It seems like more and more professional ball players of every stripe are taking up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA training in their off-seasons. Rarely, however, have we gotten much more than general interview references to the training they are doing.
Jiu Jitsu and salesmen extraordinaires (seriously, Rener could probably sell you your own urine) Rener and Ryron Gracie, sons of UFC founder Rorian Gracie, bring us a pretty great inside look at the fight training that at least one NFL star has been doing this past off-season. On the latest episode of their YouTube series, The Gracie Way, Rener and Ryron train with their student and Kansas City Chief All-Pro outside linebacker, Tamba Hali.
It looks like Hali has really bought in to “The Gracie Way.” The 270 pound giant is focused not on getting bigger and stronger, but on getting leaner and more wholistic in his approach to health, it seems as he reveals that he has lost fifteen pounds so far training with the Gracies.
First, Hali does some hill runs, alternately pulling and pushing Ryron, who is on a skate board, up-hill. We also see Hali eat some of Rener’s sandwiches and acai bowls as well as training in a gi at their Gracie Academy.
Hali not only rolls with the Gracies and other students in the video, but also with former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida. Check all that out, plus Halis reflections on his training and life style over haul and his blue belt ceremony.
Then, get out there and do some training yourself on this Sunday afternoon. Only, you know, leave your computer on CagePotato and come back real quick to check out more later because we’re needy and start missing you quickly.
It seems like more and more professional ball players of every stripe are taking up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA training in their off-seasons. Rarely, however, have we gotten much more than general interview references to the training they are doing.
Jiu Jitsu and salesmen extraordinaires (seriously, Rener could probably sell you your own urine) Rener and Ryron Gracie, sons of UFC founder Rorian Gracie, bring us a pretty great inside look at the fight training that at least one NFL star has been doing this past off-season. On the latest episode of their YouTube series, The Gracie Way, Rener and Ryron train with their student and Kansas City Chief All-Pro outside linebacker, Tamba Hali.
It looks like Hali has really bought in to “The Gracie Way.” The 270 pound giant is focused not on getting bigger and stronger, but on getting leaner and more wholistic in his approach to health, it seems as he reveals that he has lost fifteen pounds so far training with the Gracies.
First, Hali does some hill runs, alternately pulling and pushing Ryron, who is on a skate board, up-hill. We also see Hali eat some of Rener’s sandwiches and acai bowls as well as training in a gi at their Gracie Academy.
Hali not only rolls with the Gracies and other students in the video, but also with former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida. Check all that out, plus Halis reflections on his training and life style over haul and his blue belt ceremony.
Then, get out there and do some training yourself on this Sunday afternoon. Only, you know, leave your computer on CagePotato and come back real quick to check out more later because we’re needy and start missing you quickly.
Some things in life are better left unexamined. A recent Brazilian television interview with former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva reminds us of that.
As far as topics that should be left alone, we’re not talking about the ridiculous idea that Silva may have intentionally let himself get brutally knocked out by Chris Weidman a few weeks ago. Silva did indeed get asked about that by the television show host and you can see his emotional response in the video above.
I’m no Portuguese speaker but Silva definitely does mention feeling that when he fights he is representing Brazil and all Brazilians and that he’d never throw a fight. As he discusses this, he gets choked up and sheds a few tears before being embraced by applause from the studio audience and literally by the host.
But, like we said, that’s not the sensitive topic that should be avoided. No, what we’re not sure should ever be spoken of or probed into is – what/who the heck is the anorexic, half naked, full-body painted green and fire red-haired thing over Silva’s shoulder in the video? For that matter, why is their another shirtless dude just standing behind Silva as well?
Even asking the questions makes us uncomfortable so we’ll leave it alone. Unless you, dear readers, would like to theorize what in tarnation is going on with those weirdos on the South American variety show.
Poorly cast Street Fighter character impersonators? Anderson Silva’s new body guards? Some type of esoteric protest of the World Cup and Olympics? Your guess is as good as ours.
Some things in life are better left unexamined. A recent Brazilian television interview with former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva reminds us of that.
