I was sitting here, with not very much to do, channel surfing and I remembered that Strikeforce had some fights on. Now Strikeforce does put on some entertaining fights but their stable of fighters is not quite as good and deep as the UFC. On another occasion, we will have a discussion about fighters being locked into contracts with one promotion or another. I have always liked the boxing model where a badass can pit his or her badassitude against whoever else thinks they have the badassitude to compete, and they can choose to use a promoter, or not, or change a promoter. And the big names make obscene amounts of money in that model. But that is a subject for another day. (Those of you who have visited us here before are familiar with some of my musings on MMA v Boxing).

The first fight featured Bobby Lashley against one no account Simms whose single claim to fame was being a competitor  on UTF where he was for the most part nothing but a poor attempt at comic relief who otherwise got kicked in the ass. The fight did not last long. Simms did not touch Lashley with one (I mean not one – seriously) punch for the duration of the fight. There are those who might argue that the fight was stopped prematurely but if you do not even touch your opponent, and the guy is kicking your ass for the entire duration of the fight, there is no reason the ref should allow the fight to continue.  I still do not think that Bobby Lashley is yet a very good MMA fighter, but he is getting better and definitely does not suck.

The fight between Robbie Lawler and Melvin Manhoef was a fascinating one – and  a teaching moment for all young fighters. Manhoef showed some of the cleanest, most patient techniques and fighting style that I have seen in a while this side of Anderson Silva. In a fight he should have finished early with a knockout, he lost from a moment of carelessness and, to be fair, a lucky shot by Lawler. The lesson for all you boys and girls is this: DON’T EVER DROP YOUR HANDS, even when you think you are winning big. I am sure Lawler will not be looking for a rematch against Manhoef any time soon.

Herschel Walker was awefully impressive. The guys is 47 years old and he looked awefully good, very comfortable and had a rather easy night kicking Greg Nagy’s ass, a big strong kid more than 20 years his junior.  And he almost didn’t look like he broke a sweat or even needed to take a deep breath. I was happy for him and I hope he can quit and not try to hang around . The fight business is brutal and 47 is 47. On the badassitude scale for the night, Herschel Walker’s score was a definite outlier. In every way, he owned the super high quotient and deservedly so.

I continue to be impressed by Chris Cyborg. The girl can fight and she is laser focused. Over the years, I have found that girls who can fight and who are good at it really bring the house when they fight. I remember sparring with some girls who were ridiculously badass and relentless. They wanted to take your head off and worked every which way to do so. Cyborg has a lot of that – and badassitude aplenty. I am still curious how she would fare against Gina the 2nd time around. Of course Gina would have to prepare better, like a fighter and forget the celebrity shit that I think compromised her fighting. If she still wants to fight that is.

Nick Diaz started his fight against Marius Zaromskis like he wanted to finish it in 15 seconds, and he almost did. I like Diaz. He is one of the few MMA fighters with truly good boxing skills. He almost had his lights turned out by Zaromskis with a punch that caught him flash but it was a thing of beauty watching him come back with a whole bunch of badassitude to finish the fight. It was all hands boys and girls – this from a multi black belt in several martial arts. Very good shit!!

Much better fight night than I thought it would be. Sometimes you don’t need big names. You just need people who want to compete, and win.

Today, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad – the long rumoured, anticipated and expected tablet. He called it “a truly magical and revolutionary product today”. Maybe not so much. We already have iphones, netbooks and laptops so there are no surprises with any one of the things the iPad can do. But to be sure, the magic is in the package of all the things it can do easily, intuitively and at a truly magical price for an apple product.

True, at first glance, it looks like just a giant iPod. But there are many who know way more about Steve Jobs and Apple who will tell you that this is the gadget he has always wanted to build and that he only built the iPhone because that was what the available tech allowed at the time. No argument from me there. The concept that is today the The iPad , was first presented in an Apple concept video as the Knowledge Navigator in 1987. 1987!! That was before the internet folks. These guys understood that there would soon be some ubiquitous network intermediating information exchange. You watch that video, replace the voice commands with commands typed into a keyboard, or maybe not if you have the Google voice search app or similar, and you have the iPad.

