This past weekend was UFC 123. The card was awesome. Notably, only a couple of the fights went to decision, and they were all out battles. Aaron Simpson and Mark Munoz got robbed, because I would surely pick their fight over Joe Lauzon vs. George Sotiropolous, but hey, Dana White does what Dana White wants, because he's the maestro over a symphony of flying fists and shins, bruises, bumps, chokes and hype. Some people in the journalism world see the UFC as an evil empire, but you know what? Tough. The UFC has been putting on the most spectacular fights with the best talent, on the most TV's and they started out with nothing. The Fertita brothers and Dana White deserve every penny they get, because they wrote the book on MMA promotion.
No fight on UFC 123 was boring. I watched them all and even cheered a couple times. Especially when BJ Penn knocked Matt Hughes clean out in 21 seconds.
I won't lie. I was on the hate-wagon about BJ before this performance. He was really lackluster and disappointing in his two decision losses to Frankie Edgar. I'm still not convinced about ol' Frankie. BJ didn't really do BJ when they fought. We'll see though. ANYWAY, Baby Jay was looking mean as hell walking to that cage, and his new black shorts seemed to denote an aura of malice, a dark fiber in the material of his gumption. A real bad guy.
I don't know what gumption means. It sounded cool though. The second Darth Vader reference in one blog? I know. I am trying. Plus, what's more, is Matt Hughes is a Bible Thumper, so BJ's savage pacific islanderism is the perfect heathen reverse of Matt Hughes' good 'ol boy vibe.
Hmm...Moving on.
Rampage Jackson looked good. I gave him round one closely, and round two for sure. He lost round three, but it was an easy call, and my coach Jose and I agreed via text message on pretty much every fight. It was ridiculous. At least %500 accuracy at predicting.
"But then I'd REALLY have no job Mike. Don't give the UFC any ideas...I really need it"
For all the fight outcomes, check out Wikipedia, or Sherdog. I'm not breaking much down right now. I have a meeting in 15 minutes.
In other news, I recently purchased some new gear. Another Dethroned Royalty shirt. All positive comments on it, ranging from "It reminds me of Sons of Anarchy" to "COOL SHIRT!"
Check it out!
And some new gloves from Built to Fight. They're pretty awesome, red and black in true Me fashion. Cue applause. Also some red shorts from Venum. I get all decked out looking mean and then I go tear it up at the dojo. No problems, and by the look of me you'd guess that I'm at least a level 9 badass.
In more relevant matters, I've been dabbling in this nutrition business for a few weeks now. Make that a couple months. I'm not Jenny Craig, or anything, but, I think it's pretty worth while to take a look at and think about if you're an athlete, or you don't want to be pudgy anymore.
I started out doing MMA way back in late 2009 in Japan, when me and a buddy of mine, Nick "The Roach" Murrow decided we were the new force to be reckoned with in Okinawa. Going to the Camp Kinser aerobics room, hitting the heavy bag and wrestling eachother every day put us up on a high horse. Especially when we dubbed ourselves "Team Overdose" and The Roach was victorious in his first fight. Soon, we were the kings of our own destinies, right?
Wrong dude. After more farting around the gym and watching numerous UFC videos, we figured we were hard. We even signed up to fight at Tenkaichi 48. I lost via TKO in just over a minute (Despite my poor performance, I must say that the promoter didn't have a fighter for me the day of, and as the event was taking place, some kid stepped in who was about 5 inches taller and had a good 20 pounds on me at the time.) and Roach got choked out by an officer who worked in our office building. Awkward!
That's when I realized I was pretty fat and out of shape. Why was it that I couldn't get out from under a full mount? People did it all the time in the UFC! I stood there next to that high way, smoking a cigarette, full of mixed emotions. I had just fought in front of a crowd, got paid, had a blast, but my whole head was throbbing, my left eye felt like it was coming out of it's socket and I wasn't looking forward to the nonsensical talking that was sure to follow me everywhere I went. I was pretty down trodden, and that's when I decided to make a change.
Fast forward a few months to October, and now i'm in Arizona, I started my training at Blackout, and it became clear that I was still green on this scene. This is where I start talking about nutrition.
I changed up my eating habits, cutting out all things with high fructose corn syrup (Ketchup included) and white, processed bread. I cut out fast foods, I started eating vegetables. A lot of them. Fruits, eggs, white meat, all that. No gatorade, just water, and beloved Xenergy. In addition I've amped up my gym time, but instead of wrestling my red-headed co-captain of a very novice and inexperienced Mixed Martial Arts team, I started running and doing lots of calisthenics and lots of pullups. For any reader trying to become He-Man (you know, like me) take note: there's no specific thing I'd ever tell you to do at the gym. Your goals are your own, and you have to figure out what you want to do to get there. Get into the habit of motivating yourself, as this crazy, wide world of individuals reflects, the only person who really cares about you at the finish line is you. The one healthy, useful tidbit that I can give, is that you have to, HAVE TO, do work.
That's right. If my diet could be dubbed the "No Ketchup" diet, my workout routine would be called the "Do Work" routine. Basically, if you're sore and upset and not comfortable, and you can measurably see your progress, you're on the right track.
Anyway, I'm done preaching about what I've been up to, however, if you wanna see the results, feel free to peep my facebook album about weight progress, creatively titled "Weight Progress". Every week looks pretty good, besides this past week where I dropped the ball a little bit, and didn't Do Work on monday, so I ended up being 3 pounds heavier, blah blah blah. Little bump in the road, but I'm still in 5th gear. Don't worry, blog-followers, I'll be down to 170 as a walk around weight soon enough, and I'll make the cut to 155 when I get in the cage.
That's pretty much all I've got for now. Happy Thanksgiving, and have a big bite of Turkey and your choice of alcoholic beverage for my brothers and sisters overseas, fighting and grinding out deployments in Helmand province and other parts of Afghanistan, they're missing home pretty bad, I know because I was there last Thanksgiving, it's no fun!
Until next time
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