Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

When is "I like MMA" going to be a legitimate answer to the question "What sport do you like?"At the moment when I say that, I get funny looks from people, kind of like, "yeah, okay, but I mean a real sport, like soccer or baseball."

As an English teacher in Japan, it's a question I get asked all the time. I used to lie and say something like "I like soccer" or "I like basketball", but then I'd be asked what team I support, and I'd start to feel bad lying through my teeth about a team I didn't give a shit about.

In reality, the only sport I like is MMA. Everything else is pretty boring to me. Sometimes I like to watch rugby or football (soccer), but only when England is playing international games (and only when they are winning).

How about you? Are you a sports fan, an MMA fan, or a fan of both? And when do you think it will be alright to simply say "I like MMA"?

Continue reading this post »

Here's what methinks about UFC 95.

• Dan Hardy sponsored by HGH, which turns out to be Homeopathic Growth Hormone. Snort. In other news, Joe Stevenson was sponsored by Ultimate Power Air, Diego Sanchez was sponsored by Pure 100% Ultra-Nothing, and Demian Maia was sponsored by Xtreem-Chi-Blast-Water.
• Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg caught with their own giant feet in their mouth, salivating, mid-chomp, just as Koscheck gets knocked the fuck out by an apparently inferior striker. In other news, the colourful commentators are meeting with their financial advisor to discuss the issue of whether they should remove some of their eggs from the single basket they have.
  
• Demian Maia on being lucky enough to discover his doppelganger, and then triangling the shit out of it: "Yes it was a very lucky for me to find a man with my exact of a face. We have same chin and kind of sticky out ears. Unfortunate for my doppelganger his jiu jitsu is sucks [laughs]"
• Nate Marquardt on not being watched by the guy at Martial Farts (me) because his fights are too long and boring: "You really should watch my fights, dude. I am getting much better, much more exciting. Seriously." My response: "Shit, okay dude. I'll think about it. Sorry about that."
  
• Dan Hardy on his quest to become as good as an American at MMA. "I'm doing my best man. I am working on getting my body to look good, and I have got the hairstyle down. I've also been winning fights. I hope that within the next year or so you'd be able to mistake me for an American in the cage. I like to think I'm probably about Japanese level now, or maybe Russian. Shooting for American standard this year." Hardy also promises not to forget his Englishness: "Outside of the cage I'm as British as they come. I have bad teeth, dip Rich Tea biscuits in my tea, and I love football. Sometimes if I'm feeling really English I'll dip my football in my cup of tea and then headbutt a fox or whatever."
• Diego Sanchez looks like he's on peyote or some other mind-altering substance when he comes into the ring. Like he can see through time and space, man... Or maybe he has just watched Karate Kid and Best of the Best too many times (if that's even possible!). Diego seems like the kind of guy you'd bump into at a party and he'd start talking to you and then he just wouldn't stop, and you'd kind of start examining a sculpture on the shelf behind him and nodding your head then checking your phone and saying uh huh, scratching your ear while he blabbers on and on and then you make eye contact with someone much less twatty who comes over and you leave Diego mid-sentence but he barely notices and continues spraying nonsense from his mouth. Kind of like Dana White did on his vlog. 
• I tried to watch Neil Grove vs. some other big fat dude with a beard but this totally awesome piece of dust was kind of swirling around in the corner of my room and I just couldn't take my eyes off it. I think I saw some paint drying on the wall too but upon closer inspection it was already dry. I watched it for a bit anyway. Then I just closed my eyes and sighed. Then the fight was finished. Ho hum.
  
• The UFC breathes a sigh of relief as the gamble pays off again and a bunch of upper-middle class UFC fighters, first timers and English dudes deliver a solid event. Analogy: UFC buys a pack of mouldy old fireworks for cheap. Takes them to England. Lights the fuse, steps back, and waits... waits... waits.... gulps, mops brow, nervous laughter... waits... BOOM! ZAPOW! SKREEEK! Fireworks ensue! Thanks goodness! Dana White wipes his brow theatrically, high-fives Lorenzo Fertitta, backflips into a golden Ferrari, headbutts a horse that was just standing there and is like "huh?" then zooms off into the air leaving a trail of fire.
  

Japan is, metaphorically speaking, ripe for invasion, I am sure of it. Take it from someone who lives here; this is a nation that loves foreign stuff more than an old dude on a beach with a metal detector.

Black coffee isn't just called "black coffee" over here. It's American Kohee...

The bed I sleep on at night isn't just a bed. It's a France Bed. It has nothing at all to do with France other than the apparent bed-related awesomeness the word "France" conjures up.

English makes up about 20% of the nation's vocabulary. You can literally stumble your way through an entire day by putting a heavy accent on words extracted from popular Western culture. Old lady almost spills a drink on your lap? No problem! Just swipe your arms through the air and yell "SAFE!!" like a baseball umpire. She'll get the picture.

Workmate just completed a particularly important project? Give him two thumbs up and blurt out: "Nice play!"

Schoolgirl panty vending machine just spat out two pairs of used panties by mistake? Elbow the drooling salaryman next to you and yell "Lucky!!"

The point is, foreign stuff goes down a treat in Japan. From the pimply-faced balding and overweight English guy with a bevvy of black-haired beauties on his arm to the profanity-laced American hip hop that assaults the un-knowing ears of 15 year old girls shopping for accessories in boutiques, if it's foreign, it's probably cool.

Dana White said "It’s a very, very, very tough place to navigate and do business. But, fuck ‘em. We’re going to do it anyway. They will not stop me from going into Japan."

I assume by "they" he means the giant killer robots with American-seeking missiles that used to guard the airports and seaports of Japan against invasion. Maybe he doesn't know they were decommissioned and sold for scrap metal about the same time Britney Spears started humping the air and singing about getting hit.

What the UFC needs to do in Japan is live up to exactly the reputation that America, and American things, have in Japan. It needs to explode onto the scene in a shower of incredibly tasteless red white and blue sparks with power chords chunking out of speakers, cheerleaders backflipping over your face and cigar-chomping body builders headbutting machine guns attached to bald eagles driving Hummers.

It needs to be big, brash and completely over the top. Dana needs to roll through Tokyo in a stretch Hummer while Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell throw wads of cash at an adoring crowd. Brock Lesnar should be riding a Harley behind them with Anderson Silva and BJ Penn balancing on his shoulders. For the coup de grace, a red white and blue private jet should swoop down from on high and Satoshi Ishii, Caol Uno, Yamamoto Kid and 50 Cent somersault out and start rapping in broken English with megaphones.

Okay, okay, you may, may accuse me of being over the top. But I really do think that the UFC needs to come in guns blazing, all or nothing, if they want to conquer Japan. The time has never been more right; Obama is big news over here; the Japanese MMA scene is flat and tasteless, and the fans are begging for a little bit of American framboyant fighting show.

I think the UFC should portray itself as a piece of entertainment, packed full of larger than life fight-game celebrities. Whatever happens I am definitely looking forward to it.