Welcome to the A-Hole Department

A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (SPORTS DIVISION): It really annoys me how professional athletes talk about "swagger" all the time. "This was a big win for us, we got our swagger back," etc. There's even a deodorant called Swagger, which uses an NFL player as its pitchman. Just what is swagger? I think Ben Affleck's character in Boiler Room pretty well nails a working definition of swagger:

There's an important phrase that we use here and I think it's time you all learned it. "Act as if". Do you understand what that means? Act as if you are the fucking president of this firm. Act as if you have a nine inch cock. Act as if. -- Ben Affleck as Jim Young, Boiler Room

So "swagger" means being confident and cocky. Pretty much being an asshole. Yes, I was just thinking we need more assholes in pro sports. Having said all that, the Wood Dog really needs a good blog post to get his swagger back. Come on Wood Dog. Get in the war.

A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (SAN DIEGO DIVISION): Had a mellow night out last night. Didn't hook up with any chicks, so I was walking back to the car with my extraordinarily tall friend. I was wearing jeans and a sweater with a button-down underneath. My collar wasn't sticking out, and I didn't roll the sleeves of the shirt over the sleeves of the sweater - that look is so 2007. My friend was wearing khakis and a black coat. What I'm getting at is that we didn't look particularly gay, and we weren't holding hands or anything. Nonetheless, a cab goes by and a drunk dude sitting in the front passenger seat leans out the window and yells "Yeaaaaah! Go suck each other's cocks you fucking faggots!" Now there's a dude who has his swagger. You stay classy, San Diego.

A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (AUTO DIVISION):
Check the license plate frame - this car was parked in the parking lot for the San Diego State University DUI program.

A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (AIRLINE DIVISION): OK, we can all agree that flying is about 1,000% less fun when you check bags. So everyone brings carry-on bags. Generally, these are those roller bags that all look the same, and they are specifically designed by the Samsonites of the world to fit into overhead luggage compartments. Particularly, they are designed to fit in these compartments "wheels in," thus leaving room to efficiently pack the overhead compartment with as many of these roller bags as possible. So WTF is up with the person who boards the plane relatively early, puts their roller bag up in the overhead sideways instead of wheels-in, then closes the door to the overhead compartment? You've seen that person. Hell, you may even be that person. "My roller bag reigns supreme over all other roller bags! It deserves its own overhead compartment! I may be flying coach but my bag is flying first class! I cannot risk your proletariat bags possibly coming into contact with my identically-constructed bag!" Seriously, 8 times out 10 if the compartment above my seat is closed by the time I get there, I'll open it and either find plenty of space for my bag, or plenty of space for my bag after I rotate someone else's bag that is already up there. People do sometimes get a little worked up when you move their bags without asking, but I'm bigger than they are. Plus I get a little worked up over their "My bag made it in there, so fuck everyone else" attitude, so we're even. I mean, if everyone had that attitude, a lot of people would have died on the Titanic.
A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (POLITICALLY INCORRECT DIVISION): I was recently talking to a friend and was trying to make reference to a mutual acquaintance of ours. I couldn't remember the acquaintance's name, so I was trying to describe him: "...that skinny dude who works at a furniture store... talks about his daughter a lot... usually sits in that chair over there... drives a Jaguar...", etc. I got nothing but a blank stare from my friend, and I could have short-circuited the whole process had I just been able to say "You know, the black guy." That really was the best descriptor and differentiator for this dude, and I'm not allowed to use it. So, about 45 seconds of my life wasted in the name of political correctness.

A-HOLE DEPARTMENT (LOS ANGELES DIVISION): Here's a photo taken from my LA buddy's usual golf course. Jerk. However, he's not the kind of jerk who would put his bag into the overhead compartment sideways and then shut the compartment. Even if he flew commercial.

See you at the (Holiday) Party, Richter!

'Tis the Season to be Jolly.

The general rule of thumb is that Holiday Jollies include Holiday parties. However, "in this economy" (my nomination for 2008's Fastest Phrase to Jump the Shark, except that the phrase "Jump the Shark" jumped the shark long before this year) many firms canceled their holiday parties. Months ago my old firm, a large and prestigious one, canceled its holiday party, and just this week that same firm canceled some more of its employees. This does not bode well for the job market.