As far as topics that should be left alone, we’re not talking about the ridiculous idea that Silva may have intentionally let himself get brutally knocked out by Chris Weidman a few weeks ago. Silva did indeed get asked about that by the television show host and you can see his emotional response in the video above.
I’m no Portuguese speaker but Silva definitely does mention feeling that when he fights he is representing Brazil and all Brazilians and that he’d never throw a fight. As he discusses this, he gets choked up and sheds a few tears before being embraced by applause from the studio audience and literally by the host.
But, like we said, that’s not the sensitive topic that should be avoided. No, what we’re not sure should ever be spoken of or probed into is – what/who the heck is the anorexic, half naked, full-body painted green and fire red-haired thing over Silva’s shoulder in the video? For that matter, why is their another shirtless dude just standing behind Silva as well?
Even asking the questions makes us uncomfortable so we’ll leave it alone. Unless you, dear readers, would like to theorize what in tarnation is going on with those weirdos on the South American variety show.
Poorly cast Street Fighter character impersonators? Anderson Silva’s new body guards? Some type of esoteric protest of the World Cup and Olympics? Your guess is as good as ours.
Yesterday, Mike Tyson was interviewed on ESPN 2’s Friday Night Fights program and announced that he was joining Acquinity Sports, a two year-old promotional company. Ostensibly, it means that the former boxing champ and the youngest man to ever win the heavyweight crown is now a promoter.
There is no real telling yet how much of a role Tyson will have in the promotion beyond certainly being the face of it, but he said in the interview that he plans to be ‘hands-on.’ Tyson, of course, was allegedly robbed blind and poor by handler and promoter Don King.
‘Iron Mike’ said that he hopes to help young fighters signed to his promotion by making sure that everything is on ‘the up and up.’ We hope he does as no one is really better suited to share cautionary tales with fighters.
“I’d hate to see fighters end up like me…like wow, ‘what happened?'” Tyson said of the pitfalls of “not planning your life,” and “trusting the wrong people.”
Tyson also goes on to talk about his one-man stage show and his foundation to help young people. As with most Tyson interviews, the embattled former champ manages to fit in an incredibly amount of apparent honesty, openness and plain-spoken and painfully-earned wisdom. The interview is worth a watch.
What do you think, nation? Will Tyson have a direct hand in the business of this boxing promotion and thereby be able to truly help make his corner of the boxing world a cleaner and less exploitative one? Or, will Tyson’s name and likeness simply be used by his business partners to make a dime and keep the fight business going as usual?
Yesterday, Mike Tyson was interviewed on ESPN 2′s Friday Night Fights program and announced that he was joining Acquinity Sports, a two year-old promotional company. Ostensibly, it means that the former boxing champ and the youngest man to ever win the heavyweight crown is now a promoter.
There is no real telling yet how much of a role Tyson will have in the promotion beyond certainly being the face of it, but he said in the interview that he plans to be ‘hands-on.’ Tyson, of course, was allegedly robbed blind and poor by handler and promoter Don King.
‘Iron Mike’ said that he hopes to help young fighters signed to his promotion by making sure that everything is on ‘the up and up.’ We hope he does as no one is really better suited to share cautionary tales with fighters.
“I’d hate to see fighters end up like me…like wow, ‘what happened?’” Tyson said of the pitfalls of “not planning your life,” and “trusting the wrong people.”
Tyson also goes on to talk about his one-man stage show and his foundation to help young people. As with most Tyson interviews, the embattled former champ manages to fit in an incredibly amount of apparent honesty, openness and plain-spoken and painfully-earned wisdom. The interview is worth a watch.
What do you think, nation? Will Tyson have a direct hand in the business of this boxing promotion and thereby be able to truly help make his corner of the boxing world a cleaner and less exploitative one? Or, will Tyson’s name and likeness simply be used by his business partners to make a dime and keep the fight business going as usual?
(SPOILER: No apology is made at any point in the video, which is actually worse than you’re assuming it is.)
