Tag: tributes

Hot Take: Is Losing Matt Saccaro the Best Thing to Ever Happen to CagePotato? (A Tribute)


(This is probably the most Saccaro tweet ever.)

By Ben Goldstein

A while back, I thought it would be fun to put together a flowchart called “How You Can Tell If It’s Matt Saccaro Tweeting From the CagePotato Account.” There would be a series of questions like…

– Is @CagePotatoMMA live-tweeting a Bellator event?
– Does the tweeter use “heh” to signify amusement, rather than the more common “LOL” or “haha”?
– Is this a hot-take, calmly delivered in question form?
– Is the tweeter mentioning what food he’s eating while watching the fights?
– And would you describe that food as “disgusting”?
– Is the tweet so off-topic that you wonder if the tweeter just forgot to switch back to his personal account?
– Does he later apologize for the tweet, saying that this is the kind of stuff he thinks about when he’s in a reflective/melancholy/pensive mood?

And basically, all YES answers would eventually lead to “Yeah, it’s probably Saccaro.” If you’ve followed CagePotato on twitter over the last year or so, you’d probably appreciate it. But then I got distracted, and I put the idea on the backburner, figuring I could always do it some other time. Saccaro-humor isn’t going out of style, right? He’ll always be here!

Life, of course, operates on its own schedule. The people you depend on the most are simply gone one day, and then what do you do? I don’t know what you do. I guess what I’m trying to say is, go hug your kids, go hug your parents, go hug your best friends, and if you have any beef with anybody from ten years ago that’s over nothing, man, tell them you’re sorry and you love them, because you never know what’s gonna happen, man.

A couple weeks ago, Matt Saccaro — CagePotato’s weekend editor and associate social media editor (aka, lead-tweeter) since Fall 2013 — put in his notice that he would be leaving CagePotato, as he had accepted a job as the new assistant social media editor at Salon.com. If you know Matt, you know that this is pretty much a dream job for him, so go congratulate him.

I’d like to think that Salon was wowed by Matt’s UFC-themed Magic the Gathering cards, or his work on the 95 Theses of MMA, or any of his various articles calling bullshit on Zuffa mythmaking. But the truth is, Matt writes for genuinely legitimate media outlets when he’s not slumming it on the mid-level cage-fighting blog you’re reading right now, and has even written a damn book. It’s possible that we never really deserved him in the first place.


(This is probably the most Saccaro tweet ever.)

By Ben Goldstein

A while back, I thought it would be fun to put together a flowchart called “How You Can Tell If It’s Matt Saccaro Tweeting From the CagePotato Account.” There would be a series of questions like…

– Is @CagePotatoMMA live-tweeting a Bellator event?
– Does the tweeter use “heh” to signify amusement, rather than the more common “LOL” or “haha”?
– Is this a hot-take, calmly delivered in question form?
– Is the tweeter mentioning what food he’s eating while watching the fights?
– And would you describe that food as “disgusting”?
– Is the tweet so off-topic that you wonder if the tweeter just forgot to switch back to his personal account?
– Does he later apologize for the tweet, saying that this is the kind of stuff he thinks about when he’s in a reflective/melancholy/pensive mood?

And basically, all YES answers would eventually lead to “Yeah, it’s probably Saccaro.” If you’ve followed CagePotato on twitter over the last year or so, you’d probably appreciate it. But then I got distracted, and I put the idea on the backburner, figuring I could always do it some other time. Saccaro-humor isn’t going out of style, right? He’ll always be here!

Life, of course, operates on its own schedule. The people you depend on the most are simply gone one day, and then what do you do? I don’t know what you do. I guess what I’m trying to say is, go hug your kids, go hug your parents, go hug your best friends, and if you have any beef with anybody from ten years ago that’s over nothing, man, tell them you’re sorry and you love them, because you never know what’s gonna happen, man.

A couple weeks ago, Matt Saccaro — CagePotato’s weekend editor and associate social media editor (aka, lead-tweeter) since Fall 2013 — put in his notice that he would be leaving CagePotato, as he had accepted a job as the new assistant social media editor at Salon.com. If you know Matt, you know that this is pretty much a dream job for him, so go congratulate him.

