I had the opportunity to watch the Buccaneers play their second preseason game against the Bengals last Monday. It was a good chance to catch some football and do a little scouting for my upcoming fantasy drafts. And I have to say, after watching him play for just a quarter and a half, I am all in on Jameis Winston.
Now logically, I know I can easily get really wrapped up in players when I see them perform live. The most prominent example of this is Sammy Watkins. In my head, I don't know if Watkins is a star wide receiver in the NFL, but in my heart, I know it to be a 100% fact from watching him torch Ohio State in the Orange Bowl a couple years ago. I cannot erase those memories. He was quick, he was crisp, and he was powerful. I don't know how Sammy Watkins can be stopped, and I hope he's healthy enough to prove it this year.
Also, I know that it was just a preseason game. I know that you can't judge a guy's numbers and make any sweeping conclusion about someone's talent in the preseason. But I'm not worried about the statistics, I'm worried about the process, and Jameis Winston showed the necessary processes to become a champion.
Cincinnati's pass rush didn't look special, but Winston was also going through his progressions quickly and firing off strikes to his receivers. Although the Bucs looked good while Winston was in, they would have liked a whole lot better if offensive penalties wouldn't have put them in tough positions to keep drives going. Had they been able to clean up their play, they may have scored on every drive, because Winston was easily carving up the Bengals coverage.
Jameis Winston is smooth, accurate, and unafraid to challenge defenders, and as Enzo Amore says, "You can't teach that." I know Winston may be controversial, but when it comes to football, he's going to be really, really good.
Before we get started, please watch the following video. Note: You may think it's terrible, but trust me, it gets worse, so you need to keep watching (but the final two minutes are filler so skip that), as it is rare for anything to be this fascinatingly bad...badass that is.
That's a lot to take in, so let's try our best to break it down.
Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura
Not only two legendary announcers, but also them talking about Jesse Ventura's first political victory that would eventually lead him to become the Governor of Minnesota and get his own conspiracy show.
The Doorman
A doorman opens the eye slot and says, "Spin the wheel," so Madusa, who is on the other side of th door just has to figure out a rhyme for that and she correctly follows with, "Make the deal." I would fire this doorman.
The Crowd
The crowd is a group of degenerates that react to absolutely everything. They are basically like the live-studio audience at Saved by the Bell tapings, only these people are caught on camera and cosplaying a biker gang.
The Midget
He just randomly screams pointless stuff. He's the worst, but still an essential, part of this video.
The Interaction
Jake The Snake Roberts definitely outacts poor Sting by quite a bit.
But the big thing is how they interact with each other. It is clear that Sting and Jake Roberts were not in the same room. They had an idea of what the other one was going to say, but clearly not exactly as their reactions to the other one make ZERO sense. It's amazing. Jake literally tells sting he is going to make him wish he was never born, and Sting just replies with a, "You talk too much, get to the point." The point is that he is going to beat you so badly that you will wish you were never born, were you not paying attention?
Eye Explosion
This video epitomizes early 90s WCW. It's amazing.
Okay, so I don't know nothing about pregnancy. I mean, I understand how it happens. It's the classic tale of a man and woman fall in love with each other, and then a stork comes by and has sex with the woman with its magical baby-yielding powers. That part is simple.
But everything else? I don't have a clue. You should also know that I did zero research on the topic, so I could stay as ignorant as possible. These are my thoughts on pregnancy.
To start off, like, ladies go into labor. What does that really mean? Like, the baby doesn't just start coming out at the beginning of labor, so what even constitutes going into labor?
Their water breaks. All I know is that when I've seen that happen in sitcoms, ladies act like they just peed their pants really bad and then a baby comes out like 30 seconds later. I assume it is not that easy. Also, my mind was blown when I found out ladies can go into labor before their water breaks. Is everything I have seen on TV a lie?
And real talk, I feel embarrassed about this, but how do babies breathe in there? I know they went over this in Sex Ed, but I cannot remember how that worked. I thought they had a tube that got them air somehow, but I'm pretty sure there is just the tube into their stomach area, but maybe that provides food and air. Maybe babies can breathe in mucus until they actually emerge from the womb. The latter is starting to sound right to me. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I just made babies sound like mermaids/mermen, and I'm not sure if I want to put my full weight behind that theory.
