Author: Dan Carson

If you haven’t yelled “road house” and kicked over your clothes hamper in a while, consider Ronda Rousey landing her latest movie gig a call to action.

As MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani (h/t Marc Raimondi) reported, the UFC bantamweight champion will play the lead role in an upcoming reboot of the 1989 cult classic Road House.

Rousey’s agent, Brad Slater, said the fighter will be cast in a role that amounts to a female version of Dalton (originally played by the late Patrick Swayze)—a mysterious bouncer tasked with the job of kicking every resident of a small Missouri town in the face until the citizenry is pacified.

It’s not a role Rousey takes lightly, either.

The fighter reportedly reached out to Swayze’s widow, Lisa Niemi, to ask for her blessing before accepting the role. Niemi gave Rousey the green light, and now we all get to witness a feature-length film’s worth of Rousey dodging beer bottles and polar bears falling on henchmen. So that’s exciting.

There’s no timeline for the movie’s debut, and as always, her representatives have made it clear that filming will be fit in as Rousey’s fighting schedule allows.

She’s currently training for her title defense against Holly Holm at UFC 193 on November 14. Tack on the fact that she’s already slated to feature in Mark Wahlberg’s upcoming film, Mile 22, and it’s probably reasonable to assume Road House: Rowdier, Rousier (I assume this is the working title) won’t be coming out anytime soon.

But the important thing is that wheels are in motion. Things such as Road House reboots can’t be rushed. Even for an experienced fighter such as Rousey, perfecting the Dalton throat-rip requires months of training and Daniel Day-Lewis-like attention to detail. Becoming one with Swayze’s specially made combat jeans will take at least a week on its own.

Nonetheless, I’m pumped. Even if the movie is terrible, it’ll still be an excuse to yell “road house” in public, which is a fine thing indeed.

Dan is on Twitter kicking things and losing his deposit.

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In some industries, improvising is part of the job.

A comedian freestyles with the audience. A jazz drummer throws some extra sizzle on “White Room.” An Uber driver takes the long way and tells you this is just a “side gig.”

At large, a little artistic riffing on the job is harmless—that is, unless your work involves physically destroying other people.

Enter Wu Ze, an MMA fighter who recently endeavored in a little octagonal ad libbing and ended up stomping a man’s genitals into noni juice.

The incident occurred during the second round of Wu’s fight against Wu Hui Qiang at One Championship 28 in June. The 20-year-old fighter had his opponent on his back and an upright advantage when he began going for kill shots.

Wu tried to be humane at first. All he wanted to do was kick his adversary into a dark and lonely abyss of the mind with conventional, one-legged strikes. But a man can only be so patient.

After a couple of unsuccessful kicks, Wu decided to take a page from the parkour playbook and deliver a side-flipping double-heel stomp to Wu Hui Qiang’s chest.

Unfortunately, finishing moves rooted in urban gymnastics are an inexact science, and the ball of Wu’s right foot—loaded with unholy bodyweight and momentum—mashed down squarely on his opponent’s groin, reducing the area to undercooked beefaroni.

And thus another immortal moment in “Cool Idea. Bad Execution.” was born.

Wu Ze would go on to win the bout by submission, and Wu Hui Qiang was presumably laid to rest under a nearby rosewood.

So what did we learn today?

Don’t be afraid to improvise and try new things, MMA fighters. But just be aware: Someone could get sterilized.

Dan is on Twitter tingling with discomfort.

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Taking a page from the Medieval Times book of crowd entertainment, Russian mixed martial arts promotion M-1 Global began hosting armored knight jousts as in-between-fight spectacles in 2014.

The jousts expanded to one-on-one sword-fighting—ostensibly between two trained “knights” knowledgeable in the ways of armored combat. These two fighters would step into the Octagon garbed in plate mail and proceed to smash each other in the face with shields and swords as an official kept track of things.

Seeing as violence, like fashion, is cyclical, the exhibitions became wildly popular, to the point that M-1 plans to devote entire events to knight fights.

MMAFighting.com reports that the new event is called “M-1 Medievel” and will be underway as soon as promoters can find enough knights to fill an evening of medieval hack-smashery.

In any case, take a look above for footage of the latest M-1 knight clash. Strangely enough, the shield given to participants appears more liable than the sword to do any real damage in these bouts.

We can only assume Syrio Forel, whom I refuse to believe is (Spoiler Alert!) dead, can scarcely keep up with the influx of walk-ins at his water-dancing academy.

What do we say to the shield trying to punch our sinuses through our frontal lobe?

Not today.

 

Dan is on Twitter. Armored knight fighting could definitely never end in anything tragic and terrible.

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