In recognition of the holiday party cancellations, a friend and an acquaintance (two different people) threw a holiday party featuring a hosted bar and pizza for several hours. Very cool of them. Nice to see such generousity, especially in tough times. It restores a little of my faith in people, which is nice because I don't have all that much to begin with - to paraphrase the Gin Blossoms, if you don't expect too much of people you might not be let down.

I attended another holiday party last night in San Diego. Specifically, this party was at Pure Platinum in Kearny Mesa. This was an invite-only party with a guest list, like pretty much any club in San Diego. Not that I go to Pure Platinum all that often; I don't have a frequent flyer card there or anything, and I wasn't on the first wave of invites. Rather, a friend was invited and he was allowed to invite other friends. So, free boobies? What the hell.

As you might imagine if you didn't click on the link, Pure Platinum is a gentlemen's club. Now, at a holiday party at a gentlemen's club, one might expect to see girls in skimpy "naughty Mrs. Claus" outfits. One would be right.
But what enticed me to show up in the first place was the promise that the party was catered by Benihana. This was untrue, and a disappointment. I hadn't been to a Benihana since a friend's wedding in Hawaii in 1999, and was looking forward to trying it again, if only to confirm that Benihana still exists. However, as a consolation prize there was some pretty good barbeque at the party (beef, chicken, pork) as well as some salad and other goodies. Overall, a good spread.

One might also expect to see a bunch of douchebag guys at such a party. One would be right, in spades. I was really surprised at both the quantity and "quality" of the douchebags in the place - we're talking Douchebag All-Stars here, the Top Gun of Douchebags, the Best of the Best. Which of course begged the question(s): what was I doing there? And more importantly, did I belong there? I've been acting kind of douchy myself lately, but I still didn't feel at home there. It's not like I showed up with slicked-back hair wearing jewelry and a blazer, t-shirt and jeans and flirted with strippers all night, so that set me apart from the general population. But were other guys also looking at me like I didn't belong? As I may have mentioned previously, there is a "tall guy" club in San Diego. It's kind of an unspoken thing, but every dude who is about 6'5" or taller tangentially knows each other and gives each other a nod when they're in the same local vicinity. Eventually they'll end up making small talk and complimenting each other on being big motherfuckers. Does a similar club exist for douchebags? Is there some sort of pinkie-ring swear that they do to get into the club? If that club does exist I'm not in it, which I'll take as a good sign.
I was out in Manhattan Beach last weekend, at a dive bar with friends. A group of people from some work party were there, and were dressed pretty festively. Of course there were Santas and naughty elves (though not nearly as naughty as at Pure Platinum), and I did the requisite flirting with one of the elves. A female elf, to clarify. But the strongest costume I saw, and possibly the strongest holiday costume I've ever seen, was the dude who was there dressed as Jesus. I wasn't even that comfortable dressing as Jesus Quintana from the Big Lebowski because he has "Jesus" written on his bowling shirt, but this dude went all-out as the Messiah. He wasn't carrying a cross on his back or anything, but he definitely had the white robe, the sandals, and the long hair and beard. And to top it off, he was walking around with a Holy Grail. I don't think it was the real Holy Grail, because everyone knows the Grail cannot pass beyond the Great Seal. But I do know that the people around the dude kept his Fake Grail full of real red wine (Jesus Juice?), and the dude didn't spend a dime. Which makes him a genius, and quite possibly a genius who is going to Hell.

No Coffee

"Put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers only. You think I'm fucking with you? I am not fucking with you."

-- Alec Baldwin as Blake, Glengarry Glen Ross

Electrifying performance by Alec Baldwin in that movie, and I think it won him an Oscar even though he only appears in that one scene, for about seven minutes. If it didn't win him an Oscar, it should have. And in it we learn that coffee is for closers only. Around Christmas time, cocoa is for cobblers only, but that is another matter.