Oh shit, that reminds me about the best pregnancy story I ever heard. This lady at work said her daughter was going to the bathroom and bam, a baby popped out, and she didn't even know she was pregnant. She was super happy about being a grandparent, so good for her, but this is not a story I would tell all of my coworkers. Also, this story threw my mind for a loop, because of this next part, which I do not understand at all.
How in the blue hell does a baby come out of a woman? Like, seriously. I know ladies complain about this and how tough they are, but the physics of it all makes no sense to me. I get that mammals do this, but I haven't seen animals of any kind produce a spawn, and my brain cannot fathom how this could possibly work.
Oh, and this is a major deal in today's society with shitloads of technology. How did any lady survive this?
Think about it historically. Imagine giving birth to something. Your only reaction had to be What...The...Fuck. This mucusy monster just exited a hole that was not big enough for it to exit out of, and it starts crying like a butthole (crying is good, right? I think crying is good, but again, I know so little that it may be the opposite). The umbilical cord means it is still attached to your insides, right? I don't know about you, but if I were a woman with this thing that came out of me that still had a cord attached to my insides, I would not want that cord cut. That may be my lifeline. Who knows how important that cord might be? Bravo to the first lady who is like, "Fuck it, cut the cord," because there is no way she knew that she would survive. And she did survive. She must have felt like Dalton after ripping out a man's throat; at worst she felt at least as good as the bad guy in Road House after he fucked guys like Dalton in prison. It's a truly badass maneuver.
Anyway pregnancy sounds really messed up, and God and/or Science is way messed up for designing things like that.
Oh yeah, and shoutout to my sister for going through this mysterious journey and producing a baby boy.
Coming from the Midwest, the best thing about Florida is probably the weather. I hate the cold, so being rid of it is a very nice feeling. The second best thing about living in Florida is that is a great state for pro wrestling fans. NXT has their tapings near Orlando, and they have house shows throughout the state, so it's pretty easy to see great wrestling for $10. Despite the great value that NXT provides, this weekend, I found an even better value as there was a free pro wrestling show in Tampa this past weekend.
It was something called Ring Warriors, and although I had never heard of them, they totally exceeded my expectations. It was a taping, as the ring announcer stated that they air in multiple countries worldwide. Good luck finding out what those countries are/if they exist, as their webpage isn't exactly chock full of information.
Still, they had a solid setup with professional video cameras and everything. As for the talent, I would call it a mixed bag. There were a lot of guys that were just your run-of-the-mill independent wrestlers who were sometimes quite old, often out of shape, and fine at best in the ring. But mixed in were actually guys who I had heard of like Sonjay Dutt, Michael Tarver, and Wes Brisco. Sure, those aren't big names, but those are guys who had runs in WWE and TNA respectively. Still, the best wrestler there was just hanging out as Ring of Honor Champion, Jay Lethal was taking pictures with fans. As for the biggest star who wrestled, that would be Simply Tremendous Dude, better known as STD, best known as Mosh from The Headbangers. I'll admit, I got pretty pumped when I recognized him, but then he got beat in like three minutes, so I don't think he'll be getting that Ring Warriors title push anytime soon.
The biggest highlight of the night was being seated next to one of the wrestler's fiancee. She was super drunk and could barely string thoughts together. The one thing that she made clear is that she was shocked that my wife and I were in attendance despite not knowing any of the wrestlers personally. That probably says more about me than it says about her, but shit dog, it's free pro wrestling; it's not like I needed a hookup for tickets. Her shining moment came later in the night as she repeatedly put her hand on my knee. It was some super drunken awkwardness, and shortly thereafter, her friends escorted her out of the building.
The biggest wrestling highlight was Maxwell Chicago. For a reference point, this is Maxwell Chicago:
Mr. Chicago had to face off against some really fat dude, who managed to have maybe the worst in-ring interview in history. It went something like this.
Interviewer: Maxwell Chicago has challenged you to a match. Do you accept his challenge.
Fat Dude: (Long Pause) Man, what do you think?
And scene. That was seriously it. Then Chicago came down, tried to cheap shot the guy, and fat dude just started crushing him. Finally Maxwell Chicago tried to mount a comeback by punching him in the gut with the limpest punches you have ever seen. It was the stuff of six-year-old girls, but it was entertaining. The part where I laughed way too hard was where Maxwell Chicago got the ref distracted and then nailed fat dude with a low blow. This low blow inexplicably knocked the fat dude into a state of unconsciousness, and Chicago got the win. I'm usually a cheer for the good guys, boo for the bad guys at small shows, but that deserved a cheer in my opinion, wrestling tropes be damned.
