UFC 65... I'm soo psyched!!!

Wow!  I can't wait til Saturday.  This should be a great UFC.  Two belt challenges w/Matt Hughes hopefully falling victim to the ever talented new talent know as George St.Pierre and Jeff Monson looking to chop down the giant Tim Silvia.  And although those are gonna be exciting matches and the HW and Welterweight UFC belts are on the line... I'm most psyched about my boy Brandon Vera facing off against former HW UFC champ Frank Mir. 

I hope Mir is back to his former self and has really trained for this fight.  But I hope that Vera knocks him out and gets even closer to a challenge for the belt.



Check out the link for a current vid of what Vera is doing just days before his fight. 

http://www.brandonverablog.com/blog/

Now that's what I call intense training. 


Umm... what exactly is this about?







Posted by Puzzled @ 11:55 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Pride the Real Deal (Results)

Pride comes to America (Spoilers)

Pride = the UFC in Japan. Well, after the UFC has been doing so well lately as the American audience continues to embrace this modern day gladiator combat as a legitimate sport, Pride has decided to try their show out in the US to get a piece of the pie. 

Anyway… if you are hoping to catch a PPV replay, then don’t this blog any further as it contains the fight results. 

First fight was… Joey "Dreamsmasher" Villasenor (USA) VS. "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler (USA)

This fight ends early in the 1st round after some brief standing exchanges. Lawler hits a flying knee that essentially KO’s Joey and Lawler quickly finishes him. Wow! Great knee!

Next fight was… Kazuhiro Nakamura (Japan) v. Travis Galbraith (USA)

Galbraith took this fight on short notice, Nak was originally to fight Marvin Eastman. Round 1 has both fighters striking it out, Nak get’s the better blows in, they go to the ground and grapple a bit round ends w/Nak having more shots landed and some grappling reversals. Round 2 has both swinging for the fences, most missing, they clinch, Nak lands a knee to the face, drops Galbraith to his knees. Nak circles and ends it w/strikes, ref stops in Round 2. 

Next fight was … Phil "New York Badass" Baroni (USA) VS. Yosuke Nishijima (Japan)

Yosuke comes out swinging, Baroni ducks opening right and goes for double leg takedown, nails it. Get’s top position and does some transitions from side control, half-guard, side control, while going for a few subs and mixing it up w/some punches from the top. Finally finds the Kimura from side mount again, locks it in and torques it. Yosuke refuses to tap, Ref stops it. 

Actually, Yosuke may have been tapping if you look at his right arm in the gif and notice the slight movement of the shoulder/head. Looks painful enough for me to tap. Ouch!

Up next was… "Dangerous" Dan Henderson (USA) VS. Vitor "The Phenom" Belfort (USA)

Round 1, they mix it up w/some strikes, Dan nails a takedown and lands more punches, and is more aggressive. Round 2 show Vitor tired and jumping to guard. Dan lands some punches while in guard. Round 3, Vitor jumped guard again, it ends. Judges give it to Dan. No gifs of fight that I could find. But apparently Chuck Norris, the man, the myth, the legend was there. 

Next fight… Sean Ohaire (USA) VS. Eric "Butterbean" Esch (USA)

Round 1… Sean comes out kicking, no real effect, eats some heavy right hands while doing so. Sean clinches w/Bean… not a bright move, KO. See for yourself.

Next up… Josh "The Baby-faced Assassin" Barnett (USA) VS. Pawel Nastula (Poland)

Round 1… sloppy punches from both, they clinch, sloppy grappling, they trade positions. Josh gets the takedown. Round 2, they come out swinging, mostly missing. Round 2, they exchange some punches, clinch, go to the ground Nastula on top, Josh reverses and goes for a toe-hold Nastula taps immediately. 

Next up was… Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (Brazil) VS. Kevin "The Monster" Randleman (USA)

Round 1… Randleman shoots immediately for the takedown, Shogun get’s half-guard. Sweeps Kevin for the foot lock, transitions from a toe-hold to kneebar… Kevin taps. Kevin is a strong/explosive wrestler but needs to learn some sub defense. Geesh! 

