A Man's Guide To "The Nutcracker"

Since I am a man of great substance and culture, I went to the ballet over the weekend. Now many out there may call me a Nancy Boy for this action, but, um...shit, I was really hoping to have a comeback for that. Anyway, going to the ballet is a good way to impress a lady, so it's maybe, kind of, somewhat justifiable. 

I sat there intently as I actually learned many things from "The Nutcracker." It would be a disservice to the world if I kept these things to myself, so today, I would like to share my thoughts so that other men will know what they are in store for when going to "The Nutcracker." 

My only experience with ballet up to this point was the Saved By The Bell where the guys filled in at the last second so they wouldn't have to cancel things. Obviously, like all things SBTB, hilarity ensued. Screech dressed up like a giant bird, but everybody else was in leotards. Because of this, I assumed everyone would be in identical leotards throughout every ballet. Looking back, I realize this was not my most sophisticated thought, but this is what happens when your only point of reference is SBTB. I also can't stop time by saying "Timeout" which is another thing I found out the hard way. So although there are some leotards, there's a lot more variety than that.

Now onto the actual ballet. The first thing that will piss you off at the ballet (at least this performance) was that the ballerinas were mouthing words but not saying anything. If you are going to mouth things, you might as well just say it, because we have the technology for people to be heard. Either do a better job of acting, or just say that you want to punch your sister in the throat. 

The plot starts with a party where all these greedy kids want presents. They don't get presents for a while, until a magician comes along. The reason I believe he is a magician is that he wore a cape with lining on the inside that looked like a quilt. He didn't do any magic, but he did give presents from a giant treasure chest. Not only did his presents suck (half of them were just giant candy canes), but he only gave presents to like 40% of the kids. What an asshole.

Finally, he gives this girl a Nutcracker. Yep, that is another shitty present, but she's excited, so maybe she has some form of mental retardation. Immediately, two other kids break the thing. It gets fixed really poorly by The Magician, and then without explanation, it shows up again, and it's back to normal. 

The girl then dances around rat children for a while for no apparent reason. Then she puts her nutcracker in a magic shed, and he turns into a human-sized nutcracker, which is goddamned terrifying. Seriously, imagine this thing as a human coming at you:

Fuck that. There is no toy in the world that looks more like a rapist than this one. So I'm thinking this thing needs to be killed, and luckily there is a Rat King out there who is pulling this girl in because I think he wants to eat her for strength. I'm still rooting for the Rat King, because he kind of reminds me of Master Splinter, and I will cheer for anything that will kill this life-sized Nutcracker. Rat King and Nuts (my nickname for Nutcracker) get in a sword fight and Rat King basically owns him. Nuts plays dead like a total bitch, and when Rat King turns his back, he stabs him in the back. So now the rat children who I assume to be a lot like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have nobody to teach them ways to kill Nuts, so they mourn and disappear forever.

Afterwards, Nuts turns into a regular human, and they dance around a lot until intermission.

A lot of things happened before intermission, which is good, because very little, and I mean practically nothing happens plot-wise in the second half of this. It's really just a bunch of dancing in the second half. I couldn't even make up a coherent plotline from the dancing, because it looked like someone with ADD decided to have a dance party, but no theme for the dance party, so people just take turns showing off their moves.

The highlight of the second half was this dude who kept almost hitting wrestling moves on his lady dance partner. He nearly nailed her with a piledriver, but chose not to. Then he had her up for the torture rack, but decided against it. Finally, as he went off stage, he had her up for a Razor's Edge, so I'll just assume that he put her through a table with that one, but it was too gruesome for the children in the audience to watch.

And then anywhere from one to eight people take turns dancing, and the crowd applauds everything. It's absolutely outrageous. If this were a basketball game, they would applaud every time someone dribbled without turning the ball over. Ballet crowds are extremely easy to please. 

And really, that's all that happened in the second half. Lots of dancing. Eventually, our nightmare ends when Nuts turns back into his original nutcracking form, and the ballerinas proceed to bow for a good five minutes. 

