Posts Tagged ‘writing’

WSOF vs Bellator #MMA PPV? Yes, please.

Posted: January 13, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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sportsrollby @anarchyroll
1/12/2014

The distance between the #1 and #’s 2 & 3 are vast in the world of professional mixed martial arts.  When the distance between the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the closest things resembling competitors; the World Series of Fighting and Bellator MMA is as great as it is, desperate times call for desperate measures. One doesn’t need a look at their financial books, one need only look at the crowd size of their televised events to know that even if neither company is at immediate risk to going out of business, they are both desperate to bring new and existing mma fans into their respective folds. Which brings us to the event, if one can call it that from this past week.

World Series of Fighting challenged Bellator MMA to a cross promotional pay per view event.

Why? The same reason Sirius and XM are now the same satellite radio company. The same reason Pro Wrestling USA was formed in the 1980s. The same reason kids get in free at the local rodeos and wet t shirt contests are held at bars.  Good for the sport? Sure.  Good for the fans? Yes. A desperate attempt to stay relevant and stay within the same galaxy as profitability, absolutely.

I am in favor of a WSOF vs. Bellator show, just not on PPV.  PPV has been in decay for ten years and in 2014, the corpse is starting to stink.  WWE the PPV innovator and porno the PPV dominator, are or have moved to online Netflix style stream services to compete with rampant digital piracy. The ratings for Bellator are aight, WSOF’s ratings, well not so much.  TNA Impact Wrestling, the whipping boy of the pro wrestling critic world, gets double Bellator and 10x WSOF and is considered less than second rate by the hardcore sports entertainment fan base.

Desperation is a stinky cologne.  The idea of this show reeks of it not matter how in favor of it I personally am. Bellator doesn’t need the WSOF, but it’s not vice versa. WSOF desperately needs more eyeballs on its product both in the arenas and on screens. Bellator can just as easily scoop up all the fighters WSOF has if they company were to fold due to unprofitability, which is presently what the promotion is.

I’m not a WSOF hater, as a pro wrestling fan, let me tell you competition is VITAL to combat sports, real or simulated.  Two national promotions on cable television is the minimum needed for the fans, three is even better. Both of pro wrestling’s boom periods of the 80s and 90s were directly correlated to a “Big Three” national promotion hydra (80s: NWA, AWA, WWF | 90s: WWF, WCW, ECW). So don’t get me wrong, I am rooting for WSOF to stick around for a long time and for Bellator to start averaging over 1 million viewers a week on a regular basis. A cross promotional event would pop a rating, fill an arena, and be good for the sport of mma as a whole.

But would the NFL do a cross promotional event with the Super Bowl champions versus the CFL Grey Cup winner?  And would they put it on PPV or on television where the biggest possible audience could see it. Why does the UFC put titles on their FOX cards at least once a year? Why did WWE just move all their PPVs to an a la carte digital cable service for $10 a month when they were charging $60 per event? It’s about eyeballs on screens, selling ads to those eyes, and popping a rating to gain leverage in future contract negotiations.

So if you’re gonna do it, do it right. Bellator is on Spike, owned by Viacom, which owns CBS.  Put the event on CBS in prime time, show the world that mma is more than just the UFC, not just to the hardcore fan base willing to pay $50 at home or $5 at a bar. Yes, please, thank you, you’re welcome.

Mutagenesis, the GMO Back Up Plan

Posted: December 29, 2013 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
12/28/2013

It was all explained to me as the convergence of breeding and biotechnology, kinda like all those new condoms Trojan has been marketing for the last few years.

What is mutagenesis?It is a method of growing crops, using simulated and synthetic versions of what the sun does naturally, thus creating herbicide resistant crops. Who uses it? Monsanto (of course), DuPont, BASF, and Syngenta. When did it start? 1959 was a specifically stated year by Bloomberg Businessweek. Post WWII military to private research and development era is a safe assumption to make. Where? Japan and the good old US of A are the predominant places for this chemically assisted fertile soil. Why do you need to know about mutagenesis? It is unregulated and is where companies like Monsanto will go to exclusively if GMO labeling becomes required by law.  If that doesn’t make you think or cringe, I got one more for you. The amount of money made on mutant plants is officially tracked by the United Nations’ NUCLEAR Techniques in Food and Agriculture program.

