(I had no idea what image to use for this post, so since we’re talking about sports propaganda, let’s leave that to the experts. Props: sportspropaganda.com)
If only it were that simple. Perhaps you’ve read that the suspects – Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – trained MMA [Author note: I’m not linking to other sites that have been claiming this, Google it if you’re so curious]. Don’t bother looking for a professional record for either suspect, because it doesn’t exist. Neither does an amateur record. Or any proof that they were preparing for MMA bouts of any kind, for that matter.
(I had no idea what image to use for this post, so since we’re talking about sports propaganda, let’s leave that to the experts. Props: sportspropaganda.com)
If only it were that simple. Perhaps you’ve read that the suspects – Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – trained MMA [Author note: I’m not linking to other sites that have been claiming this, Google it if you’re so curious]. Don’t bother looking for a professional record for either suspect, because it doesn’t exist. Neither does an amateur record. Or any proof that they were preparing for MMA bouts of any kind, for that matter.
So, a boxer occasionally sparring at an MMA gym and a high school wrestler are MMA fighters, because ___________…and the favorite sports of two alleged terrorists are completely relevant, apparently, because ___________. If anyone can fill in those blanks, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Berto (left) on his way to a unanimous decision victory over Luis Collazo
I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen this scenario play out before.
Earlier in the week, ES Boxing News caught up with two-time welterweight boxing champion Andre Berto, and spoke to the former champ about the possibility of seeing him fight MMA. The question isn’t exactly posed to Andre without merit – current Bellator fighter James Edson Berto is his brother and his sister, Revelina Berto, is trying out for the co-ed season of The Ultimate Fighter – even though it quickly becomes obvious that Berto is only a (very) casual fan of the sport. As in, he admits that he doesn’t know anything about MMA weight classes and possibly has Jon Jones confused with Anderson Silva (A Jon Jones/GSP super fight?).
Despite this, Berto claims to have spoken to Dana White about competing in the UFC – an idea that White was in support of. According to Berto, White was very complimentary of his boxing career, saying that he is “one of the only guys in boxing that keeps it alive” when they spoke.
Berto (left) on his way to a unanimous decision victory over Luis Collazo
I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen this scenario play out before.
Earlier in the week, ES Boxing News caught up with two-time welterweight boxing champion Andre Berto, and spoke to the former champ about the possibility of seeing him fight MMA. The question isn’t exactly posed to Andre without merit – current Bellator fighter James Edson Berto is his brother and his sister, Revelina Berto, is trying out for the co-ed season of The Ultimate Fighter – even though it quickly becomes obvious that Berto is only a (very) casual fan of the sport. As in, he admits that he doesn’t know anything about MMA weight classes and possibly has Jon Jones confused with Anderson Silva (A Jon Jones/GSP super fight?).
Despite this, Berto claims to have spoken to Dana White about competing in the UFC – an idea that White was in support of. According to Berto, White was very complimentary of his boxing career, saying that he is “one of the only guys in boxing that keeps it alive” when they spoke.
It wouldn’t be fair to compare Andre Berto to James Toney, a has-been who blatantly only wanted to compete in MMA for a quick paycheck. However, I think a comparison of his interest in MMA to Manny Pacquiao’s curiousity towards our sport isn’t too far of a stretch. Sure, it’d be fun to watch Berto step in the cage with a featherweight striker (Frankie Edgar and Leonard Garcia quickly come to mind), but there is absolutely no way that his management lets him accept an MMA fight while he’s still a relevant draw in the boxing world.
Besdies, Berto isn’t exaggerating when he says that he “definitely gets paid handsomely.” As BloodyElbow pointed out, he made $1,625,000 in his most recent fight – a unanimous decision loss to Robert Guerrero. Safe to say Dana White won’t be offering him that much money.
My personal favorite quote comes at the 4:38 mark, when Berto is asked who would win a fight between Cyborg Santos and Ronda Rousey. Berto takes a few seconds to think over the question, then replies “Cyborg’s like a dude! She’s a beast!” If you only watch one part of the interview, this is the part to watch.
So what do you think about the idea of Andre Berto competing in MMA? Would you be interested in seeing whether he could be competitive in this sport, or would he get lay-and-prayed into irrelevance? Or are we all just wasting our time discussing this, because he’ll never step foot in the cage? Let us know.