In yesterday’s link dump, we shared a video of Dana White’s appearance on ESPN2’s “Highly Questionable” on Wednesday, where he had some harsh things to say about Sports Illustrated. To refresh your memory: Following UFC 162, SI.com published a roundtable discussion that implied that the main event may have been fixed. Watching legitimate, informed journalists debate whether or not a fight was fixed simply because the underdog won would have been cringe-worthy enough, but they took things to a whole new extreme by making it painfully obvious that two out of the three participants in the discussion didn’t even watch the fight. Needless to say, Dana White was not amused, and it showed during his segment on “Highly Questionable.”
There was absolutely no way that Sports Illustrated was going to let one of their biggest rivals trash them like that, so they immediately set out to create the perfect rebuttal. What they came up with was a phone conversation between Maggie Gray and Dana White, and words cannot describe how awkward it was to listen to.
You really have to feel bad for Maggie here. She was asked to defend what was arguably the worst piece of mainstream sports journalism this side of “The Patriots should have known Aaron Hernandez would turn out to be a murderer,” despite the fact that she wasn’t even involved in the discussion. It’s not exactly an enviable position to be in, especially when you’re against one of the most outspoken men in sports.
A quick apology and follow-up interview about the rematch between Weidman and Silva would have been a safe play, but don’t worry, that doesn’t even come close to happening. Instead, Maggie uses the most condescending tone possible while discussing the roundtable that was totally just about combat sports in general (it wasn’t), yet somehow managed to offend Dana White (maybe all that fight fixing stuff). Any remaining doubts that the upcoming interview would be a total clusterfuck are erased when Maggie concludes her opening statement with the MMA-ish non-sequitur “After sparring a few rounds – no one tapped out! -we moved on discussing the rematch between Weidman and Silva.”
Yeah, we’ll be offering play-by play for this one after the jump…
(SPOILER: No apology is made at any point in the video, which is actually worse than you’re assuming it is.)
In yesterday’s link dump, we shared a video of Dana White’s appearance on ESPN2′s “Highly Questionable” on Wednesday, where he had some harsh things to say about Sports Illustrated. To refresh your memory: Following UFC 162, SI.com published a roundtable discussion that implied that the main event may have been fixed. Watching legitimate, informed journalists debate whether or not a fight was fixed simply because the underdog won would have been cringe-worthy enough, but they took things to a whole new extreme by making it painfully obvious that two out of the three participants in the discussion didn’t even watch the fight. Needless to say, Dana White was not amused, and it showed during his segment on “Highly Questionable.”
There was absolutely no way that Sports Illustrated was going to let one of their biggest rivals trash them like that, so they immediately set out to create the perfect rebuttal. What they came up with was a phone conversation between Maggie Gray and Dana White, and words cannot describe how awkward it was to listen to.
You really have to feel bad for Maggie here. She was asked to defend what was arguably the worst piece of mainstream sports journalism this side of “The Patriots should have known Aaron Hernandez would turn out to be a murderer,” despite the fact that she wasn’t even involved in the discussion. It’s not exactly an enviable position to be in, especially when you’re against one of the most outspoken men in sports.
A quick apology and follow-up interview about the rematch between Weidman and Silva would have been a safe play, but don’t worry, that doesn’t even come close to happening. Instead, Maggie uses the most condescending tone possible while discussing the roundtable that was totally just about combat sports in general (it wasn’t), yet somehow managed to offend Dana White (maybe all that fight fixing stuff). Any remaining doubts that the upcoming interview would be a total clusterfuck are erased when Maggie concludes her opening statement with the MMA-ish non-sequitur “After sparring a few rounds – no one tapped out! -we moved on discussing the rematch between Weidman and Silva.”
Yeah, we’ll be offering play-by play for this one after the jump…
MG:*Long-winded opening rant that I won’t even try to type out that tries to justify why Weidman vs. Silva could have been fixed* …Can you explain why so many people – not just us – had these questions about that specific fight [being fixed]?
Right off the bat we’re given a question worthy of being included in our “Questions You Should Never Ask in an MMA Interview” list. Starting an interview off with such a defensive, passive-aggressive question is pretty much guaranteed to produce a hostile response from the person you’re talking to. Dana doesn’t disappoint.
DW: Not just you guys? First of all, you guys are Sports Illustrated, number one, okay? I want to know did anyone on that panel even watch that fight?