Repeat that last line out loud a few times to yourself, then to someone else, then act accordingly.

Inspiration via Devastation: Part 2: Syria

Posted: October 3, 2013 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll

I first started paying attention to the civil war in Syria when the body count was 3,000. Back then it wasn’t yet a civil war, there was no Free Syrian Army to begin with, so it hadn’t yet splintered off into seven separate factions. I had heard that essentially the Syrian people were trying to do what the people of Egypt did during the Arab Spring of 2011. The difference in this case was, the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad ordered his military to open fire and execute all of the protesting civilians. I noticed each day the body count went up by the hundreds, not by the dozens. I noticed when the body count exceeded that of 9/11/01.

I never stopped paying attention to Syria, anyone who frequents my Twitter account would certainly agree with me. The sheer numbers of dead, wounded, and refugees has never ceased to boggle my mind. What happened in Libya and Egypt definitely led to me focusing even more on Syria. I think, without judgment, those two had the opposite effect on most people. I understand completely the fatigue of the American public after over a full decade of seeing wars in the Middle East. Afghanistan and Iraq, each day a new bombing, another dozen or more dead, more money spent (or missing) abroad, more fear mongering at home. I empathize rather than demonize the public who just seem to not care about Syria, after all there is no oil there.

The American public’s desire to not care about Syria was only aided by the fact that the main stream media didn’t focus on the country’s civil war, despite the staggering body count, until after the sarin gas attack last month. If you get your news from the internet, then you can’t not know about Syria for at least a full year. Even the websites of NBC, CBS, FOX News, and CNN have had regular stories about the conflict, the television stations they are subsidiaries of however, did not. If you get your news from newspapers or magazines, you’ve known about Syria since maybe the beginning of this year. TIME magazine, the New York Times, and Chicago Tribune have all had front page stories on Syria that I have seen with my own eyes.

Now, in September of 2013 only the young and the ignorant don’t know about the situation in Syria. It is the lead story online, in print, and on television. Local news, national news, cable news are all leading with Syria. I am happy that the light is finally getting shined on this very bleak and black news story. The death and destruction match any conflict in recent memory. Syria’s civil war is not an indie band that  just got signed to a major label, I’m not proud that I was calling for US intervention before it was cool. But I am a supporter of US intervention.

I was not a supporter of Operation Desert Storm or it’s much less successful sequel. I was a supporter of  intervention in Kosovo. I was not a supporter of invading Afghanistan after 9/11 since it was not a country that attacked the United States. I was a supporter of the small scale, special operation, tactical assassination of Osama bin Laden which I believe should be the blueprint for all of the military presence of the United States in the Middle East for the last decade should have been. I was not a supporter of our involvement in Libya. I am a supporter of the intervention in Syria.

I wish I had a year and a half backlog of blogs and articles to show the consistency of my stance on this issue, but I don’t. I wish all of my writings on the topic would give me some credibility with anyone who reads this article, but I don’t. I haven’t been writing for anything other than academic purposes for the last two years. Syria is a major factor in changing that. I thought the United States military should have intervened over a year ago. We have after all, along with the United Nations, been arming the rebels. That is going half pregnant, either we support the rebels or we don’t. Since Obama has proven to be just as much a supporter of the Military Industrial Complex as his predecessors, then let’s put that machine to use when literally hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are being slaughtered.

I long for the day we as a country are officially isolationist, with an eye on the military operations of other countries akin to what is happening in outer space. The money we need to pump into our schools, bridges, roads, and social safety net programs is being spent on a rubber stamped military industrial complex budget every year. I will be the first to say spend that money at home and not abroad. I’d love to have an embassy in every country and not a military base. Until that day comes, and by day I mean peaceful upheaval of basically everyone in power in national office, America is the World Police. If we are going to play World Police so we can control the price of oil, then we can play world police for thousands of innocent civilians being slaughtered every day.