This free pro wrestling event was scheduled for three hours, but unfortunately, we only made it through a little over two hours, as we learned one incredibly valuable lesson: If you're putting on a free pro wrestling show, you don't exactly get the best smelling people in attendance. I would say 50% of the smell can be attributed to people smelling like their cigarettes after a smoke break, but the other 50% was just some good ol' fashioned BO. My wife has the nose of a bloodhound (in her smelling abilities, not literally; otherwise, that would have been a really weird plastic surgery procedure), so she's very sensitive to smells, and since we had definitely had our money's worth, we decided to call it a night.
I'll probably never know whether Sonjay Dutt won the Hiro Matsuda Invitational or, more importantly, whether the fat dude recovered from the low blow to pass his concussion tests.
But before it became too big and was half-filled with jobbers like Vincent and Horace Hogan, even before Hulk Hogan turned heel for the first time, before Big Sexy, Kevin Nash, joined up, it all started with one man, Scott Hall.
Before Hall even showed up, it was already a momentous occasion, as it was the first ever two-hour Nitro. Two-hour Nitros are hilarious in that no matter what is going on, they will shoot off fireworks the second that hour two starts. They literally just start blowing off fireworks in the middle of matches every other week, because they don't know how to time things out.
It was a solid show, but it was given an exclamation point with the appearance from Scott Hall. Not only did Hall make a surprise appearance, but he came out in jeans and a denim vest to let everyone that he is BOUT DAT LIFE.
Hall actually did a great job of making it seem like he was still with WWE. He made WCW seem white trash while referring to Billionaire Ted, Nacho Man, and Scheme Gene, names that all came from WWE's worst long-running gimmick ever, instead of using their real names.
I will say that Scott Hall struggled more when he confronted the announce team of Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan as he keeps repeating himself as he doesn't quite get his lines right the first time. Still, Bischoff and especially Heenan do a great job of selling it.
The next week, he shows up in the same Canadian Business Casual look. He basically says the same thing again, but this time Sting slaps him. He then says that he has a big surprise, and the rest, as they say, is history. Overall, it was a memorable first step, which led to one of the most iconic stables in wrestling history.
Oh, and if you're wondering what was going on at the same time on Raw. WWE competed with Goldust making out with Ahmed Johnson. That is the 100% truth, so...yeah, the Attitude Era, a true golden age of wrestling.
I love La Parka, and honestly, if you don't, that's your bad, not mine. La Parka is awesome. And even before he became the chairman of WCW, he was awesome. La Parka was the first luchador that I could truly get behind, because he was this fat skeleton dude that would fly off the top rope and do dance moves. What more could you ask for? And that is why I want to honor Mr. Parka by breaking down his WCW debut where he squared off against Juventud Guerrera.
Few remember this, but La Parka made an entrance with style. He had not mastered his dance mvoes yet, but he did come out in this beautiful red and black robe.
He was basically the Ric Flair of Mexico. Although many felt he was missing the revolving door of women around him. He wasn't missing it; he just kept his game tight and kept it in the background so every sidepiece he had felt like his bottom bitch.
Although the robe was great, things truly got incredible when he took the robe off.
Even his chestpad has a face of terror on it. Does that face look familiar to you? Because it sure looked familiar to me...
Yeah, La Parka definitely made his debut with a robe and a Brak chestpad. This man knows how to make an impact.
But La Parka was more than just some fancy duds, as he was also entertaining inside of the ring. It wasn't just his wrestling prowess that shined bright like a diamond, as he was already perfecting those dance moves that made him so famous. Here is La Parka performing a Spinarooni.
Remember, I said he was perfecting his dance moves. I didn't say that he had perfected them quite yet.
But don't get it twisted, La Parka could flat out wrestle, and he showed some pretty awesome moves in his match with Juventud Guerrera when he wasn't struggling to get off the mat.
You want some traditional lucha libre wrestling from a giant man in a skeleton outfit? Then La Parka has you covered. Just look at this totally not giving a shit about the safety of anyone in the arena suicide dive he pulls off here.
You want the skeleton man to jump from the top rope to the outside? La Parka has you covered.
And if you need an epic finish for your wrestling matches. Don't worry. La Parka combines impenetrable defense with explosive offense.
