So first of all, I haven't really checked with the commish and associated BECW dignitaries yet to get their blessing, so this is an "unauthorized" joint at the moment...

The guilt of the "Lets Mutherfukers" shirt never materializing hangs over my head eternally, and I really found BECW II to be a profoundly well-executed and engaging production, and thought it deserved commemoration and a piece of merch through which eternal bragging rights can be captured.

That said, others have put a lot of work into making the league what it is, and if this is out of my lane I will kill it off like Matt Hughes kills off a country breakfast.

Anyway, I've had this drawing hanging around for a while and just needed to make myself finish the sumbitch. I'd still be open to tweaking the color scheme and general logo integration, but not at the cost of bogging down just getting this available.

Just to put it out there:

This isn't going to be a vaporware shirt again, because I'm not trying to get myself or anybody else paid. I can't take an image created of and on behalf of Ben Saunders and throw it up on Cafepress like "go nuts!" because that's his likeness and that thing was his idea. Whereas in this case I will literally will post this on cafepress with no cut to myself, and also provide a link to the finished graphical assets on BE, so that if somebody wants to silkscreen themselves a full-body leotard of this, I support that. Let's keep it open-source.

I do however welcome any suggestions for web-based, no order minimum t-shirt companies that aren't cafepress, that might print better tees.

FRONT:

I'm hoping you'll recognize the various teams, but clockwise from upper left: Cecil Peoples in a championship belt, an armed trainyard sleeper (hopefully I didn't miss an inside joke on that one), an intrepid bearded reporter with an uncanny resemblance to one of my all-time favorite MMA bloggers, Ned Stark the illegitimate father of many, a Filipino Reccing Machine, Rousimar Palhares' destructive thoughts bursting out of his head, a kinda crappy trace of Brock with gun, Bones getting his night ruined, and the carrot-lovingest bus in the MMA game today.

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BACK:

The teams, in order of final placing. Get at me in the comments if I messed up your name or something.

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Anyway, hope you mutherfukers like it! I looking forward to hopefully completing some kind of unofficial BE memorabilia at long last.

What's next:

If BEtards are into it, and no great revelations come up about places that are better than cafepress to print a shirt without upfront costs, I'll just do another fanpost with a link where folks can cop it.

This is an excerpt for discussion (hopefully) from a larger piece I've put together at a fansite where I'm going to be publishing a lot more in the way of MMA editorial cartooning soon, FightGeist.com -- I've been tinkering with it for a while now, but this is the first time I've ever linked to it.

I'm a huge fan of "The Wire," and ever since the young guns of welterweight started showing their teeth and taking out the old guard of the division I haven't been able to shake the feeling it reminds me of the way the streets of Baltimore changed hands in the later seasons of that show.

One one side, you have the established crew -- GSP, Fitch, Koscheck, Penn, Alves, Rumble, Shields et al.

It's the same story you hear in most gangster movies -- one faction who have the respect, a 'piece of the action' (main-card action in this case), and are starting to settle in with the status quo of running things.

Then you have hungrier upstarts -- Diaz, Condit, Hendricks, Ellenberger, Story, MacDonald, Brenneman:

via FightGeist.com

Guys on the come-up who are willing to take it a step further to disrupt the status quo and 'natural order' of things, by whatever means they need to.

This is a fictional framework, but it's absolutely the theme of 170 lbs right now: you don't just run up on Jon Fitch and blast him with your first punch. You don't chase BJ Penn around the octagon with your boxing, he chases you. You don't take a flush shot from Thiago Alves and keep coming forward. The entire division is in a state of "don't you know who I am, bro?" and it's really fucking exciting to watch.

Anyway, what follows is a fairly nerdy but hopefully entertaining breakdown of this "welterweight takeover." The full graphic and a longer form post are viewable HERE *»

*I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback on both the poster and the site in this fanpost thread -- hopefully splitting things this way doesn't violate fanpost guidelines, but... well, please let me know if it does. For further yuks check out my 'infinity belt rankings,' an attempt at completely unempirical categorization of the reasons this sport is awesome, (and something I could desperately use some help with).

Hi BElitists, I meant to post this as a Thanksgiving thing also linking to a blog I'm starting, but with all the Holiday rush I found that little side project getting pushed back way past the shelf life of this cartoon.

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Ok, so-- after I started making this coming out of some thread discussion for the UFC 128 countdown vid, I was pretty much going to just let it sit unpublished on my HD for reasons of the copy/storyline being kinda meanspirited, and because I was too lazy to actually draw my own representations of the fights contained within to substitute for these photos.

But I just can't bear to leave the I-told-you-so points on the table if this comes true, so I'm fanposting it:

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It's Sonnen fever out there, folks.

Usually I like to take my time with a fanpost, as it's a great medium to really dig through some deeper MMA question that's been bothering me. On the matter of Chael Sonnen as a legitimate challenger to Anderson, I don't really think that's required. I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, though I've included a lengthy infographic to further my point.