There is no shortage of accolades and opinions on the release. The folks over at the Guardian featured a coterie of expert reactions (praise really) ranging from design through tech and functionality.  I have not seen the iPad but I watched Steve Jobs’s presentation. From all indications, Apple hit this one out of the park. Maura Judkis takes a look at some of the outstanding green features of the iPad – it’s BPR-free, PVC-free, has arsenic-free display glass, a mercury-free LCD display, 10 hour battery life and more. Dan Frakes gushes about the iPads best five surprises: It is unlocked (woo hoo!), it has external keyboard support it has Epub support and, listen to this pc users, it has a productivity suite with support for Microsoft office!! (I think this is one big deal that not too many people are talking about).

Probably the most disruptive feature of the iPad is the business model. An apple product with, according to Steve Jobs, magical and revolutionary features is coming out of the gate at, by apple product standards, a measly $499. For a comparison point, an unsubsidized iPhone or Nexus One is more expensive. Not only that, the exclusivity that attends the iPhone is absent.  The Wall Street Journal likes their business model too (caveat, there are many things we know WSJ liked in the past that imploded, but still…).

Here are a few things I can say with absolute certainty about the iPad: a) If you make your living on netbooks, find another line of business. Netbooks as we know them today are dead. Period. b) If you are a product manager for Kindle or a similar product, you have your work cut out for you. Except that for a little bit, the Amazon leverage will prop up the product. I will be curious to see how it survives on functionality. c) If you are an iPhone owner, particularly in the US, you like this. First, there is the cross pollination of functionality that you benefit from. Second, there is a partnership with AT&T which will bring in a whole new set of productivity users who will demand more from AT&T. At some point here very soon, it will finally become clear to AT&T that they will have to outspend the competition beefing up their wireless networks or they will not be in business very long. Customers can only take shit for so long – the more customers there are, the shorter that bullshit window.

Steve Jobs is geek. He is a badass. The boys and girls at Apple are geeks. They are badass. The guys over  at Apple in product management are the badasses I want to be when I grow. But when you think about it, there is no badass who has shown greater badassitude than Steve Jobs. This guys imagined this device, even before the technological components were even possible. He stuck with it, did what he could with the available technology of the times and, today, we have an even better Knowledge Navigator aka the iPad. Steve Jobs = Badassitude!

I am a fight fan. I love the fights. As a kid I boxed, then got into martial arts which I practice to this day, many, many years later. There are not many fights that counted in the past couple of decades that I did not watch boxing contests, mma fights, even tough man contests. Remember K1?. I have watched a them all.

I watch fights with the enthusiasm of a fan and the also very much the eye of a fighter. I try to study them, I try to understand their techniques and I try to understand what they do and why and how they do what they do. And I enjoy the fights. A lot. What I have found over the years is that boxers use more of the arrows in their quivers so to speak, while MMA fighters use far less of the arrows in their quiver.

A good boxer will throw 500 punches in a fight, each with a lot of skill, each studied, quick measured, looking for something specific, going for something specific. Watch Floyd Mayweather or the Pac man work. Watch film of Delahoya or Sugar Shane, Roy Jones, the great ones like Hagler, Ray. The greatest of them all, Ali, smoking Joe.  It is fascinating and I think it is this quality that allows the best fighters to make obscene amounts of money.  On the other hand, MMA for all their skill often disappoint. Most MMA fighters are accomplished martial arts black belts. A good black belt has so many arrows in the quiver, one would think that watching one fight should be spellbinding. What we see more often than not is a pair of fighter stuck in what looks like a mediocre grappling contest. Why did grappling become so dominant in MMA? Or a pair of fighters with the second rate boxing skills swinging wildly. True, there have been exceptions. Chuck was awfully entertaining with a limited set of skills. When Anderson Silva decides to fights, he has a lot of good stuff. And GPS is always good for an exciting night. But not very many more. For example, I have always believed that nothing can beat a well executed kick. If that kick is a spinning back kick, it can be lethal because we all know how much damage it can do. There are only probably 2 or 3 fighters that I have seen use it effectively. Why? And that is just one example.