I play in two fantasy football leagues. One is simian-related, and I care more about that league than I do the other, which is a Yahoo! league. The Yahoo! league annoys me because it is for lower stakes, because for many years it used a list-style draft instead of a live draft, because team names are limited to 20 characters, because every team besides mine has a crap team name, and because the participants aren't all that good at fantasy football. I've been playing in the Yahoo! league since 2003. It's generally a 12-team league, with eight teams making the playoffs. Since this league is full of chumps I figure I should have won at least twice by now. How's that working out for me? Let's take a look:

2003:

My Team: CIA Pencil Pushers
Playoff Seed: 3
Result: Third Place
League Champ: Da Bangers

2004:

My Team: Suck It, Trebec
Playoff Seed: 2
Result: Fifth Place
League Champ: Da Bangers

2005:

My Team: Brain-Dead Caribbeans
Playoff Seed: 4
Result: Third Place
League Champ: La Migra

2006:

My Team: Super Bowl Movement
Playoff Seed: 3
Result: Fifth Place
League Champ: Mustangs


2007:

My Team: Pats, Lies & Videotape
Playoff Seed: 1
Result: Second Place
League Champ: Boston Massholes

OK, the name Boston Massholes isn't bad. But I haven't managed to win this league once, but the supra-genius behind "Da Bangers" has won it twice? This is beyond unacceptable. I'm the Marty Freaking Schottenheimer of fantasy football - good enough to get you to the playoffs year after year, only to choke once I get there. Well, at least I've got myself in a position to fail yet again:

2008:

My Team: Ledger's Pallbearers
Playoff Seed: 4
Result: ???
League Champ: Ledger's Pallbearers OR 2 Drink Minimum

Seeing as how I drafted Tom Brady with my first pick, I consider this year to be one of my best fantasy football coaching jobs ever. However, I've still got to seal the deal. I've got to close. I've GOT TO. Especially this year: not only was I eliminated in the semifinals of my simian-based league, but I need the winnings from this league or there will be no Christmas presents this year. Or cocoa. Because cocoa is for cobblers only.

Oscar De La Jolla Has a Girlfriend!

OK, maybe the title of this blog post is not entirely accurate. What I really have is that someone has offered to be my girlfriend, so its basically a done deal.
I know what you're thinking. You want proof. Well, the proof is in the pudding. In this case, "pudding" means "e-mail." After a couple of chicks broke up with me via e-mail, it's nice to receive a relationship-building e-mail instead of a relationship-killing one.

OK, so technically the offer isn't for a girlfriend in the traditional sense. You see, this chick is very high tech (as evidenced by the fact that she offered to be my girlfriend over e-mail). So this is an offer for a cyber girlfriend, but we need to learn to crawl before we walk. I'm sure we'll end up meeting in real life if this cyber thing works out as I suspect it will. Still don't believe me? Well, read 'em and weep:

----------

To: mrblack629@yahoo.com

From: "Mario Lancaster" mariolancasterfmym@yahoo.com

Cc: 19 recipients, including Oscar de La Jolla's Yahoo Mail address

Subject: hi

i'd love to be your cyber girlfriend:)i'll make your fantasies come true at www-nikaok-com switch - to .

----------

If I may wax poetic for a moment, what I love most about this chick is how her emoticon smile just lights up the room... but wait! Fuck! I just realized that I was only cc'ed on this message, and that the offer was made to some jackhole named "mrblack629". So this chick is just rubbing my nose in the fact that she's going to be cyber-boning Mr. Black629. Fine. See if I care, slut. You've probably already boned Messrs. Black #1 through #628, and are just working your way up the line. I don't want anything to do with your tramp ass. Go back to your home on Whore Island. And come to think of it, I don't want to have any sort of sex, cyber or otherwise, with any chick named "Mario Lancaster". Even if he/she/it works at Asia SF and can cover Cher's Believe with the best of 'em.
Yahoo Mail's spam filters really need some work.

Random Babblings

Some random babblings while wondering if my blogmate is trapped under a heavy object. That's really the only plausible reason why the Gateway Gators schedule on the right side of the screen hasn't been updated with any scores.

WIE RHYMES WITH "WHEE!" I was browsing ESPN.com when I noticed the headline that Wie opens with 69 on hard LPGA Q-school course and I got to thinking, wouldn't it be great if Natalie Gulbis was the other half of that 69?
Insert "East Meets West" joke here as you see fit.