Mixed martial arts combines several different types of combat training to form one perfect weapon where any fighter really could be called a jack of all trades. Long gone are the days when a fighter could just be a good wrestler or a great striker. Now, every fighter has to carry at least some element […]
Mixed martial arts combines several different types of combat training to form one perfect weapon where any fighter really could be called a jack of all trades. Long gone are the days when a fighter could just be a good wrestler or a great striker. Now, every fighter has to carry at least some element […]
(Only in a freakshow match like this would you hear an audience member ask “What’s he waiting for?” after approximately 4 seconds of fighting.)
Yesterday, the world was introduced to a man by the name of Nick Capes (which based on his fighting style, we can only assume is a pseudonym for Greg “Ranger” Stott), a hapless marshmallow of a man who somehow found himself in a boxing match against former Atlanta Falcons defensive end Ray Edwards. The results were hilarious, not in the Mark Kerr vs. Ranger Stott kind of way, but in the Dan Severn vs. Shannon Ritch kind of way. Capes flopped is what we’re saying. He flopped hard. Capes flopped so hard, in fact, that he has since been indefinitely suspended from boxing in North Dakota, which should give him plenty of time to continue pushing the fighting style of RIP on methed out tweekers near and far. As TwinCities.com reports:
Combative Sports Commissioner Al Jaeger says a video review of the fight between Nicholas Capes and a much larger Ray Edwards clearly shows Capes was not hit before he dropped to the canvas. Officials are continuing to investigate.
By “continuing to investigate,” we assume they mean “emailing this video to their entire contacts list with a subject line reading Re: Fatty takes a tumble LOLZ.“
(Only in a freakshow match like this would you hear an audience member ask “What’s he waiting for?” after approximately 4 seconds of fighting.)
Yesterday, the world was introduced to a man by the name of Nick Capes (which based on his fighting style, we can only assume is a pseudonym for Greg “Ranger” Stott), a hapless marshmallow of a man who somehow found himself in a boxing match against former Atlanta Falcons defensive end Ray Edwards. The results were hilarious, not in the Mark Kerr vs. Ranger Stott kind of way, but in the Dan Severn vs. Shannon Ritch kind of way. Capes flopped is what we’re saying. He flopped hard. Capes flopped so hard, in fact, that he has since been indefinitely suspended from boxing in North Dakota, which should give him plenty of time to continue pushing the fighting style of RIP on methed out tweekers near and far. As TwinCities.com reports:
Combative Sports Commissioner Al Jaeger says a video review of the fight between Nicholas Capes and a much larger Ray Edwards clearly shows Capes was not hit before he dropped to the canvas. Officials are continuing to investigate.
By “continuing to investigate,” we assume they mean “emailing this video to their entire contacts list with a subject line reading Re: Fatty takes a tumble LOLZ.”
In the original Pioneer Press piece, event promoter Cory Rapacz was quoted as saying that the backlash aimed at Capes was “unfair.” However, upon reviewing the footage a couple hundred times like the rest of us, even Rapacz was forced to admit that “Turbo Tax” deserves whatever criticism that is likely headed his way in the coming weeks:
I was the promoter of the event in West Fargo, ND on Saturday night. I was misquoted. I said the criticism of Edwards is unfair. Not the criticism of Nick Capes. Thank you.
No, thank you, Cory. Thank you for providing us with a lifetime’s worth of memories in just 13 seconds of fight footage. Not since — and I’m just spitballing here — Ranger Stott vs. Mark Kerr have I been so entertained by a 50-pound mismatch that ended in triumphantly anticlimactic fashion. Other than my high school prom night, of course.
I have seen some incredible flops in my day, Potato Nation. I’ve watched nearly 1000 hours of World Cup soccer, I spent two summers in the 90’s at the Vlade Divac School of Basketball, and I even made it through the first 40 minutes of Cloud Atlas before I faked a stroke to get out of that God forsaken theater. But believe me when I say that nothing, nothing I’ve come across compares to the flop that took place during former Atlanta Falcons defensive end Ray Edwards’ most recent boxing match.
Edwards — who was released by the Falcons in November — was actually competing in his third professional boxing match last Saturday. But like Kimbo Slice and morenotably Aleksander Emelianenko before him, the opponents being put before Edwards all seem to be suffering from various degrees of sudden onset narcolepsy. Here’s a video of Edwards’ second fight against Corey Briggs, a man I can only assume has since lost at least a foot to diabetes. And if you think that looked fishy, just wait until you see his most recent farce.
I have seen some incredible flops in my day, Potato Nation. I’ve watched nearly 1000 hours of World Cup soccer, I spent two summers in the 90′s at the Vlade Divac School of Basketball, and I even made it through the first 40 minutes of Cloud Atlas before I faked a stroke to get out of that God forsaken theater. But believe me when I say that nothing, nothing I’ve come across compares to the flop that took place during former Atlanta Falcons defensive end Ray Edwards’ most recent boxing match.
