starcatcher.ca

On the way home from Tattoo rehearsal last night, I found out that WWE superstar Chris Benoit had died. Last night’s RAW, a hastily-assembled tribute show, painted Benoit as a consummate professional, a real man among men, chock-full of honor, tenacity, and respect for the business. As with many wrestlers who died in their prime, his death will do wonders for his legacy: Scott Keith, a well-known Internet-based wrestling writer, commented that in an instant, Benoit went from “debatable legend” to “immortality”. He will be missed by his fellow wrestlers, and by the fans (myself included) who were entertained by him over the years.

While Benoit’s passing is sad in and of itself, the fact that it was as a result of a double-murder-suicide (also involving his wife and young son) has added an extra air of surrealism to the whole ordeal. As the shock slowly starts to wear off, people are going to start playing the blame game: all of his accomplishments are for naught, given the way he chose to finish it. People will argue that last night’s RAW was a 3-hour tribute to a murderer. In a way, this is really unfortunate, especially for the man Chris Benoit had been up until a couple of days ago. Some suggest that ‘roid Rage might have been a factor, and that WWE might suffer for it (again), but should movie studios pay the price when their stars go on big coke binges?

People are odd, though… Many are unable to tell the difference between an entertainer’s private life and their publicly-visible work. I believe that every person’s talents should be judged independent of any of their other faults, and I obviously can’t be alone in the matter (Michael Jackson and R. Kelly still selling albums is proof enough of that). Nevertheless, we often seek to find fault in celebrities to make ourselves feel better (supermarket tabloids have made a mint at this). Some people posting on Internet message boards (and you know how representative these people are of the general populace) have even said that they aren’t going to watch wrestling anymore because of this… This is the equivalent of not watching football (or Naked Gun movies) anymore when the whole OJ thing broke in the ’90s. They’re implying that without Benoit, there is no WWE, or even pro-wrestling in general. I don’t think so. You’ll also have the watchdog groups saying that “wrestling has gone too far,” yadda yadda yadda. They always seem to come out of the woodwork at these opportune (for them) times. Both of these are examples of people not seeing the forest for the trees, over-analyzing every detail so as to find a flaw in what many consider to be an “inferior artform” or “fake sports”, which is unfair to those who live it, as well as to those who love it.

Chris Benoit’s wrestling legacy should not be judged by how his career (and life) came to a close. At the root, he was an entertainer. I watched his matches to be entertained, to see and experience things I wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to in my otherwise drab existence; who he was as a person wasn’t of primary concern to me. Whether he killed both his son and wife, or his wife killed his son and then he killed his wife before hanging himself, or whether aliens came down from space and zapped them all, that one moment will not tarnish my memories of him as a performer.

Whoa. To say that last night’s UFC main event victory by Gabriel Gonzaga over Mirko Cro Cop was an upset is a bit of an understatement. Sure, Gonzaga has a great record in MMA, but he’d never really fought nor defeated anyone of note. Nevertheless, he came and took the fight to Cro Cop, putting the Croatian on the defensive from the first bell, taking him down, and ultimately dropping him with a vicious right high kick, as deadly a kick as I’ve ever seen Cro Cop throw. We were all in shock!!

His follow-up match against Randy Couture will definitely affect how he’ll be remembered in the world of mixed martial arts. Until then, he’ll have the benefit of knowing that he beat one of the best strikers, and as his own game, no less. Cro Cop will be back, though… Hopefully…

The rest of the card at last night’s Free-Per-View on Spike was a mixed bag. The Arlovski fight was bad as it was quite boring (unfortunately; I’ve always thought Andrei Arlovski was one of the better heavyweights in the UFC, and now he’ll probably be lumped on the discard pile with Tim Silvia); the lightweight tilt was entertaining, as they always are; Michael Bisping destroyed Elvis Sinosic (although he almost got caught in the beginning of the second, which had us all excited); and I don’t remember much else, other than the fact that there were TOO MANY COMMERCIALS.

So, no more FPVs on Spike, they are generally a waste of time, as you don’t get near as many fights for your “money”. But Gonzaga? I’ll be watching him in the future, for sure, and no doubt so will Randy Couture.

