MMA on CBS, Still on Hold for Me

Posted on 01. Jun, 2008 by Jeremy in Press On, Sharpening, Writing

The MMA training is still on hold while I figure out how it will affect everything else I like to do, like everyday workouts, trail walks and biking, typing, breathing, etc. Another aspect I need to consider is whether or not it’s fair to the other guys at the gym. If they’re training for a fight the next weekend, am I doing them any good when I’m there for research?

I watched the debut of MMA on network television last night, and it while it was exciting to see the network treatment of this great sport, I’m not sure the production represented MMA as well as it could have. The fighters were all great and the commentary was smart and informative, but the dancers and some of the clowns cornering the fighters were amateurish.

The crowd booing at the slightest lack of action was also disappointing, especially during the Lawler/Smith fight. When the guy you’re facing has one-punch KO power, a little distance and feeling-out is understandable. It’s not hesitation, it’s strategy.

And after even the limited MMA training I’ve done, I marvel at the conditioning of these athletes. During last night’s event and UFC 84 last week, I found myself doing a lot less “He should just…” speculation. I was taking deep breaths just watching them try to suck air with another person’s full weight on them, working for and against submissions while throwing and blocking strikes.

The Kimbo/Thompson fight was a great example. Both men exhausted, battered, and looking like they were one solid punch away from lights out, and they each were able to dig a little deeper to bridge into a reverse, roll the other’s weight, even go for double-leg takedowns.

Good stuff, gentlemen.

They showed that the fighters and the sport are enough to make MMA a success. I hope the networks figure that out before the next broadcast.

Suckerpunch is still being looked at by publishers; hopefully some good news on that front soon.

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Tags: CBS, Jeremy Brown, MMA, Suckerpunch

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Mightier Than the Sword

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is the man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in. "

— Raymond Chandler

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