What should be and what is, believe it or not aren’t always the same thing. I think it is the right thing to do to get the chemical weapons from being used against civilians, and we should do something to help all of the refugees. I’ll have much more to write on Syria, so I won’t write a novel’s worth of material in this one post. I am happy to be in a position where I both want to and can go on writing for a long period of time. It was a long trip to get to this point. I needed to reignite the fire within me that had dimmed to a searing hot coal. I needed flames, the situations involving Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden applied the gasoline after Syria stoked the ambers…

Potato Shooter #2: Carpenter Needs More Tools

Posted: October 1, 2013 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
September 4, 2013

 

What mixed martial arts fan doesn’t like Clay Guida? How can you not root for someone like that? He is far and away the most unique mixed martial artist of the last half decade. His look, his entrances, his fighting style, his lifestyle away from the cage. He doesn’t talk shit, he only fights top tier competition, he is humble, and gracious to all of his fans all of the time. Clay Guida’s nickname is “The Carpenter” and he goes to work with a hard hat and lunch pail each time he sets foot inside the UFC Octagon.  Unfortunately for him and his fans, the Carpenter has become a screwdriver in a power drill era.

 

Guida’s greatest strengths; stamina, wrestling, unique fighting stance have evolved into his liabilities. Guida has gone from the precipice of a title shot in two divisions, to the veteran gate keeper. A slot any and every independent mixed martial artist would kill for, but a spot on the UFC’s roster Guida is too young and too talented to be typecast into in 2013. However, Guida like many fighters of the generation before him has done it to himself by refusing to evolve. Moving to New Mexico to train with Greg Jackson isn’t a cure all. Dropping a weight class to have a size advantage isn’t the missing piece. Guida has consciously or unconsciously resisted evolving into a more well rounded fighter.

 

At UFC 165 this past Saturday, Guida was stopped for the first time in his career by Chad Mendes. The fight was never in question. The Carpenter has only two tools in his belt, wrestling and boxing, Mendes is better than Guida at both. Guida’s split decision win in his featherweight debut against Hatsu Hioki was the definition of uninspiring. That fight was proceeded with back to back losses to Gray Maynard and Benson Henderson that convinced Guida to drop down to featherweight. But it wasn’t Guida’s size that lost those two fights. After all, he looked like a giant when he ground and pounded his way to a unanimous decision victory over Anthony Pettis in Showtime’s UFC debut in June 2011. It is Guida’s lack of technique that has caused his career to stagnate.

 

Being a boxer/wrestler is no longer good enough for any mixed martial artist to succeed at the highest level of competition, which is the UFC. If you want to be a champion in the UFC, this side of the year 2009 you need to be proficient in three disciplines and have a size advantage at minimum. Guida’s move to featherweight was a step in the right direction. Training with Greg Jackson and his murderer’s row of fighters at that camp in New Mexico is another great step. But if Guida is going to keep fighting the same exact style as before training at Jackson’s MMA, then all he’s doing is burning money and wasting time. If like me, you watched Guida’s last two fights, you know that he hasn’t changed his style at all.

 

The infinite gas tank, the never ending head bobbing, constant movement side to side, inside to outside which make him fun to watch, has made him easy to game plan. His opponents now know that if you can stuff his takedowns and keep out of his hand swinging range, that Guida is nothing more than entertaining to watch. Guida is a great wrestler, but it’s 2013 not 2003 and the sprawl is not a new craze just making the rounds at elite camps anymore. Takedowns need to be set up with striking now, it’s only optional if you have one punch knockout power, and Guida hasn’t had a KO or TKO since 2008. Guida can be classified as a submission artist when he gets his opponents on that mat, but he has proven himself unable to consistently get people off their feet for the last two years.

 

I live a half hour from Clay Guida’s hometown, I’m a big fan of his. It breaks my heart to see him repeating the mistakes of the great boxer/wrestlers who became irrelevant by refusing to evolve before him. Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Chael Sonnen, Matt Hughes, Tyson Griffin, Rich Franklin, and Gray Maynard all refused to change with the times despite achieving great success. Each one of those men can say that father time eventually caught up to them, that they were champions, and/or fought in big money fights. But each man listed before retiring was made to be merely an attraction fighter, in no way a legit title contender, because they had been exposed as being a two tool fighter, in a three tool or more era and refused to evolve (learn a new discipline). I don’t want to see Clay Guida’s name on that list, Clay Guida can still be a legit title contender.

