A look over today’s MMA “headlines” reveals a more dire trend than usual, Nation. There ain’t shit to talk about, simply put — at least, nothing you Taters would be particularly interested in. I guess I could tell you that one of Conor McGregor‘s training partners has been booked for the UFC’s return to Boston, or that Ian McCall seems on the verge of a psychotic break, or that the suspensions have come in for those 4 Bellator fighters who failed their drug tests at Bellator 127…
…Or, we could all just kick back, crack open an A.M. Ale and remember a better time. A time when guys like Tank Abbott and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira were considered elite athletes despite holding a little something extra around the midsection. A time when the term “brawler” could be used to describe someone’s fighting style without question or the smallest sense of irony. A time when men were men, dammit.
Abbott and Correira’s pair of bouts were quick and anything but painless, lasting a combined fight time of just three minutes and thirty-seven seconds, yet managed to capture everything that we loved about mid-2000’s MMA: wild haymakers, the muay Thai clinch, and gas tanks that expired before most of the audience could even find their seats. They were the kind of brawls that you might see in a John Wayne movie, but the fact that they were being contested inside a cage and for money instantly elevated them to near legendary status among true fans of the sport.
So rather than bore you with the same mundane news you could read anywhere else, let’s relive the visual poetry that was Cabbage vs. Tank, starting with their first encounter at UFC 45. After the jump: Abbott vs. Correira, pt. II.
A look over today’s MMA “headlines” reveals a more dire trend than usual, Nation. There ain’t shit to talk about, simply put — at least, nothing you Taters would be particularly interested in. I guess I could tell you that one of Conor McGregor‘s training partners has been booked for the UFC’s return to Boston, or that Ian McCall seems on the verge of a psychotic break, or that the suspensions have come in for those 4 Bellator fighters who failed their drug tests at Bellator 127…
…Or, we could all just kick back, crack open an A.M. Ale and remember a better time. A time when guys like Tank Abbott and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira were considered elite athletes despite holding a little something extra around the midsection. A time when the term “brawler” could be used to describe someone’s fighting style without question or the smallest sense of irony. A time when men were men, dammit.
Abbott and Correira’s pair of bouts were quick and anything but painless, lasting a combined fight time of just three minutes and thirty-seven seconds, yet managed to capture everything that we loved about mid-2000′s MMA: wild haymakers, the muay Thai clinch, and gas tanks that expired before most of the audience could even find their seats. They were the kind of brawls that you might see in a John Wayne movie, but the fact that they were being contested inside a cage and for money instantly elevated them to near legendary status among true fans of the sport.
So rather than bore you with the same mundane news you could read anywhere else, let’s relive the visual poetry that was Cabbage vs. Tank, starting with their first encounter at UFC 45. After the jump: Abbott vs. Correira, pt. II.
–J. Jones