#and then one day jon says he will fight some ridiculous opponent and if he wins... SANSA IS LET GO.

[sailorshadzter]

Prompt: Ancient! Rome AU: After the Starks were branded as traitors Sansa becomes a political hostage of emperor Joffrey and is expected to marry him, however her hatred for him increases each passing day as he forces her to watch the gory executions of her people in form of gladiator fights. One day a new gladiator enters the coliseum: it's Jon

id like to start out by saying i KNOW NOTHING of this time period LOL

but its always been a time period ive been interested in and someday when im not so obsessed with the tudor era in england, ill read about something else. tbh i kind of want to get some more info because as ive finished writing this piece, im entertaining the idea of continuing it. maybe just a part 2 because i have another idea! 

ANYWAYS. thanks for the request. i hope you enjoy :)  

ps. its set with the backstory of jon being a stark/targ, but rather than being raised among the starks, he’s raised among the night’s watch. 

send me prompts

Another day, another summons to join Joffrey in the stadium.

Sansa sighs but does her best to smile for the man in her doorway, for she knows any sense of displeasure would be told to the emperor without hesitation. The man, seemingly satisfied with her response, bows and backs out from the room, allowing the door to slam closed behind.

When she's alone, all of the fight leaves her and she sinks into the nearest chair, head in hands. Yet another day where she's to be forced to witness the gruesome violence that is the gladiator colosseum. Every drop of blood is a reminder of her father's execution, every hour spent in the crowd only more fuel for her nightmares. "My lady... perhaps you are feeling unwell this morning?" It's Shae, her ever loyal handmaiden, prompting her with an excuse she might use to get out of the day's events. But Sansa smiles for her lady and shakes her head, instead rising up from the chair. She is braver than that, than running away from what frightens her.

She might yet be betrothed to a tyrant, chained to a family that had the rest of her's murdered in cold blood... But she was a Stark, through and through, and though she was so very far from the North, she could feel the strength that her home offered. I am a Stark, she thinks as Shae begins to undress her from her nightgown, I am strong because I am a Stark.

She was a Stark and so she would be brave.

[ x x x ]

He can hear the crowd shouting, screaming, gasping.

The horror of it all, this gladiator colosseum , even for a seasoned soldier such as himself is tough to take. He's heard of it of course, even way up North in the midst of the Night's Watch, they know some of what goes on in the South. He's heard the rumors of the mad ruler Joffrey, who prefers violence to peace, who abuses the lowest of servants and most noble of knights. There is no one who is immune to the emperor's temper- save for maybe his mother, the golden haired Lannister queen who ruled alongside his father for many of the last twenty years.

Suddenly, the crowd is roaring and Jon feels his stomach turn over. A moment later, the door that leads out into the stadium flies open and before anyone can speak, he knows what's happening. "Your turn." A gruff voice says a moment before he's shoved out the door and into the sunlight.

All around him, eyes are staring down at him; they scream and they stomp their feet, eager to see the blood bath continue on. In front of him, Jon meets gazes with his opponent, an undefeated mountain of a man, who's chest is smeared with blood that is most certainly not his own. Jon gulps. He's skilled enough of a fighter, but against this brute seems impossible. And from the state of the battefield, from the rumors of this man's strength... Jon has to wonder if this will be his end. After everything he's seen, after everything that he's done... This is where it all will come to and end.

From where she sits beside Joffrey in the emperor's box, Sansa sees the newest recruit come out into the stadium center. Her breath catches in her throat- she's seen hair like that before and it certainly wasn't there in the South. Beside Joffrey, ser Merryn leans in to speak to him. "From the North," he says, shooting a sidelong glance at the young woman seated beside the emperor. Sure enough, as Sansa had thought, this was a man from the North, from her home. But how, she wonders, watching the man as he squares up in front of Joffrey's champion, the Mountain, how has a Northern man ended up here?

"Ah, one of those black crows, eh?" Joffrey asks, green eyes flashing with danger in the sunlight. "Do you know him, sweet lady?" His eyes are upon her instead and for a moment, she freezes. "He looks like your traitor father." Joffrey goes on, gesturing towards the gladiator that now raises a sword as the battle prepares to begin. "But all your traitor brothers are dead, so I imagine it's just another piss poor criminal from Wintertown." Joffrey turns away from her then, back to facing the fight that's just begun.

