The ESPN The Magazine Body Issue has been a huge hit since it debuted back in 2009. The ESPN rival to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue obtained 35% more ad sales than comparable issues its first year.What separates The Body Issue from th…
The ESPN The Magazine Body Issue has been a huge hit since it debuted back in 2009. The ESPN rival to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue obtained 35% more ad sales than comparable issues its first year.
What separates The Body Issue from the Swimsuit Issue is that all of the athletes are shown fully nude, with strategic coverage of private parts. Also, the athletes are a mix of male and female, while the swimsuit issue is just female models and athletes.
In its first four years, the body issue has featured MMA fighters Gina Carano, Randy Couture, Ronda Rousey, and Jon “Bones” Jones. Those four fighters embody the “Bodies We Want” section in the issue, showcasing, you guessed it, the best bodies in the world of sports.
This list will focus on both sides of the spectrum: the bodies that we would never want, and the bodies that would be the hardest to achieve.
With the recent announcement that Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin have been named as the coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter series, the MMA universe immediately launched into a full-blow orgasmic ticker-tape parade complete with tons of flying confetti and a marching band belting out death metal tunes. Once I heard the news, it was as if my life instantaneously turned into a beer commercial and the entire Potato Nation was invited. There was a rad pool-party, barbeque, a plethora of hotties, endless alcohol, and an overall quest for fun.
Well . . . . . actually, none of that happened. In fact, when word spread that Nelson and Carwin would helm the next season of TUF, it was officially filed under “WTF?” Judging from the comment section, most of the CP brethren didn’t care for the choices either. TUF is coming off a season that saw the ratings dip lower than they ever had, which could partially be blamed on the move to FX and the dreaded Friday night time slot. Regardless of the variables for the ratings drop, something drastic needs to be done, but is anybody really convinced that Carwin and Nelson are the answer to TUF’s slow and painful demise? Let’s start from the beginning and take a look back to see if this runaway train can be coaxed back onto the main rail.
The Season That Started it All
The inaugural season of TUF featured future Hall of Famers Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture as the competing coaches who would go mano y mano at the PPV after the season finale. For fans of the UFC, that was good enough for most to initially tune in for the Fertitta-funded experiment. It still remains the best crop of young talent and personalities to ever grace the show; future stars like Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry were all complete unknowns vying for stardom in a fledgling sport. You mix in the whole “fatherless bastard” angle and the show was off and running even before the awe-inspiring climax between (pre TRT) FoGrif and The American Psycho. Even before that, we were treated to the greatest speech of all time that has since been condensed into a few words. “Do you wanna be a fighter?” Though there were other memorable moments from the seasons that followed, Zuffa should have quit while they were ahead because it would never be this good again. The unrefined personification of immature talent, undeniable aspirations and gonzo-sized balls oozed from the boob tube during every episode.
With the recent announcement that Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin have been named as the coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter series, the MMA universe immediately launched into a full-blow orgasmic ticker-tape parade complete with tons of flying confetti and a marching band belting out death metal tunes. Once I heard the news, it was as if my life instantaneously turned into a beer commercial and the entire Potato Nation was invited. There was a rad pool-party, barbeque, a plethora of hotties, endless alcohol, and an overall quest for fun.
Well . . . . . actually, none of that happened. In fact, when word spread that Nelson and Carwin would helm the next season of TUF, it was officially filed under “WTF?” Judging from the comment section, most of the CP brethren didn’t care for the choices either. TUF is coming off a season that saw the ratings dip lower than they ever had, which could partially be blamed on the move to FX and the dreaded Friday night time slot. Regardless of the variables for the ratings drop, something drastic needs to be done, but is anybody really convinced that Carwin and Nelson are the answer to TUF’s slow and painful demise? Let’s start from the beginning and take a look back to see if this runaway train can be coaxed back onto the main rail.
The Season That Started it All
The inaugural season of TUF featured future Hall of Famers Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture as the competing coaches who would go mano y mano at the PPV after the season finale. For fans of the UFC, that was good enough for most to initially tune in for the Fertitta-funded experiment. It still remains the best crop of young talent and personalities to ever grace the show; future stars like Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry were all complete unknowns vying for stardom in a fledgling sport. You mix in the whole “fatherless bastard” angle and the show was off and running even before the awe-inspiring climax between (pre TRT) FoGrif and The American Psycho. Even before that, we were treated to the greatest speech of all time that has since been condensed into a few words. “Do you wanna be a fighter?” Though there were other memorable moments from the seasons that followed, Zuffa should have quit while they were ahead because it would never be this good again. The unrefined personification of immature talent, undeniable aspirations and gonzo-sized balls oozed from the boob tube during every episode.