I’d like to think that Salon was wowed by Matt’s UFC-themed Magic the Gathering cards, or his work on the 95 Theses of MMA, or any of his various articles calling bullshit on Zuffa mythmaking. But the truth is, Matt writes for genuinely legitimate media outlets when he’s not slumming it on the mid-level cage-fighting blog you’re reading right now, and has even written a damn book. It’s possible that we never really deserved him in the first place.

Nevertheless, I was psyched when Saccaro first reached out to me in May 2013, looking to contribute, because I had already read and enjoyed his MMA work on BleacherReport. His first article for CagePotato was this post about Luke Cummo’s new-found hatred of MMA (and Cummo’s idea for a point-fighting martial arts tournament called League of Assassins). Matt followed this up with articles about the pathetic hooks that the UFC has used to sell PPVs, and some hypothetical re-arrangements of the UFC’s early tournament brackets. He was a doom & gloom guy with hot takes that blurred the lines between truth-telling and trolling. He was a ferocious thinker, a creator of alternate universes, a defender of free speech and gender equality. Did I mention that he was a doom & gloom guy? It seems worth mentioning twice, although when MMA was awesome, he cheered harder than anyone. He remains the only MMA writer to film a Dude Wipes unboxing video. And yet he was never nominated for MMA Journalist of the Year? Bull, shit.

So yeah, Matt Saccaro is leaving us. His last day is tomorrow, and I can’t thank him enough for the amazing work he’s done for us over the last year and a half, and for all the times he inspired me as an editor. Matt did so much to shape the voice of this particular era of CagePotato, and his impact will be felt for a long time, probably as long as CagePotato exists. You can thank him here. Saccaro might stop by here and there in the future (I hope), but for now, let’s remember him fondly. I’ll end this tribute with some of his greatest off-topic tweets that I randomly screen-capped…

9/11 Ten-Year Anniversary: The New York MMA Community Looks Back [VIDEO]

From TheFightNerd:

“This Sunday marks the ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The way America looked at itself was altered immensely on that date, and a decade later the world is a very different place. Memories of panic and uncertainty are still present, but the urge to keep moving forward is even stronger. In remembrance of this anniversary, TheFightNerd.com, has released an exclusive short-film that commemorates this event alongside the New York MMA community. ‘A Fighting Spirit’ is a video memoir that interviews members of the NY martial arts community and discusses where they were when the Towers collapsed, how they have coped, and how New York and America have grown stronger.

Directed by Kahleem Poole-Tejada (director of the full-length documentary ‘New York MMA’) and produced by Matthew Kaplowitz (Editor-in-Chief of TheFightNerd.com) in association with Ranger Up, the film takes viewers around a tour of downtown Manhattan and provides a glimpse inside several of New York City’s top MMA gyms. It features many NY-based fighters, such as Renzo Gracie, Chris Weidman, Pete ‘Drago’ Sell, and Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro, as well as Stephen Koepfer of NY Combat Sambo, Mark Yehia of ‘Elite Plus MMA,’ Rob Constance of ‘The Renzo Gracie Academy’ and President of the ‘Ultimate Absolute’ grappling tournament, and Emilio Novoa, President of ADCC North America. Also appearing is UFC middleweight fighter Jorge Rivera, as well as Strikeforce middleweight Tim Kennedy, who adds the voices of members of the U.S. Armed Forces to this emotional piece.”

As a New York resident since August 2002, the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 has put me in a reflective mood all week. Maybe you feel the same. If you have any recollections or tributes to share from that day, please leave them in the comments section. Here, I’ll start…

From TheFightNerd:

“This Sunday marks the ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The way America looked at itself was altered immensely on that date, and a decade later the world is a very different place. Memories of panic and uncertainty are still present, but the urge to keep moving forward is even stronger. In remembrance of this anniversary, TheFightNerd.com, has released an exclusive short-film that commemorates this event alongside the New York MMA community. ‘A Fighting Spirit’ is a video memoir that interviews members of the NY martial arts community and discusses where they were when the Towers collapsed, how they have coped, and how New York and America have grown stronger.

