I was laying in bed way too late the other night and started thinking about a ton of shit. Much like you I am exhausted all day and then when my house is quiet, and my kids are asleep, my brain goes on warp speed. I don’t think about shit that would help the world, like hunger, or curing cancer, selfishly I think about my life and of course combat ports. That said here is a brain dump of personal things I have been thinking about and a wish list for combat sports, and some cool articles I have read this week.
Here goes..
I have been overwhelmed by the support for the Newsletter. I was toiling away at Rokfin before I got here. I could not thank Jeremy Botter enough for turning me on to Substack and helping me along with The Fook. Overnight, I feel like people were engaging my content far more than ever. The emails, and the DM’S I have recieved have been overwhelming. I appreciate it. More than you know.
That said, my personal career is changing quite a bit outside of this, and I have been thinking about bringing other people on to write for The Fook, and potentially having podcasts here other than my own. If you are reading this and have something to say, and you are not afraid to do real storytelling, please get in touch with me. I am open to everything.
I am going to be turning on paid subscriptions very soon. 80% of the content will be free. The cost will be 5$ per subscription, per month. You are not paying for content, you are supporting writers who are doing important work. The best thing about me guys? I work for nobody but you. I will never work at a major publication, I have no reason to be afraid to say or cover anything. I do not owe anybody shit, I don’t need access nor will I every cover another event live again. Everything is free game here.
I officially got out of the Army for good last week. I was active for years and was in the reserve for just as long. For the first time since I was a Junior at North Quincy High School, I am not in the military.
Steven Chiapetta of MMAfighting.com took a ton of heat for this article . I admire the balls it took to write it. I request that you look past the headline and read it. It makes a lot of sense. Listen, Hardy is a garbage human being, but the whole inhaler situation was not on him, period. I like reporters who have balls, and almost always will point it out.
I noticed staff members of Sherdog battling it out with certain members of Fansided MMA on Twitter over whether or not the promotion ONE pays Fansided to cover events and write ‘‘Puff’’ pieces about fighters. This has been long rumored and let me make this clear,If you a member of the media and you take money from the promoters to cover events or write about fighters, you are derelict in duty and need to resign, Immediately.
By the way, I notice a lot of people calling themselves ‘‘Journalists’’ in the MMA space. If your main function is doing fight recaps, covering live events, and talking up the weeks fights, you are not a journalist. It is no knock, I consume a shitload of content just like that and have lots of personal favorites like Lynch, Dan Tom, Shillan. There are so many guys and gals who are great at that, and deservedly make nice livings.
I heard a quote once about the main function of journalists ‘‘To afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted’’ If you are not doing that, you are not a journalist.
In fact here is a list of the people in combat sports I would consider an actual journalist:
Karim Zidan, Mike Russell, Mindenhall, Fowlkes, Prates, Botter, Snowden and Michael Fiedel. That is who jumps to mind without going to Twitter to refresh my memory. Feel free to add your favorite. I am old and I have drank a lot of Beer and Whiskey in my life, the old memory fails.
Oh yeah the wish list, here we go:
I wish in 2020 that WME goes public. If WME goes public that means that Dana White would probably step down and/or be bought out. Guys, the UFC could really benefit from having a commissioner type setup instead of a total dictatorship, for so many reasons.
I really wish that Jon Jones would drop the good-guy mask. I wish he would drop the whole bible thumping good ole’ boy bullshit and just tell the world yes, I am a bad guy, what are you going to do about it? Jon Jones is the ultimate heel, just own it. This is coming from a guy who believes Jon Jones is the greatest mixed martial artist to ever do it.
Non MMA-related: I wish people would stop looking to Lebron James like he needs to make comments about social issues. Lebron James can dunk a ball through a hoop. Great. Guess what? Just because you’re rich, it doesn’t mean you’re smart. James embarrassed himself with his China comments last week. Mind you, he has no problem speaking out against Trump, but when his pockets were on the line, he pissed down his leg. People, Lebron James does not speak for you. America could not be any greater for him. He cannot talk about your situation. He is a billionaire with zero clue as to what’s really going on. Not opinion, read, and listen to him speak. Clueless.
Everybody’s woke until their pocket book gets affected. Like most, Lebron James is a phony.
I really wish the UFC would come out today and suspend both Ali Abdelaziz and Conor McGregor until their respective investigations are done and over with.
I really wish the WWE would have built Cain Velasquez-Brock Lesnar and Tyson Fury-Braun Stroman to a Wrestlemania crescendo. Instead they gave it about a month build up and are doing both matches in Saudi Arabia for blood money, in a country that kills journalists, throws gay people off buildings, and stones women. Great look from my favorite tone-deaf senior citizen: Vince McMahon.
It is quite aright though, AEW is proving everyday they are way more than a cute little company trying to find their way. Their already winning the ratings war on Wednesday’s, and WWE attendance and ratings are slipping, per usual. WWE has never in my Thirty plus years of viewership been this uncool. This is worse than 1995 when they were pushing pig farmer gimmicks.
This is the best Twitter account going in all of MMA. I know everybody loves MacmallyMMA, but this guy always makes me laugh, MacMally not so much. This is also a real article published by The Scrap. I love the comedy of the article, but I cannot take The Scrap seriously as a website. I have seen the owner of the site publicly on Twitter begging for Conor McGregor to come back and fight, and professing his love. Dude, you run a website that covers the sport. You are no longer a fan, that’s just me.
Here is some cool shit I read this week.
Deandre Hopkins piece about his mom
The ‘‘Off the Top Rope’’ weekly column is always good. This is the link to one Snowden did about Brandi Rhodes, and inclusion in wrestling. I enjoyed it, this dude can really paint a picture.
Alright Fooks, podcast dropping this week talking about Ali Abdelaziz and his misdeeds. I have some Ben Askren stuff dropping this week also. As well as tons of UFC 244 coverage.
Thank you.