Season 2
Season 2 saw Rich Franklin coach opposite Matt Hughes, and since both men competed at different weight classes, they were obviously not going to fight at the conclusion of the season. This was a prime example of the UFC throwing shit against the wall to see if it would stick by parading two somewhat charismatic champions in front of the camera with hopes of gathering ratings/fans for the upcoming UFC 56 PPV. Although it was undoubtedly a less thrilling season than that of its predecessor, it did introduce to another future light heavyweight champion in Rashad Evans, who won the contract competing as a heavyweight, as well as such names as Joe Stevenson, Melvin Guillard, and future pound-for-pound punching bag GOAT Keith Jardine. And if not for Jardine, the worldmay have never learned that “The Dean of Mean” would make no sense if his last name was Johnson, a valuable take home indeed.
Season 3
Season 3 is one of my personal favorites because of the preconceived notions about coaches: Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. Tito was working the crap out of “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” gimmick and wore the black hat pretty damn well even though he desperately wanted to be accepted by everyone. On the other hand, Shamrock was the MMA legend who competed in the very first UFC tournament and was the founder of his own training facility – The Lion’s Den. Shamrock was supposed to be the more seasoned coach, but chose to bring in weight lifting specialists and opted to rewatch videos of his UFC fights instead of training during an infamous episode, among other baffling decisions. Tito, conversely, came across as a guy that was genuinely committed to making his team better fighters through technique (believe it or not) and some crazy conditioning drills involving piggyback rides and vacant floors of Las Vegas hotels. In the end, Tito TKO’d Ken in just over a minute and Michael Bisping began his quest to piss off everybody around the world en route to winning the LHW contract.
Season 4 – The Comeback
Season 4 came upon us with the familiar sound of a giant turd smacking against a cinder block divider. Luckily for the UFC, a Ram-Manesque New Yorker with a perfectly timed overhand right came along and the dookie kind of stuck. I am not exactly sure who came up with the idea of bringing back washed up fighters mixed with a few coulda-shoulda guys coupled with a blend of has-beens and never-weres, but I am certain it must have sounded phenomenal during the pitch meeting. This was the only other season that featured an abundance of talent (albeit fleeting talent) like the first season. Shonie Carter, Patrick Côté, Matt Serra, Travis Lutter, Jorge Rivera, Pete Sell, *cough convicted rapist *cough* Jeremy Jackson, Scott Smith, Din Thomas, Mikey Burnett, and (everybody’s favorite) Chris Lytle. All of these guys were waaaaaay professional for any of the usual drama to become too much of an issue, aside from Shonie’s batshit craziness, that is. There were no head coaches but instead guest coaches, and all the fighters shared instructors Mark DellaGrotte as their striking guru and Marc Laimon as the perceived submission specialist. Season highlights include a goggled Burnett self-concussing himself while running through some sheet rock (forgetting that code requires studs every 16 inches), Serra calling Laimon a pussy for never stepping into the real world of fighting and of course . . . . . this. After the season there would be a fundamental plummet to mediocrity.
Season 5, or, the Aforementioned Plummet to Mediocrity
Season 5 was back to a basic grudge match between BJ Penn and Jens Pulver. The session would have been pretty tense if Pulver actually won his “welcome back to the UFC” fight months prior. Instead, Jens got KTFO by a wild-eyed nobody (at the time) named Joe Lauzon. How do you remedy this issue? Make Lauzon a participant during the season and have BJ make the guys raise their hands if they did NOT want to be on Pulver’s team. We were also introduced to the unrefined, yet potent, skills of Nate Diaz (along with his brotherly inspired “Fuck You” demeanor towards Karo Parisyan) and some Ping-Pong skills that would make Forrest Gump puke. So, basically the entire thing resembled a trash can fire without the Doo Wop.
On the next page: Disgusting pranks, trans-Atlantic rivalry, and a pugilist named Slice.
The Ultimate Fighter 16 begins in September, and the coaches will be none other than Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson. Oh yeah, there are also 32 welterweights vying for the coveted “six-figure contract” and that extremely dated plaque that decl…
The Ultimate Fighter 16 begins in September, and the coaches will be none other than Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson.
Oh yeah, there are also 32 welterweights vying for the coveted “six-figure contract” and that extremely dated plaque that declares them The Ultimate Fighter. But that’s secondary.