Directed by Kahleem Poole-Tejada (director of the full-length documentary ‘New York MMA’) and produced by Matthew Kaplowitz (Editor-in-Chief of TheFightNerd.com) in association with Ranger Up, the film takes viewers around a tour of downtown Manhattan and provides a glimpse inside several of New York City’s top MMA gyms. It features many NY-based fighters, such as Renzo Gracie, Chris Weidman, Pete ‘Drago’ Sell, and Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro, as well as Stephen Koepfer of NY Combat Sambo, Mark Yehia of ‘Elite Plus MMA,’ Rob Constance of ‘The Renzo Gracie Academy’ and President of the ‘Ultimate Absolute’ grappling tournament, and Emilio Novoa, President of ADCC North America. Also appearing is UFC middleweight fighter Jorge Rivera, as well as Strikeforce middleweight Tim Kennedy, who adds the voices of members of the U.S. Armed Forces to this emotional piece.”

As a New York resident since August 2002, the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 has put me in a reflective mood all week. Maybe you feel the same. If you have any recollections or tributes to share from that day, please leave them in the comments section. Here, I’ll start…

The summer of 2001 is when I first fell in love with New York City. I came here for a two-month internship doing grunt-work for a dearly departed men’s magazine called Stuff. At the time, some of the editors on the payroll included Seth Kelly (who’s now the editor-in-chief of UFC Magazine), Laura Gilbert (who now runs UFC.com), Jon Small (who later moved to Break Media and hired me to launch CagePotato.com in 2007), and Greg Gutfeld (then the magazine’s editor-in-chief, now the wacky host of Red Eye). I’d never been around such a talented collection of smart, funny motherfuckers in my life. I think the majority of my days were spent transcribing interviews, but still, it was a dream job.

The experience helped me decide two things that had already been in my mind: 1) I wanted to write for a living. And 2) I wanted to live in New York while I did it. It’s hard to match the exhilaration of being 20 years old and spending two months in a crazy-ass city with nobody watching you. On one of my first nights there, I walked 25 blocks to CBGB, just to see the place and pay my respects. Napalm Death and Isis were headlining a death-metal showcase. At one point, I got slammed so hard by a mosh-pitter that I fell onto the stage. It was awesome. Now CBGB is gone, and I feel like an old man.

After my crash course in the lad-mag biz, I went back to Ann Arbor to finish my last year at the University of Michigan. Just a week into classes, my roommate woke me up and told me that something really bad had happened, and I should come look at the TV. Like most people, it took me a long time to process what I was seeing. “Holy shit,” I said. “I was just there.” Over the next few days, I contacted everybody I’d met at Stuff, checking to see if they were all okay. They were, but they knew people, and they knew people who knew people, and it was all very fucked up.

Obviously, nothing like this had ever happened in my lifetime. My heart broke for the victims, and for the multitudes who had lost children, parents, spouses, and friends, and for those who kept searching for their missing loved ones, past the point of hope.

But it was inspiring watching some of the news coverage that followed in the subsequent weeks. The tragedy united New Yorkers in an unprecedented way, and it was clear that the city would heal and become “stronger at the broken places,” so to speak. It seemed to me that New Yorkers were keeping their heads while the rest of the country was freaking out, and that made an impression.

So I finished school, kicked around Ann Arbor for a couple months, then rented a U-Haul with my girlfriend at the time and rolled the dice. I had friends and family members advise against the move because they didn’t think New York was safe. And maybe they were right, but I was young and adventurous, and I had faith that this big, ferocious city would protect me.

In November, my wife and I will be leaving New York to move back to the Midwest and raise our first child. I’m already bracing for the homesickness. In nine years, this place has never let me down.

(Ben Goldstein)

‘Lights Out’ for Chris Lytle: A Farewell Letter to a Fighter’s Fighter

Chris Lytle Lights Out UFC MMA photos

By Jared “DangadaDang” Jones

When asked to describe his career in his final post-fight interview following his submission victory over Dan Hardy, Chris Lytle summed up more than a decade’s worth of sport-defining battles with one word — “exciting.” And how appropriate a sign-off it was for the soft spoken, hard swinging Indiana born fighter. Over the course of 54 fights, 20 of which took place under the bright lights of the UFC, Lytle never once let a loss, an opponent, or a chance at title contention stop him from entertaining his audience.