Main Event… Fedor Emelianenko (Japan) VS. Mark "The Hammer" Coleman (USA)

Round 1… Coleman tries for takedown after takedown, he’s being rocked w/punches the whole time. He gets one takedown, Fedor get’s up against the ring post and stands, Coleman eats heavy leather. Round 2, Coleman desperate for a takedown, lands a punch shoots for a double, after some sprawl from Fedor, he gets the takedown, Fedor looks to sweep from open guard, goes for armbar, nails it, Coleman taps. 

 Wow, Coleman had his kids there. Those post fight punches were weird. 

Wow!  I always goof up posting the gifs.  Word auto-formats the links and underlines them, which throws off the blog recognition, so I have to edit them... anyway... they should work now. 


Posted by Puzzled @ 3:18 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

UFC, and other goofiness.

Wow, so I watched UFC this past Saturday. Two title fights. Rich Franklin was fighting Anderson Silva who would many was saying was going to be his toughest fight. Indeed many thought that Silva would beat Franklin. And in fact, that’s exactly what he did. Silva is a Muy Thai specialist and he came out and quickly imposed his game on Franklin. Franklin has historically been a very smart fighter and extremely perplexing to his opponents. But unfortunately, whatever training and game plan he had strategized prior to the fight proved ineffective. Silva tied Franklin up in a Muy Thai clinch early in the 1st round, and after repeated knees to the body, Franklin dropped his hands to protect his body. Which led to Silva taking the knee to Franklin’s nose. Which broke it clearly. Franklin went down shortly after that and almost assumed the fetal position. The ref stopped the fight immediately sensing Franklin’s inability to defend himself. So the title belongs to A. Silva. Franklin will be back, and he’s learned a valuable lesson.

The Sean Sherk –vs- Kenny Florian fight went the distance and thanks to an elbow from the bottom position late in the 1st round or early in the 2nd, Sherk bled all over the place. Sherk’s scalp area around his right temple bled soo much, it looked like someone had spilled 3 gallons of blood on the Octagon floor and on both fighters. But since the blood wasn’t in Sherk’s eyes and he wanted to continue, they let it go on.

Although neither fighter was at any health risk, unknowing watchers may deem the amount of blood spilled as being too barbaric to allow to continue.

Anyway, Sherk is insanely strong, and he’s got a pretty viscous ground and pound, but he couldn’t put an end to the ever tough Kenny Florian. Florian had a slight chance each time the fight was stood back up (I think Sherk took him down 6 times), but Sherk would just take Kenflo back down and the process would repeat itself.

The upcoming Pride should have some good fights and the next UFC will have Brandon Vera in it, so I’m definitely stoked about that one.

Ever wanted to kill your boss? Ever thought about it? Well, next time you have that urge, just go here:

Posted by Puzzled @ 12:11 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Fighting the Flood

Well… when it rains it pours I guess. Strike that. When it rains over 12 inches in under 2 days in surrounding areas, well then that really can cause problems for the river that runs through Franklin where I live. The river is the same Blackwater River that flooded after Hurricane Dennis and Floyd did a tag-team number on our area back in 99.’ They were calling that flood a hundred year flood, because it had been that long since Franklin has seen that much water. Sure the river may flood it’s banks now and again, but that’s never been a problem. But, wow! Two major floods in less than a decade. That doesn’t bode too well for the peace of mind of my fellow Franklinians nor myself. 

My house caught it back in 99’ but thankfully this time we were spared. The big difference this time is that we knew it was coming. It seems that we’ve learned some valuable lessons about our forecasting of the Blackwater river’s level and how other areas rainfall can quickly contribute to some of our problems. In addition, our town’s drainage system was totally refurbished, etc, etc. Last time… we had no warning. I mean really… nothing. I think there may have been one or two flash flood warnings for those right on the river, but that was it. My wife and I went to bed that night never expecting to wake up in a flood.