It’s finally happened, the two biggest MMA companies in the world are owned by the same people: the owners of UFC have bought the interests of PRIDE FC in Japan. It will continue largely unchanged, remaining Japan-centric and running shows there and abroad. Here’s my take:

• Good: Dream matches! As Dana White put it, “Fedor vs. Couture! Shogun vs. Liddell! Gomi vs. St. Pierre!”
• Bad: Unified rules. I enjoy watching headstomps, 10 minute rounds, and the other quirks of the PRIDE rule system.
• Good: PRIDE will be keeping its shows largely unchanged beyond the rules. This includes their elaborate production values, ring instead of a cage, and insane ring announcer
• Bad: Remember the WWE “Brand Extension”? Where nobody could tell the difference between RAW and SmackDown? Right. Maybe it’ll be different this time around.
• Good: Promotion! PRIDE will get press in North America (thanks to the UFC promotional machine), which can only mean good things for them.
• Bad: When you think about it, they really are the same company, so if (as a fighter) you piss off the UFC, don’t think that PRIDE will be willing to give you the time of day. They’re effectively creating a monopoly like when WWE bought WCW a few years back: if you want to make the big bucks, you’ll not have as many options as before. They say they’re going to keep it “separate”: they may, but only to a point.

All in all, lots of people are going to make lots of money, and MMA fans will get some awesome matchups. Fighters will benefit as well, because they’ll have to be that much better to succeed in a world with fewer big fish. Everybody wins! I hope…

PRIDE Fighting Championships had its second show on American soil this weekend, and this time around they did NOT disappoint. From the awesome fights (including some BIG upsets), to the insane ring announcer lady, to the very professional production values of the show, just about everything was spot-on.

As great as the show was (dig it up if you haven’t seen it; the two main event fights - Gomi vs. Diaz and Silva vs. Henderson - are worth it), though, I felt it was marred by a couple of small details. PRIDE boasts that it is the best fighting organization in the world, and they usually show it by putting on awesome shows. However, seeing as how they are getting some press in North America these days, they decided to take a few cheap shots at the UFC. How? They showed footage of the Liddell-Rampage fight from 2003 (Liddell’s last loss), and chose to put the caption “UFC Champion Chuck Liddell” at the exact moment that Rampage was pummelling his head into the canvas to such a degree that his corner threw in the towel; they made mention of PRIDE’s “real” heavyweight division, with entertaining fighters, not guys who just slug around for 25 minutes (*cough*TimSylvia*cough*); they showed Rampage getting totally destroyed by Silva (I believe this was at the same event); and finally, as bad-ass as Silva used to be, I don’t recall them showing too much footage of his last match, where Cro Cop nearly killed him with the Left High Kick.

It’s unfortunate that both UFC and PRIDE have to be catty about this sort of thing. I guess it’s about the “fencers”. As a fan of MMA, I’ll watch everything, no questions. If I was only a casual fan, I might see where talking smack about the other organization might make me shy away or consider them inferior. Sure, some of that criticism is deserved (the heavyweights), and it all made me chuckle because I don’t care, but if you’re the best, show us why you’re the best, and not why everyone else sucks. They could have left out those cheap shots (especially the Liddell shots) and still gotten over the point that they’re awesome with the array of fights at last weekend’s show.

Watching Ultimate Fight Night on Thursday night brought back memories of the olden days where David and I would watch Superstars of Wrestling on Saturday morning. Not so much the cartoonish characters or the questionably entertaining announcing (both of which the UFC has in spades, whether it realizes it or not), but the utter predictability of the matches. Sure, I remember actually wondering Koko B. Ware would be able to beat Reno Riggins, and I’m actually surprised that in retrospect, I never noticed that the “name” guys ALWAYS WON, and that the really big stars like Hulk Hogan never wrestled (or at least very seldom wrestled) on Saturday mornings. Hulk would just come on from time to time and promo his upcoming fight against Kamala at the Palace at Auburn Hills. I often wondered who won those fights (I still thought it was real back then), and I always wanted to see them. I was an excited little mark back then.

The “marquee” matches had guys who had virtually never been beaten before fighting guys they were basically being fed, the 2007 equivalents of “jobbers”. To be fair, Heath Herring was “supposed to win” his fight, but in the only other fight of his that I’ve seen (Pride 14 I think), he didn’t impress me in the least. Despite the fact that the results were “a lock” (more or less), the show was entertaining, with Rashad Evans getting a HUGE KO over Sean Salmon and went far in raising his stake in my book (since I thought he was a big turd in TUF when he won).