Although I would not recommend "The Nutcracker" to other men, I will say that the ballet and I have two things in common. We can be completely ridiculous, and chicks dig us. 

Now please stop calling me a Nancy Boy.

-Joe

P.S. To masculine up this post, here is a picture from @Si_Vault of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T:

I'm not sure what's most ridiculous: The weight belts? Hulk's socks? Mr. T's shoes? I'd probably go with the weight belts. That look definitely needs to come back.

4 Ways To Improve College Wrestling

First off, let me just say that I love college wrestling. I believe Folkstyle is by far the most exciting and has the most intelligent rules of any form of wrestling out there. The only thing against folkstyle wrestling is that it is not in the Olympics. This hurts Team USA in international competition, because the best wrestlers in other countries spend their entire lives focusing on Greco and Freestyle wrestling, while our wrestlers focus on a hybrid of both in Folkstyle. But seriously, college wrestling is awesome. But as with all things awesome, it could use some improvements to help the sport grow.

1. Education 
Let's face it, most sports fans are morons, and wrestling is a sport full of nuance. It's easy to understand a guy running across the goal line or shooting a ball in a basket. It's a little harder to describe what constitutes a takedown. I really like most wrestling announcers as they are usually on point with their descriptions of matches, but if I was in charge, I would piss off wrestling fans and tell them to dumb it down. I think announcers need to describe why there are points and why there aren't being points given any time the situation arises. This will obviously annoy wrestling fans, as any junior high wrestler can understand the sport, but wrestling fans will stick around either way, and college wrestling needs to do a better job of drawing new fans in.

Also, this needs to be stressed. Over about two hours, with an intermission, a person will see about 70 minutes of wrestling. Basketball plays 48 for about 2.5 hours, and football gets takes over three hours for 60 minutes of football. The only mainstream sport that compares is soccer, and wrestling is not a sport filled with flopping nancy boys.

2. Exposure 
ESPN, I know we have had our differences, but if you could do me a solid on this one, it would be greatly appreciated. Showing 4-5 Friday Night/Sunday Afternoon duals a year is definitely worth it. Amateur athletics is only growing in popularity, the College World Series, which very few people used to care about is now a very large summer event for ESPN. Showing a few top-notch duals would be cheap to produce and should at least get solid ratings. Iowa-Penn State, Iowa-Minnesota, and Iowa-Oklahoma State would all be worth of a national television audience. And that may seem like I have a horrible bias towards Iowa, but people know Iowa wrestling, so whether people love them or hate them, Iowa is a team that will get a casual sports viewer to tune in. Even AC Slater wanted to go to Iowa:

Plus, the rise of popularity of the UFC makes college wrestlers much more interesting since they are the closest thing to MMA prospects out there. ESPN needs to use that and always show highlights from former college wrestlers, whether it's Cain Velasquez, King Mo, Brock Lesnar, or even Dolph Ziggler. Stress that the wrestlers competing could be the next stars of the UFC or even the WWE.

Also, note to Big Ten Network: Wrestling gets your third highest ratings behind football and basketball, show more meets.

3. Adapt The Rules
The people in charge of college wrestling have done a fantastic job of helping the sport these last few years. They have made major changes to overtime, and this year they are going to be more aggressive on stalling calls as well as letting an opponent pick the starting position after someone takes an injury timeout. These are fantastic changes as less stalling means more action, and wrestlers will stop faking injuries to catch their breath in the middle of a match.

Another change I would like to see is them adapting a rule from freestyle wrestling where a wrestler receives a point for forcing his opponent out of bounds. This would cut down on wrestlers hanging out with their back near the outside circle, so they can just get out of bounds when someone shoots in for a takedown. It is really just another way for them to force action, which will help the sport overall.

4. Eliminate Bad Decisions
What happened in yesterday's Iowa-Iowa State duel was a travesty, and it's those kind of decisions that hurt the entire sport of wrestling. People might think that a decision in a meet that is only shown to Mediacom subscribers in the state of Iowa is not that big of a deal, but it definitely is. Despite it only being available to those select few people, it will still probably be one of the ten most watched wrestling meets this year.