After 16 seasons of TUF, the format is a tad played out, to put it kindly.
A bunch of young guys with a lot of bad tattoos and dreams of fighting glory leave behind their lives, wives, girlfriends, kids and jobs to live and train together for a few months. As they do this, television cameras capture their inner children and the inevitable tomfoolery that results from putting young men with a lot of testosterone together in an awesome house stocked with liquor.
It was certainly a winning formula for a reality television series. But it got old about eight seasons ago.
Now, rather than being a show about finding the next great fighter, it’s become a platform to promote the coach’s fight.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but let’s call a spade a spade here.
It’s a win/win situation. The ratings may be down, but they’re still good enough to justify its existence. And if a great fighter emerges from it, that’s just an added bonus.
As it stands, the show hasn’t produced a title challenger since Season 5, but you never know. The big prize, though, is the promotional value for the fight between the coaches at the season’s conclusion.
However, there lurks a TUF curse that is seldom spoken of. Over the past four seasons, only one coach’s fight has come to fruition, due to injuries. Hopefully this time is different, because Nelson and Carwin are not only perfect as opposing coaches—they’re also going to put on a great fight.
Carwin and Nelson are diametric personalities. Nelson is the affable clown, the overweight fighter who embraces and plays into the persona by rubbing his belly and sporting a bushy beard and a very impressive mullet.
Carwin is more straight-laced, chiseled and clean-cut. He even holds a day job as a civil engineer. And he will speak out when he disagrees with the negativity he so despises, as he did when he denounced Brock Lesnar after his UFC 100 win over Frank Mir for antics he considered disrespectful, then turned around and defended Lesnar upon learning that he had diverticulitis.
When you look at Roy Nelson, you think, “This is a guy I want to go out for beer and wings with.” When you look at Shane Carwin, you think, “This is a guy I want running something important.”
These two were originally scheduled to fight at UFC 125, but Carwin suffered a neck injury that required surgery. They even partook in a minor tweet war after Nelson learned that Carwin was named in an old steroid investigation.
No charges were ever filed in that case, but that didn’t defuse the bomb Nelson set off by going where he did.
This is all likely to surface again as the season begins. Carwin will attack Nelson’s weight. Nelson will call Carwin a “juicehead.” It’ll be great entertainment for a show that is desperately lacking.
Then they will fight, and say what you will about Nelson, but the guy can thump. He takes a beating better than anyone, and his overhand right commands respect. If Carwin is fully recovered from the back surgery that has sidelined him for the past year, he remains one of the most ferocious heavyweights in the sport.
However, at 37 years old with two major surgeries involving the neck and back over the past few years, it’s not unreasonable to assume he may not return as the sheer terror he once was.
But that is exactly what will make this a great, competitive battle.
Let’s be honest—Carwin at full force would demolish Nelson. With the playing field a little more even, this has the potential to be a phenomenal fight that should mask a very ordinary season of a show way past its expiration date.
Last week’s news that UFC heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin had been selected as opposing coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter surprised many fans around the world.It’s not that Nelson and Carwin are terrible choices as coach…
Last week’s news that UFC heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin had been selected as opposing coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter surprised many fans around the world.
It’s not that Nelson and Carwin are terrible choices as coaches, because they aren’t. Carwin isn’t the most bombastic personality on the UFC roster, choosing instead to allow his sledgehammer-like fists to do his talking for him. But Nelson makes up for whatever Carwin lacks in oratorial entertainment value.
The surprise, at least from my perspective, was due to Nelson’s not-so-great relationship with Dana White. Those of you who have followed Nelson’s career since he came to the UFC know that White isn’t “Big Country’s” biggest fan, and that’s putting it mildly. The UFC president doesn’t like the way Nelson looks, and he’s not too keen on Nelson’s joking nature, either.
Carwin seems to fall into the same boat as White. The former UFC interim heavyweight champion took to his personal website to issue a shot at Nelson’s clowning ways:
I am going to be representing for the REAL Country folk. The people that know life is about providing for your family through hard work… I know Roy likes to be the UFC’s Jester but he better know this is not a joke for me.
He can keep striving for being average, I am pushing myself and those around me to find the American Dream. The dream that comes from lots of hard work and sacrifice, no gimmicks necessary.
Carwin’s comments should come as no surprise, at least to those of you who follow the plus-sized men on Twitter. The pair have engaged in a war of words—or tweets, to be more accurate—for quite some time now.
It’s clear that Carwin has little regard for Nelson’s proclivity for being the UFC’s “court jester,” as Carwin so accurately termed it.