Wrestlers could really learn from La Parka's strategy of just holding onto the ropes anytime that somebody went for a high-risk maneuver.
La Parka put on a show in his debut, and they probably should have given Goldberg's streak to La Parka and put WWE out of business by 2002. But, things turned out differently. Still, WWE knew the mystical powers of La Parka and kept him out of the WCW Invasion.
Right now is a really great time for pro wrestling. Yes, there are issues with the main product that WWE puts out, but even that area is having some fantastic matches from their top guys as opposed to just having bodybuilders with limited movesets. Still, wrestling is truly shining on the smaller stages, most notably through Lucha Underground and WWE's minor league organization, NXT. Living down in Florida, I'm partial to NXT, because I am fortunate enough to see it live. Recently, NXT has lost some of their biggest stars with promotions for NXT Champions such as Kevin Owens, Adrian Neville, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks, the singles division, although still great, is a little thin. This has given the tag division its time to shine, and no team has shined brighter than The Vaudevillains, as they are currently the most entertaining thing in pro wrestling.
Now I will admit to being a huge Aiden English fan since his days of opera singing before his singles matches, but it did take me a while to warm up to Simon Gotch. But since coming back from a short break, both guys are on fleek (I don't totally know what that means, but I'm nearly positive it's a good thing).
Through the magic of NXT, they have become these fully developed characters that are impossible to root against. In its simplest form, they are old timey strongmen who still believe in chivalry. They cannot hurt women, because how could any decent human being hurt a woman? And when a woman like Alexa Bliss hurts them, they are shocked, but their brains cannot even comprehend a reaction outside of standing there stunned.
It's work like this that can overshadow how great they are in the ring, but don't make that mistake, as they fully live the characters with every move. As Vaudeville performers, they not only want to win to show how manly they are, but they also want to perform, so every move is designed to entertain the masses. These guys aren't Adrian Neville or Sami Zayn with high flying acrobatics; despite their average sizes, these are strongmen, and they wrestle as such. What they lack in acrobatics, they more than make up for with crisp moves that match their characters. The whole combination is just fun to watch.
And that's really what's most important. They convey their characters, and anybody who watches them can get swept up and forget how stupid pro wrestling can be and just have fun. That's what makes The Vaudevillains the most entertaining thing in pro wrestling.
Al Snow is known for being a jobber. That sounds bad, but he is probably the most successful jobber in history. Barry Horowitz rode being a jobber to a little success, but Al Snow rode being a jobber to a full career, one in which he won far more than his jobber status would have you believe. Although he is most remembered as the guy who brought a mannequin head out with him, that was sadly the highlight of his gimmicks, as things were far, far worse before that. It's time to take a look back at the gimmicks that Al Snow rode to legendary jabroni status.
5. Al Snow
Yes, sadly, this was Al Snow's best gimmick. He is most famously known for his work in the JOB Squad. I looked up on YouTube to try to find a relevant video, and this is what I found:
This video contains:
Al Snow losing in strip poker to a deer head.
Nicole Bass giving mouth to mouth to Val Venis.
Hardcore Holly.
Al Snow wrestling a mannequin head.
Al Snow missing a moonsault onto said mannequin head.
Al Snow winning the Hardcore Championship from the mannequin head.
And this was Al Snow's BEST gimmick. Ladies and gentleman, The Attitude Era.
4. Steve Moore
Have you ever heard of Steve Moore? Yeah, you probably shouldn't, as he was just used to get squashed in 90s WWE matches. That still makes it his second best gimmick. Yeah, things are about to get real ugly from here on.
3. Shinobi
A year later, he wrestled as Shinobi, a guy who wore a ton of different masks. He was supposed to be the answer to beating Shawn Michaels, but shockingly, he did not win that epic match on Superstars. Shinobi's most amazing moment was when he lost a match on Raw, and then they started advertising a match for The New Rockers. Speaking of The New Rockers...
2. Leif Cassidy
Remember The New Rockers? The New anything is just a really awful idea in wrestling. LOD 2000 is probably the best example of this, but The New Rockers aren't far behind. The Rockers were a tag team carried by Shawn Michaels until Shawn became too big of a star and turned on Marty Jannetty. A few years later, Jannetty brought in Leif Cassidy, which was basically just another Marty Jannetty. They never won a tag title despite the following teams becoming tag team champions during this period.
The Quebecers - A couple Canadians.
Men on a Mission - Just had a really fat guy, which made them unstoppable in this era of the tag team division.
