As you well know, 2015 has not been off to a great start for us here at castle CagePotato. Financial cutbacks from our parent site have left us without an Old or New Dad of any sort and forced us (me) to heavily cut back on our usual daily output. We’re in nothing short of crisis mode, and the future of the CagePotato brand remains up in the air. It’s…been a depressing couple of months to say the least.
But as Harvey Dent once said, it is always darkest before the dawn. And not unlike Dent, we need you — our loyal, fearless and ever-vitriolic readers — to be the Batman to our Gotham. Which is why today, we announce the launch of our own crowdfunding campaign through Patreonto #RallyForCagePotato.
CagePotato would be nothing if it wasn’t for you guys (and gals), and we need your help and support now more than ever.
Care to read up on our cause and/or donate? Head after the jump for all the details how.
By Jared Jones
Good morning, Nation.
As you well know, 2015 has not been off to a great start for us here at castle CagePotato. Financial cutbacks from our parent site have left us without an Old or New Dad of any sort and forced us (me) to heavily cut back on our usual daily output. We’re in nothing short of crisis mode, and the future of the CagePotato brand remains up in the air. It’s…been a depressing couple of months to say the least.
But as Harvey Dent once said, it is always darkest before the dawn. And not unlike Dent, we need you — our loyal, fearless and ever-vitriolic readers — to be the Batman to our Gotham. Which is why today, we announce the launch of our own crowdfunding campaign through Patreonto #RallyForCagePotato.
CagePotato would be nothing if it wasn’t for you guys (and gals), and we need your help and support now more than ever.
Care to read up on our cause and/or donate? Head after the jump for all the details how.
Our dilemma is simple; in order to up our daily output of content, bring in more/new writers, and continue to make improvements the site, we need more money. Your money. Not a lot, mind you — even as little as a couple bucks a month — but enough to *marginally* compensate for what our parent site has slashed from our budget. This money will ensure that we will be able to continue churning out great material and even start paying those of you who have been sending in articles for publication (which have been nothing short of excellent so far) moving forward.
If you’re unfamiliar with how Patreon works, check out this brief video to get up to speed.
Essentially, Patreon works like a Kickstarter campaign, except the donations are made on a monthly basis. In hindsight, I guess that video wasn’t entirely necessary.
We’ve accomplished great things through crowdfunding in the past, and are confident that we can do great things again with your help. But if the thought of saving your favorite sarcasm-riddled MMA blog run by jealous UFC h8rs isn’t enough, we also have a few “incentives”:
– For $5/month, you will receive a personal shout-out of your choosing from us on Twitter. Got a beef with a fighter you need to get off your chest, but can’t because you only have 23 followers? Want us to publicly shame one of your friends? Or are you simply looking to to gain some followers via the patented CagePotato bump? All you need is a few bucks to start making those incredibly modest dreams come true.
– For $25/month, you will receive a signed 8×10 from CP’s resident adult film star and GSP fanatic, Carmen Valentina.
– For $50/month, you will receive a custom solo vid from Ms. Valentina. We’re sure she’ll just use the time to give you the scoop on what GSP’s been up to lately and totally not take her clothes off in the process.
We can’t begin to describe how much your support has meant to us in these trying times. but with a little more help, we can all make sure that CagePotato remains a place for MMA’s craziest and most dedicated fans to revel in the circus act that is our beloved sport.
(“You know what, I *would* like to address what @sk8rdood45 said about this matchup. You tell @sk8rdouche that he and his 22 followers can all go f*ck themselves! Good question, Ariel.” Photo via Getty.)
Do me a favor. Head over to any one of the “serious” or “unbiased” or “professional” MMA sites you visit IN ADDITION TO CagePotato on a regular basis and scan through the headlines. Thereareplentyofoptions to choose from.
Now count how many headlines you read that contained the phrase “Dana White on_____” or something of the like. Hell, count how many times you see a picture of his face. Then comb through the articles a second time and see how many *without* White’s name in the headline still relate back to:
There were at least four, weren’t there? Lucky for you, we’re on the downslope of a week with no UFC event on the immediate horizon. Had you visited those websites a few days ago (or next weekend, for that matter), you would have been bombarded by more Dana White news than you could read in a month. You’d find no relief in the forums either, where the most popular thread by far would be the one where White personally called you a “dipshit” and a “pussy” for daring to question him from your grandmother’s basement.
Does anyone else see what is wrong with this picture?