Edwards — who was released by the Falcons in November — was actually competing in his third professional boxing match last Saturday. But like Kimbo Slice and morenotably Aleksander Emelianenko before him, the opponents being put before Edwards all seem to be suffering from various degrees of sudden onset narcolepsy. Here’s a video of Edwards’ second fight against Corey Briggs, a man I can only assume has since lost at least a foot to diabetes. And if you think that looked fishy, just wait until you see his most recent farce.
Video below.
According to Edwards’ Wikipedia page, the portly trout seen taking an Oscar-level dive here goes by Nick “Turbo Tax” Capes, who is both Edwards’ accountant and was “knocked out with a stuff breeze” for filing his client’s taxes incorrectly. And while some of this information is clearly the work of an anonymous — not to mention genius — troll out there, we’d like to congratulate Capes for not only creating a new category for this year’s Potato Awards (Flop of the Year) with his effort here, but for already securing both the first and last place on the list of nominees.
Seriously, have any of you ever seen a more egregious dive than this one before? Video link or GTFO.
Yesterday, I went a little off the beaten path and covered the world of professional wrestling, specifically Brock Lesnar’s re-signing with the WWE and subsequent F-5ing of company President Vince McMahon. Although the video was unquestionably hilarious, most of you guys (at least those who took the time to comment) were not able to set aside your MMA bias for even a second to enjoy it. And it’s a shame, because even if Air Force One is your all-time favorite film, does that mean you cannot occasionally enjoy the goofball satirical humor of Airplane? Please don’t delve any further into that terrible analogy, but of all the websites to cover the Lesnar story (and therewerea few), I was kind of surprised that the audience of the “comedic” one had the least sense of humor about it.
So I’m not sure how you’ll take the news that TUF 10 veteran Kimbo Slice returned to the world of boxing last night, or the fact that we’ve decided to devote yetanotherarticle to it. On one hand, Kimbo is at least competing in a “real” sport after leaving the UFC. On the other, he is as tenuously connected to the world of MMA as Lesnar is these days, so perhaps we should just ignore him. On the third hand, Slice’s most recent fight against Australian-based journeyman Shane Tilyard was fucking awesome. As is usually the case in a Slice fight, things weren’t exactly pretty, but boy were they entertaining (for a round or so). For Christ’s sake, Kimbo attempted two takedowns in the fight. If you can’t appreciate that kind of irony, then we are just not the same kind of fight fans.
Yesterday, I went a little off the beaten path and covered the world of professional wrestling, specifically Brock Lesnar’s re-signing with the WWE and subsequent F-5ing of company President Vince McMahon. Although the video was unquestionably hilarious, most of you guys (at least those who took the time to comment) were not able to set aside your MMA bias for even a second to enjoy it. And it’s a shame, because even if Air Force One is your all-time favorite film, does that mean you cannot occasionally enjoy the goofball satirical humor of Airplane? Please don’t delve any further into that terrible analogy, but of all the websites to cover the Lesnar story (and therewerea few), I was kind of surprised that the audience of the “comedic” one had the least sense of humor about it.
So I’m not sure how you’ll take the news that TUF 10 veteran Kimbo Slice returned to the world of boxing last night, or the fact that we’ve decided to devote yetanotherarticle to it. On one hand, Kimbo is at least competing in a “real” sport after leaving the UFC. On the other, he is as tenuously connected to the world of MMA as Lesnar is these days, so perhaps we should just ignore him. On the third hand, Slice’s most recent fight against Australian-based journeyman Shane Tilyard was fucking awesome. As is usually the case in a Slice fight, things weren’t exactly pretty, but boy were they entertaining (for a round or so). For Christ’s sake, Kimbo attempted two takedowns in the fight. If you can’t appreciate that kind of irony, then we are just not the same kind of fight fans.
Video below.
(Fight starts at the 3 minute mark. Video courtesy of Zombie Prophet.)
So kids, what have we learned today?
1. Kimbo still hits pretty damn hard.
2. Kimbo’s cardio still sucks, but at 38 years old, we’re not going to knock the guy for it, and are actually going to commend Kimbo for the incredible display of heart he showed after getting rocked.
3. Despite Bas Rutten’s preaching for years now, it seems that fighters are just starting to warm up to the concept of the liver shot. First Anthony Pettis KO’s Cowboy with a liver kick and now Kimbo finishes Titties 2.0 with a nasty hook to the body.