THE HOLIDAYS BUGGY ME. I think the dunking dream may be dead. Sort of a funny story actually. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I was out in the desert with my brother's family, doing desert things (e.g. riding ATVs and driving dune buggies, drinking American beer, burning palettes, and talking crap about the people in the next campsite) when my brother's middle son came back to the camp to tell us that the eldest son had stalled the buggy and was stuck out in the desert. We all piled into a jeep and headed out into the desert to find the stalled buggy. When we got to the buggy, there was no one around. Someone had parked their truck and trailer about 100 yards away, but the eldest son wasn't there and there was no one else around. So the people I was with who know about such things said that the throttle cable was broken and the buggy couldn't be driven without replacing the cable or rigging the cable with a clamp. My brother decides to try and start the buggy. And it starts all right, with the throttle wide open. Now, keep in mind that my brother didn't actually bother to get into the buggy before starting it. So this driverless buggy just takes off out into the desert at full speed. We weren't really expecting that, and just kind of held our beers and watched it go for a couple of seconds. And wouldn't you know, it was headed right for the only truck and trailer that was parked out there. So I start running after the thing, but it's going about 35 miles per hour and my top speed is somewhere below 20. Luckily the buggy hit a small dune and rolled onto its side about 40 yards short of the truck, and I reached it shortly thereafter and turned off the engine. However, it turns out sprinting over sand dunes isn't great for a 36 year-old calf, and it is now a 36 year-old strained calf. Hmm. "Straining my calf" sounds a bit like a euphemism for masturbation. In any event, I've been out of commission for about a week and I still need a few more days of rest. I think that pretty much puts the nail in the dunking coffin.

HOTTEST GIFT OF THE CHRISTMAS SEASON:
They're having a holiday sale on old ladies in wheelchairs at Costco but you'd better get down there fast, they were flying out the door.

UNREASONABLE HANGUP DEPARTMENT. I don't think I could date Kim Kardashian. There are many reasons for this. It's not that I don't find her attractive (I do), or that I think her butt is too big (I might). And it's not necessarily that Ms. Kardashian probably wouldn't date me. You see, she seems to prefer dating rappers and NFL players and I might not be her type. I'm not famous, I'm not terribly wealthy, and I'm not Canadian. But I wouldn't be able to date her because I wouldn't be able to get my mind around the fact that there is in existence a widely available videotape of some dude laying the wood to her.
Look, I realize that when I date someone she's been with other people. But I still like to pretend she hasn't. For instance, let's suppose a woman is proposing a type of foreplay. There are a couple of ways to do it:

Option #1: When I dated Rob, we used to rub baby oil all over each other before we did it and it was really hot.

Who the fuck is this "Rob" guy? You still think about him even though we're dating? I know that you do, just as I still think about other people, BUT DON'T TELL ME THAT YOU DO! This approach? TOTAL boner-shrinker.

Option #2: Let's try rubbing baby oil all over each other before doing it. That would be really hot.

Hmm... this girl's a little naughty... the idea to use baby oil just popped into her head spontaneously... that IS hot. See? Option #2 is MUCH better!

I'm also not attracted to any of my friends' wives or girlfriends, whether current or exes. I recognize that they are attractive people, but these women have not only been with other people, but they've been with people I know, which makes them off-limits. Seriously, any woman who would fall for the BS these dudes used to get girls, well, I can't be attracted to a woman like that. But even worse is actually seeing a person with someone else, like on the Kardashian videotape. Can you imagine the mountain of shit your buddies would give you for that? "Hey dude, caught the tape of Ray J railing your chick. Are you hitting it as hard as he did? Would you mind making a tape so I can compare for myself?" So I guess I won't be returning Kim's calls. This also means that I can't date Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, or Dustin Diamond. Not that I would have wanted to. Well, Screech maybe.

Unmixed Martial Arts

So, Brock Lesnar beat Randy Couture by referee stoppage in that MMA heavyweight title fight. Lesnar caught Couture with a right hand in the second round, sending Couture to the ground, then Lesnar got on top of him and kept punching him in the head until the ref decided Couture wasn't intelligently defending himself and stepped in. The size differential between these two dudes was something greater than anticipated. Couture weighed in at 6'1" and 220lbs, and Lesnar weighed in at 6'3" and 265lbs. During the fight, it looked like Lesnar was at least four inches taller and 75 pounds heavier than Couture. Couture explained his loss thusly: "That's a big summbitch." He was right. Rounding out the night, Joe Rogan co-announced the fight and he was in full douchebag form as predicted right here in this blog. Joe wasn't wearing his usual ball cap though, prompting one of the girls we were watching with to say "that dude needs some Rogaine." Good idea: more Rogaine and less Rogan.