(“You know what, I *would* like to address what @sk8rdood45 said about this matchup. You tell @sk8rdouche that he and his 22 followers can all go f*ck themselves! Good question, Ariel.” Photo via Getty.)
Do me a favor. Head over to any one of the “serious” or “unbiased” or “professional” MMA sites you visit IN ADDITION TO CagePotato on a regular basis and scan through the headlines. Thereareplentyofoptions to choose from.
Now count how many headlines you read that contained the phrase “Dana White on_____” or something of the like. Hell, count how many times you see a picture of his face. Then comb through the articles a second time and see how many *without* White’s name in the headline still relate back to:
There were at least four, weren’t there? Lucky for you, we’re on the downslope of a week with no UFC event on the immediate horizon. Had you visited those websites a few days ago (or next weekend, for that matter), you would have been bombarded by more Dana White news than you could read in a month. You’d find no relief in the forums either, where the most popular thread by far would be the one where White personally called you a “dipshit” and a “pussy” for daring to question him from your grandmother’s basement.
Does anyone else see what is wrong with this picture? Here we have a sport where, in one promotion alone, over 400 fighters are currently employed. Fighters who surely have interesting stories to be told — of struggle, of achievement, of defeat, of proper zombie killing technique. Yet our headlines have become — ever-increasingly, it seems — devoted to one man and what he has to say about every last aspect of our sport, no matter how trivial or underwhelming.
It’s not that I can’t understand why we choose to cling to White — he is a fiercely opinionated, politically incorrect, short-fused, charismatic dynamo who just so happens to always have a camera in his face — it’s that I don’t understand whywe continue to deem every. last. word. he speaks as “newsworthy.” Don’t get me wrong, there are news bits that are best when delivered by the UFC President himself — the future addition of a women’s strawweight division comes to mind. But, I’m sorry, Dana White “knowing” that Robbie Lawler would “take it to Rory MacDonald” last Saturday is not something I or anyone else should consider worthy of listening to, let alone devoting an entire article to.
Is it laziness? The general lack of journalistic integrity/know-how associated with bloggers? Or are we just out of fresh ideas and simply clinging to the hope that White will provide us with enough quotes to copy/paste an article out of before our next deadline? Is there any other sport wherein the journalists spending every waking moment seeking the President’s opinion on a Twitter feud between players or the disappointing ratings of a particular game?
I can’t answer any of the questions I just posed (except for the last one, which is a resounding “no”) and to be fair, I am part of the problem. Even now, I am doing exactly what I just raked several much more respected MMA bloggers/websites over the coals for: devoting an article entirely to Dana White. And maybe not tomorrow, maybe not on Monday, but at some point next week, I will write an article about Dana White calling Keith Kizer “a f*cking idiot” or taking the piss out of this judge or that commission or fighter X or fighter Y. I have never been more sure of anything in my life.
But the thing I like (and what I think most people like) about Dana White is that, despite his millions and millions of dollars and the dictator-esque pedestal he is placed on by fans and media types alike, he seems like a rational, genuine human being at his core. An everyman. The kind of guy who will still hop in a mosh pit with us nobodies if the occasion calls for it. In the political realm, it is often said that we vote for the Presidential candidate we feel we could “have a beer with,” and in that regard, White seems like the kind of guy who would not only have a drink with you, but drink you under the table and tell your girlfriend that dating you technically makes her a lesbian once you had passed out. You know, like any of your friends would.
Therein lies White’s appeal. He’s not some stone-faced CEO reading a prepared statement from a transcript, bowels trembling at the thought of accidentally saying something politically incorrect. He’s one of us. He’s reactionary. He’s stubborn. He’s occasionally irrational. But he’s also passionate; about the sport, about the direction it takes, about the well-being of his fighters. And whether he’s talking about being chased out of Boston by Whitey Bulger or reflecting on the early days of the sport, White almost always comes across as a genuine person. More importantly, he comes across as a fan.
That White makes himself so available to the public and press is a double-eged sword. On one hand, it highlights his passion, his intensity to be best at what he does and take his supporters along for the ride with him. But on the other hand, his vitriol-filled rants and personal attacks toward journalists often come across as unnecessary and unprofessional. Totalitarian even. Like he cares more about spin control than he does about being truthful. Like a behind-the-scenes look at the aforementioned stone-faced CEO. At a certain point, I can’t say when, the threshold for what we needed White’s opinion on and what we wanted his opinion on was breached. He’s become *too* available, and at times, it has come at the cost of the sport’s reputation.