[ x x x ]

One more swing, one more!

He's pushing himself, harder and further than he's ever pushed himself before. For the first time in all his life, he's thankful for his short stature, giving him ample opportunity over the beast of a man he's facing. Where the man is slow, Jon is quick. His agile movements are too much for him and Jon knows by the end of the third round that if he gets the right chance, he might actually survive.

Now it's the sixth round and Jon knows the final moment must come.

And so he puts it all into this last swing- a quick upper cut movement that catches the Mountain off guard- and for the several moments after he lands back on his feet, Jon isn't certain he's managed to pull it off. But then he glances at his sword- it's stained crimson and dripping. Behind him, he hears the man stagger and then, the crowd goes silent as he falls to his knees and then to the ground. Dead.

Then... The crowd erupts.

[ x x x ]

It's no more than a few minutes when he's approached by the man in charge of the gladiators and another man, well dressed and fair-haired. "You, boy." The gladiator barks, catching Jon's attention where he stands, mid-wiping the blood from his hands. "Come with us."

"To where?" Jon asks, dark gaze sharper than his voice. "I was told if I won I would have my freedom back." He only longs to return North, to find Ghost and live out his days in a place where no one might ever find him.

"And your freedom you shall have," the second man speaks, his green eyes bright in the sunlight that streams in through the nearby open window. "As winner in the stadium, you have the great honor of meeting our emperor." He continues, gesturing for him to take a left down the corridor and towards a door that leads up a set up stairs, which sure enough as he climbs up them Jon can hear the emperor's harsh laughter.

Stepping through the doorway, Jon is lead across the way to where the emperor sits, but it is not the man that catches Jon's interest first. Rather, it is a young woman with hair a shade of vibrant red that seems quite out of sorts among these blonde and brunette southerners. He's seen that shade of hair color before, a Tully born boy who had once joined the ranks of the Night's Watch had hair of the same shade. But beyond the color of her hair... She was beautiful. So beautiful that when she turns to face him, the breath is stolen from his lungs. Her eyes are clear and blue, but lovely as they might be, he finds their gaze to be sad, the eyes of a woman lost.

"So you've defeated my champion."

The sharp voice belongs to the emperor, who Jon has quite honestly forgotten was there. He turns to face the man instead, though he's hesitant to tear his gaze from the lovely woman at his side. "Aye, so I have." Jon replies, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug. "It was that or die. I preferred the first option." For a second, there is only silence, until Joffrey lets out a laugh that startles those around them.

"A jester are you, crow?" Joffrey takes a step closer to where Jon stands and it's only then that Jon notices the striking resemblance between him and the man that had led him up to where he stands now. "You would make a far better champion." Now Jon knows where this is going. "I can make you a wealthy man, far wealthier than your meager coins made in the ranks of the crows." He's offering him a choice- to stay and be his new champion of the gladiator colosseum , or... "Or you may go, it is the law of the colosseum and I am a man of my word." Beside him, the young woman flinches, but it is so quick that Jon is certain he's the only one who's noticed. "But be my champion, I will give you all the wealth you could dream of."

For what feels like a lifetime, Jon stands there, silent and still. Only moments ago, his answer had been strong, had been absolute. But now that he stands there in the presence of this young woman, something is nagging at him. Something about her is calling out to him and despite it all, he wants to heed her call. He doesn't even know her name, but with that single glance, she's set fire to his heart and soul.

And so, he nods; he will be the emperor's new champion.

[shieldofrohan]

Thanks for the reply 😊 . I read the books after binging the show during the pandemic and after finishing I was a bit put off by the characterisation of Tyrion and Arya . I expected them to be the characters looking most forward to reading after I binged the show considering they were touted as his favourites. Instead I found their arcs in each respective book could have been truncated by one fourths and nothing would lose.

Another thing was the prose. Grrm's strength is prose and I found it the weakest in these two POV characters. It's hilarious that he spends so much time with these 2 yet I found the prose of their less favoured counterparts ( Sansa, Cersei) , Cat and Bran ( who gets so much less page time for a protagonist of his stature) more engaging.

Hello Anon,

Let’s look at this:

This table kind of shows why Martin is struggling with finishing the books.

But before that let’s talk about what you said first.

Yes, when you see Martin talking so highly about these two, you expect them to be special. Most of the fandom loves these two too. WHY? Because just like Martin, they have no taste (I’m only half joking…).