In my last post, I joked that I am going to become an MMA fighter. This is not entirely unrealistic. True, my fighting background goes only as far as a karate green belt and a couple of bar brawls so I might be a tad inexperienced. But I have what is apparently the most important trait: I'm white.

Saturday's title fight featured two white guys fighting for the heavyweight championship. The undercard was also filled mostly with white guys. As I thought more about it, most of the MMA fights I've seen are between white guys. Based on empirical evidence, I'd say that latinos are represented in MMA in about the same proportion as in the general population, and blacks are proportionally under-represented in MMA. Why is this? Although this topic probably deserves actual research and intelligent writing, I've come up with a few possibilities.

Possibility #1: MMA Intentionally Recruits White Guys and Discourages Minorities. As a relatively new sport, MMA is trying to grow itself. The demographic most coveted by advertisers are males aged 18 to 34 years old (meaning advertisers are after The Wood Dog but couldn't give two shits about me) and white males within that group are probably more affluent than minority males. So it would make good business sense to cater to young white males by featuring fighters that target audience can identify with.

Boxing has become increasingly unpopular over the years, and it seems to have been surpassed by MMA. The majority of boxers are ethnic minorities. If whites don't identify with these boxers and quit following the sport, that's a huge audience to lose and could account for the fall in popularity. I don't follow boxing, but I do know more about Kelly Pavlik's career than I do about any other boxer's. Which is to say I am vaguely aware of it. When Floyd Maywether fought Ricky Hatton, I was a bit torn as to which fighter to root for. Maywether is a black American and was viewed as the more talented fighter. He was also portrayed as an arrogant asshole. Hatton was a scrappy white fighter from Britain who was the underdog. I ended up pulling for Hatton, though I don't know how much race played into that and how much the underdog factor played into it. More recently, white European fighter Joe Calzaghe defeated black American Roy Jones Jr. in a title fight. Jones was portrayed as something of a reformed former asshole in the lead-up to that fight, while Calzaghe was portrayed similarly to Hatton, a small-town white fighter who is trained by his father, a Man of the People who never forgot about the old neighborhood. I didn't watch that fight so I didn't really have a rooting interest in it, but I will say this: Calzaghe's girlfriend is HOT.

In addition to those two title fights, I believe there are some white Russians who have been passing the heavyweight boxing title around. And I know there are some White Russians that are currently being consumed on these premises. But since these Russian fighters look more like white Americans, it may be easier for white Americans to identify with them. However, they're still Europeans so it would be tougher to get entirely behind these guys. And maybe we see that in boxing's flagging popularity.

However, boxing's unpopularity might also be due to perceived corruption in the sport, fighters with lackluster personalities, or the increase in viewing alternatives. Muhammad Ali was an interesting and controversial fighter, and boxing was wildly popular when he was heavyweight champion though his biggest fights came against other black fighters like George Foreman and Joe Frazier. However, a controversial figure like Ali would risk losing endorsement deals in this day and age, so it may be that many boxers have made a conscious choice to be relatively boring. Additionally, in Ali's time viewers could only choose between boxing or whatever was on the other two TV channels, and they'd actually have to get up off the couch and walk over to the TV to change to another channel. It's much easier to click over to an episode of Top Chef today.