In the fight game, both fighters and fans often look at success with tunnel vision, believing that the belt around one’s waist alone defines it. But even with the greatest champions, we sometimes find ourselves questioning their willingness to take big risks for the relatively small reward of the fans’ respect. And though he never donned UFC gold, it goes without saying that “Lights Out” was never one to take the easy road to victory. From his legendary slugfests with Paul Kelly, Thiago Alves, and Marcus Davis to his impressive and creative submission victories over Matt Brown, Brian Foster, and Jason Gilliam, Lytle always put the fans’ delight before his own, throwing caution, his health, and perhaps his better judgment to the wind in order to ensure that we all got our money’s worth. And his final battle was no exception; though he had a clear grappling advantage over Hardy, Lytle opted to slug it out with the dangerous striker, choosing to end the fight by submission only when prompted to by Hardy himself.

Chris Lytle Lights Out UFC MMA photos

By Jared “DangadaDang” Jones

When asked to describe his career in his final post-fight interview following his submission victory over Dan Hardy, Chris Lytle summed up more than a decade’s worth of sport-defining battles with one word — “exciting.” And how appropriate a sign-off it was for the soft spoken, hard swinging Indiana born fighter. Over the course of 54 fights, 20 of which took place under the bright lights of the UFC, Lytle never once let a loss, an opponent, or a chance at title contention stop him from entertaining his audience.

In the fight game, both fighters and fans often look at success with tunnel vision, believing that the belt around one’s waist alone defines it. But even with the greatest champions, we sometimes find ourselves questioning their willingness to take big risks for the relatively small reward of the fans’ respect. And though he never donned UFC gold, it goes without saying that “Lights Out” was never one to take the easy road to victory. From his legendary slugfests with Paul Kelly, Thiago Alves, and Marcus Davis to his impressive and creative submission victories over Matt Brown, Brian Foster, and Jason Gilliam, Lytle always put the fans’ delight before his own, throwing caution, his health, and perhaps his better judgment to the wind in order to ensure that we all got our money’s worth. And his final battle was no exception; though he had a clear grappling advantage over Hardy, Lytle opted to slug it out with the dangerous striker, choosing to end the fight by submission only when prompted to by Hardy himself.

Even as a borderline robot when it comes to displays of emotion, I couldn’t help but find myself a little choked up when I found out that Lytle was walking away from a sport I so dearly love. Because “Lights Out” in a way represented the kind of everyman that not only reminds us of but inspires the incredible silver screen stories like Rocky that we find ourselves watching over and over again. But to group him with those mythical Hollywood creations would almost be an insult to a man who is not only a hero inside the cage, but an even greater one on the outside.

A father of four and full-time fireman, Lytle has built his career through a tremendous amount of sacrifice, and perhaps therein lies his readiness to go to war without so much as batting an eye. And for his sacrifice, not only were the fans repeatedly rewarded, but Lytle was as well. The man has received a record 10 UFC bonuses in his past 13 fights, including six Fight of the Night performances despite only headlining one of those shows, his bout this past Sunday. (His bonus total would at least be 11 if not for a certain someone deciding to display something other than a series of rapid fire hammer fists, but I’m getting away from the point). In a sport that so often baffles us, it is comforting to know that good guys like Lytle — who has never had a bad thing to say about any opponent in over ten years worth of competition — do occasionally reap the rewards.

Holding true to his character, Chris Lytle has decided to walk away from the sport he loves on his own terms, not out of necessity, but out of love for his family. There is no doubt in any of our minds that Lytle easily had a couple more good years left in him, but the fact that he is going out without ever being knocked out or submitted, and on an impressive win nonetheless, just goes to prove what kind of person he is, both as a fighter and as a man. Lytle has stated that in addition to devoting himself full-time to his family he is also looking into a run at the state legislature, and though history is against him, we all know that he won’t go down without a fight. A bloody, brutal fight.

So if this is truly the end of the road for Mr. Lytle, as one of your biggest fans I would just like to say on behalf of the MMA community, thank you. Thank you for all the beautiful memories. You are the epitome of what most fighters wish they could be, and if there’s any justice in the world, a future spot in the UFC Hall of Fame surely awaits you.