For those who didn't watch (definitely most of you, possibly all of you), Iowa's Vinnie Wagner had just taken down Iowa State's Boaz Beard to tie the match at 9-9. They went out of bounds, and Beard had 1:12 of riding time with 13 seconds left on the clock. Since a wrestler needs a minute of riding time to receive a point at the end of the match, it looked like all Wagner had to do was ride Beard out for the remaining 13 seconds to force overtime as Beard would be left with just 59 seconds of riding time. Beard struggled to get out from under Wagner but was unable to do so and the horn sounded signaling that overtime would follow. This is what EVERYONE thought was going to happen.

Iowa State's coach, Kevin Jackson, argued that there should somehow be a minute of riding time, you know, because in Ames, 12 comes after 13. This is where things got crazy, as he actually WON the argument. The match ended 10-9 with no overtime period. The claim was that there were actually only 12.3 seconds left on the clock, but there are no decimals of seconds on a wrestling clock, while the wrestler had 12.5 seconds of riding time, hence giving him 1:00.2 seconds of riding time.

Even in Ames, the boos far outweighed the cheers for the decision, and Iowa's coaching staff understandably was very upset and had to have some of the coaches hold back other coaches to avoid being penalized another team point. Kevin Jackson remarked to the ref, "They can't be acting like that," and that just shows that he doesn't get it. He and the refs were the ones that were at fault there. Jackson cannot look to take a victory like that, and the ref needs to do what is best for the sport in that situation. Both wrestlers were of the understanding that Wagner needed to hold him down for overtime, and Beard needed to escape for the win. They wrestled as such, and Wagner did what he needed to do to force overtime. The refs need to let the wrestlers decide the winner, not a technicality on the clock. Honestly, it was probably the most entertaining match of the meet from start to finish, so I have absolutely no ill will towards Beard, because him and Wagner both wrestled a hell of an entertaining match.

But it's decisions like this that turn people off from, not only wrestling, but any sport. It's the type of decision where a casual fan walks away and says, "That was stupid. Why would I want to watch this again." Earlier in the meet (I believe it was about a lack of stalling calls), Tom Brands said, "You're setting the sport back." His words rang more true after the ref's decision in this matter as it truly is setting the sport back.

Still, Terry Brands summed it up the best when he said, "Only in Ames, Iowa."

I couldn't agree more.

-Joe

P.S. For some reason, I don't see these autograph sessions happening in Iowa anytime soon, but Steve Alford is still a legend in Indiana:

The Ultimate Fighter Finale Preview

I really haven't written anything about Mixed Martial Arts in quite a while, but I was inspired by the recent season of The Ultimate Fighter, so I figured I would share my thoughts with the world. Let's go over the Ultimate Fighter finals as well as the coaches fight.

Bantamweight Final: John Dodson vs. T.J. Dillashaw
Not gonna lie, I'm horribly biased in my prediction for this fight. Dodson was one of my main coaches when I trained at Jackson's, and not only is he an awesome coach to have, he's also just a really good guy. Although the conditioning we did on Thursdays sometimes bordered on cruel and unusual punishment, it definitely helped me get in, by far, the best shape of my life.

As for real analysis of the fight, Dodson has most of the advantages. I don't think Dillashaw wants to stand with him for very long periods of time, so he is going to try to take the fight to the ground. From what I have seen, and because of his size advantage, Dillashaw is probably the better wrestler, but Dodson is incredibly hard to take down, and as people have seen on The Ultimate Fighter, he is even tougher to keep down.

I think the fight is going to end up a lot like the Johnny Bedford fight in the final episode. I think Dillashaw will get a takedown; I think Dodson will get up, and I think Dodson will TKO him in the second round.

Dodson by TKO - Second Round

Featherweight Final: Diego Brando vs. Dennis Bermudez
I am less biased in this one, but admittedly, still biased. Diego also trains at Jackson's, and if you saw the show, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of him. He's a real nice guy for the most part, but if you get on his bad side, he will destroy you. I only had a few interactions with him, and luckily, always remained on his good side.