In a somewhat similar vein, some might blame the NBA's decline in popularity on the perceived Thugification of that league. In a mostly black league where the on-court players are more visible than in any other sport, did the cornrows, tattoos, on-court fights and off-court incidents cause "white flight" from the NBA? Although the majority of NBA players are probably well-behaved, media coverage of the transgressions feeds into the perception that the league is full of thugs with whom white audiences have little in common. At a minimum these incidents have led to changes in the sport, such as mandatory suspensions for players who leave the bench area during fights, and dress codes for injured or inactive players while they are on the bench during games. Although there are also white players with tattoos and cornrows in the NBA, these players are less prominent and don't receive as much media attention. I know I don't care about the NBA now (I do participate in an NBA fantasy league each year, but I don't prepare for the draft or follow the league). I did in the 1980's and early 1990's when Larry Bird, Danny Ainge, Kevin McHale, Jerry Sichting, Scott Wedman, Brad Lohaus and Greg Kite played for the Boston Celtics. That could be because the Celtics were about all I could talk about with my father during that time, or it could be because I could relate better to a team with white players. Still, I also liked Reggie Lewis, and one of my favorite Celtic players was Dirk Minnifield, a scrappy black player who was the last guy off the bench. The Boston home crowd (and me) would go wild whenever Dirk came into the game or scored a bucket. Like boxing, the NBA seems to be getting "whiter" with an influx of European players, but again it might be difficult for white Americans to fully get behind and support white European players.

So, it could be a conscious choice by MMA to seek out white American fighters, and maybe to exclude or discourage minority fighters, in order to appeal to the white American audience. I'm not saying it is, I'm saying it's possible.

Possibility #2: White Guys Wrestle. Ground-fighting is a huge part of MMA. Almost without fail, an MMA fight is going to go the ground at some point and if a fighter doesn't have ground-fighting skills he's in big trouble. At my high school, basketball season and wrestling season ran concurrently. More black guys went out for basketball than for wrestling, and most of the black guys who tried out made the basketball team. This left a bunch of open wrestling slots, and since most of the black athletes in the school played basketball, the remaining athletes to fill the wrestling slots were largely white or latino. If this same scenario is playing out throughout the country, then there's a much larger "farm system" of white and latino wrestlers who are developing the base skills to become MMA fighters. Why might blacks be more attracted to basketball? Possibly because of opportunity - there are likely a lot more basketball courts in urban areas than there are wrestling gyms. Maybe most colleges don't offer wrestling scholarships (I don't know if they do or not) while most offer basketball scholarships, so black players may pursue basketball as a "way out" of the streets and into college. It could also be that black players are attracted to basketball because it offers the potential for a pro career in the U.S. or in Europe, whereas until the recent rise of MMA there weren't as many opportunities to make a career out of wrestling.
Whites may also be attracted to wrestling because it is a more level playing field for them athletically. Although disputed, some have theorized that black athletes are more agile and have greater footspeed and jumping ability than white athletes. These athletic advantages would be largely negated in close combat. For instance, the majority of "skill position" players in the NFL, where footspeed is a primary requirement, are black. However, there are still significant numbers of white offensive and defensive lineman, for whom size and strength is relatively more important than speed. On a personal level, I don't think I've ever seen, in person, a white guy fight a black guy where the white guy tried to box the black guy for any length of time. The white guy would realize he was outmatched in handspeed, and would try to take the other guy to the ground. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but the strategy is pretty consistent.

Possibility #3: White Guys Bleed. Nothing makes for good spectating quite like someone bleeding all over the place. This is true in boxing, and the best hockey fights involve someone getting beaten to a bloody pulp on the ice. Empirically, it seems to me that white fighters get cut more often and become bloody messes mid-fight more often than black fighters. The blood certainly contrasts better with a white face, and the same goes for black eyes and bruises. Whites and blacks both suffer these injuries, but the purple contrast on a white face is immediately noticeable during a fight, whereas it can be difficult to notice these injuries on a black fighter until the break between rounds or the press conference afterwards. The more-visible injuries and blood on the white fighter will incite "blood lust" in the crowd, making for a more exciting experience. So maybe the equation is that simple: White MMA Fighters => Bloody MMA Fighters => Exciting MMA Fights => Popular Sport.

This... Is MMA (Part One)

There's a big mixed martial arts ("MMA") fight tonight. The current UFC heavyweight champ, Randy "The Natural" Couture, is fighting Brock Lesnar, who used to be a WWF guy but now he's in the UFC. This means he can not only act but he can apparently fight as well. I watched the pair's official weigh-in yesterday. Couture's 6'1" and he weighed in at 220lbs. Dude is certainly very solid and extremely cut, but I've watched him a few times and he looked a little smaller this time than he usually is. Lesnar is something like 6'3" and he weighed in right at the upper limit of 265lbs. Lesnar's natural weight is something like 290 and the announcers speculated that he'll gain back 10-12 pounds before tomorrow night's fight. Not sure if he's using my tried-and-true method of being hung over and going to Del Taco to gain back the 10-12 pounds.