I know, it’s easy to criticize the actions of a man under constant scrutiny and surveillance from the public eye, especially given the fact that I have never made an irrational decision or statement in my life. But when 90% of the headlines are about what Dana White is saying and not who he is saying them about, isn’t it safe to assume that we are getting a little off message? So I beg of you, fellow MMA media members: Stop devoting so much time to Dana White and start devoting more time to the guys in the trenches, their families, their trainers, and so on. Stop allowing White to form your opinions for you and start forming them on your own. It’s kind of your job.
Got a couple things to share with you today, Potatoheads…
– We know that CagePotato’s commenting system sucks at the moment. It’s hard to log into, it’s buggy, and it’s been completely overrun by spammers. That’s why we’ll be switching to a Facebook-login system in the near future, which will be much easier to use, and will hopefully inspire a lot more of you to stop lurking and start leaving some comments on our daily posts.
– Speaking of “overrun by spammers,” it’s time to bid adieu to the CagePotato forums. They’ve actually become dangerous from a security standpoint, and we simply don’t have the resources to update/overhaul/monitor them so that they provide a positive experience for their few remaining users. In the immediate future, they’ll still be accessible at forums.cagepotato.com, but pretty soon, they’ll be gone. They had a good run, but it’s over.
As with any change to the environment of a website you’ve been visiting for months, or even years, now is the time to throw yourself out of a window and vow that you’ll never come here again. I know that some of these changes will negatively affect some of you — the loss of your beloved usernames, no more forums or handbag spam — but this is all being done to benefit of the majority of our readers, who will hopefully have a smoother experience on our site when this is all said and done. And after that, some upgrades to our mobile site will even make browsing CagePotato on your phone less aggravating. So trust us, take our hands, and together we will march forward into a promising future. Thanks, as always, for your support.
-BG
Got a couple things to share with you today, Potatoheads…
– We know that CagePotato’s commenting system sucks at the moment. It’s hard to log into, it’s buggy, and it’s been completely overrun by spammers. That’s why we’ll be switching to a Facebook-login system in the near future, which will be much easier to use, and will hopefully inspire a lot more of you to stop lurking and start leaving some comments on our daily posts.
– Speaking of “overrun by spammers,” it’s time to bid adieu to the CagePotato forums. They’ve actually become dangerous from a security standpoint, and we simply don’t have the resources to update/overhaul/monitor them so that they provide a positive experience for their few remaining users. In the immediate future, they’ll still be accessible at forums.cagepotato.com, but pretty soon, they’ll be gone. They had a good run, but it’s over.
As with any change to the environment of a website you’ve been visiting for months, or even years, now is the time to throw yourself out of a window and vow that you’ll never come here again. I know that some of these changes will negatively affect some of you — the loss of your beloved usernames, no more forums or handbag spam — but this is all being done to benefit of the majority of our readers, who will hopefully have a smoother experience on our site when this is all said and done. And after that, some upgrades to our mobile site will even make browsing CagePotato on your phone less aggravating. So trust us, take our hands, and together we will march forward into a promising future. Thanks, as always, for your support.
Alright, you guys, this is the last time we’re going to explain this.
We understand that six months of sprawl training can fill you with a previously unimaginable sense of self-confidence. Hell, throw in a couple BJJ lessons and a month or so of P90X and most of us would probably feel damn near invincible. It’s understandable to a degree, for we are a fragile-minded species that are easily influenced and oft corrupted by our own power, no matter how fleeting it may be.
But as fragile as our minds truly are, our bodies usually pale in comparison (*cough* Kevin Ware *cough*). And in the MMA game, taking one’s body for granted is a surefire way to wind up on the wrong end of a knockout — an embarrassing moment made all the more embarrassing when it comes just moments after you dare your opponent to test your otherworldly chin strength. Just ask our winner for the Biggest MMA Fail of 2012 or the Diaz wannabe who got front-kicked into never-neverland what showboating leads to. Hint: It’s pain. Only pain.
Alright, you guys, this is the last time we’re going to explain this.
We understand that six months of sprawl training can fill you with a previously unimaginable sense of self-confidence. Hell, throw in a couple BJJ lessons and a month or so of P90X and most of us would probably feel damn near invincible. It’s understandable to a degree, for we are a fragile-minded species that are easily influenced and oft corrupted by our own power, no matter how fleeting it may be.
