MMA and stuff

Hey Everyone!  I thought I'd start us out with probably the best submission I've ever seen ever.  It's from a  promotion called Bellator and it's performed by a fighter named Toby Imada.  Enjoy!


Ahhhhh, that's some high quality violence.  For those of you unfamiliar with mixed martial arts, that submission was known as an inverted reverse triangle choke.  Yeah, that doesn't happen every day.  I know that MMA may not be appreciated by everyone who reads this blog, and I feel that it may be my duty to educate people a little so they see it as more than a slightly regulated bar fight.

I'm not going to deny that MMA is a very violent, inherently dangerous sport.  Guess what?  So's football.  In fact, there are more severe long term consequences from sports like football and boxing than there are from MMA.  Concussions have taken the forefront in the conversations surrounding football recently and I, for one, am happy about that.  I love a bone jarring hit as much as the next guy, and lord knows I don't want to see it turn into touch football, but the lack of acknowledgement in the face of hard scientific evidence is downright sad.  It's to the point that in spite of the fact that several helmet manufacturers making "smart" helmets that reduce the risk of concussion and help prevent catastrophic brain injury.  In spite of this, the NFL doesn't mandate these helmets and basically looks the other way as far as brain injury goes.  Unlike a torn ACL, brain injury can't be resolved by surgery and can't be rehabbed away.

Moving back to my main point from a tangent, that's why I like MMA.  It's a full contact, strategic sport that engages 2 people in the most pure form of competition.  There are 4 ways to win, submission, knock out, referee stoppage and judges decision.  I know what you're saying, "if you can win by knock out isn't that just as bad for your brain?"  Shut up.  I can't hear you because you're reading this and talking to a blog makes you look crazy.  But the real answer is more complicated.  The largest dangers to boxers and football players are actually their current protection methods.  The current helmets in football and gloves in boxing increase the incidence of repetitive brain trauma.  These small, incremental traumas cause damage to the brain that result in cumulative knock outs.  Many scientists postulate that this is the reason so many retired football players and boxers sound "punchy" and it may account for the elevated incidence of Alzheimer's disease in these people.  Scientists also believe the four ounce gloves used in MMA mitigate most of these risks because instead of accumulating damage, the fighter is knocked out, preventing more severe injury.

I know that this sounds like apologist rhetoric, but let's be honest, how many boxers have we seen die in the ring?  How many stories do we hear about football players being crippled or killed due to spinal or head injuries every year?  MMA has been around for nearly 20 years.  Do you know how many deaths have occurred in that time span?  2.  One was due to a congenital defect in the guy's brain and when he got knocked out, he had an embolism.  The other one was a fighter who fought without commission approval after less than a week since a previous fight.  All I'm saying is don't judge it because it's "dangerous".  You can hate it for the violence, you can hate it for whatever, but there's no reason to make up reasons to hate it.  Sorry this wasn't funny, but I hate it when people shit on things they don't take the time to research or learn about.  Defend your position intelligently or shut the hell up.  I've linked a couple of articles below if you're curious about this topic, and please feel free to engage in intelligent discourse in the comments section.

Also, check out one of my favorite fighters, an incredibly talented Jiu-Jitsu player with great strikes.  He fights Charlie Valencia September 30th on his way to reclaim the bantamweight title.



miguel torres vs tapia
Uploaded by MMAGLORY. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.

You can also follow him on Twitter @migueltorresmma, he's one of the only people worth following, he's actually funny.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/r/Fistic-Medicine-Dementia-Pugilistica-amp-MMA-22581
http://mmajunkie.com/news/13647/ask-the-doc-dr-johnny-benjamin-on-mma-concussions-and-depression.mma
http://www.jssm.org/combat/1/18/v5combat-18.pdf

OK, now that I got that off my chest, we can get on to more...stuff.

I was watching a crapload of football over the past couple weekends and thank god it's back.  I LOVE watching football powerhouses lose to underdogs so watching Notre Dame get handled by Michigan and Michigan State in back to back weeks made me happy.  I also enjoyed watching a reeling VT squad lose to FCS James Madison.  That's what you get for naming your mascot after a made up word.  Seriously, this is what comes up when you google image search hokie:

That's right, but according to VT's own web site, the word Hokie has nothing to do with a turkey.  WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE A TURKEY AS YOUR MASCOT THEN?!?!

Anyhoo, I don't remember this happening over the weekend, but Google doesn't lie

Wow, Ohio State has really gone away from tradition with the new uniforms.

On a happy note, the only team I care about in the NFL, the Chargers, actually won today.  Not only did they win, they steamrolled the immensely unpopular Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday.  Thank God.  Also, Philip Rivers didn't have to strangle his teammates, so good for them!

Is it bad that I'm glad Brett Favre is failing?  I mean he was a damn good QB in his time, but I'm pretty sure schadenfreude is a national pastime.  By the way that's one of my new favorite words.  I like how since we get bored with English we just appropriate these foreign languages and abuse their words for our own devices.  We can't even handle our own language without fucking up usage rules.  Seriously, people misuse the word "irony" so often it makes me literally vomit with rage.

My other favorite new word to use is zeitgeist.  I almost never get to use it, but holy crap is that a cool word.  It's kind of like poltergeist only way more awesome because it has a z and z's are inherently cool because they almost never show up to the party.  Way cooler than q's.  Q's always have to bring their friend u, and u suck.  Sorry, was that too long of a way to go for a joke?  Seriously, zeitgeist sounds like poltergeist, only without the poultry connotations which makes it infinitely more cool.  Wow, I am totally over-thinking this.

Probably can't live up to the coolness of the word

Quick question, should I pay $35 for a mustache themed 5k?  

I love the concept, but I'm not even sure they're giving t-shirts.  If you don't give me a t-shirt for running your race, then fuck you and the horse you rode in on, because you just charged me to run with a mustache.  I could have done that at home.

How the hell did we end up here?  Didn't I start this with MMA and football?  Jesus, I kind of went off there.  I'm gonna go to bed, so until next week enjoy my vitriol and psychosis.  I think those may be my words for the week next week.

HOLY SHIT! Vitriol is way more awesome than I thought.  #1 Google image

I'll research that picture and get back to you.  You deserve an explanation and I'm literally dumbfounded by that.

As always, make sure you visit my wonderful wife's Etsy shop, it's literally the best thing since they invented the lightbulb.  Hold on, they're telling me I've run that joke into the ground.  Sorry, just go to her shop.  It's seriously good.