Huh, turns out that Dana White doesn’t accept “Trolls on the Internet thought the fight was fixed, so why should a legitimate news website be held to higher standards?” as a valid argument. *Writes this down for future reference*
Your move, Maggie.
MG:After hearing what you said on ESPN yesterday I have to ask you, did you watch our segment? Did you actually see what kind of conversation we had?
DW: Oh yeah, well how about this: “My first thought when I read the results on Sunday morning, yeah, that made me nervous, but I would have thought they would have fixed the Anderson Silva fight for Silva. If they fixed the fight, I thought they would have fixed it for Silva. UFC – and correct me if I”m wrong – is even less regulated than boxing, right?” WRONG! You guys are talking about a sport that you know nothing about. We’re regulated by the same exact people who regulate boxing.
Well, that backfired tremendously. Turns out that Dana White actually watched the segment he’s commenting on, so wherever you were going with the “Did you even watch our show?” question is now off the table.
But even the best interviewers make mistakes, so let’s see how she rebounds from this.
MG:We weren’t the only people who were asking you about this. After the fight the people who were in Vegas covering the fight were asking you about this.
DW: No no no no no. The guy who asked me the question, that was covering the fight, said “people on Twitter are saying” and “people on the Internet.” There’s a big difference between people on the Internet and Sports Illustrated. I would hope so at least.
MG:Well our show’s on the Internet, so we consider ourselves all part of one brand.
Honey, forget the ballpark. You’re not even in the same fucking city by addressing his comment about how there should be a difference between random people on Twitter and Sports Illustrated’s trusted analysts by saying “Sports Illustrated’s website is considered the same brand as the actual magazine.” You could have asked 1,000 different contestants from 1,000 different beauty pageants to respond to Dana’s statement, and none of them would have come up with something this tragically hilarious.
There’s blood in the water. Your move, Dana White.
DW:You know what? I was hoping you were calling to apologize, that’s what I was hoping you were calling me for.
MG: We were having a general conversation and the likelihood in combat sports…
DW:About something you know nothing about! If you don’t know anything about what you’re talking about you probably shouldn’t talk about it. That sounds like a really good idea. That’s why you’ve been getting smashed by fans and why I smacked you yesterday on ESPN. Because if you’re going to talk about something you might want to do your homework and know what you’re talking about. Or at least you might want to have at least seen the fight, so somebody on that panel would have had half a brain to say “You know what, I saw that fight. The guy was viciously knocked out. How could that be fixed?”
The conclusion of your roundtable should be that you guys should do your homework and understand exactly what it is you’re talking about. And if nobody watched the fight that day, then you should at least know the sport is regulated, at least know some general things about the sport. At least do your homework. I honestly thought you were calling to apologize because you guys were so embarrassed by how ridiculous your show was. Now as I sit here and talk to you, you’re even more ridiculous and I’ll bet you this whole interview doesn’t see the light of day.
Checkmate.
MG:Unfortunately that’s not up to me it’ll be up to our producers...
DW: Yeah, well if he’s smart he’ll take this tape out and throw it right in the garbage, so that the world can’t hear what I’m saying to you right now.
The day that we got the cover of Sports Illustrated I walked around with it for two days to show you I was so pumped to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. What happened the other day, when you guys did that piece… I’m saying Sports Illustrated, you guys did not represent what Sports Illustrated is supposed to be about.
MG:We did not have an MMA expert on our panel that day, which is why we tried to take the conversation into a general space and make it something about the likelihood of fight fixing, and the panel came to the conclusion at the end that it was unlikely, that this did not happen, we do not think that there was anything happening in that fight. And that’s where we left it.
Translation: “We did not have an MMA expert on our panel that day, which is why we sent out a few clueless reporters to argue that the fight they didn’t watch was fixed. Why is this so upsetting to you?”
DW: My point is that some of the things that were said were totally incorrect and you don’t have to be an MMA expert to do some homework.
It’s at this point where Maggie Gray finally recognizes that the interview is going absolutely nowhere, and actually asks Dana White some questions about Weidman vs. Silva II. It’s also at this point where the interview becomes a total waste of time, since Dana already answered all of her questions on “Highly Questionable.”
