Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
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Welcome to Midnight Mania!
For the second time in four years, UFC President Dana White appeared at the Republican National Convention (RNC) to support President Donald Trump, a longtime friend of White’s and UFC.
In his speech, White expressed his belief that it is “critically important to re-elect President Trump.” In addition, White spoke of his support for first responders and police officers, praised Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and labeled Trump a loyal, hard-worker.
Check it out:
Dana White’s full remarks at the @GOPconvention#RNC2020 pic.twitter.com/0nSNFkJNz7
— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 28, 2020
There have also been several interesting side effects of White’s high-profile speech on an unusual platform. For instance, a fair amount of people learned what exactly a “UFC” is per Google Trends.
“What is the UFC” spiked +2,800% and “Dana White” spike +3,950% during UFC President Dana White’s speechhttps://t.co/hyimcIzkBi#RNC2020
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) August 28, 2020
Additionally, Politico reports that the RNC initially planned to follow UFC’s lead in Jacksonville, both in terms of location and testing procedure.
When Jacksonville was going to host the convention, the city persuaded the RNC to come there, in part, because Ultimate Fighting had used the arena during the pandemic, says @MarcACaputo.
The UFC safety protocols were going to be the backbone of the RNChttps://t.co/tPyezt8iQP
— POLITICO (@politico) August 28, 2020
Insomnia
MMAmania’s Facebook replies to the latest Colby Covington quote about “privileged” NBA players severely contradicts this market research study.
Contrary to what you’d think, UFC fans skew slightly left on the political distribution. And- WWE fans skew even further left?? Hard to believe, but this is from a market research company pic.twitter.com/kyWO9F3dbh
— knockout_ned (@knockout_ned47) August 27, 2020
In case y’all thought for some reason that the Justin Gaethje fight would see Khabib lace up his boxing gloves, the champ is training with elite wrestling talent.
Khabib training with World Champion and European Champion wrestler David Safaryan pic.twitter.com/T7ytieb22x
— Uncle Abdulmanap’s Army (@AbdulmanapJitsu) August 27, 2020
This is a pretty cool way to train ground striking! Also, that unfortunate pad holder is always the one who commonly is wincing from Francis Ngannou’s power strikes. I hope he’s paid well!
Longtime fans like to say stuff like “they don’t make ‘em like Robbie Lawler anymore,” but really, there has only ever been one “Ruthless.”
It’s been over a year since we last saw @Ruthless_RL, so here’s a reminder that Robbie is just different… pic.twitter.com/aDT8j6R1jj
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 26, 2020
Ion Cutelaba can always be trusted to aggressively do something hilarious.
Anthony Joshua showing off a mean left hook:
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Shoutout to KSW for consistently providing muscle-y, tattoo-covered big man violence! On a serious note, this is a really clean roll into the choke!
?? Heavyweight Warning ?? Michal Andryszak scored this anaconda choke win over Michal Kita at KSW 39 in front of 57,766 people.
Andryszak vs. Kita II goes down this Saturday!! #KSW54 pic.twitter.com/be4Av9nJqD
— KSW (@KSW_MMA) August 27, 2020
Former Midnight Mania host Andrew Pearson shared this great clip with me. In my humble opinion, the corner’s job is to provide advice and insight, not mandatory instruction. Whether the fighter/boxer acts on that advice is entirely up to him, the athlete who is feeling the flow of the fight … but he probably shouldn’t do so immediately in a largely silent arena where the opposing man can easily hear the aforementioned advice.
At any rate, killer body hook!
Teep kick compilation!
Random Land
Baby barnacle geese go hard (yes, it survived the jump).
Midnight Music: I still haven’t heard the new Nas album.
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.