But that’s not what UFC was trying to accomplish last night. In amongst the fights, the show was a big advertisement for their upcoming PPV (and not just for Xyience like it usually is), putting over how badass Cro Cop and Rampage are (although Rampage now isn’t near as badass as Rampage two or three years ago), and reminding us that Travis Lutter will be made to look like a chump against the striking insanity that is Anderson Silva. And you know what? I’m looking forward to it.

Mind you, I watch MMA all the time… The Fight Network’s logo is burned into the corner of my TV, and I have many, MANY hours of fighting on the machine downstairs. I’m not the guy who they have to get excited about these shows. I’m a guaranteed “sell”. I don’t know if that Hard Sell actually sells PPVs because you don’t actually se or hear from the guys involved in the matches, you just see a few clips of guys getting KTFO. It must be working, though, because UFC doesn’t get near the TV ratings that WWE gets, but they are getting 3 or 4 times as many PPV buys for their shows, and THAT’S where the money is.

UFC has learned something from pro wrestling though: they need to make stars, not just athletes: characters, people that we can relate to or empathize with. This is why Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes got so popular: they were regular guys (who trained wicked hard) to become champion. People got to know them on The Ultimate Fighter, and their fights meant something. Tito Ortiz was an ass, and people wanted to see him get beat (or see him beat up guys). WWF did it in the 80’s, and now UFC is doing it. Everything old is new again.

The UFC has finally arrived. Mainstream media is (somewhat) talking about the big Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell fight taking place in Las Vegas tonight, and that’s definitely going to result in increased revenue for UFC.

I’m definitely looking forward to the fight (although I don’t want to fathom a guess as to who will win, mind you, if it goes to the ground, Ortiz should take it… I don’t know if his stand-up game has improved to the level that he can go with Liddell and his overhead right bombs), and there’s so much more on the card… Jason MacDonald (who fought for ECC here in Halifax earlier this year) fights Chris Leben, Forrest Griffin is fighting Keith Jardine, Andrei Arlovski is back to mess some bitch up, and they’re apparently going to introduce Cro Cop tonight (according to sherdog.com, anyway), which will rule when he gets his chance at Tim “Lump” Sylvia.

And TOMORROW, we have the PRIDE Shockwave 2006 PPV, with Fedor, Shogun, Barnett, Gomi, and a host of others fighting in Japan. Playing second fiddle to UFC in terms of popularity (but usually hosting a more talented array of fighters), this might be one of their last chances to really make an impact on the world MMA scene if all the talk of DSE selling PRIDE is true.

It’s a good weekend for fight fans.

Sherdog.com is reporting that Mirko Filipovic may be going to UFC. This can only mean good things for the UFC, mainly because their heavyweight division has been lacking in recent months, with their champ Tim Sylvia being “not the most exciting guy to watch” in the ring. This does not bode well for PRIDE, however… Talk of Dream Stage Entertainment wanting to sell off PRIDE has been rampant, and the fact that both Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko are opting out of PRIDE’s year-end Shockwave show have definitely put a damper on their quest to be the “world’s best” fighting organization. Fedor is apparently going to be doing a fight for Bodog sometime next year too… Let’s hope they get their act together, as Pride fights are quite often more entertaining than their UFC counterparts.

In the meantime, here’s Cro Cop giving it to Wanderlei Silva (in Japanese) at last year’s PRIDE GP tournament.

Jackie, you’ll like this one.

I thought it was pretty cool to have a bit of a “local” connection to the Ultimate Fight Night Live show on Tuesday, where the main event featured Tito Ortiz giving it to Ken Shamrock One Last Time (to Shamrock’s credit, he lasted longer than I thought he would; to Ortiz’s credit, neither he nor Shamrock acted like dicks post-match, and the whole thing came off as being quite classy).

The local connection to the show was Edmonton’s Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald fighting Ed Herman (from TUF3), as a “major underdog”. I saw him fight here in Halifax earlier this year, and knew that he was very talented, but I didn’t realize he had it in him to take Ed Herman to SCHOOL on the mat, putting a nasty ol’ triangle choke on him about a minute and a half into the first round, and bopping him with elbows to make him submit. This was a guy who almost won TUF3 (barely losing his match to Kendall Grove) being picked apart in a grappling clinic by a guy who’d tried to get on to TUF but never made it. He mentioned in his post match interview that he felt like he was being brought in as a “stepping stone” for Herman, and that he wouldn’t be a stepping stone for anybody. My favorite fight of the night, no doubt.