But at least Sports Illustrated got to attempt to defend their honor, so…mission accomplished?
Got any burning questions about Nick’s life and career? Please submit them to the comments section below by tomorrow night; we’ll award a CagePotato t-shirt to whoever writes the best question that we decide to use. Thanks so much, and please follow @NotoriousNewell and @MMAWorldSeries on Twitter!
Got any burning questions about Nick’s life and career? Please submit them to the comments section below by tomorrow night; we’ll award a CagePotato t-shirt to whoever writes the best question that we decide to use. Thanks so much, and please follow @NotoriousNewell and @MMAWorldSeries on Twitter!
We love MMA-related movies as much as the next blog here at CagePotato. Heck, every 100th one isn’t even stupendously horrid.
So needless to say, it caught our attention today when we read that Oscar nominee Edward James Olmos was excited to be a part of a project whose story includes an MMA fighter protagonist and would also co-star former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. MMA Junkie had the strange report:
The Oscar-nominated actor is part of a new film project called ‘Monday Nights at Seven’ that stars actor/director Marty Sader in a love and life story against the backdrop of the MMA world. But what is unique about the movie in its infancy is that the team behind it is seeking to have it funded through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site that lets supporters contribute financially in exchange for rewards once the financing goal is hit.
Sader will play the lead role as an MMA fighter, Anderson Silva will be his coach, and Olmos will play Sader’s father. But the movie’s release isn’t a sure thing just quite yet. That’s kind of up to you, dear reader. And so far, things are not looking great. The film’s Kickstarter campaign runs until the end of this month and has a goal of $500,000. So far, Junkie reports that it has raised just over $10,000.
We love MMA-related movies as much as the next blog here at CagePotato. Heck, every 100th one isn’t even stupendously horrid.
So needless to say, it caught our attention today when we read that Oscar nominee Edward James Olmos was excited to be a part of a project whose story includes an MMA fighter protagonist and would also co-star former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. MMA Junkie had the strange report:
The Oscar-nominated actor is part of a new film project called ‘Monday Nights at Seven’ that stars actor/director Marty Sader in a love and life story against the backdrop of the MMA world. But what is unique about the movie in its infancy is that the team behind it is seeking to have it funded through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site that lets supporters contribute financially in exchange for rewards once the financing goal is hit.
Sader will play the lead role as an MMA fighter, Anderson Silva will be his coach, and Olmos will play Sader’s father. But the movie’s release isn’t a sure thing just quite yet. That’s kind of up to you, dear reader. And so far, things are not looking great. The film’s Kickstarter campaign runs until the end of this month and has a goal of $500,000. So far, Junkie reports that it has raised just over $10,000.
We’ve seen some horrible results from MMA movies produced by director/stars before *cough Hector Echavarria cough* but we watched a few minutes of Sader’s self-made film “Most High” on Netflix recently and so we’re at least optimistic that he’ll treat this fight story with seriousness.
But still, how believable can a film be when it’s fighter star is frumpy, has a Mexican-American father despite himself looking like he is of Indian sub-continent descent, and has Anderson Silva in an English-speaking main role? How many “thassit” and “this is my job” remarks do you think they’ll be able to fit in for Anderson?
Perhaps more dubious is the fact that their Kickstarter campaign isn’t just an opportunity for fans to support the dream of a filmmaker and actors they admire — it’s an opportunity to kind of bunk the film for themselves. A speaking role in “Monday Nights at Seven,” can be purchased for $10,000, for example.
It looks as if the ending hasn’t been written, either. Reportedly, Sader “will have an actual fight for Resurrection Fighting Alliance that will be part of the film’s climax. As such, the ending is open until he gets that fight — he might win, he might lose.”
But he definitely won’t look that good doing either. So, yeah. Donate money to a film with weird stunt-casting, a story that hasn’t been planned out to completion, and whose climax will include a fight scene with a non-athlete, first-time fighter.
I’m probably just hungry and grumpy. Maybe the idea is so innovative that it will be cool. And who are we to crap on someone’s dream anyway?
Go check out their Kickstarter and decide for yourself if you want to help make Anderson Silva the movie star his sensei Steven Seagal always believed he could be.
