Alas, the return of Spilled Bag of Ice and Patrick Guera! This time the guys chat it up about Nick Diaz’s medical condition and the ridiculousness of athletic commissions, Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier, the epic battle between “The Korean Zombie” and Dustin Poirier, and the upcoming all-heavyweight and all-awesome UFC 146.
Click here to listen to MMA Gospel Podcast # 3. Don’t be scared, homie!
Spilled Bag of Ice and Patrick Guera are back to talk about UFC 145, Jon Jones, and also touch on the Alistair Overeem and PEDs in MMA issue. Throughout, be sure they make sure to complain about how much MMA fans complain about MMA. Hypocrisy or just straight up truth? You be the judge… but enjoy it either way!
Click here to listen to MMA Gospel Podcast # 2.
It was an amazing weekend for MMA. The UFC kicked off its flyweight division with an entertaining, non-stop, action-packed scrap between Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall and Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson on Friday night. And Saturday night saw women’s MMA reinvigorated by two great fights between Sarah Kaufman and Alexis Davis and the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Title bout between Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey. However, it wasn’t all good…
Here on MMA Gospel, we do a column after fights called “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and I’m going to use that format with my own spin: The Epic and the WTF?! It was originally going to be “The Epic, the Shitty and the WTF?” but I found it hard to separate the shitty from the WTF. Continue reading »
Dominique “Fallen Angel” Robinson is the man. We’ve had him and his friend and training partner, fighter James “9 Knuckles” Chaney on the radio show and they were both awesome cats. I’ve kept in touch with them on Twitter and when I heard they’d be out here in Vegas for Dom’s fight with Anderson Silva’s student Paulo Bananada at Superior Cage Combat 4, I had to go. The rest of the card had some impressive names too – like UFC vets Kendall Grove vs. Jay Silva in the main event.
Anyway, the kind folks at SCC gave me a press pass, despite my frequent assertions that I’m not a journalist. Hey, I’m better than a journalist; I’m a social media juggernaut. In fact, to their immense credit, when I offhandedly suggested via Twitter that they give a ticket to my Twitter friend and ammy fighter Jeff Wright, they did! All he had to do was live tweet the event and keep me company… and buy me a beer. Those last two were my stipulations. And for the record, he only lived up to the first two. He still owes me a beer. Continue reading »
It’s been three days since Nick Diaz lost to Carlos Condit for the interim UFC welterweight title. Three days of controversy, outrage and suffering…Well, for me it was suffering. I wanted Nick to win. I wanted Nick to fight Georges St. Pierre and to beat him. I wanted the fearless, scrappy kid from Stockton to overthrow the Canadian golden boy and bring some excitement and “fuck you” attitude back to MMA.
However, unlike most Nick Diaz fans, I couldn’t find solace in thinking that the loss was a “robbery” or that Condit just “ran away” the whole fight because both of those sentiments are ridiculous. I’m blessed and cursed with having the ability to see things from a lot of different angles and perspectives and not just the ones that fit into my desired reality. So, it’s not so easy for me to come to terms with certain things without that ability to just ignore certain facts. But after days of absorbing everything that I saw Saturday night as I sat in my awesome seats at Mandalay Bay like a pimp and all the different points of view that fans have shared via that beautiful yet diseased harlot I like to call “the internet”, I’ve got some things worked out. I suffer, struggle, and come up with answers and now share them with you so that you may be saved. Kinda like Jesus… okay, exactly like Jesus. Continue reading »
Is Joey Beltran’s mustache good for the sport? Does it make him look too Mexican? Does it alienate the non-Hispanic MMA fans? In case you haven’t picked up on it, I’m being sarcastic.
Back before I became an MMA journalist pundit …whatever the fuck it is I do, things were different. 98% of my Twitter followers didn’t know what MMA was or weren’t fans. Now, my Twitter feed is nothing but MMA fans. At first I enjoyed discussing upcoming fights and being in the loop on the latest news but coming up on two years since the birth of SBoI, I have to deal with the other side of it. The dark side… (cue over-dramatic music) A lot of MMA fans tend to over-analyze everything and make mountains out of molehills. Especially when it comes to what is or isn’t “good for the sport”. If some MMA fans obsessed over their children’s every action the way they do everything that happens in MMA, their kids would grow up to be neurotic freaks; possibly serial killers. MMA is gonna be fine. It’s time to cut the apron strings and let your baby grow up and you know, just try and enjoy it. Chael doing a Superstar Billy Graham isn’t going to ruin the sport. Relax. You have to realize that the so-called “casual” fans or potential future fans aren’t paying attention to all this minutia the way we sick bastards are. Anyway, feel free to continue being obsessed just try to do it with a sense of joy, passion, and humor rather than neurotic angst. If you can’t do that, try to keep it off my Twitter timeline. I’d appreciate it, you doughy wankers! (courtesy of @sonnench) Continue reading »
(Photo courtesy of DiazBrothers.com)
Way back in July of 2011, Chael Sonnen said he would do an interview with me but suggested that I might want to wait. Chael was doing a ton of media at the time so I took that rain check. Now with the exciting and unexpected news that Chael will be fighting Michael Bisping next Saturday at UFC on FOX 2, with his original opponent Mark Munoz out due to injury, I decided to cash in that rain check. I reminded Chael about it and told him that whenever he was free we’d do the interview. Later that day, Chael called me for a chat. Never let it be said that Chael isn’t a man of his word.