That night/early morning still seems like a dream to me. We had brought the dog in for the night because of the weather and he faithfully slept at the foot of our bed on the floor. Well, at about 4am I was awakened by what sounded like my dog drinking/lapping up some water. In my half-awaken state I thought he was in the bathroom drinking from the toilet, but after calling to him, I was quickly surprised to see him right next to me walking around confused in 4 inches of water in my bedroom. Yep, it was that quiet creeping into our house. 

I remember looking out into my backyard and seeing the bedroom light shine off of the 3 ½’ deep water in my backyard. My AC unit was still churning, tho it was nearly submerged. And it wasn’t even a Trane. J After my wife got shocked by walking into the spare bedroom to pack up some clothes and my dog got shocked entering into the Kitchen I quickly killed the power to the house and we splashed outside to see some National Guard folk evacuating people. My Grand Am was in deep water, but the Jeep sat up high enough that after a brief prayer, she started up gurgling from the tail pipe and we drove to higher ground. And w/the help of our Church, FEMA and of course friends and family we were fully recovered after a couple of months. 

This time, the swamp and tributaries that got us last time weren’t as affected so we stayed high and dry. My mill still got wet, but we built up a dike and just kept right on making paper (International Paper). We don’t have any sewage right now (Franklin Water Flooded) so it’s porta-potties galore (ewww....) but we’re getting by. Here’s a couple of pics me and my buddy got today. 

Here's a photo from the train derailment one of them didn't turn out.  It's all pixelly.  Hmmm...

 

Anyway... just figured out post some pics and a update on our situation. 


Peace,

Puzzled

Posted by Puzzled @ 11:30 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Get Your Giggle On!!!!

Well, it’s fallen my lot to host October’s Wheezin Geezer H2 tourney. I think I’ll call the Tournament… “Get Your Giggle On!” since I notoriously giggle when I do something silly or stupid playing Halo. I routinely fall off maps and miss melees. LOL! Poor clan won’t know what hit’em. Actually, they probably will. Most of these guys and gals all know how to have a good time. And in fact, it’s rare that I hook up with anyone from 2o2p that doesn’t know how to have a good time. Which is a good thing and it keeps me happy here @ 2o2p. Anyway… we’ve (Jerry’s Kids/Orphans J) been trying to play more competitive type games w/the MLG type settings and w/that competitive nature of the game, comes the tension and intensity of playing at that level.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy playing the MLG stuff, even when we get trashed. It forces you to realize that if you can’t play well as a team and practice as a team, you’ll never be able (despite how well of an individual player you are) compete w/a team that can get map control and have the angles to team shoot you as soon as you pop out from cover.

So… since I’m in control of the tourney, I’ve decided to go the opposite of “hardcore” and competitive. This tourney will be as laid back and jovial as possible. I’ve been searching the net and trying to remember some of the more light hearted custom gametypes that I’ve played in the past and have had a good time playing. You know the one’s I’m talking about. The kind where you grab two needlers go through the port on Beaver Creek screaming “Pink Death!!!!!!” or when you charge the hill wielding only your plasma pistol that you aren’t allowed to shoot (melee’s only) giggling as you smack and get smacked by your friends. Yes, those are the types of games I’m looking for. So far, I’ve got about 4 gametypes that I’m using (FightClub, Dodgeball, Troy and my own creation HH Soccer) I still need two more and I’ve got some ideas but if you’d like to PM me w/some variant or custom you’ve played or created I’d greatly appreciate it. Even if I don’t use it for the tourney I’d still like to have it for future custom games.

I also appreciate the Bungie boys in the customization aspect of the H2 variants that are possible. Just a few tweaks here and there and you’ve got a whole new game variant. Something as simple as manipulating time limits, number of lives, # of balls on maps, etc can totally change how a game is played. This is good since most of us are still gonna be waiting for Halo 3 for quite a while. And if Gears turns out to be another Perfect Dark, we’re gonna need some more custom variants to keep us shooting til H3 come out.

Posted by Puzzled @ 11:21 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments