Tag: Twitter

With Some Help From Twitter, Jake Ellenberger Could Be Next In Line For GSP…If He Can Beat Rory MacDonald


(“Here we are with Ake Jellenberger, you did an awesome job, getting some awesome trash-talk in there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the tweets, what you saw, in the computer.” / Photo via Getty)

By Nathan Smith

The war of words heated up between The Juggernaut and The Waterboy — aka Ares, or the Canadian Psycho…too bad Uncle Creepy was already taken — via Twitter this past week, leading up to their UFC on FOX 8 showdown on July 27 from the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington. Because Anderson Silva vs Chris Weidman is on the horizon, many have forgotten that the #3 and #4 ranked welterweights will be squaring off a few weeks after. The latest beef started off as a seemingly harmless question thrown out by Jake Ellenberger to his followers, but apparently Rory MacDonald did not take kindly to it and he made his 140 characters count like they were punches.

Though it is not exactly the magnitude of Twitter beef that Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen engaged in when the American Gangster was trying to goad the LHW champ into accepting his short-notice challenge at the now infamously cancelled UFC 151, but it was still a pretty good shot across the bow by MacDonald even though it took a couple previous Twitter-jabs from Ellenberger to get us to this point.

Awesome.


(“Here we are with Ake Jellenberger, you did an awesome job, getting some awesome trash-talk in there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the tweets, what you saw, in the computer.” / Photo via Getty)

By Nathan Smith

The war of words heated up between The Juggernaut and The Waterboy — aka Ares, or the Canadian Psycho…too bad Uncle Creepy was already taken — via Twitter this past week, leading up to their UFC on FOX 8 showdown on July 27 from the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington. Because Anderson Silva vs Chris Weidman is on the horizon, many have forgotten that the #3 and #4 ranked welterweights will be squaring off a few weeks after. The latest beef started off as a seemingly harmless question thrown out by Jake Ellenberger to his followers, but apparently Rory MacDonald did not take kindly to it and he made his 140 characters count like they were punches.

Though it is not exactly the magnitude of Twitter beef that Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen engaged in when the American Gangster was trying to goad the LHW champ into accepting his short-notice challenge at the now infamously cancelled UFC 151, but it was still a pretty good shot across the bow by MacDonald even though it took a couple previous Twitter-jabs from Ellenberger to get us to this point.

Awesome.

But this begs the question; since MacDonald is a fellow Tristar teammate of Georges St. Pierre and the champ has already said that he has no desire to fight his perceived heir apparent, what happens if Ellenberger beats (and Molson forbid, KOs) The Waterboy? Since he flattened Nate Marquardt at UFC 158 that would make 2 prominent Tristar guys that The Juggernaut has beaten in a row and then it may become personal for GSP regardless of the outcome of his upcoming WW title defense against Johny Hendricks. We have already seen GSP ask Dana White and the UFC for an opponent (Nick Diaz) once he felt personally disrespected. So what if he feels compelled to defend the name of Firas Zahabi, his defeated training partners and the gym he calls home?

Betting lines say that GSP (-225) and MacDonald (-235) are favored but neither of those figures are King Mo vs Petruzelli-esque. Both Hendricks and Ellenberger have the punching power to upset their foe, but for the sake of argument (and my own sanity), let’s pretend that GSP wins (AMEN!) and Ellenberger wins AND Carlos Condit beats Martin Kampmann in late August.  Who gets the next shot at the title?

If you take into account the official UFC rankings [Ed. note: LMAO], Condit (#2) should be next in line but we’ve already seen how that movie ends. So, if Ellenberger is able to get past MacDonald while mixing in a nice “I guess you can call me the Tristar Hunter” post fight interview with Joe Rogan, something tells me that a potential super-fight with Anderson Silva will be put on hold while GSP tries to avenge his cohorts.