UFC 140. What can you say? “Wow”, “Holy Shit”, “Didn’t see that coming” All the above. Let’s just break this crazy card down, shall we?
Dennis Hallman vs. John Makdessi: Hallman via Submission (Rear Naked Choke), Round 1
Hallman, who didn’t make weight and who famously horrified Dana White with his blue micro-speedos at UFC 133, took Makdessi down, controlled him, beat him up and eventually choked him out – and saved himself from a certain firing if he had lost. He then told Joe Rogan that he hopes Jesus comes soon because “we’re barely hanging on”…okay. That was creepy. Made even more creepy by Hallman’s lisp. Just sayin’. Continue reading »
As UFC 140 approaches this Saturday, I’m asked by MMA Gospel as well as the millions of Icemigos around the world (give or take millions) to give my picks on the main card. Now, sometimes I have a clear and definite opinion on how I think a fight will go. This is usually a pleasure because all I have to do is explain what I think and why and hope that I will be able to gloat and say “I told you so” rather than shrug and say “the fuck do I know?”.
However, many times I have no real concrete opinion on the potential outcome. In these instances, I’m forced to look carefully at the fighters’ strengths and weaknesses and how they match up against each other. I also look at past fights and allow for momentum and progression by giving more weight to more recent fights. Then I consider various X factors like heart and toughness, how long since their last fight, whether they’ve trained with a new gym with new coaches, if they’re moving to a new weight for the fight, any possible injuries that may be hindering them, and so on.
I consider all of this very carefully for about ten minutes and then I forget all that shit and pretty much fucking guess. My success rate in such instances is about 60%. Here’s my main problem with these damn picks: the odds aren’t factored in. They are when you bet money, why not in accessing the accuracy of picks? For example, if in Tito Ortiz vs. Ryan Bader you picked Ortiz via first-round submission that should be worth at least 25x more on the accuracy points as say, picking Couture via first-round TKO against James Toney. But if we’re going to indulge in prognostication why not go balls out? So, here’s how the main card of UFC 140 will go down. Exactly. If you don’t want spoilers, I suggest not reading any further but instead waiting until after UFC 140 and coming back and being completely amazed by my psychic powers. Continue reading »
This isn’t going to be a traditional Spilled Bag of Fights as much as a counter-point to Dan Griffin’s piece “Did MMA Fans’ Pessimism Overshadow Success of UFC on FOX?” I don’t know how much of Dan’s perspective was based on who he follows on Twitter and how much was inspired by Dana White’s derisive comments towards fans who criticized the event. However, one comment that Dan used about some fans saying that first time MMA viewers might think, after watching Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos was, “This is just like boxing with smaller gloves.” That’s almost verbatim of a tweet I made Saturday night so, I feel obliged to respond. Speaking to that particular point Dan says, this ignores that new fans have the internet or other means to find out that MMA consists of a great deal more. However, we’re not talking about “new fans” who likely know what MMA is but rather the curious non-fan that is curious enough to watch but not research MMA. And while even those people likely know that MMA is not just boxing, that’s still the impression they’d be left with if that was the first MMA fight they’ve seen. Continue reading »
I was set to watch UFC 137 streaming on my computer like some pimply faced teenaged loser when I got an electronic mail from one of my connections at the UFC. I say this entirely to brag and make myself seem important. Whether it’s accurate is none of your damn business. The short of it: Two tickets have become available for you if you want them. Of course I want them! I was sitting with my dog, Carlos, watching the Game Show Network. Let’s get this shindig going, man! Carlos is a Chihuahua and because of his Mexican heritage and small size, a revolutionary at heart. Me, I’m also a revolutionary. Not quite an anarchist but that’s neither here nor there. I knew I couldn’t bring Carlos but I also knew that I had no other friends in this god forsaken town where dreams go to wander up and down Las Vegas boulevard until someone approaches them and offers them some cheap meth and they say “Why the fuck not?”. Continue reading »
"Dannyboy" Downes: Kick ass and all class. (Photo courtesy of SBoI)
Hey icemigos!
I caught up with UFC lightweight fighter and good friend of MMA Gospel and myself, “Dannyboy” Downes. He’s become a fan favorite for his gutsy style and self-deprecating wit, as well as the fact that such a nerdy intellectual has the ability to smash your face in.
We talked about his loss to Jeremy Stephens, his upcoming fight with TUF weirdo Ramsey Nijem, and training with Bellator Welterweight Champion Ben Askren. We also talked about his domination of the UFC’s “Tweets of the Week” column for nearly a year straight and his plan to expand his social media dominance with a new “Dannyboy” Downes YouTube channel. All this and more! Give it a listen, follow Danny on Twitter if you’re not already, and be sure to watch his UFC 137 fight free on Facebook, October 29. Continue reading »
There’s been a lot of fights since my last Spilled Bag of Fights but I’m going to mainly focus on UFC 136 which was really one of the most impressive and stacked cards in recent memory. It featured two title fights as well as the return of the entertaining albeit polarizing Chael Sonnen. So, let’s just dive right in. Continue reading »