Here is my rough argument for why I think the "Sonnen will upset Anderson" hype is completely inflated. Let's bullet this out:

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- First of all: were audience members where you watched the main event using the "YESH" sarcastically during the fight? Because I was seeing this, and it was mean, and it was absolutely hilarious.

- I feel like I've heard the "a serious and in-shape" Penn line way more than once since his return to the UFC. But for the first time, I actually sort of believe it. Both Mir and BJ came into this event with the same story from that famous Charles Atlas Home Strongman ad:

 

via cagle.msnbc.com

Basically: (1) Smaller guy gets sand kicked on him and/or is brutally GNP'd in front of a massive PPV audience by a muscle-bound bully (Brock / GSP). (2) Smaller guy acquires awesome new strength and conditioning regimen. (3) Smaller guy goes totally wolverine and never takes any crap from anybody again!

Both of these guys showed us something we needed to see from them. For me, Mir's always sort of felt like a guy who has to pull out a win unexpectedly-- the Nogueira PRIDE method of fighting opportunistically and subbing someone while being hit in the face a lot. This was not that. I was skeptical after he beat Nog, but I can't be any longer. Mir put it on Kongo far worse than even Velasquez (I believe the story used to be that Mir and Cains' careers were on opposite trajectories). And Penn for his part went EASILY into the 5th round with Sanchez, never once showing us the "exhausted BJ Penn danger face" that precedes the collapse of his TD defense. Granted, neither one of these guys have graduated to their eventual nemesis just yet, but they're showing irrefutable evidence that they really are making the changes they need to.

-How about that Kenny Florian. I never used to be a big fan of his-- I always just felt skeptical of his power standing. But I feel the same thing about this fight that I did for Sherk vs. Griffin; like after fighting BJ, Kenny and Sherk both had something they really wanted to show us but just weren't permitted in their title opportunity. For Sherk that was the strength of his boxing (which he can definitely stop showing us now, please), and for Kenny it was better boxing, better wrestling and an overall more complete game. Diego may have taken a beating from BJ, but I already feel bad for his next opponent.

-On that note: a Kenny vs. Diego rematch has to happen, but when it does who the hell does the winner fight? I'm not interested in BJ rematching either one just yet, but who's getting past those two? I figure they'll have to fast-track Gray around the duo to be safe (not that I don't think he could beat either one of them, but it's just not worth it to risk losing a prospective challenger), but past that we're coming dangerously close to the "Fitch barrier" being reproduced at 155.

- If Diego had won, "Crazy" would have become the new Karate. So I'm really glad that didn't happen. Frank Mir decking his place out like a serial killer with photos of Brock, Lyoto doing pee shots at the bar after his next victory. More fighters with cornrows. Etc.

- I don't like the idea of Penn / Aldo being contested at 145. That's more like some shit for Cerrone to do. Aside from the odd organizational crossover, I'm pretty sure Penn makes about as much per fight as an entire WEC payout. When the time is right I think it'd be much more feasible to bring Aldo up to the big show-- I could see him gaining enough muscle mass as he gets older to jump up and legitimately compete at LW, especially since he's got a pretty tall frame. Besides, if you take Aldo out of it who else is a compelling fight for BJ @ 145? It's just a really meanspirited idea, unless they're allowed to team up on him. Penn WITH a size advantage is simply not fair-- kids would get Godzillaplata'd left and right.

- I was too hard on what looked like Mini-Akiyama for beating Belcher in such questionable fashion. I still wonder if Akiyama is the right size for the division, but Belcher is way bigger than I realized.

- Struve's standup reminds me of Street Fighter 2, played badly-- sorry, this is obscure, but it was just like when someone is trying to learn the game and they keep using the same attack button over and over again... How many times in a row did he lead with "fierce knee" and get hit square in the face for it!?

- I have no idea how to logically justify this fight ever coming about, but I want Andre Winner and BJ Penn to box.

- I miss championship headliners. Don't you?

This pretty much concludes my rambling post-fight thoughts. Agree or disagree, hit me up with yours in the comments if inclined. Cheers!

Having reviewed the UFC 97 main event again in its entirety this morning with my full wits about me, I can't say I'm surprised to be hearing criticism once again directed at Anderson Silva. When unthreatened in the octagon, he's a strange and baffling fighter.

But if we feel that Anderson was dancing his way through that fight and refusing to capitalize on opportunities, what business did anyone have putting him in there with someone who would let him dance through a fight?

Call it what you will, but it was effective. He outpointed Leites, refused to get himself into trouble where Leites obviously wanted the fight, and remained light years from any danger for the entire 25 minutes. I can't claim I enjoyed it myself. With the assistance of a generous quantity of alcohol, Anderson Silva actually scored his most decisive blow of the night with a knockout victory over me midway through the third. My friends didn't even bother waking me.

Most who are familiar with Leites would contend he did the best he could with the tools available to him. This being said, what the hell were those questionably-adequate tools doing in the ring with the UFC's supposed P4P untouchable?