 

Clay Guida can still be a UFC champion! But he has to evolve, he has to learn a new discipline. Muay Thai or kickboxing would be my recommendation because the threat of kicks from a distance and knees in the clinch would open up his opponents to takedowns. Once Guida gets them down, he knows everything one needs to know. But he can’t get them down consistently anymore. He needs help, he needs to learn, he needs to evolve. His trainer is Greg Jackson, so he’s not just in good hands, but the best hands. Guida is surrounded with some of the best strikers in all of mma. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Clay Guida must choose to learn from the failures of those who came before him, as well as the rest of the fighters in his camp and add another dimension to his game. If not, well then he can be a fan favorite, two division gate keeper who regularly appears on FOX and pay per views for the UFC. Still not bad work for a kid from Round Lake, Illinois.

Excess and Algorithms: Mission Statement

Posted: October 1, 2013 in Excess and Algorithms
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by @anarchyroll
August 26th, 2013

 

Economics is not complicated, it’s taxing, pun intended. Studying the subject at a novice level reveals that the entire field is nothing more than a simple field purposely hidden under a camouflage tent of complicated sounding language. One must become familiar with these terms because they build upon each other, layer after layer after layer after layer until it is believed that only computer algorithms can be used to do the work of insiders and professionals that are hired by normal people because they just don’t want to think about it. Why? Because the terminology is so complex looking and sounded it makes someone who spends forty hours a week or more working a “normal” “day” job believe that they need someone to do it for them. Putting computers in charge of making trades by the millisecond was not a victory for simplicity either.

 

Studying economics and writing about it is as fun as it sounds, in that there is reward for the time invested, that reward is of course knowledge. There is a flood of knowledge available for consumption in the field  of business and economics, and it is almost too easy for one to drown in it.  I personally do not have a background in economics, I did not formally study it, I have not worked for a hedge fund, a brokerage, in New York trading stocks, or in Chicago trading options. I listened to The Warren Buffet Way on audio book and became fascinated with the field. Several books later I found myself compelled to regularly check websites like Reuters, Business Week, Bloomberg, The Economist, and CNBC so that I could regularly bathe myself in daily economics and market terminology.

 

So what is Excess and Algorithms? It is the business/economics blog for me, @anarchyroll. My other blogs feature my writings on hard news/journalism, pro wrestling/mma, philosophy/spirituality, and sports. I originally wanted each blog to be a separate website, but I got mentally buried in concern of the aesthetics/design of each one and used that as an excuse to procrastinate. So I’m going to start writing and posting content online and go from there. Eventually I would like to combine all five blogs into one website and present the material like a digital newspaper/magazine akin to VICE, Uproxx, and Kinja.

 

I am passionate about each subject I blog about and aspire to be a professional reporter/writer of. I received my bachelor’s degree in media communications from Northeastern Illinois University this past May. I want to make sure that I am applying what I have learned, that I am keeping my writing skills sharp, that I am staying productive as a person, and that I am working towards my overall goal achievement desires. Writing about economics truly tests me as a writer. Presenting the information in an easy to read manner for anyone regardless of education level is difficult and time consuming. Researching the articles takes hours and sometimes days.

 

I will be writing an article on quantitative easing in the coming week. I started doing research and before I knew it five hours had gone by and all I had was a thesis statement. This both exhausted and excited me, because I knew that I was challenging myself as a writer. Writing about wrestling/mma is easy for me. Writing about sports and philosophy are both easy for me. Writing about hard news as a journalist isn’t easy but isn’t hard because I have so much formal training in it. Writing about economics is as challenging as investing. I hope to learn as much about the investment world as I learn about myself as a writer. I will be buying the knowledge and information with my time and energy, then selling it to you at a discounted rate of a thousand words or less. Fair trade?

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