(Worst lighting mishap since Jackson vs. Pepsi? / Photo via Ted Ehrhardt/MMAFighting)
Hey, you want to hear something really, really stupid? UFC welterweight contender Johny Hendricks suffered second-degree burns on his back and shoulder last month in Los Angeles while filming a commercial for his UFC 167 title fight against Georges St. Pierre. (Yes, the same pyro-tastic promo that made Danga’s brains liquify in his head.) As MMAFighting reports:
Johny Hendricks suffered a second-degree burn on his back because the lights used to film the spot were placed too close to him, his manager Ted Ehrhardt confirmed with MMAFighting.com.
Ehrhardt said Hendricks tried to resume his training two days later, however, the burn was bothering him too much so he went to a doctor who prescribed an ointment to help heal it. Ehrhardt said Hendricks, who wasn’t available to speak about the incident, missed one-to-two days of training, and the injury healed in a week.
“Johny never gets pissed off about anything,” Ehrhardt said. “He was just mad that it was messing up his training, that’s all.”
(Worst lighting mishap since Jackson vs. Pepsi? / Photo via Ted Ehrhardt/MMAFighting)
Hey, you want to hear something really, really stupid? UFC welterweight contender Johny Hendricks suffered second-degree burns on his back and shoulder last month in Los Angeles while filming a commercial for his UFC 167 title fight against Georges St. Pierre. (Yes, the same pyro-tastic promo that made Danga’s brains liquify in his head.) As MMAFighting reports:
Johny Hendricks suffered a second-degree burn on his back because the lights used to film the spot were placed too close to him, his manager Ted Ehrhardt confirmed with MMAFighting.com.
Ehrhardt said Hendricks tried to resume his training two days later, however, the burn was bothering him too much so he went to a doctor who prescribed an ointment to help heal it. Ehrhardt said Hendricks, who wasn’t available to speak about the incident, missed one-to-two days of training, and the injury healed in a week.
“Johny never gets pissed off about anything,” Ehrhardt said. “He was just mad that it was messing up his training, that’s all.”
The UFC apologized to Hendricks for the accident. Ehrhadt said they were “kind of in disbelief” that this happened during the shoot, as was Hendricks who told Ehrhardt he never suffers sunburn in the summertime.
Cue the conspiracy theorists who will claim that the UFC did this on purpose to give another advantage to their pretty-boy champion. I mean, what other explanation could there possibly be? The UFC really made the headliners of its next pay-per-view slug heavy bags underneath exploding light bulbs? I thought that shit was done with CGI, but you’re telling me they filmed it the hard way? Idiots. You can re-watch the promo below and decide for yourself whether or not it was worth it.
What’s that, you say? An arrogant, classless boxer trashing MMA using the logic of a medieval squire? Surely you must be mistaken.
When we last checked in on undefeated boxer Adrien Broner, he was casually flushing 20 dollar bills down a Popeye’s toilet. So clearly, the man is a well-studied, soft-spoken individual whose opinion should carry a lot of weight in this world. Take for instance, the argument he presented when recently questioned about whether or not he interacts with MMA fighters.
“No. It’s just, I really don’t look at it as a real sport,” said Broner through his double set of platinum grills, “Cause anybody can come into MMA and learn that. You can’t just come over in boxing and be a world champion. You gotta be born with it.”
Broner then told the interviewer that, “You right now can go to MMA and learn all the submission moves and be a world champion. It don’t matter how long it would take. I don’t give a fuck what you do, you could try to come over here in boxing and you won’t EVER be a world champion.”
What’s that, you say? An arrogant, classless boxer trashing MMA using the logic of a medieval squire? Surely you must be mistaken.
When we last checked in on undefeated boxer Adrien Broner, he was casually flushing 20 dollar bills down a Popeye’s toilet. So clearly, the man is a well-studied, soft-spoken individual whose opinion should carry a lot of weight in this world. Take for instance, the argument he presented when recently questioned about whether or not he interacts with MMA fighters.
