MiddleEasy is clearly the Family Guy of the MMA blogosphere: when they decide to write something, they flap their fins until they pick some random idea balls from the tank, throw in an MMA link, say “baller” several times, and boom, it’s a post. So imagine my surprise when I came across their post on the Joe Lozito story, and the introductory idea ball actually related to the rest of the story. Bauzen from MiddleEasy likes chicken sandwiches, AND he had a chicken sandwich with Joe Lozito! After cleaning my pants and recovering from the shock of seeing a logical connection in a MiddleEasy article for the first time ever, I discovered that the rest of their article on the Joe Lozito story is actually pretty awesome too.
There was a delay as an ‘emotionally disturbed person’ boarded the same car and proceeded to pound on the operator’s door. If you’ve spent any extended time in New York City, none of this would seem out of the ordinary. In fact, I would venture to say I’ve never experienced a completely “normal” subway ride getting anywhere in the 25+ years I’ve lived in this city. Unbeknownst to Joe, this particular unhinged man was the focus of a city-wide manhunt following four consecutive murders stemming from the night before. When the conductor essentially told the man to get lost, he turned his eyes to Joe, the person geographically nearest to him at that very moment. He reached to his belt line and retrieved an eight-inch chef’s knife, the kind you’re probably accustomed to seeing in a kitchen, stared directly into Joe’s eyes and muttered “You are going to die”.
Within seconds, the knife traveled into & out of Joe’s arms, shoulders, and head; a total of seven times. Joe immediately planted his legs on the vinyl-coated floor and shot for the most important single-leg takedown of his life while the train came to a screeching halt. A passenger must have triggered the subway’s emergency brake lever upon seeing the savage attack commence. Bleeding profusely, Joe wrestled the man to the ground, disarmed him, and more or less single-handedly brought an end to the Maxim Gelman 24-hour killing spree, while the rest of the subway’s patrons resisted getting their hands dirty. Several moments later, two New York police officers emerged from the conductor’s cabin, where they had resided for the duration of the train’s course. They immediately arrested Gelman and graciously accepted credit for apprehending NYC’s most wanted man while Joe continued to bleed out onto the dirty floor of the subway car. Nobody knows exactly what prompted two armed personnel sworn to protect and serve the people of New York to wait as long as they did to come out and pick up the suspect they were specifically stationed to look out for that day. It was nearly 25 minutes after the attack began when the train proceeded to the next station and Joe finally made it into an ambulance where his bleeding cuts were tended-to. To date, he credits his survival to a single compassionate passenger, Alfred Douglas, who found some clean napkins to compress his most critical wounds and kept him alive long enough for medics to take control of the situation.
Even with long-lasting emotional and physical scars, Joe managed to sneak some humor into his allocution at one of the nutcase’s sentencing hearings, which happened on February 15 (after da jump):
I dunno about you, but I thought the past UFC octagon girl Playboy issues were a bit disappointing. Well, as disappointing as naked pictures of octagon girls can be. But I've taken a look at the Brittney Palmer issue pics and can say I give them two hearty thumbs up. The issue is out now, and above is a little video preview to get your day started.
I dunno about you, but I thought the past UFC octagon girl Playboy issues were a bit disappointing. Well, as disappointing as naked pictures of octagon girls can be. But I've taken a look at the Brittney Palmer issue pics and can say I give them two hearty thumbs up. The issue is out now, and above is a little video preview to get your day started.
"We were trying to get that fire back in Diego. Get him to really push forward, get him to fake and feint, mess with his timing so we could get our entrances well and do what he did in the third round. [Sanchez] is really just getting started in his MMA career, Ellenberger is one of the top, top 170-pounders, so losing a close decision, it was two rounds to one, close decision like this, especially if we had two more rounds to work, I really don't think it hurts his career at all. He won a lot of fans with his intensity and he'll continue to do great things."
Numbers may not lie but they can certainly mislead - Ellenberger boxed the snot out of Diego for two rounds and was on his way to more of the same in the third when he gave up that bad position. But Greg Jackson has proved that he can perform miracles from time to time - how else do you explain Keith Jardine's 5 year UFC career? He's also taken guys who are 'last generation' and managed to stretch their validity out a little further than it would normally go. The Joe Stevenson that Jackson retooled and brought in to fight Nate Diaz was possibly the best Joe Stevenson we'd ever seen.
That didn't stop Joe from slumping afterwards and retiring. Moxie and a good gameplan will only get you so far, but between that and Diego's natural abilities he should be able to hang around in the middle of the pack for a few years to come (which is basically where we knew he fit since 2007 anyways). Longer if he stops being a BJ Penn and drops back down to 155 where he belongs.
Shane Tyner vs. Kenneth Crowder @ Fight Lab 20 on January 26.
The ref just picked the earpiece off the ground like it was a quarter, and let the fight continue for another couple of minutes before calling the doc in to check it out. Surprisingly, the doc gave the OK, and the fight continued. The rest of the fight was more of the same top control domination, but Crowder was merciful enough to let Tyner leave with the rest of his faceparts attached.
You know we're typically pretty half-ass about reporting interesting prospects moving up from the minors. If you want a nice complete list of dudes to keep your eye on, check out Smoogy's scouting report on Bloody Elbow and prepare to immerse yourself in several hours worth of grainy crowd-filmed footage. But we did mention Rasul 'Black Tiger' Mirzaev, who was set to come over from Russia to Bellator until he accidentally killed a guy in a barfight.