But as fragile as our minds truly are, our bodies usually pale in comparison (*cough* Kevin Ware *cough*). And in the MMA game, taking one’s body for granted is a surefire way to wind up on the wrong end of a knockout — an embarrassing moment made all the more embarrassing when it comes just moments after you dare your opponent to test your otherworldly chin strength. Just ask our winner for the Biggest MMA Fail of 2012 or the Diaz wannabe who got front-kicked into never-neverland what showboating leads to. Hint: It’s pain. Only pain.
As you can tell by his pathetic attempts to perform what we in the MMA world call a “kick,” the jackwagon featured above clearly falls into the category of “Six Month Sprawl Superstar.” And while it’s fitting that this guy would be so confident in his chin that he would charge face first into a punch with his hands down, the humor we can take away from his misfortune only masks the bigger picture: reckless endangerment.
The simple fact is that one of these crazy bastards are going to get themselves killed while attempting to show off during a fight, and when one of them inevitably does, our beloved sport will once again be put the ringer as a result. It’s pretty selfish, honestly, but who am I kidding? I’m talking to the guy who is so self-centered that he laughs at the notion of a mere mortal somehow possessing the strength to knock him out.
Look, we know it looks cool/intimidating when Nick Diaz effortlessly absorbs his opponents best shots whilst throwing Stockton Heybuddies all the while, but none of you are Nick Diaz. If you were, you would certainly be too caught up in some good old fashioned nunchucking to own a computer and therefore read this plea.
You want to show off how much of a badass you are? Try finishing your opponent then celebrating. There’s a much smaller window for failure there. In the meantime, we beg you impressionable MMA fighters out there to please spend a little less time thinking you’re God and a little more keeping your hands up. For our sake and yours.
(“Oh, Georges, you couldn’t pull off a mean mug if you tried. Your eyes, they just have too much…soul in them.”)
You might not know this about the CagePotato writing staff, but not a one of us is a UFC-caliber fighter. Sure, Elias lays boots to asses every now and again and Goldstein once slapped Bas Rutten in public and lived to tell the tale, but none of us here at CP have ever had a situation arise where we forced to fight one of our fellow writers for the right to be called “King of the Mountain.” So maybe we’re not the correct sources to come to when discussing whether teammates in a given MMA camp should be more open to fighting one another or not. Then again, none of us (to my knowledge) have ever been busted for steroids before, yet we’re perfectly fine casting our respective opinions toward those who have, so here we go.
This whole “Fighter X won’t fight Teammate Y” nonsense is out of control. Rory MacDonald won’t fight GSP. Cain Velasquez won’t fight Daniel Cormier. Anderson Silva won’t fight anyone who doesn’t wear a kimono and firing range goggles 24/7. It’s getting ridiculous. Simply put, if you are unable to separate your personal life from your professional one in the fight game, then you probably shouldn’t be involved in the fight game. MMA is not a team sport, especially when a title shot and thousands of dollars are on the line.
Thankfully, guys like Dan Henderson are still around — old school, take-on-all-comers-even-if-that-means-fighting-at-heavyweight type guys who would fight their bedridden aunt for the last slice of pizza if she dared call dibs on it first. Ever since Hendo blew out his knee and was passed over for the next light heavyweight title shot by Chael Sonnen, things have been rather tense over at Team Quest, to the point that Hendo recently told FightersOnly that he would no doubt fight Sonnen now that he’s a LHW:
We’re friends, but above all we fight now in the same category and therefore have the same goal. We both compete for the same belt.
(“Oh, Georges, you couldn’t pull off a mean mug if you tried. Your eyes, they just have too much…soul in them.”)
You might not know this about the CagePotato writing staff, but not a one of us is a UFC-caliber fighter. Sure, Elias lays boots to asses every now and again and Goldstein once slapped Bas Rutten in public and lived to tell the tale, but none of us here at CP have ever had a situation arise where we forced to fight one of our fellow writers for the right to be called “King of the Mountain.” So maybe we’re not the correct sources to come to when discussing whether teammates in a given MMA camp should be more open to fighting one another or not. Then again, none of us (to my knowledge) have ever been busted for steroids before, yet we’re perfectly fine casting our respective opinions toward those who have, so here we go.