Boxers are badass. MMA fighters are badass. Why don’t MMA fighters expose all their badassitude in every single fight, using what they have and know, flawlessly?

Coming off last week’s playoff games, we had four badass teams, teaming with pure badassitude, going into the championship week. Two games were played. In the AFC, the Colts, despite a shaky first half, won handily. We knew they were badass. We knew they had gobbles of badassitude. Both things held. Two things were apparent and instructive, speaking of the total badassitude of the colts: a) The drive for a touchdown just before the end of the first half, and b) Watching their head coach, Jim Caldwell talk about the game at half time and what he thought they needed to and would do in the second half. Badassitude aplenty is what that was! The Jets were badass and to the extent possible, most of their badassitude held. They just ran into a superior Colts team. They lost, but one came away thinking they were badass and their badassitude held.

In the NFC championship game, the Vikings came in looking very badass. Across the board, led by Favre, Minnesota had proven without a doubt that they were badass. There was, again, badassitude aplenty on that team. And it held. Bret had his ass kicked every which way during the game. You saw clear indication that the old man was in with vicious young ‘uns. They knocked him down, pushed him around, roughed him up, but the old man kept picking himself  up, dusting himself off, and kicking ass himself. The team lost fumbles, were intercepted, were pushed around but they fought to the very end. Badass, were the Vikings, holding on, without a doubt to their badassitude!!

The Saints came into the game looking very badass. Yours truly thought they came with more badassitude than any other team coming into this championship weekend. Yours truly thinks they were the one team that left the weekend with decidedly less badassitude than they came in with. The offense seemed to hesitate, couldn’t quite figure out how to kick ass with the many turnovers and advantages they had, and mostly got lucky. Luck does not a badass make and is not the stuff of which badassitude is made. In an interesting irony, a winning team, the New Orleans Saints, came out of the championship weekend having lost the most badassitude of all the teams we watched. If I was a betting man, and I am not, and I discourage it, I would put my money on the Colts.

The other day, Jermaine Taylor dropped out of the Super Six. That was quite a fall. He quit. He was beaten, had lost one too many times for his, and all his fans’ liking and it was time for him to man-up and admit what had become obvious: At this moment, in this environment, in his condition, he did not belong in the Super Six.

Maybe we should have more of these Super Six kinds of tournaments, unglamorous as they might seem. You see, in boxing, it is easy for any comer to up and claim that he is good enough for this and that and the other title shot. That they should fight this and the other person. That they are ready. That so and so and the other is ducking them.

What is true though, is that if you picked 6 of the top fighters in any weight class, using a bunch of criteria to select the fighters, you will typically end up with a good representation of the top of that weight class. If then you ask the fighters you have selected to fight each other in a round robin tournament to determine who among them should earn the right to fight for the championship, you will if nothing else find out who is not only the badassest of the bunch, but more so, whose badassitude quotient can stand up to a comparison with, say the most venomous of serpents. One would; a) have to be real badass fight after fight to win, and b) ridiculously high in badassitude quotient to keep winning and c)dripping with pure badassitude to win it all.

For the longest time, I thought Jermaine Taylor was a badass and that from the way carried himself in and out of the ring, he had plenty of badassitude to spare. Then Pavlick kicked his ass. And then again. Before we knew it, he had lost 5 straight. I like to think that it is a credit to the abundance of badassitude he used to have that he was invited to the Super Six. But alas, I think he is done. In boxing, some guys last while others don’t. He lasted as long as he was going to. Jermaine Taylor is no longer a badass. Jermaine Taylor, as a boxer, no longer has any badassitude.

This one was an interesting study in the total lack of badassitude on the one hand, and the suprising display on the other. Democrats have for ever owned Massachussets senate seats. Ted Kennedy, who held one those seats forever, was a badass. Total bonafide badass. His politics was characterised by pure unadulterated badassitude. He worked for every single vote every single time. And he got his votes. And he kept his seat. For years and years and years. Then, bless his sould, he passed on.