The Bodydonnas - They did have Sunny; they did not have talent.
1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly - they weren't even together long enough to get a tag team name, and it involved two guys who weren't even to their most memorable gimmicks at this point.
1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty - This is basically The New Rockers, but they decided 1-2-3 Kid was good enough to put the strap on, for the SECOND time, where Leif Cassidy was never that important.
How does it get worse from here?
1. Avatar
Avatar is not only the worst Al Snow gimmick ever. It may be the worst gimmick ever. I remember having Raw playing in the background while aggressively blogging to my heart's content. I fully admit that when I heard Vince McMahon say the words, "And coming up next, we have a new superstar making his debut, Avatar," my ears perked like they had never perked before. I have never heard the name Avatar before, so I was pumped. He looked kind of karate like, and I immediately knew he was somebody, but it took me about 1.5 seconds before I realized that it was Al Snow.
Yes, Al Snow was Avatar. But it gets better. He came down as a dude, and then got in the ring and put on a stupid mask. It would be like if Finn Balor came to the ring as Finn, and then laid in the ring for two hours while he was "transformed" into The Demon. It kind of kills the effect of the mystery behind the mask. As I sat there with my mouth agape, I realized that no matter how bad things would get for Al Snow, it could never be as bad as Avatar.
There are some topics so large that there is no way a single writer could do it justice. These stories not only change our world in the present, but they change everything about our future. This is the story of Glacier, a man so influential that I had to bring in what I believe to be is Glacier's #1 Fan, Lukewarm Jonah to help me pay homage to the martial artist pro wrestling legend.
I will be taking a look at what happened before Glacier ever stepped foot in the ring, because that is almost the only thing I remember about him. Jonah is clearly a much more knowledgeable fan than I am, and that will be apparent when he takes over. But man, those vignettes were something else. The first vignette establishes that "Blood Runs Cold." The second vignette goes further by stating:
"Our world is about to change.
Enter the realm.
Blood runs cold.
In each of us burns the fury of a Warrior."
Oh hell yeah, I got that Warrior fury in me and am ready to enter the realm. The last two vignettes then showed us this.
There is only one thing that came to mind when watching a man do karate moves in a set that was clearly designed for him to do karate moves around. That one thing is that Glacier was making Mac's Project Badass videos from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with a budget for set design. Looking at Glacier as Mac's dream really makes him a ton more interesting and likable.
Unfortunately, they let Glacier talk, and that is something they never should have done. The entire Glacier character is built on mystique, and that is lost when you realize who is just a southern boy who learned some roundhouse kicks. This was a period where Stone Cold Steve Austin was becoming a giant star by doing whatever he pleased. This was also a period where Glacier said, "I want to win at any costs, as long as it is within the rules." That is only slightly lamer than his catchphrase of, "Be cool."
But I don't really remember anything about him actually wrestling except he didn't actually wrestle but threw a lot of kicks. Did he win? Did he lose? Did the refs call the match to prevent the fans from freezing to death? I honestly don't know. Luckily, I have Lukewarm Jonah to take over from here.
In 1996 the wrestling world was about to be set on fire. The Ringmaster turned into “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. At Bash at the Beach Hulk Hogan would turn into “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan and join the New World Order and form the greatest stable of all time. Finally, Glacier would make his debut on WCW Saturday Night, the Mothership. 12 year old me was super pumped for his debut. A martial artist in wrestling? He’d be unstoppable. The vignettes that had been playing played up his martial arts background and introduced us all to the phrase, “Blood Runs Cold”. Then there was his entrance. Rumored to have cost in the six figures it included lasers, fake falling snow, and Glacier showcasing his martial arts mastery all while bearing a close resemblance to Mortal Kombat character Sub Zero. His debut match against the Gambler was dominant and I couldn’t wait to see more of the guy. Glacier disposed of Big Bubba Rogers aka The Big Boss Man handily and seemed on a path to superstardom.
Glacier then entered into his best known feud. He fought against Mortis aka Chris Kanyon in green skull gear managed by the fantastic James Vanderberg aka James Mitchell, The Sinister Minister. Glacier and Mortis battled in epic matches that you couldn’t help but see as battles between good and evil. After Glacier had beat up Mortis it was clear Mortis needed some help. Wrath aka Brian Adams debuted as a costumed huge guy who beat up Glacier. Glacier kept winning and kept getting jumped by the other guy after the match. Glacier needed help so he brought in Ernest “The Cat” Miller. They feuded with and continued to beat Wrath and Mortis. Glacier’s first loss came in a tag match against Wrath and Mortis, but he was still around 100-1 against them so the future seemed bright.