Now this IS a major announcement. I haven’t seen No Surrender yet, but the fact that TNA is publicizing the signing of Kurt Angle is huge for them. Of course, the real problem is that Kurt Angle should really take some time off to get better before going back to wrestling. The WWE wouldn’t have fired one of their top draws if he wasn’t capable of performing at a very high level. If he doesn’t watching, Kurt will be wrestling Eddie Guerrero before the year’s over.

There was another big PPV on this weekend, UFC 63 featuring Matt Hughes versus BJ Penn. If it wasn’t for either of their conditioning, Penn would have won the fight. As it was, Hughes was tough enough to withstand the virtually elastic Penn’s submission attack, and Penn just didn’t bring it in the third round, which is what cost him the fight.

I was also still holding out hope that Chuck Liddell would fight Wanderlei Silva in November, but apparently those plans have been scuttled. It’s funny how that article mentioned that Liddell has “a big fight in between” against Babalu, but didn’t foreshadow Silva getting his ass handed to him by Mirko Cro Cop at Pride Final Conflict Absolute (in the finals of the Open Weight Grand Prix tournament).  Oh well, the line up for the first PRIDE show in the US on October 21st looks awesome… Cro Cop, Shogun, Wanderlei Silva, Fedor, and freakin’ MIKE TYSON?  Sign me up.  To watch though, not to fight.

Judging by the amount of traffic my blog has been getting lately, there must be another ECC fight card coming up (props to Combat Productions for bringing their webpage into the 21st century!). And there is… This Saturday at the Forum, many of the guys who fought at the last two shows will be back and swinging for the fences for a taste of MMA glory.

I don’t know if the show’ll do as well this time around, mainly due to the fact that many of the spectators at the last show probably won’t go (curiosity’s died down), as well as the lack of press that the show has received. The controversy generated by the “barbaric display” of full-contact mayhem seems to have died down, and with it the hype and the publicity that these kinds of shows thrive on. In today’s Herald, there was an article about how the promoters want elbow strikes to be allowed in the fights. Their “pro” argument states that since it’s legal in UFC, it should be ok here, while the “con” argument suggests that blood loss suffered by combatants due to elbow strikes can halt an entertaining match unnecessarily early (if you saw the opening match in the last UFC pay-per-view, you know what I mean). I think they’re just trying to remind people that they’re there, in case we’d forgotten, and to go buy tickets (heh… carnies, almost… Be it MMA or wrestling, they’re made up of all the same people, no matter how you colour it). Again, I really hope they do well… I’m not sure if I’m going (as I’m probably going camping), but if I’m around I’m going to try to go.

Interestingly enough, ECC isn’t even the fight card I’m most excited about this week… Bas Rutten is coming out of retirement to face Kimo in a PPV taking place in LA on Saturday night, which should be an awesome fight, on a card that also features Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Excellent.

Went to the Maritime Cup III show on Friday. We had an awesome time. David saw Bobby Roode along with Brody Steele and another guy at the restaurant formerly known as Captain Eli’s (we were a little late, so we didn’t get to see them). The matches were fun, but I think it’d have been more fun if they tried harder to emphasize the facey-heely status of the wrestlers and thrown in some mini angles, to give it more of that old-school feel. Mr. Lahey and Randy were there in the ring talkin’ up some sort of shitstorm, and if you squinted carefully you could see the other members of the cast of Trailer Park Boys enjoying the action with the rest of the crowd. The best part of the show was two-fold:

• The guys in front of us who were going bananas for everything, and taunting just about everybody. “Kool-aid Man” was the best; he had bigger boobs than most women I know.
• The finishing move in the last match of the tournament, which I’d never seen before, apparently called a “Spanish Fly”. We went nuts, we did.

All the results can be found on the newscott.com site. Hopefully they’ll have some more shows in the future, and that they’ll be at least as well promoted… Attendance was reported to be at least 800 people, which was good for them.

After watching the interviews, I actually believed the Royce Gracie’s old-schooled-ness had a legitimate chance against Matt Hughes last night at the UFC PPV. After watching the match, I remember my first thoughts on finding out that Gracie and Hughes would fight: “Gracie is way out of his league. He was an excellent Jiu-Jitsu artist and grappler, but MMA is much more than that now, and I doubt that, given his age, he can still hang.” The fight (as with the entire PPV, or what of it I saw) was a very entertaining affair, although from the get-go I knew Gracie was in trouble because he looked out of place squaring off against Hughes and throwing a few tentative kicks. When the fight went to the ground, I figured this is where Royce shines, but Hughes had control. I thought for SURE Gracie’d tap to Hughes’ Kimura (and I’m amazed that he didn’t; he looked like he was in another world). But when Hughes took Gracie’s back and started raining down the blows, I knew it was over. At least he didn’t submit. Hopefully he’ll be back, and better standing up.