In the fight, I really have trouble seeing Bermudez win this in any way. His only hope is to take Diego down and pull a lay and pray for three rounds. Not only is it going to be difficult to do, but Brandao has really good jiu-jitsu, so even on the ground, he could finish the fight. I don't think Bermudez gets it there, and this fight ends like all of Diego's other fights, first round knockout.

Brandao by KO - First Round

Michael Bisping vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller
No bias in this fight. Miller has always been solid, but he has never shown any elite skills. Bisping also isn't a guy with a lot of "wow" factor in his game, but he's really good everywhere. Although I dislike Bisping, I think he probably wins this fight, although I will definitely be rooting for Mayhem, because I'm American.

Bisping by Decision

-Joe

P.S. The Post Script has slowly turned into an advertisement for the Twitter handle of @si_vault, but when they post awesome things like a picture of Michael Jackson and Bo Jackson throwing a football together, it's really tough to not share it with the world.

That's just...perfect.

Why Tim Tebow Is Successful

Since I'm cynical, everyone assumes that I hate Tim Tebow. I don't. I actually like Tim Tebow. Although I think the abortion commercial during the Super Bowl was kind of douchey (because as everyone knows, puppies are way better than babies), it's his belief, and it's not like it was much worse than most of the other commercials aired during the Super Bowl (If someone made a video of the Finance Baby [no clue which finance place he works for] biting the curb, it would probably make my year).

So there are the people who hate Tebow, and the people that love Tebow. Some want to give him all the credit for the Broncos success, while others want to give him none of the credit. The answer, as anyone with half a brain could guess (obviously this is too much for ESPN employees), lies somewhere in between. The most simple explanation is that this is the perfect situation for Tebow to be successful at this moment in his career.

The first key to his success has been his defense. They have been excellent, and it has kept the Tebow-led offense in the games.

After that, give credit to Tebow for limiting turnovers. He has only thrown one interception this season, and the defense is successful, because they are not put in terrible spots. Tebow throws some ugly balls, but his balls are uncatchable for anyone instead of rocketing a pass into a defender's chest.

Also, and most importantly, the Tebow-led offense wears teams down. Defenses have to work harder than offenses. And running will wear a defense down more than passing the ball, because the offensive line is attacking as opposed to being the passive protectors. If you can manage to constantly run, the defense will not be in top form by the end of the game. Because the defense keeps games close, the offense really is peaking at the end of the game. It's not that Tebow has mystical game-winning powers, it's that the offense is fresher than the defense and they are taking advantage of that at the end of games. If there were five quarters in a game, I have no doubt that the Denver offense could dominate that as well.

Finally, credit where credit is due, Tim Tebow is a great leader. Let's face it, it is far easier to work hard for a leader who is busting his ass more than anybody else than it is for a guy who is doing just enough to get by. I've been in both situations, and I know that I am able to raise my game when I am following someone who is busting his ass as opposed to a lazy piece of shit. It works the same in the NFL. Tebow busts his ass, and his teammates are following his lead. This does matter.


Is this a sustainable strategy for success? Probably not. They haven't run into great teams, and when they played a good team like the Lions, they got their asses handed to them. But that doesn't mean Tebow will not be successful in the NFL. I think he should have a lot of success in the future. He is completing 45% of his passes in the NFL. This is atrociously bad, and also really surprising. Yes, there were questions about him being a quarterback in the NFL, but the questions were about his slow delivery and not having enough zip on his passes. His accuracy, although not great, was seen as fine for NFL standards. He never completed less than 64% of his passes and was above 70% his senior year. If I just give him a modest upgrade to 55%, it makes him a far more dangerous passer when it is combined with his running ability.

Will he win a Super Bowl? Hell, I don't know, and nobody does. If someone from the future told me that Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers would not win another Super Bowl, it wouldn't shock me. It's really tough to win a Super Bowl, only one team does it in any given year.

A more realistic question is whether Tim Tebow can be successful as an NFL quarterback. And with his skillset combined with his work ethic, I certainly wouldn't doubt it.

-Joe

P.S. Here is an interview with the most exciting player in the NBA, Derrick Rose. 66-0 is a very real possibility this year.