But here’s the million-dollar question: Will the personal rivalry between the two make for entertaining television? In seasons past, there have been plenty of ready-made personality conflicts between coaches that just didn’t create intriguing, must-watch TV.
Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos were a perfect example. Lesnar, likely due to all of the horrific medical issues he’d just gone through, left the WWE-style Lesnar at home. He and Dos Santos were friendly for the most part, and it led to a disappointing season of the show.
On the flip side, we saw the same type of personality traits in Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans, with Jackson constantly cracking jokes and Evans taking his coaching job as seriously as anyone who has ever done it. That pairing led to the biggest non-title fight PPV in UFC history, so clearly there is something to it.
Will the ultra-serious Carwin and the joking, fun-loving Nelson create an interesting personality conflict? It remains to be seen. But given the brief preview of their rivalry we’ve been given via Twitter, I believe things will work out nicely in the end.
Before the UFC on Fuel TV card helmed by Mark Munoz vs. Chris Weidman, I was talking to the “Big Bosswald”, Brian Oswald. The news was that Dana White was going to announce the coaches for both “The Smashes” season of The Ultima…
Before the UFC on Fuel TV card helmed by Mark Munoz vs. Chris Weidman, I was talking to the “Big Bosswald”, Brian Oswald. The news was that Dana White was going to announce the coaches for both “The Smashes” season of The Ultimate Fighter, which will have the UK face off against Australia, á la TUF9, as well as the next season of TUF for FX.
Naturally, the two of us were discussing our picks and came up with plenty of strong possibilities.
“Smashes” was definitely the tougher of the two. There are, after all, only a few fighters from the UK, and even fewer from Australia. Finding matchups that both fit together schedule-wise and have realistic weight pairings is quite difficult. My guess was Dan Hardy vs. Brian Ebersole. Hardy needs no introduction. Ebersole, meanwhile, is not actually an Australian, but became a staple fighter in their MMA scene, with fourteen matches from 2006-2011 and is 4-0 in the UFC so far.
The UFC opted for Ross Pearson vs. George Sotiropoulos. The logic behind this is somewhat perplexing. Pearson, the lightweight winner of TUF9, has not been especially great since the hot start to his UFC career. He is 2-3 in his last five fights and, for most fighters, another loss would be grounds for termination.
Sotiropoulos is in a similar boat. After winning his first seven fights in the UFC, he lost to Dennis Siver and Rafael dos Anjos. While a 7-2 record is great, a three-fight losing streak is rarely forgiven in the UFC. What makes this more awkward is that Sotiropoulos is a lightweight, while Pearson dropped to featherweight last year.
These two fighters should, technically, be fighting for their jobs. Instead, they are in position for an enormous bump in fame. This ends up being a lose-lose situation for the UFC, as they will have to do a political limbo when it comes to possibly ending up in a position where they must cut one of their hottest fighters. Most seasons of TUF offer a trampoline for already-established fighters to raise their profile by coaching. This is not the case here.
Why they went with this instead of Ebersole vs. Hardy or Lombard vs. Bisping is a mystery. Still, this actually ends up as less of a missed opportunity than the primary season of TUF that will be coming up.
Slated to start this fall, with a coaches fight likely to land in late November, there were plenty of pairs that could make for sparks during the show, and dynamite for their fight. Demetrious Johnson vs. Joseph Benavidez, Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos, Brian Stann vs. Mark Munoz and my own pick, Georges St-Pierre vs. Carlos Condit, all made sense from PR, scheduling, matchmaking and ratings perspectives.
For reasons that do not actually seem to exist, the UFC recruited TUF10 winner Roy Nelson and former top contender Shane Carwin to become the centerpieces of the season. The two heavyweights are well past their primes and are on bumpy roads in their careers at this point after coming very close to the belt.
Roy Nelson, along with other TUF10 castmates, exploded into the UFC’s heavyweight scene. After knocking out Brendan Schaub with his now-trademark overhand right to become The Ultimate Fighter, Nelson floored Stefan Struve in under a minute and earned himself a top-contender match with phenom Junior dos Santos.
In this fight, Nelson wowed UFC fans worldwide with his ability to take a beating, but did not take a single round as dos Santos pummeled him for the full 15 minutes and took a unanimous decision win. Unfortunately, two of Nelson’s next three fights were very similar, with Frank Mir and Fabricio Werdum hitting him with every manner of strike imaginable from start to finish and walking away with unanimous decision victories.
