The Conversation
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (7)
- Eurasian Sensation: @ Colin: I’m pretty sure Jeremy Lin and his supporters are not the same person.
- colin: I was pretty impressed with Lin, until some digging around leads me to believe he’s more interested in...
- Eurasian Sensation: Why does anyone give a shit? The US is the global capital of people loudly claiming their love...
- What Cultures Value (21)
- “But he hit me back first!” (37)
- colin: It’s taboo to speak this truth in America, but here it is: Blacks are as racist as, if not more than,...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ Raguel: It’s interesting that you raise the Indonesian Chinese, as there are indeed some...
- Raguel: As heated as the debate has become I think that it has been productive. The perspectives raised, unpopular or...
- Seeking Asian Female (7)
- King: “If I ever get a mail order bride I will get her addicted to sex first.” I assume you mean with you...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Haha! Maybe that dude is on to something with the foreign language nagging. But to be honest, maybe...
- raguel: LOL @ Chen and traumatic comedy XD The more I discover about mail-order marriages the more horrible the...
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (6)
- bigWOWO: That’s a really good point, Raguel. Like it or not, TV executives control everything (including what...
- Raguel: I could be wrong but the distribution windows for media and especially film seems very hierarchical. If you...
- bigWOWO: Illegal streaming? I had no idea anyone did that! Well, I really should check out some movies one of these...
- Superbowl Recipe and Xenophobic Superbowl Ad (22)
- Raguel: Time to get your concealed carry licences, folks!
- Eurasian Sensation: Jeff Yang has a good article about this ad: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn....
- Raguel: I haven’t even gotten to why the ad really is so offensive to us, ROFL
- Jeremy Lin shines (20)
- N: @danny You should youtube his college games. The two against Boston college and the one against UConn. Lol, he can...
- Lingyai: @Ben Efsaneyim Why would it be surprising a non Asian crowd cheering for Lin? Most of the NBA fans going to...
- bigWOWO: Danny and Mojo, Holy crap! That’s amazing! I didn’t know he could dunk either! I think...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (9)
- Raguel: ^ Nice one Byron! I’m reading through the NYT picks, they’re good!
- bigWOWO: The Times had an Op-Ed by the President of the RIAA, and I commented. My comment was picked as a...
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (402)
- bigWOWO: Here’s an interesting suggestion coming out of MIT: Connectome by Sebastian Seung...
- Battle Hymn of the Kitten Daughter (36)
- Raguel: You know Andre, you and me, I think we and a lot of other folks may have gone through some pretty harrowing...
- Andre M. Smith: Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew....
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (7)
Category Archives: MMA
Hockey Enforcers and Head Injuries
I don’t even watch hockey, but I saw this long, 36 minute (in total) NY Times feature on the life of Derek Boogard, an “enforcer” in professional hockey who died at the age of 28 after overdosing on pain meds from his numerous injuries. He was 6’7, 245 lbs., and he wasn’t such a great hockey player, but he was able to fight, and so he had a contract worth $1.6 million just to throw punches and rev his team up. If you have kids, if you watch contact sports, check it out. They say MMA is brutal, but these guys fight 40 or 50 times a year, wearing no head protection or gloves. This is much more dangerous, much worse.
Congrats, Junior Dos Santos and Ben Henderson
It took a minute and four seconds for Junior Dos Santos to knock out Cain Velasquez and win the UFC Heavyweight Championship on Fox free TV. Up until the fight, Dana had been saying that it was a great “commercial” for the UFC, and that now millions of people would know about it. I think he was anticipating a long, technical, strategic match where Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg could explain all the details of a good MMA bout and raise some public interest.
B.J. Penn To Retire?