I for one feel the UFC is misdiagnosing the issue as a promotion; they are at times extremely conservative matchmakers who like nothing more than a good old-fashioned predictable beating. It's profitable. It's exciting. It makes the fans cheer (and has MADE more than a few UFC careers if we're being honest). And they thought they had put exactly that in the card for one of their hottest markets last night (Montreal).

If you take nothing else away from watching Anderson Silva fight, know this: the man's not just a technician. He's an artist. There's no other way to characterize the creativity with which he problem-solves in the ring. And if we want to see him perform, we have to throw him a problem. He's driven to be as close to perfect in the ring as a competitor, as the rules permit and the situation allows.

A quick digression before everyone rips my head off for saying the above: why do you love MMA? I truly believe there's two schools of thought when it comes to this question: some people watch MMA because they enjoy pure violence, and MMA delivers it in very direct fashion. Others love it because it's the fighting sport with the most dauntingly broad, complicated and frankly unsolved-for rule set (to be fair, we mostly all fall somewhere in the middle). MMA is a dialogue of strikes and leverage, brute strength and clever gameplanning in which you can spend more time listing techniques that are allowed than are not. Nobody's truly figured out the unquestionably best approach to fighting in MMA (like in boxing, or wrestling, or countless other combat sports). MMA is refining down, but it's still all over the board.

The core of what everyone involved should be considering is whether we're in it for violent spectacle, or to see how far technically these athletes can take this as a sport. I'll give you one guess as to which I think Anderson Silva gives a shit about. And it doesn't involve boxers referring to his chosen career as "bar fighting."

I frequently use fighters as a way to describe other fighters. I'm gonna do it here. Lyoto Machida came up in the UFC doing exactly what people are mad at Anderson for doing now. Winning without getting touched. But... he's getting more exciting, right?

If anything, I feel there's a direct relationship with the fan-friendliness of both Lyoto and Anderson's performances and the level of threat they're presented with in the ring. Did Machida find David Heath and Sam Hoger to be more difficult opponents than Thiago Silva and Sokodjou? Of course not. He just didn't need to do anything more than bust them up from downtown like a couple of absolute amateurs. I'm glad he did. It would kill me to know he got laid out trying to be all Flying Arlovski so people would clap and Dana could use the F-word a couple more times in the press conference.

My gut feeling: as long as he's in the top rungs of the UFC, Lyoto will never be as uncommitted as in those two decision fights again. He won't have the luxury. He will be whooping ass to save his own life until the 205 div runs out of good fighters. And 205 is deep with ambitious, strong, smart fighters.

If Anderson appears to be getting more boring, it's because the best of the 185 lb. division is long behind him. He never kicked someone's ass faster than when Chris "charging troll" Leben showed him no respect whatsoever and declared it a kill-or-be-killed first round. I don't even care to see him rematch these people. He's cleaned 185 out aside from rematches and some rather uninteresting long-shots. It's time for us to start breaking the mold to find good fights for Silva, who's very likely counting down his last bouts as an MMA fighter.

I'm talking about Shogun. I'm talking about GSP. I'm talking about knocking out Keith Jardine and leaving him on the doorstep of THQ headquarters for publishing this crock of sh*t gameplay teaser. Anderson Silva has shown us that he deserves superfights, and the UFC needs to start putting some together while there's still time.

Embarassed of the show? Mad at Anderson, Dana? Show him. Put him in the ring with someone who will physically make him stop dancing instead of knitting your brow over the next useless, safe, bean-counter marketing ploy of a fight you'll make for him (very few people are buying that Anderson's legacy > Fedor's legacy argument anyway). Put Anderson Silva in harm's way. If he doesn't want the belt at 205, at least use him for some exciting outsourced gatekeeping (think Shogun + Wanderlei in Pride). If that runs dry, to hell with it! Give him a suitcase full of cash and throw him in the ring with Lesnar.185 can wait, the decision is basically a wasteland until Anderson retires regardless.

To sum (and now that I've gotten myself sufficiently riled up) I don't blame Anderson a bit for the fight he turned in last night. He's shown us every reason that we should be burning actual star-powered matchups to keep him interesting instead of having him lower his game to tearing chickens' heads off and throwing them into the crowd, and letting only one or two real names meet on a given fight card.

As a fan of the sport, I see this as the time where we can either prepare ourselves to be asking about "who hall-of-famer Anderson could have taken in his prime" for the next 5 years of the sport, or actually get the privilege of seeing Anderson in some real fights.

Folks have a definite tendency to take a look at St. Pierre vs. Penn and say something along the lines of "well, GSP is the most dominant 170 lb. fighter I can imagine, and BJ Penn is probabaly the most dominant 155 lb. fighter in the world, so St. Pierre gets this because he's got 15 more lbs. of pure domination."

This viewpoint is of course an over-simplification, but it generally reflects the public consensus. And in all fairness, it actually held true the first time these two fought. It was an even contest edged over by the size and strength of St. Pierre more than any other factor, and this ultimately raises the question of how BJ Penn would be able to avoid this outcome again.

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