MMA's an interesting animal. A fighter can win an MMA fight by knockout, referee or corner stoppage, opponent submission, or judges' decision. Sometimes the two guys stand up and punch and kick each other (in MMA this is called striking) and sometimes they roll around on the ground with one guy's legs wrapped around the other guy's waist (in MMA this is known as ground and pound and full guard; in the Castro it is known as the Cleveland Steamer). The only real rules in MMA are no eye gouging, no nut shots and no punching the back of the head. The fighters wear light gloves and usually don't wear shoes. I think they can wear shoes, but if they do they are limited by the rules in what they can do as far as kicking. This also gives fighters something good to hold on to when they're trying to twist the other guy's ankle for a submission, so the vast majority of fighters don't wear shoes. When a fighter is being choked out or is about to have a limb broken, he can submit by tapping out, repeatedly tapping his hand on his opponent or on the mat. The referee will see this and stop the fight. Very rarely, a guy will sac up and refuse to tap out when he's being choked and his opponent will actually choke him out.

In boxing, the top-level fighters generally have impressive records, like 31-0, 45-3, etc. A boxer with more than a couple of losses probably won't be seen as a contender and he isn't going to get a title shot. In MMA on the other hand, a bunch of losses apparently aren't deal-killers. Randy Couture is 16-8; that record would make him a tomato can in boxing, but in MMA he's the UFC heavyweight champ. An MMA fighter also doesn't have to build up his reputation by winning a bunch of fights or otherwise prove himself before he is considered a contender - Brock Lesnar is getting this title shot with a record of 2-1. Apparently title shots are awarded based on perceived potential and marketability of the fighter, since MMA is still a pretty new sport and its promoters are trying to grow it. Kimbo Slice was the biggest thing in MMA since sliced bread based on a bunch of street fights like this one that were uploaded to Youtube, until he was knocked out by a relative unknown by the name of Seth "The Silverback" Petruzelli in about 8 seconds, despite outweighing Petruzelli by 55lbs. Kimbo was damned marketable though, and he looked pretty invincible against average dudes on the street.

MMA also has hot chicks. Well, hot chick anyway. Gina Carano is a part-time American Gladiator, part-time MMA fighter, and full-time babe. Gina's built about the same as my FWB from a prior blog post, and they're both 5'9". So I'm making a very educated guess that Gina looks great naked. But for now we'll just have to imagine what Gina looks like naked based on the following collage:
MMA seems to cater to the 18- to 34-year old, hoodie-wearing dude with a shaved head and multiple tattoos who drinks energy drinks all day. Do you think sales of energy drinks go up on fight day, as the shaved-head hoodie dudes are all stocking up to have their friends over? On fight nights is there a disproportionately high number of shaved-head hoodie dudes at bars that are showing the MMA pay-per-view fights? When shaved-head hoodie dudes get into fights and they're getting their asses pummeled, can they tap out? Does the opponent honor the tap out if he is also a shaved-head hoodie dude?

If you're going to be an MMA fighter, you better be prepared to get cauliflower ears. Couture is totally nailing that look, but for a lot of people the look is difficult to pull off. It's especially difficult to pull off if you're James "The Colossus" Thompson. And it's especially especially difficult to pull of if you're James "The Colossus" Thompson and Kimbo Slice has just gotten through punching you in your cauliflower ear a bunch of times:
In MMA, the light heavyweights fight at weights between 185lbs and 205lbs, and the heavyweights fight at weights between 205lbs and 265lbs. When I become an MMA fighter, I'll probably drop a few pounds and fight as a light heavyweight at 205 because I really have very little desire to get the crap beaten out of me by dudes who outweigh me by 55 pounds in the heavyweight division. I'd much rather get the crap beaten out of me by dudes who weigh 20 pounds less than I do in the light heavyweight division. So as soon as I dunk that basketball I'm becoming an MMA fighter - having a cauliflower ear has always been a dream of mine.