The Democrats nominated one Coakley to replace him. She wins the nomination, and decides to take a long political nap. No political events, no rallies, no advertising, no polling. And the punk Democratic party leadership let her. From the White house to the local office. No one tried to wake her from her political nap. Old Ted was turning in his grave!! Meanwhile Brown, the Republican was working like a badass. Event after event, ads, his face in the papers. Badassitude worthy in fact of replacing Ted. Not even others in his party had believed he was a badass.

Then round about yesterday for all intents and purposes, some Democrat reading a newspaper noticed that they were about to have their ass kicked! And the scramble was on. But it was a punkass, no account effort to cover up for a total lack of political badassitude. The whole party leadership, top to bottom, fell asleep at the switch (side bar -these are the guys we are trusting with the economy and healthcare??). Their cowardly, complacent unprincipled gutlessness and lack of vision was exposed in a manner so totally unprecedented as to be completely incomprehensible. From failing to pass meaningful healthcare reform, to a cowardly retreat on change and their principles, they have finally reached the depths of their true incompetence. These shameless, gutless wonders have given away, in broad daylight, without a fight, one of the truly Democratic seats in all history, held by the lion, Ted, whose political badassitude was legendarily stratospheric.  There can not be a Democrat anywhere, indeed an American anywhere who must not feel, somewhere in their gut, a sense of betrayal if for no other reason than that these Democrats lay down to the opposition in public, even though we know that they have always laid down in private. I gotta take a shower!

Chelsea looked great – definitely badass, a team that has always scored high on badassitude. Thoroughly kicked Sunderland’s ass. Ashley Cole was awesome.

Arsenal as always, were fleet footed, and unbelievably sublime. This is the beauty of the Gunners – they are uniquely badass – twinkle toed in playing style but oh so consistently lethal.

Man U bruised there way to a good win.

Man City showed that they were neither truly badass nor did they have the  badassitude deserving of a top 4.

Liverpool? Please!!

Spurs? They are getting close as are Everton perhaps.

Inter. Looked Good

AC Milan – could some of the badassitude Ronaldinho used to have be coming back?

Barcelona – badasses. Period.

New Orleans Saints Display Winning Badasssitude
In the New Orleans – Arizona game, there were no surprises, at least to me. New Orleans have been badasses all season. More importantly, for most of the season, they had scored awfully high on the badassitude scale. Arizona on the hand had not really been badass through the season. However, last weekend, against Green Bay they had scored pretty high on the badassitude scale. On the balance, the badass, with a high badassitude quotient will win 98% of the time against a sometimes badass, with only occasional high scores on the badassitude scale. New Orleans knocked Warner on his ass early and quick. Right there, you knew it was going to be a long day. You could see the Cardinals looking around like they were checking if they had remembered to bring lunch. The game was over early and quick. Badassitude, which New Orleans had aplenty, worn out as it always would, as it always has. No surprise there.

Baltimore Offense Lays An Egg, Is Shown Up
The Baltimore Ravens were to me, a surprise. The Ravens, particularly the defense, were badasses all season. The Ravens defense had and still has, badassitude to spare. The defense was good – no question. Now the offense?? They sucked, they laid an egg. The Ravens offense were never really badass – they lacked badassitude. They have lacked badassitude all season and yesterday, it showed. The Colts on the other hand, were true to form. Badassitude abounded on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. And they kicked Baltimore’s ass (to my dismay).

Cowboys Crumble
I always thought the Cowboys beat the Eagles all the three times simply because the Eagles offensive coaches are probably among the most inept in the NFL (the offense often found prosperity in spite of the awful coaching). And the Eagles defensive coaches had zero imagination. Very simply, it was not that the Cowboys were a much better team than the Eagles, but that head to head, the Cowboys were coached to better match the Eagles perhaps more than any other team. Face to face, the Eagles fell down in the badassitude quotient and the Cowboys rose. On their own, it was a different story and it showed today Minnesota. I particularly liked the little fuck-you touch down play at the end of the game which had the Cowboys incensed, saying Minnesota was running up the score. Hello? If you don’t want the opponent to run up the score, stop them. It’s that simple.

