I watched UFC 202 this weekend. I was pretty excited for it, largely due to the fact that a couple of fighters I collect, Neil Magny and Randa Markos, were on the undercard. Unfortunately, anyone I choose to collect is contractually obligated to fail, so they both lost their fights in pretty convincing fashion. Magny got absolutely rocked early and often before getting TKO'd in the (very) first round, and Markos put up a decent fight but then got turned around and submitted, again in the (very) first round. I even saw some people on Twitter calling for Markos to be cut from the roster after the loss due to her UFC record of 2-3. I don't know that it's time for that, but fighting is a strange game when it comes to who stays in and who stays out. It's a blend of performance and politics, so who really knows what will happen? Ultimately I think the managers will do whatever makes them the most money.
Soapbox rant (skip to just beyond the pictures if you don't want to read it)...
I try not to be too much of a social justice warrior, but I also saw a pretty popular Twitter MMA humor account making fun of fighter Raquel Pennington for having a 'dad bod.' I guess it's just interesting that even in the middle of a fight the female fighters are expected to look good for the audience in addition to trying to win the fight. There was a little back-and-forth between that Twitter account and some other people about it, but I think ultimately everyone just blocked each other and went on their way. Twitter isn't really a place where anyone goes and says, "Oh man, that Tweet was insightful! I'd better change my worldview!" Oh, and Pennington managed to win the fight in spite of a couple of unflattering camera angles.
I know that we are wired to quickly evaluate people and sort them into categories like friend/enemy or mate/not mate as an evolutionary mechanism, but I think we could make an effort to see the person behind the exterior. That effort on my part has made me a little more sensitive when I see other people doing it. You see it a lot in the Olympics, too, especially in some of the sports like volleyball or diving. I heard one guy say something to the effect that those ladies can really play volleyball, but their racks aren't great. I don't remember seeing a line on the scoreboard for awarding breast points. You also don't hear anyone commenting about a male diver, saying, "He's such a good diver, but doesn't the pouch on his Speedo look a little underfilled?" I'm sure this is a little disorganized and maybe not the best explanation of my thoughts, but I wanted to get it out of my system. Even if an athlete or entertainer is performing their craft for us to watch as entertainment, they are still a person and they have value beyond their appearance. We don't have to like them or like the way they look, but we can choose to be nice to them and treat them well. Getting off the soapbox...
...This is a Randa Markos card I picked up a while back. It's a Gold parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Knockout, numbered # 89 / 99. There's nothing too spectacular about it, but it was sitting in my Draft folder and that is reason enough to write a post about it.
The main fight between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor was pretty epic. I thought Nate Diaz did enough to win, but McGregor got the win by decision after 5 rounds of fighting. There were a couple of times when McGregor was really staggered and Diaz probably could have finished him, but he didn't and anything can happen when you leave it up to the judges. Some of the other fights were pretty entertaining as well, so it was overall a pretty good event. There were a lot of strikers on the card, so there were plenty of TKOs to go around and that seems to play better on TV than 3 rounds of wrestling.
No comments:
Post a Comment