“No. It’s just, I really don’t look at it as a real sport,” said Broner through his double set of platinum grills, “Cause anybody can come into MMA and learn that. You can’t just come over in boxing and be a world champion. You gotta be born with it.”
Broner then told the interviewer that, “You right now can go to MMA and learn all the submission moves and be a world champion. It don’t matter how long it would take. I don’t give a fuck what you do, you could try to come over here in boxing and you won’t EVER be a world champion.”
Hey guys, at least Broner attacked our sport using some solid reasoning (and refrained from calling us “a bunch of skinhead homosexuals“). We all know that MMA is really a single-discipline sport and once you learn all the moves of said discipline, becoming a world champion is as easy as pie. Just ask third degree BJJ black belt and Pan American black belt champion Giva Santana, who recently retired from MMA with an undefeated record and 14 straight UFC title defenses.
Becoming a boxing champion, on the other hand, is a matter of birthright, not a combination of commitment, training and heart like every other sport. It’s like Broner has never even *seen* A Knight’s Tale, you guys.
If you will excuse me, I’m going to go trane some UFC on my lunch break real quick. See you soon, Dana!
[UPDATED]
Broner has since apologized for hurting our feelings/brains via his Twitter:
To me, the war between Boxing and MMA is kind of like the one between South Park and Family Guy-HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND. In one corner, you have the (for the sake of argument) original, more highly-praised and universally accepted sport/show (Boxing/SP). In the other, you have the offshoot, the outcast, the bastard amalgamation of the former and several other entities (MMA/FG). While the latter often praises the former for its longevity and grace, the former has a seemingly endless supply of haterade to dump on the latter for being a cheap knockoff performed/written by hacks, jobbers and bums. But what the majority of the former and a decent percentage of the latter fail to realize is that one can coexist (and even co-promote, in some cases) with the other. Both have their positive and negative aspects, both are unique to some degree and both can be viewed by the same person without their brain imploding due to a conflict of interest.
Man, this Alabama Trampoline is having some interesting effects on my mind. To summarize: WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!
Jesus Christ, it hasn’t even been 24 hours since a notable MMA figure said something unbelievably stupid. Yet here we are again. This time the culprit is Roy Nelson, who called fellow UFC heavyweight Daniel Cormier an “Uncle Tom” during an interview with Ariel Helwani. As BloodyElbow summarizes:
Ariel brought up Daniel Cormier’s recent statements that he wants to kick Nelson’s ass in part “for Dana White.” Nelson went a bizarre direction with his response, stating “Having a lot of black friends. They would say that would be more of an Uncle Tom move.”
Pushed to expand on what made it an “Uncle Tom move,” Nelson laughed and said “That’s what my friends were saying. And I was just like ‘wow!’ Hey it is what it is. You gotta do what you can do for the boss.”
Wow, indeed. While I’m not one to try to rank the degrees of horribleness between different ways of denigrating an entire people…yeah, this is probably the worst thing that’s been uttered this week by pretty much any public figure in American sports. And Nelson — who is managed by Mike Kogan‘s RealTalk Entertainment, by the way — has no lackof competition.
If you’re unaware of what the phrase “Uncle Tom” means and what the implications of its use are, go ahead and brush up on that. Of course, this isn’t the first instance of “Uncle Tom” being used in pugilistic trash talk — Muhammad Ali famously taunted Joe Frazier with the epithet during their rivalry. Afterwards, Frazier would take pride in his contributions to Ali’s physical and mental decline. So despite the fact that Ali had “a lot of black friends” himself, even he couldn’t get away with it.
Jesus Christ, it hasn’t even been 24 hours since a notable MMA figure said something unbelievably stupid. Yet here we are again. This time the culprit is Roy Nelson, who called fellow UFC heavyweight Daniel Cormier an “Uncle Tom” during an interview with Ariel Helwani. As BloodyElbow summarizes:
Ariel brought up Daniel Cormier’s recent statements that he wants to kick Nelson’s ass in part “for Dana White.” Nelson went a bizarre direction with his response, stating “Having a lot of black friends. They would say that would be more of an Uncle Tom move.”
Pushed to expand on what made it an “Uncle Tom move,” Nelson laughed and said “That’s what my friends were saying. And I was just like ‘wow!’ Hey it is what it is. You gotta do what you can do for the boss.”
Wow, indeed. While I’m not one to try to rank the degrees of horribleness between different ways of denigrating an entire people…yeah, this is probably the worst thing that’s been uttered this week by pretty much any public figure in American sports. And Nelson — who is managed by Mike Kogan‘s RealTalk Entertainment, by the way — has no lackof competition.
If you’re unaware of what the phrase “Uncle Tom” means and what the implications of its use are, go ahead and brush up on that. Of course, this isn’t the first instance of “Uncle Tom” being used in pugilistic trash talk — Muhammad Ali famously taunted Joe Frazier with the epithet during their rivalry. Afterwards, Frazier would take pride in his contributions to Ali’s physical and mental decline. So despite the fact that Ali had “a lot of black friends” himself, even he couldn’t get away with it.
I doubt Roy Nelson has any idea what it was he actually said. And I doubt Daniel Cormier is going to take as much offense as Joe Frazier did. But this is entirely unacceptable. Nelson should expect to be hit hard by the UFC for this, maybe with the hardest punishment the promotion has ever handed down. I’m not so sure this is necessarily a fireable offense, or at least I don’t believe it should be, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it becomes one. Nelson’s contract is expiring soon and he’s never been Dana White’s favorite employee. If anything, he’s the perfect candidate for the UFC to make an example of if it wants to claim its personal conduct policy has some serious teeth.
Then again, maybe they’ll keep him around for one more fight. I bet Cormier wouldn’t mind.
Diaz’s new managerMike Kogan, however, just can’t seem to shut up about it all — and he’s making his client look even worse in the process.
Immediately following Diaz’s tweet, Kogan issued a ridiculous justification to MMA Junkie that showcased a stunning lack of self-awareness.
“Guess what? The word faggot, at least in Northern California, and where Nate is from, means bitch,” Kogan said. “It means you’re a little punk. It has nothing to do with homosexuals at all. So when Nate made the comment that he made, he didn’t make it in reference to homosexuals or calling Caraway a homosexual. He just said it was a bitch move.”
Separating the word “faggot” from its many historical applications for insulting gay people, as Kogan tried to do, is a stretch. But let’s say that it was possible to separate them. We’d still be left with Diaz publicly calling someone a “bitch” — another word commonly used to insinuate homosexuality, and far more often used to insult women — and Kogan defending the usage of that word just as strongly.
Even if we recognize the obvious fact that Diaz’s tweet was insensitive, few people would crucify him simply for using those slurs in a moment of frustration. All we’re asking for is a little reflection, and some recognition of the fact that, though you may not be a bad dude deep down, that was an insensitive thing to say and a sincere apology is warranted. Or, again, to at least shut up about it all.
Kogan seems far too dense to do that. The manager was recently on MMA Fighting’s MMA Hour and went out of his way to insist that both he and Diaz are offering no apologies.
Diaz’s new managerMike Kogan, however, just can’t seem to shut up about it all — and he’s making his client look even worse in the process.
Immediately following Diaz’s tweet, Kogan issued a ridiculous justification to MMA Junkie that showcased a stunning lack of self-awareness.
“Guess what? The word faggot, at least in Northern California, and where Nate is from, means bitch,” Kogan said. “It means you’re a little punk. It has nothing to do with homosexuals at all. So when Nate made the comment that he made, he didn’t make it in reference to homosexuals or calling Caraway a homosexual. He just said it was a bitch move.”
Separating the word “faggot” from its many historical applications for insulting gay people, as Kogan tried to do, is a stretch. But let’s say that it was possible to separate them. We’d still be left with Diaz publicly calling someone a “bitch” — another word commonly used to insinuate homosexuality, and far more often used to insult women — and Kogan defending the usage of that word just as strongly.
Even if we recognize the obvious fact that Diaz’s tweet was insensitive, few people would crucify him simply for using those slurs in a moment of frustration. All we’re asking for is a little reflection, and some recognition of the fact that, though you may not be a bad dude deep down, that was an insensitive thing to say and a sincere apology is warranted. Or, again, to at least shut up about it all.
Kogan seems far too dense to do that. The manager was recently on MMA Fighting’s MMA Hour and went out of his way to insist that both he and Diaz are offering no apologies.
“Nate doesn’t feel remorse for what he said,” Kogan told MMA Fighting.”I don’t feel remorse for what he said. I don’t feel remorse for defending what [Diaz] said or elaborating on what he said. Because it was not a homophobic statement. It was not intended to offend homosexuals. We weren’t even talking about homosexuals. One can debate the multiple uses of this term. We can sit here and debate in the English language, there’s a lot of words that mean a lot of different things, but whatever. As it is, it wasn’t intended to be used the way people tried to twist the way it was being used. So therefore, what does he have to feel bad about?”
Yes, Mike, we can sit here and “debate in the English language,” which makes sense because that’s the language we’re using, and it is true that there are “lots of words that mean a lot of different things.” None of that seems relevant in any way to the discussion at hand, though.
“If we would have made a homophobic statement, or a statement that was clearly intended to insult homosexuals, that’s one thing,” Kogan went on, unbelievably.
“You come out and say, ‘Hey, you know what, I’m really sorry it hurt people. We didn’t mean to do that.’ But to me, and this is just my philosophy, and I’m sure it’s going to be disagreed with by many people. This is how I think, and how Nate thinks. The mere fact that there is a protocol to deal with these crisis situation implies its lack of sincerity.”
Like all of Kogan’s statements, the above one deserves a second read-through, if only for how unintentionally funny it is. Kogan actually says that, if you say something that is “clearly intended to insult homosexuals,” then you should go out and disingenuously apologize for hurting people, lying by saying, “we didn’t mean to do that.”
Kogan misses a couple key points — if you hurt people, it doesn’t matter much if you intended to or not. Also, no one is asking for false apologies from Diaz or, now, Kogan.
Mike, you aren’t waging some continued war against b.s. What folks are hoping for is some recognition that, intended or not, Diaz insulted and hurt people, and some basic consideration of that fact.
You know, because he’s an adult and all.
From his public statements thus far, it seems unlikely that Kogan will change his mind about the need for reflection and apologies. For the sake of Diaz’s career, however, we hope that he changes his approach to managing the public relations of his clients.
Maybe we’re judging Kogan prematurely. Mike, if you want to come here and, “in the English language,” actually discuss these issues with folks willing to ask you serious questions, we’ll welcome it.
If you’re interested in saying something different or better explaining yourself and your client, we’re interested. Because, lashing out at others and not taking responsibility for hurtful actions is kind of a bitch move, you know?
(For some reason, Strikeforce opted to hold this week’s prefight media events at The Black Lodge. VidProps: YouTube/Helwani)
I’m going to tread lightly here, because I don’t want KJ Noons’ dad to physically attack me, but some…
(For some reason, Strikeforce opted to hold this week’s prefight media events at The Black Lodge. VidProps: YouTube/Helwani)
I’m going to tread lightly here, because I don’t want KJ Noons’ dad to physically attack me, but sometimes it just seems like it would be better, maybe, if Karl Jr. didn’t talk. At least not in public. Sure, Noons is a decent fighter, but watching him stumble through six minutes, 35 seconds worth of half-finished sentences, "you knows" and grammar that is probably best described as “Tito-esque” in the above video makes me wonder if a better public relations strategy for him wouldn’t be to just stand there and smile and occasionally flip his lustrous hair out of his eyes.
Noons in fact does spend the first minute of his interview with Ariel Helwani talking about his hair. He’s growing it out, see, just for the experience and just in case he goes bald later in life. You never can be too careful. “It’s pretty crazy, dude,” he says about his plans to see how long he can get it. It takes until the 5:38 mark in this vid for Noons to get to the heart of anything interesting, like the recent comments he made about the UFC being “boring as hell.” When the subject does come up, Noons falls back one of the more tried-and-true defenses for morons who say shit they later regret: It was the media’s fault.