Now I had forgotten that Glacier lost to those guys in a tag match, but I still vividly remember his first singles loss. He fought Buff Bagwell of the nWo on Monday Nitro and I was sure he was going to win and start battling against them. It was a dirty victory but Buff won. After that Glacier fell off the face of the Earth. He lost basically every match he competed in, including being three of Goldberg’s victims in his undefeated streak. Glacier eventually sold his ring gear to Kaz Hayashi and eventually became Coach Buzz Stern for a short time before leaving.
So the question becomes: What went wrong? I touched on it in the opening, but 1996 was simply a bad time to have these larger than life characters fighting. Eric Bischoff stated that he wanted Glacier to be a video game come to life. He was and so were Wrath and Mortis but it was the wrong time. Austin 3:16 had happened and the nWo was out being super cool, these masked characters just didn’t fit in. The good news is that TNA stole the idea of a video game come to life with Suicide, because TNA is awesome at stealing from WCW, but not stealing anything that people actually liked. Anyways, out there on my N64 WCW/nWo Revenge game Glacier is World Champion, winning matches by knocking fools out with the Cryonic Kick. Kick on Glacier, kick on.
What is true love? It is a question that we have all contemplated. We have thought that we were in love and realized that it wasn't love at all. Many times, it is lust, and other times it is just doing whatever we can to not be lonely. But I feel like after today, I know what true love is, and this story has nothing to do with my wife.
I went outside to throw the ball for Casey The Dog (my dog, whose name is Casey). After her first sprint for her orange bowl, she had shaken some things loose in her system. It was time for an exit strategy. So she squatted and produced waste.
Usually, that is where that chapter ends and we get back to throwing the ball. Unfortunately, this was not the end for Casey The Dog. She got some of her poop out, but unfortunately for her, she had gone a little heavy on her grass diet, and there was a long log of a poop/grass mixture hanging from her butthole. A lot of dogs know to just rub their ass on the ground to wipe it away, but Casey The Dog does not do that. She tries to squat and walk at the same time until she gets super frustrated and just lays down on her side.
As she lies her body down on the ground, she has a look of fear in her eyes. She does not know what to do, or if she will be cursed to permanently have poop hanging from her ass. "What type of existence will that be?" she surely wonders.
I see my dog suffering, and I must act quickly. Unfortunately, I do not have a poop bag as we were just hanging in the backyard. But I knew my dog needed me, so I told her to lay still, and I removed the substance from her butthole. It was not a pleasant experience for me, but she was totally ready for the next throw after that. Life was good once again.
What is love? Love is the will to suffer to prevent that loved one from suffering.
What is love? Love is pulling poop out of your dog's asshole with your bare hand. I love my dog, and she sure as hell better love me too.
I am not a hateful person. I'm far more likely to just let things be than to hold a grudge. Remembering who you hate and who is your rival is difficult for me, as I really just don't care about holding onto negativity. Yet, there is one enemy where my hatred runs deep and is hotter than a million suns. No human is worthy of this hate, but another animal is: The Red-Winged Blackbird, aka the worst thing on Earth.
These birds are assholes. There is no other way to put it. Actually, there is one other way to put it: They are stupid assholes. Stupid, because they are birds yet they choose to build their nests on the ground. Now, let's think about this: If I had the ability to fly, do you think I would spend a lot of time walking around to places? Do you think I would just stay in traffic, because DURRRR, I don't know no better. No, I wouldn't. I'd use my damn high flying abilities to stay above the fray. Yet these birds are so stupid that they put their nests on the ground.
Because of their nesting grounds, they like to act as if others are at fault for coming near their nests on the ground. This is when these dumbasses get into asshole mode. They are incredibly territorial, and they are more than willing to attack human beings. When I lived in Iowa, I would run near the river, and these birds would take turns swooping down to attack me like it was a scene from Mad Max. But these birds are not brave; they're cowards. They only attack the crown of my head, and they always come from behind. That's a bitch move right there.
One of the best things about moving to Florida is that I felt I was finally rid of these stupid assholes. I hadn't seen any of them since I moved down here, and I was able to run in peace. But with the new move, I have not just seen these assholes; they live in my backyard.