I knew Nick Diaz was going to win this fight. BJ actually did much better than I thought he would, but Diaz’s cardio was just too strong. BJ easily won the first round while outstriking and taking Diaz down, but he gassed in the second round while Diaz was throwing and landing punches from everywhere. BJ was clearly tired. The third round was closer, but again, Diaz outlanded him. Both guys had their faces all bloody by the end, but Diaz wasn’t even breathing hard. At the end, BJ told Joe Rogan that he wasn’t coming back, that he had a daughter and another on the way, and that he didn’t want to go home “looking like this” anymore. I don’t know if he was reacting emotionally to the outcome of the fight, but if he does decide to retire, I hope he has a long career as a coach. I’d hate for him to leave MMA.
Lyoto Machida to Fight Jon Jones at UFC 140
I’m ho-hum about tonight’s UFC. Maynard vs. Edgar–I know some people like the main fight, but it bores me because it’s unlikely that either guy will finish the other. Stann vs. Sonnen is interesting, but I’m not sure I’d pay money to see it (I think Stann is going to win because of Sonnen’s ring rust.) Aldo vs. Florian? Seems like a win for Aldo. Nam Phan will beat Leonard Garcia. It’s a decent card but…meh.
Jones vs. Rampage
Check out the clips above to see Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Jon “Bones” Jones on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where they talk about their fight at UFC 135 tomorrow. Rampage verbally beat the shit out of Jones. Even on the obviously rehearsed parts where Jones makes the “ugly” comment (which was quite funny), Jackson uses some brutal verbal jujitsu and takes him apart.
I saw last Saturday’s interview with the two of them where Rampage verbally destroying him over Spygate. Jones was really getting rattled. I’ve never seen a fighter get so psychologically affected by a verbal beatdown. Jones may be too young to tangle. Yahoo has a good summary.
Does Okami Have a Chance?
Anderson Silva vs. Yushin Okami takes place on Saturday at UFC 134. I saw this great quote last week:
“Go back and watch the title defenses of Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre over the last few years, and, 9 times out of 10, Joe Rogan is going to tell you that if you wanted to put together an opponent to beat Anderson/GSP it would be [guy standing across the cage].”
Lessons of the Creative Class from Ultimate Fighting
I’ve always believed that if you know one thing very well, you can apply that knowledge to other areas of life. One microcosm can contain knowledge applicable to the larger world. The Ultimate Fighting Championship, with it’s creative and fun fights and strict focus on business, can teach valuable lessons for people working in the creative class. Here you go, and please don’t hesitate to add your own:
1. Life is as much of an art as a science. Check out Jon Fitch. He’s beaten just about everyone but the champion and BJ Penn in his division, but he’ll most likely never get a shot at the title again. Dana White, after the Fitch-Penn fight, said:
UFC 129: Machida is BACK!
If there was ever a UFC fight that you didn’t want to miss, this was it. It was hands down the best fight card I’d ever seen, and when they brought it on, the fights were even better than I thought they’d be. There were 55,000 people in attendance. EVERY fight was good. The weakest fight was the main event with St. Pierre vs. Shields, and even that one was good. The rest of the fights were amazing.
Chan Sung Jung the “Korean Zombie” and the Twister
Thanks, Danny Lee, for pointing me to the awesome “twister” submission by Chan Sung Jung, the Korean Zombie, this weekend in his win over Leonard Garcia. For you hardcore MMA fans, this was supposed to be Nam Phan’s shot at redemption after his very controversial loss to Garcia last year. Unfortunately, Phan was injured and couldn’t fight, so Chan Sung Jung, another recipient of a bad decision against Garcia, got his shot at redemption.
Chan won by a twister, the first ever twister in the UFC. You can see the picture above. The twister is a neck crank, a modified wrestling move popularized by Eddie Bravo. If you want to learn how to do it yourself, see Eddie Bravo’s instructional here:
UFC 127: Dana White Says BJ Won, Michael Bisping Proves He’s an Affirmative Action Case
I had a long conversation this weekend with a friend about UFC, and I came to the conclusion that all sports are the same–unless you know the styles/personalities behind the players, it’s boring because there is simply no drama. With the UFC this past weekend, there was plenty of drama. Two fights in particular were interesting.