Same Old Norv, Jets Win
Norv Turner brought the San Diego Chargers into the play-offs, and inevitably, disappointment. This was a guy who in seven years with the Washington Redskins was given every chance to succeed, every resource he needed, for whom the local press was in the tank, and he punked out. A team cannot be badass if their coach is a punk. Norv is not badass. The Jets are.  Rex Ryan has badass and badassitude pedigree. His dad, Buddy had badassitude to spare. You could run a badassitude charity on the badassitude Buddy did not need. So it came to pass that the Charges/Jets match up was necessarily a mismatch. And it showed. Badassitude, which the Jets had in larger quantity than they needed, won out. Bye, bye Norv…

For a good while, we thought Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizard was, or at least if he was healthy, could be a real badass on the basketball court. There was no dispute about his ability to be a badass. But a badass isn’t worth Jack unless that badass has badassitude. It is sort of like a kid who was taught all the right things and how to behave but does not know how to be a gentleman. You see, badassitude is the quality of being a badass – how you carry your badassedness. Gilbert Arenas didn’t understand that. He thought it was enough to be a badass and that being a badass in basketball made you a badass in other places and everywhere. Not true. Badassitude is what allows you to understand how and where and under what circumstances to deploy your badassedness. Arenas didn’t get that and in the end, he scored a zero on the badassitude scale, on his way to jail. Punk at this point is a generous description.

I love Floyd and I love the Pac Man. These are 2 baddest, coolest fighters I have ever seen, and I have seen many. I remember Ali, Frasier, Foreman, Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, John the Beast Mugabe, Pryor, Agueyo. I remember Hands of Stone Duran. Tyson, Lewis, Arturo. I remember Roy Jones, Pernell Whitaker, to name but a handful. I remember them all. Badasses one and all. Many with badassitude to spare. There were pretenders who came along, inordinately hyped but we fight fans understood what was up. Remember Prince Nassim? Remember Popo Freitas? I remember them all. Was a fan of many, didn’t think much of a few!

Then came Floyd. The quality was beyond belief. The only fighter I have ever seen who always only fought only as much as he needed to.  The guy chose and decided how he wanted to win fights. He had badassitude to spare. He carried his badassedess in a way few could or can. I loved the guy, love the guy still. Remember when he knocked out the pretender from Man City? Toyed with him for a while, got bored and decided to end the fight. Now remember back to the night he decided to fight. The night he fought Arturo. It was frightening to see. As a guy who loves Arturo, it was sad to see.

Then came Manny. The Pac Man. For the longest time he fought primarily with the quickest right-left combination ever and a crazy abundance of energy and determination – he came to fight. Then he found Freddie Roach and learned how to box and the combination became lethal. Remember the abuse he heaped on Oscar? The way he dismissed the pretender from Man City? How he embarrassed Cotto?  But he was and is a nice soft-spoken dude, almost embarrassed by how badass he was. He showed a tone of badassitude.

Both guys walked through opponents like knives through butter. In their different ways, one brash, confident, often loud, and the other soft spoken and humble, they were both off the charts on the badassitude scale. The were venom to an opponent. Think of them as twin venomous serpents from a different mother. It came to pass that the only fight we really wanted to see and really want to see is  the fight between Floyd and the Pac Man. We all thought we would see this fight like now. Then what happens? We get 2 competing fights with semi no-names because the principals (methinks it’s more the punks who represent the principals) got into a silly pissing contest about who was may or might or was rumored to have used PEDs.

Prior to this silliness you couldn’t find 2 fighters with more badassitude. These boys were badasses and they knew it. It showed in everything they did. It showed in every way they carried themselves. It showed in their fights. It showed. It just showed. They had badassitude to spare. You could run a charity badassitude enterprise on their left overs.  Then, poof, just like that, they both punked out at the same time pretty much. They gave in to the pettiness (hint – pettiness drops your score on the badassitude scale), silliness (hint – silliness drops your score on the badassitude scale), stupidity (hint – stupidity drops your score on the badassitude scale – by a lot), bullshit (hint – bullshit drops your score on the badassitude scale), lying (hint – lying drops your score on the badassitude scale – below the floor).

We are watching the 2 best fighters on earth today contrive to sabotage potentially the biggest fight ever on earth and it boggles the mind. Completely boggles the mind!