Nelson has peppered in a pair of knockouts, beating Mirko Cro Cop at UFC 137 and, most recently, Dave Herman at UFC 146. Still, Nelson’s stardom has faded amidst his numerous lopsided losses, making one wonder why he would be called upon to coach. Never mind being called upon to coach a season that is absolutely desperate for ratings.
Shane Carwin rose to the top of the UFC’s heavyweight division very quickly. After scoring his third first-round knockout in a row, Carwin was tasked with fighting Frank Mir for the interim belt. Again, Carwin won another fight in the first round and was then set up against Brock Lesnar for a title unification bout.
Carwin lost that bout, gassing out in the second round and falling prey to an arm triangle. From there, thanks to a flare-up in Lesnar’s diverticulitis after taping concluded for The Ultimate Fighter season 13, Carwin ended up in a top-contender bout with Junior dos Santos. Carwin channeled his inner Roy Nelson and was beaten thoroughly by dos Santos, losing by decision after being punched in the face for a full 15 minutes.
That loss, his latest fight, came over a year ago. In that time, Daniel Cormier has become one of the hottest heavyweights in the world. Alistair Overeem joined the UFC. Mark Hunt turned his career around. Travis Browne flew in under the radars and joined the heavyweight top 10. Fabricio Werdum cemented himself as a top-five heavyweight in the UFC.
The heavyweight division has changed more than anything else in the UFC during that time and Carwin, in many ways, has been left behind. Likewise, as with most fighters who sit out for a year, fans have forgotten him. Those that remember him would simply remember him as the man who got choked out by Brock Lesnar and beaten down by Junior dos Santos. This does not even get into the steroids scandal that came after his loss to Brock Lesnar.
The Ultimate Fighter: Live had roundly disappointing ratings, rarely hitting one million viewers per episode. Even its finale had only half the viewers of the previous season. With another season set for FX, the UFC needed to turn around the sagging ratings and the first step towards this is picking coaches. Again, there were a dozen pairings that could have been made to put the next season of The Ultimate Fighter in a better position to succeed.
Whether or not this will prove fruitful for the UFC remains to be seen. Regardless, there is no getting around the fact that both of the coming seasons of The Ultimate Fighter are starting off with a handicap, and that the UFC is wasting an opportunity to promote fighters with stronger footing and brighter futures than these four.
This does not instantly spell doom for the entire TUF series. But the executives over at FX and Fox cannot be happy about this turn of events.
According to MMAMania.com, Shane Carwin, who has assumed the mantle of coach in The Ultimate Fighter 16, is on a collision course with opposing coach Roy Nelson.The former UFC interim heavyweight champion believes “Big Country” is an averag…
According to MMAMania.com, Shane Carwin, who has assumed the mantle of coach in The Ultimate Fighter 16, is on a collision course with opposing coach Roy Nelson.
The former UFC interim heavyweight champion believes “Big Country” is an average fighter, and furthermore, he intends on knocking him out when they eventually lock horns.
“This will be the first time in my adult life that I wont be working. I will just be focusing on developing a team to win the show and focusing on preparing to knock Roy Nelson out. That is my new job and my new passion. I know Roy likes to be the UFC’s Jester but he better know this is not a joke for me. He can keep striving for being average, I am pushing myself and those around me to find the American Dream. The dream that comes from lots of hard work and sacrifice, no gimmicks necessary,” Carwin said.
For a while now, Carwin and Nelson have been at loggerheads, so it’s bound to make for great viewing when the show airs on FX in September.
That said, both fighters hit like mules and possess some of the sturdiest chins in all of MMA. While Nelson’s only KO loss came at the hands of former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski back in 2008, Carwin has never suffered the same fate.
Carwin’s last outing was a three-round drumming courtesy of current UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos back in June of 2011—something that Nelson was privy to, as almost a year earlier, he too was subjected to the punches of the division’s heaviest hitter.
Following that loss, it was revealed that Carwin (12-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) required back surgery—an injury that has kept him out of the mix for over a year.
Prior to the aforementioned defeat, “The Engineer” failed in his quest to capture UFC glory when former heavyweight titlist and mixed martial artist Brock Lesnar submitted him via arm-triangle choke.
Apropos Nelson (17-7 MMA, 4-3 UFC), having suffered a beating by Fabricio Werdum, he would then bounce back in emphatic fashion—a 51-second knockout victory over Dave Herman at UFC 146, which garnered him Knockout of the Night honors.
The Ultimate Fighter 16 begins in September, and the coaches will be none other than