So far, it has been a feeling out process. They seem to be nesting far enough into the marsh that we don't have reasons to confront each other, but they still hang out in my tree. They have not tried to harm me or my dog while we play in the backyard, and I have not gotten out my tennis racket and started swinging for the fences.
What I'm hoping is that these are Florida birds, so they have retired from family life and are just retiring out their final days. That's cool by me, but the second they start to puff out their chests and come swooping at me, they're going to get a mouthful of tennis racket, and I'm strapping on my boots to go nest stomping.
Messing with people like me is the reason that "birdbrains" is such a terrible insult. It isn't wise, and I will have my revenge.
Ronda Rousey destroyed another opponent this weekend. She's gotten so good that she doesn't even have to use her world class Judo skills to beat her opponents. She is now the best boxer in the division as well. She's stupid good, and it's nearly impossible to come up with a relevant comparison for what she is doing right now. Here is my journey to attempt to find a parallel for what Ronda Rousey is currently doing.
First, it was pretty easy to eliminate any athlete involved in team sports. Even at Michael Jordan's level of dominance, a team sport just doesn't allow for a single person to so totally dominate all of their competition.
After that, I looked at the most dominant athlete of the last 20 years, Tiger Woods. As great as Tiger Woods was during his prime, he basically would have had to have his performance at the 2000 US Open in every major for three straight years to be as dominant as Ronda Rousey. Tiger Woods was amazing, and he's not even close to Rousey.
Then I took the logical step of looking at MMA. The most dominant recent champions have been Anderson Silva and Jon Jones. Both guys were dominant, but they had some struggles against opponents. Anderson Silva ripped off 16 straight wins in the UFC, but in there, even he had times of mortality against guys that could put him on his back like Travis Lutter, Dan Henderson, and Chael Sonnen. Jon Jones has never been beaten, but Alexander Gustafsson gave him a lot of trouble, and he usually wins by picking his opponents apart, where Ronda Rousey steamrolls them.
If you want to go old school, you can look at a guy like Royce Gracie who did completely dominate from UFC 1-UFC 4. Until Dan Severn lasted over 15 minutes, nobody made it to the six-minute mark against Royce. Still, Gracie won purely with technique, where Rousey wins with not only technique but by also just being more physical than her opponents.
If I was going for an MMA parallel, the answer would have to be Mark Kerr. Kerr was not only a world-class wrestler who became incredibly adept at submissions, but then he quickly learned how to light people up on the feet and had absolutely brutal ground and pound. He destroyed every one of his first 11 opponents, where only one man was able to last past 3:04. He was the guy picked to rule over Pride. Obviously, that didn't happen, but even if you only count those first 11 fights, the level of competition that Kerr faced was usually not the greatest, where Rousey has been taking out the best of the best since her third fight.
And that brings us up to the most common comparison, Mike Tyson. As weird as this sounds to say about Mike Tyson, he wasn't dominant enough to be compared to Ronda Rousey. Even before he won the title, he got taken to decisions by guys like James Tillis and Mitch Green, who were solid gatekeepers but guys on a level that Tyson should have steamrolled. I will give Tyson credit as he avoided his toughest possible opponent in his prime with Evander Holyfield and Ronda Rousey has avoided her toughest opponent in Cyborg. The nail in the coffin is Tyson's loss to Buster Douglas. Douglas is basically the equivalent to Bethe Correia, a beatable opponent that is meant to showcase the champion in a foreign land. Tyson got knocked out by Douglas, Rousey took less than a minute to annihilate Correia.
After going through all of these greats, it would seem like I have exhausted all of the possibilities. But then I realized the answer was standing in front of me the entire time. I don't know how I could see around his blobby existence, but I managed to do it until now.
Of course, I'm talking about Steven Seagal. He has fought the best in the world and has always come out on top. But that's the thing, he had contemporaries like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme who had similar accomplishments, but nobody made it look easier than Seagal. He annihilated his opponents without breaking a sweat and hardly ever having a single mark on his face as a sign that he had been in a battle to the death.
Ronda Rousey is incredibly impressive, and in MMA, she has had to deal with a wide variety of opponents and situations, but it is nothing compared to what Seagal has shown in his fighting career. Just take a look at this highlight video that would even impress Miss Rousey.
Ronda Rousey is great. She is the female Steven Seagal, and there is no greater compliment than that.