UFC on Fox 8: Jake Ellenberger and Rory MacDonald Trade Shots on Twitter

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

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UFC on Fox 8: Jake Ellenberger and Rory MacDonald Trade Shots on Twitter

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

Related Posts:

UFC on Fox 8: Jake Ellenberger and Rory MacDonald Trade Shots on Twitter

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

A pivotal welterweight showdown between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger is rapidly approaching and neither fighter is lacking confidence heading into the 170-pound scrap.  “The Juggernaut” got the trash talk going early Monday morning, asking his fans what round they wanted to see MacDonald “melted.”  The Tristar gym standout did not take long to respond:  […]

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Twitter Reacts to Evans vs. Henderson Fight Card

UFC 161: Henderson vs. Evans could have easily been labeled UFC 161: Lackluster. The event, which took place Saturday night, was largely panned by fans due to the dull fights, lack of finishes and overall lack of engagement by most fighters. Not only w…

UFC 161: Henderson vs. Evans could have easily been labeled UFC 161: Lackluster. The event, which took place Saturday night, was largely panned by fans due to the dull fights, lack of finishes and overall lack of engagement by most fighters. Not only were fans and sports writers critical of the bout, but some fighters […]

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Mike Kogan Uses Same Gay Slur Nate Diaz Was Just Suspended For, Is a Complete Fucking Idiot

(The “fag shoes” in question, via @MikeKogan)

By George Shunick

As Jared reminded us today while discussing Josh Thompson’s unfortunate comments regarding gay marriage, the MMA world had managed to go a solid 20 days without a significant figure saying something extraordinarily stupid on social media. The last particular incident involved Nate Diaz’s use of the term “fag,” and was made even more memorable by Mike Kogan’s moronic defense of Diaz’s “Northern California” vernacular. Kogan — Diaz’s manager — drew upon his years of public relations experience and his vast knowledge of etymology…and cited Urban Dictionary as evidence that Diaz’s use of “fag” didn’t constitute a homophobic slur.

Needless to say, people didn’t really buy that.

However, let’s give Kogan the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s say he really doesn’t believe that “fag” is a derogatory slur for homosexuals or a bigoted criticism of something perceived as homosexual behavior. It would mean Kogan has an extraordinarily poor grasp of context, history and sociopolitical reality — which incidentally, is entirely plausible in the case of Nate Diaz — but not to a far greater extent than many other Americans. It’s not justifiable, but perhaps it’s a plausible explanation for his ignorance.

Or at least it might have been, until he tweeted this.


(The “fag shoes” in question, via @MikeKogan)

By George Shunick

As Jared reminded us today while discussing Josh Thompson’s unfortunate comments regarding gay marriage, the MMA world had managed to go a solid 20 days without a significant figure saying something extraordinarily stupid on social media. The last particular incident involved Nate Diaz’s use of the term “fag,” and was made even more memorable by Mike Kogan’s moronic defense of Diaz’s “Northern California” vernacular. Kogan — Diaz’s manager — drew upon his years of public relations experience and his vast knowledge of etymology…and cited Urban Dictionary as evidence that Diaz’s use of “fag” didn’t constitute a homophobic slur.

Needless to say, people didn’t really buy that.

However, let’s give Kogan the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s say he really doesn’t believe that “fag” is a derogatory slur for homosexuals or a bigoted criticism of something perceived as homosexual behavior. It would mean Kogan has an extraordinarily poor grasp of context, history and sociopolitical reality — which incidentally, is entirely plausible in the case of Nate Diaz — but not to a far greater extent than many other Americans. It’s not justifiable, but perhaps it’s a plausible explanation for his ignorance.

Or at least it might have been, until he tweeted this. I’m not sure how to construe that use of “fag,” except to assume that he’s calling Jordan Breen and Ariel Helwani’s shoes gay. Which kind of negates his previous excuse, flimsy as it was. It’s certainly not the worst use of the word you’ll ever hear, but it comes at a particularly bad time and it certainly doesn’t do anything to help the image of MMA in the public eye, especially considering Kogan is the manager of a number of prominent fighters.

The next time MMA fighters — or Mike Kogan — think about using “fag” without considering the implications of the word, or pretending to remain ignorant of them, hopefully they’ll remember that it does in fact have a meaning that they may not intend, and decline to use it. And if they intentionally use it as a derogatory term, hopefully someone will remind them to sit down, shut up and educate themselves before hindering the public discourse.