as well as PRIDE and Strikeforce going out of business allowed them to both survive and thrive by upstart, distant number two standards. Compared to the Goliath that is the UFC, Bellator is not a competitor, merely an alternative. In the rest of the mixed martial arts world however, Bellator has been the clear-cut number two company since the second the lights went out for Strikeforce last year.

Bellator has evolved incrementally to show they are growing. Going from ESPN Deportes to MTV2 to Spike TV to air their fights. Bellator had their version of UFC’s reality tv show darling “The Ultimate Fighter” called “Fight Master” that aired last year. It was unique to TUF and much like everything Bellator does, got decent ratings, enough to keep them afloat and viewed as legitimate.

Bellator recently made it’s PPV debut, a show that drew 100,000 buys. With all of this growth and progression, it was surprising to hear that Bjorn Rebney, the founder and CEO of Bellator MMA, and for all intents and purposes the Dana White of Bellator, was forced out of the company he founded by Viacom. Word is that Viacom wants to move away from the tournament format, while Rebney falls under the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it paradigm. Rebney has already been replaced by Scott Coker, who was the founder and Dana White of Strikeforce.

Scott Coker, founder of Strikeforce and new CEO of Bellator MMA

Coker is a good promoter and a good guy. Most people seem to like him. He doesn’t have a reputation for anything remotely shady. He helped build Strikeforce from a regional kickboxing promotion to the number two mixed martial arts promotion in the world. Even as a distant number two, Strikeforce put together some great super fights that rivaled anything the UFC was putting up against them at the time (Fedor vs Hendo anyone?). Viacom and Coker have already said they will scale back the tournament format of Bellator to a more traditional style of MMA booking, much like Strikeforce had.

Strikeforce and Bellator now have two things in common, Scott Coker, and a corporate owner directly involved in their business. Showtime’s incompetence led to Strikeforce going out of business. Dana White even voiced how sorry he felt for the organization over how things went down. Well, to me, this seems to be a case of history repeating itself. There is nothing wrong with tinkering with something to make it better, but this is an over haul of something that already is making money. Maybe not a lot of money, but there has been zero whiff of Bellator being at risk of going out of business. They have been consistently running shows for six years, why is this time to make whole sale changes?

Word has it Rebney was/is very difficult to work with, which is the opposite reputation Coker has. Coker was and is willing to work with anyone as long as it makes money. He has said the tournaments will have their place, which is a good thing. But if Bellator runs shows in the same way the UFC, WSOF, and OneFC all run shows, won’t they be exposing themselves as a cheap alternative to the dominant number one?

That’s what Strikeforce was after all. I loved Strikeforce but the only thing that made them different from the UFC was the hexagon cage and the colored gloves. Oh and one more thing, the UFC was consistently a far superior product because they had more money and better fighters.

The tournaments mask Bellator’s weaknesses. Those weaknesses being everything other than the fact they run tournaments. Bellator is not competition, they’re an alternative. If you’re going to be an alternative, then you have to be different than what is normal. Tournaments, and the round cage, do that. Running smaller venues does that. Having a different presentation style does that.

Scott Coker is a good promoter, it’s not actually his fault that Strikeforce went out of business, but Strikeforce went out of business, it’s a failed brand. If Strikeforce was still around and announced a merger with Bellator, that’s one thing. But when a man founds a company, makes it a success, then gets fired and replaced for a captain that is fresh off a sinking ship he was at the helm of, something about that seems off to me.

Coker has earned the benefit of the doubt that he can steer Bellator in the right direction based on his past history of success, but then again, so did Bjorn Rebney.

The Anomaly of the Bi-Polar 2014 #IndianaPacers

Posted: May 22, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
5/21/2014

From the number one overall seed in the playoffs, to almost getting knocked out in the first round by a sub five hundred team.

From their star players calling out the league MVP to posting goose eggs in important statistical categories during key playoff games.

From dominating the two-time defending champions in-game one, to getting beat decisively and having a star player fined for flopping in-game two.

Just another day in the life of the most bi polar, enigmatic team in professional sports today, maybe ever; the 2014 Indiana Pacers. What an anomaly this team is. I haven’t seen anything like it in my lifetime. Teams either usually play up their potential, run into a bad match up and get steamrolled, or cash out and get bounced quick. The Pacers have done a little of all of those things and have survived. They are three wins away from being in the NBA Finals.

The Pacers match up very well against the Miami Heat. The Heat actually have to adjust what they do around the Pacers. There isn’t another team in the league other than the Spurs that forces the Heat to do that. What is going on in the minds of the Pacers players? Coaches? Management? Fans? Even loud mouth sports pundits have been shocked into dumb founded silence by the Pacers, for that at least, they deserve all of our respect no matter how their postseason ends up.

I find this team so fascinating no matter how much I have been trying to not pay attention to the basketball playoffs this year. I hear they’re the best ever according to Magic Johnson. I’ve been busy watching hockey playoffs, as a Chicago resident, you can understand why that would be the case. If I see a story about the Pacers online, I click the link. I turn up the volume when they’re talked about on ESPN or on sports talk radio. Something is going to come out in the press a month after the season that is going to explain all of this. My guess is that it will be one of the following;

  1. Team chemistry got messed up through bad trades and acquisitions during the season
  2. One or two star players got dumped by their woman
  3. Roy Hibbert is battling clinical depression
  4. A combination of 1-3

Hopefully, the Pacers can just play up to their potential and put an end to the Evil Empire of South Beach’s attempt to three peat.

Though personally I think that whoever wins East is nothing more than a lamb going to the slaughter of the Defend, Pass, Score, Repeat Machine that is the  San Antonio Spurs.

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