Like I said, the rest of the show was good fun. Two wins by guillotine? I hadn’t seen ANY since the time I watched the Bas Rutten compilation. The ending to the Sanchez-Alessio fight was great too, with Sanchez having back control and trying to get a rear naked choke on Alessio WHILE ALESSIO WAS STANDING. Looked like Alessio was piggy-backing him around the ring. Thanks again to Sarah and Shawn for hosting, and to Pat for providing anti-Hughes signs as well as endlessly entertaining (and loud) commentary.

In some actual wrestling-related news, Bobby Roode is going to be at the Maritime Cup III on Friday at the Forum. I’m so there.

I did take some pictures at the ECC show the other night, but they aren’t very good since I was far away and the lighting was bad and I don’t have a $1000 digital camera. I will link to some video, though.

First from sherdog.com, some videos of Roger Hollett, Gideon Ray, and Jason MacDonald discussing their performances at Saturday’s MMA show at the Halifax Forum.

Next are the videos that I shot. Keep in mind that these aren’t the greatest quality, as my zoom only goes so far, since I was filming with a regular Canon Powershot A75 (*NOT* a video camera, only three minute filming time limit) and I was only so close (i.e., not very), but you can definitely make out what’s going on.

The first video is just a short clip of the nasty backfist that Gideon Ray laid on Jason MacDonald early in the second round of their fight. The backfist caught him just behind the ear. The second video is the first three minutes of Roger Hollett’s fight against Peter Rodgers where he was on FIRE~! The last video is TJ Grant vs. Craig Skinner, which ran exactly three minutes that ended in an armbar victory for Grant.  Thanks to Rob Shortt for IDing the combatants in that last fight!

The Extreme Cage Combat show went down at the Forum on Saturday night, and by and large I was impressed (as was The Chronicle Herald’s Chris Cochrane, for what it’s worth). The fights were largely entertaining: lots of tap outs (no knockouts, though, except for that one guy who was pummelled into a paste and I believe lost consciousness), and only one fight went the distance (the main event). The setup was very attractive: a nice, big octagonal cage; two big screens to see the close-up action; some hottie ring girls; and lots and lots of beer.

The show wasn’t perfect though… The Forum SUCKS (seating is WAY too cramped, bathroom lineups, no noticeable enforcing of the “sections” on the tickets), but they can’t do much about that yet because there isn’t enough demand to host the show at the Metro Centre (nor would it be worth it, as the MC is too big for MMA)… The show didn’t get started until 8:30PM (doors opened at 7PM)… The intermission was a bit longer than I’d anticipated (probably because everyone was in the can)… And most notably, the announcer was a complete tool. Don’t get me wrong, he has a great voice, but I found his fighter introductions to be sorely lacking, and the time he introduced the wrong guy? Don’t quit your day job, boss. Oh well… I’m sure that since this was the first show, they’ll have a chance to iron out most of the bugs for the next time around. In Moncton on June 17th, and again in Halifax in July (although I don’t know when for sure).

Nevertheless, you can say what you will about the rowdiness of the fans and their leaning toward the more violent aspects of the sport (ground ‘n’ pound, for example), but there was definitely a sense of mutual respect and professionalism among the fighters that I found admirable (except for the one guy who stormed out right after he lost). I’m sure attendance at future shows will diminish (those people who didn’t get the bloodsport they were expecting will likely stay home next time), which is fine by me, as long as they keep on having shows.

They also papered cars with flyers for a wrestling show on the 2nd of June (Maritime Cup III; Mr. Lahey and Randy from TPB will be there too; it’s also a TV taping!). That’s got potential… For $10, I’ll probably go.

I have some pictures and video that I’m going to post a little later on today.

Q104 has been saying that the Extreme Cage Combat MMA event at the Halifax Forum this weekend is sold out.  I was skeptical at first, but I’m glad to see that they managed to do well at the gate.  Let’s hope it’s a good show.

I have MY ticket…  Do YOU?

The WWE has finally cracked down on PWT.