Now Rasul is in jail, and his case has become a political handgrenade inflaming racial tensions between Russians and the northern caucasus Russia took over that is full of people Russians hate:
When the charge was downgraded to manslaughter recently his legal representatives were finally able to ask for bail. It was granted, and Mirzaev was set to be freed from prison, where he has been since mid-2010. But immediately there was outcry from sections of the public - in particular the far-right nationalist groups which have used the Mirzaev case as a rallying cry for their members to protest against immigration from the Caucasus regions.
A protest march with the title ?Killers Must Serve Their Time? was organised for Moscow this week. But a day after bail was granted to Mirzaev, prosecutors appealed against the decision and were successful in having it reversed. The Russian court?s official reason was that bail had incorrectly been approved after ?procedural irregularities? but it is widely believed that fear of public disorder was behind the decision.
Mirzayev?s bail had been set at R100,000 - about �2,000 or $3,300 - and that figure in itself incensed his detractors. A spokesperson for the family of the victim, 19-year-old Ivan Agafonov, said the decision meant that ?now anybody can kill someone for just R100,000.?
The case has had a high profile in Russia and the former Soviet states ever since it was first reported. Immigration is a key concern of many ethnic Russians living in Russia, particularly immigration from the Caucasus states such as Dagestan and Chechnya, which were once satellite states of the Soviet Union but are now independent.
People from the Caucasus region are ethnically and somewhat culturally different to native Russians, but many are heading to Russia in search of work and money. They are free to do so, being citizens of the former union, but the welcome they receive when they get there is often decidedly frosty. This is particulary the case for Muslim immigrants such as Mirzaev.
It's nice to know America isn't the only country dealing with it's own racist prejudices, but these Russians take it to the next level. This would be like accusing a Hawaiian of not really being an American. Oh wait. Okay, well then this is like America owning a country but not treating that country's people like real Americans. Dammit. Sometimes Russians are so much like us, it's a bit scary. We better nuke them before they nuke us. If that's what we're thinking, it's probably what they're thinking too.
You know we're typically pretty half-ass about reporting interesting prospects moving up from the minors. If you want a nice complete list of dudes to keep your eye on, check out Smoogy's scouting report on Bloody Elbow and prepare to immerse yourself in several hours worth of grainy crowd-filmed footage. But we did mention Rasul 'Black Tiger' Mirzaev, who was set to come over from Russia to Bellator until he accidentally killed a guy in a barfight.
Now Rasul is in jail, and his case has become a political handgrenade inflaming racial tensions between Russians and the northern caucasus Russia took over that is full of people Russians hate:
When the charge was downgraded to manslaughter recently his legal representatives were finally able to ask for bail. It was granted, and Mirzaev was set to be freed from prison, where he has been since mid-2010. But immediately there was outcry from sections of the public - in particular the far-right nationalist groups which have used the Mirzaev case as a rallying cry for their members to protest against immigration from the Caucasus regions.
A protest march with the title ?Killers Must Serve Their Time? was organised for Moscow this week. But a day after bail was granted to Mirzaev, prosecutors appealed against the decision and were successful in having it reversed. The Russian court?s official reason was that bail had incorrectly been approved after ?procedural irregularities? but it is widely believed that fear of public disorder was behind the decision.
Mirzayev?s bail had been set at R100,000 - about �2,000 or $3,300 - and that figure in itself incensed his detractors. A spokesperson for the family of the victim, 19-year-old Ivan Agafonov, said the decision meant that ?now anybody can kill someone for just R100,000.?
The case has had a high profile in Russia and the former Soviet states ever since it was first reported. Immigration is a key concern of many ethnic Russians living in Russia, particularly immigration from the Caucasus states such as Dagestan and Chechnya, which were once satellite states of the Soviet Union but are now independent.
People from the Caucasus region are ethnically and somewhat culturally different to native Russians, but many are heading to Russia in search of work and money. They are free to do so, being citizens of the former union, but the welcome they receive when they get there is often decidedly frosty. This is particulary the case for Muslim immigrants such as Mirzaev.
It's nice to know America isn't the only country dealing with it's own racist prejudices, but these Russians take it to the next level. This would be like accusing a Hawaiian of not really being an American. Oh wait. Okay, well then this is like America owning a country but not treating that country's people like real Americans. Dammit. Sometimes Russians are so much like us, it's a bit scary. We better nuke them before they nuke us. If that's what we're thinking, it's probably what they're thinking too.
I'm not a huge fan of watching kickboxing events, but I do enjoy getting drunk with friends and watching oldschool K-1 highlights while listening to Big Black Delta. Do this and you'll gain an appreciation for Mike Bernardo, a 6'4 brick shithouse from South Africa with a reputation for pulverizing his opposition in brutal fashion. While he never managed to win the prestigious K-1 World Grand Prix, he was one of those guys who could beat any fighter on any night (and often did). His quadrology with Andy Hug is the stuff of fight legends, and he also holds wins over an A-Z of kickboxing royalty including Mirko Crocop, Maurice Smith, Peter Aerts, and Musashi.
Unfortunately, this post isn't just to remind everyone of how great Bernardo is. It is my sad duty to inform you that he passed away on Tuesday at the age of 42. The cause of death is still uncertain, but you can rest assured he didn't punk out in a bathtub like some lame-o popstar. May you continue to murderize people after standing 8-counts in Heaven, Beru-Chan.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says his administration and lawmakers "may be getting close to a site, a deal and a bill" for a new Vikings football stadium.
Wes Welker had a tremendous season, but the Patriots still have a void at receiver, mainly on the outside, and they are expected to address it in the draft.