This whole “Fighter X won’t fight Teammate Y” nonsense is out of control. Rory MacDonald won’t fight GSP. Cain Velasquez won’t fight Daniel Cormier. Anderson Silva won’t fight anyone who doesn’t wear a kimono and firing range goggles 24/7. It’s getting ridiculous. Simply put, if you are unable to separate your personal life from your professional one in the fight game, then you probably shouldn’t be involved in the fight game. MMA is not a team sport, especially when a title shot and thousands of dollars are on the line.
Thankfully, guys like Dan Henderson are still around — old school, take-on-all-comers-even-if-that-means-fighting-at-heavyweight type guys who would fight their bedridden aunt for the last slice of pizza if she dared call dibs on it first. Ever since Hendo blew out his knee and was passed over for the next light heavyweight title shot by Chael Sonnen, things have been rather tense over at Team Quest, to the point that Hendo recently told FightersOnly that he would no doubt fight Sonnen now that he’s a LHW:
We’re friends, but above all we fight now in the same category and therefore have the same goal. We both compete for the same belt.
Our friendship is more than a title and we are professional enough to let the rivalry be just inside the Octagon. It would be a different situation, but our profession in this type of situation is quite possible to happen.
Hendo, you old dog, you. Only you can take a situation as (apparently) complex as this and simplify it down to a few sentences or less like the Zen master you truly are. Have you met our friend Donald Cerrone, by chance? You guys could probably share a story or two whilst splitting firewood and consuming copious amounts of beef jerky, but that’s beside the point.
And it turns out, Hendo isn’t the only man willing to throw down with his teammates when a title is on the line. We know, right? MMAFighting recently interviewed Strikeforce welterweight champion Nate Marquardt and pressed him on the same issue in regards to his friend/occasional teammate, welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre. Marquardt was exceptionally candid when giving his response:
Of course, yeah (laughs). Honestly man, anyone of those welterweights on that card, that card is stacked and any one of the three that win, that’s who I want to fight. Obviously, I’d rather not fight Georges. He’s my friend and training partner for a long time now. But, like I said before, I’m not in the position to be turning down fights, so I’d rather not fight him, but I’m not going to turn down any fights.
At this point, it seems like more and more fighters are declaring who they wouldn’t want to fight as soon as they get in a position of power, rather than the other way around. And while it’s usually hilarious when Forrest Griffin does it, from both a fan’s perspective and a business perspective, it’s rather foolish for said fighters to turn down what could be lucrative paydays before the option is even on the table. So kudos to these two for going against the grain, although their performances against Tarec Saffiedine and Lyoto Machida will determine more than anything else whether or not they will have to face off against their teammates down the line.
But please, actual MMA fighters, please fall in line with guys like Hendo and Marquardt. There’s no reason to believe that you and your buddy can’t throw down for 15 to 25 minutes and not walk away friends after. Look at it like a video game if you have to: you sign in, insult each others mothers for a bit, and then storm off in a jealous rage should you lose. But the next day, you’re still willing to call each other friends over shots of Jager, even if one of you did piss on the other’s oriental rug on the way out.
It’s safe to say that we should all be thankful that 2012 is almost over. This has been a rough year to be an MMA fan, and with a damn-near legendary injury curse spanning the last eleven months, it’s been just as hard on the fighters. But this has been an especially hard year for UFC veteran Dennis Hallman, whose house burned down in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning.
As Hallman told MMAFighting.com, the cause of the fire is unknown, but authorities believe it was an electrical fire. No one was hurt, but Dennis Hallman has lost everything to the fire.
It’s safe to say that we should all be thankful that 2012 is almost over. This has been a rough year to be an MMA fan, and with a damn-near legendary injury curse spanning the last eleven months, it’s been just as hard on the fighters. But this has been an especially hard year for UFC veteran Dennis Hallman, whose house burned down in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning.
As Hallman told MMAFighting.com, the cause of the fire is unknown, but authorities believe it was an electrical fire. No one was hurt, but Dennis Hallman has lost everything to the fire.
After battling injuries throughout the first half of the year, Hallman was expected to fight Thiago Tavares on at UFC 151. When that event got axed, Hallman/Tavares was rescheduled for UFC on FX 5. Hallman would show up seven pounds overweight, canceling the bout entirely. Dennis Hallman would walk away from competition in order to deal with an ugly custody dispute with his wife, who is reportedly battling a drug addiction.
I realize that money is tight for everyone -especially with the holidays approaching – but anything you can afford to give will help Dennis out. You can donate to him by visiting this page. Hopefully, Dennis can get a fresh start in a new house in time for his family to enjoy the holiday season.