Yep. Apparently, Titan has decided to try to get Pro Wrestling Torrents to stop seeding WWE material. By and large, this is a huge blow to the community of WWE fans who rely on PWT for their wrestling fix. I don’t care much, mainly because I don’t watch WWE anyway (just TNA, UFC and Pride shows for me, thanks), but I know that in a lot of places where WWE programming is unavailable, PWT was the only way that people could get their wrestling fix. If it weren’t for PWT, I probably never would have started watching TNA.

Of course, it’s not like the WWE is shutting down the sceners like KYR, so I’m sure that if you look hard enough, if you squint just right, you should be able to find WWE pay-per-views on the net without having to pay for them like regular folk.

Well, not anymore. Some people have nothing better to do than to complain about things about which they know nothing, and here’s a prime example.

Coun. Bob Harvey must think that people actually must get killed in the cage to think that an MMA show would be bad for the community. “Just imagine the type of people that would be hanging around the Forum as a result…” he might say (not a quote). I’m surprised that he didn’t try to get rappers like The Game’s show cancelled (since it was at the Forum) over similar concerns. What, does he LIVE around there? I doubt it. And is it a traffic issue? There was a Mooseheads’ game there last night, and the place was a ZOO, but nobody’s complaining.

There’s another thing: hockey. There are fights in hockey. The refs usually “let them go”, and people have been hurt. The players are armed with blades and sticks, so there’s bound to be a few injuries (Marty McSorley, anyone?  Todd Bertuzzi?  Clint Malarchuk?)   Do they try to get it banned? No. It’s a part of our national fabric. We understand the risks, and we go with it. More people get killed in car accidents every year than in air travel (by far), but people still choose to drive.

Of course, it doesn’t help matters much when some people in media (I’m talking about YOU, Lisa Blackburn of Q104) like to sum up MMA as “two people punching, kicking, and choking each other in a cage.” Maybe you’re reading what someone wrote for you, but I don’t know any better.

So I got mine…  Guy at the Forum said the show is roughly 50% sold out.  “Still have a month to go, though,” I commented, to which he replied, “Yeah, but the first half went in two weeks.”  I’d like to see the show sell out (if only in the interest of MMA being profitable in the Halifax area), but I highly doubt that tickets will sell at the same pace for the remainder of the month as they have been so far.  That’s the way it always works with ticket sales: you have a bunch of sales early on, and it gradually lessens, and it increases with within a few days of the show (and the inevitable walk-up traffic).  I just wanted to make sure I could get in. 

I also watched some other fighting stuff I found on the net the other day:

• So You Wanna Fight:  Ugly-ass people put on boxing gloves and duke it out in the ring.  These guys have no training, and it shows.  Low-rent production values, it looking like it was taped in a bar make this one a must for all people who enjoy bashing their own heads against a brick wall.  To all others, just avoid it.
• K-1 Fighting:  This is more like it: a combination of a bunch of disciplines whose name has ‘k’ in it (Karate, Kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, etc…).  Hence, no Judo, no Jiu-Jitsu, pretty much just stand-up fighting.  What I saw had a very boxing-y feel (12-oz gloves, no clinches), except for the fact that these guys don’t seem to defend themselves very well (lots of hard KOs, and lots of fights ending because of leg kicks).  Could be that I was watching “K-1’s Greatest Knockouts”, but still.
• Ultimate Tank Abbott: A special on UFC legend David “Tank” Abbott.  He’s a bruiser, he’s a badass, but he doesn’t function well in a rules-based environment, and that’s why he’s not really on the same level as today’s UFC heavyweights.  That and he’s not too smart, to hear him talk.  Oh well, you do what you have to do with what God gives you, I guess.
• TNA iMPACT!: This week’s iMPACT! was awesome.  Replay’s on tonight, 1AM on SpikeTV.

Hey, hey, MMA!

I’ve been getting a lot of Google hits these past few days regarding the big MMA show at the Forum. Obviously, people are interested. I know I am. Tickets are on sale now and are apparently moving fast, $25 for general admission, or you can call them about getting a “VIP” table. The promotion’s website is www.combatproductions.com, but it doesn’t say where you get tickets. A bit of research has led me to understand that tickets are available at the Halifax Forum Box Office (in person during weekly business hours, or by phone at 902-490-4628, $2 service charge there), or at the Alehouse, and a couple of other places.

Are there any half-decent MMA fan groups in the Halifax area? I know I’d never be able to fight given my glasses-edness and all, but I’m sure there are other MMA fans in the area aside from myself. Melissa said she’d go with me, but only if I couldn’t find anyone else, and I doubt my friends are into this stuff (Lord knows they aren’t into the rasslin’)