I often wonder does Martin think that he did some with an evil and smart dwarf and and tomboy girl who likes killing people? LoL. Let’s not be so harsh.

Tbf, Martin’s dwarf is not so far away from the cartoonish dwarf characters in the literature:

In A Song of Ice and Fire, "dwarf" is a medical condition, not a species (in other words, like Real Life), making it a case of Our Dwarves are Different. However, the only really prominent one, Tyrion Lannister, manages to nail most of the traits pretty well. He fights surprisingly fiercely with axes and crossbows, grows something you could call a beard, makes a big deal about Casterly Rock and its gold mines being his rightful inheritance, drinks heavily, has trouble controlling his temper, holds grudges like nobody else, mistakes a female dwarf for a male one, and gets snuck past the wall of a merchant's mansion in a barrel...

[source]

Evil, greedy, smart and bitter dwarf is not sth new in literature. What makes Asoiaf different from other fantasy series is its POV characters which are psychologically examined. So we can get into the minds of these POVs. Therefore we understand why Tyrion is like this. But other than that there isn’t much brand new here.

I understand why Tyrion is Martin’s favourite character. Martin loves writing grey characters and Tyrion was the first gray POV we met in the books. Before him other POVs were not very gray... they were normal, mostly good people (Dany shows her true colors later in the first book, but first she was a poor girl in an awful situation). Tyrion doesn’t hold back about his dark desires like wanting to burn his sister alive in the beginning of the AGOT. So from the start he was THE grey character.

We see that Tyrion is the character with most PoVs. And this is not so surprising considering he is in the middle of many plots. BUT some of his POVs were not that necessary and they are too character-oriented aka too much about Tyrion and Tyrion alone. This wouldn’t be tiring if Asoiaf wasn’t a multi-character series.

Another thing that bothers me about this that: only few characters (like Tyrion) have this privilege. Tyrion is allowed to express his bitter feelings about his father and sister or the abuse he endured but another main character Sansa is not. Sansa’s bitter feelings towards her father about him favoring her misbehaved sister are always in subtext and after his death… Sansa doesn’t even think about this… suddenly Ned is redeemed even though he was the reason of many of her misfortunes.

Or Sansa’s trauma with Sandor/Tyrion/Littlefinger etc are sometimes (!) just passing comments. Sansa is bitter about them for one sentence and in the next she feels sorry for them or worse she whitewashes them (we can argue that this happens because she is a nice young girl but let her be angry and bitter selfishly against abusers once in a while .. because your readers are stupid Martin…).

I mean, Martin really made her think marrying Tyrion again would be better than marrying a sick innocent little boy Robin…

Sansa felt sorry for her little cousin sometimes, but she could not imagine ever wanting to be his wife. I would sooner be married to Tyrion again.

A Storm of Swords - Sansa

I know Martin wants to ride Tyrion’s dick very much but no girl would ever think this about their molester - we might say that she wasn’t aware of the danger that Tyrion meant for her but in text we know that Tyrion molested her and was desiring her (and Sansa was aware of this) or maybe we can say she is away from Tyrion threat so she just rambles without meaning it but again NO little girl would ever want to be in the same room with some older pervert who touched her breast with hungry eyes.  

So my point is if Tyrion is allowed to whine then so should Sansa (I am talking about Sansa because she is my fav but you can choose another character). Let her be bitter about her dad, her brother Robb who did nothing to save her, her abusers without hiding the PTSD in subtext (like her Unkiss is a way of dealing with trauma and her screaming how Sandor assaulted her but these are hidden in subtext- And I have already criticized Martin for hiding trauma in subtext or not exploring at all).

BUT this would require more Sansa chapters and we can’t have them apparently. I am still holding on the possibility that Martin will focus on more characters like Bran and Sansa in the next two books (they are future king and queen but so far they have the least chapters) and maybe then he can have my praise.

About Arya… she REALLY doesn’t need that many chapters. You could cut half of her chapters and nothing would change. Unlike in the case with Tyrion, I can’t find a reason why she has so many chapters. But I know that Martin loves writing her (your local tour guide girl) so this is all about author’s pleasure.

First I thought maybe it was because he wanted to show how realm is suffering because of high lords’ war but we get that from Brienne’s POVs too. So what was the reason? I think Martin could have told everything with less Arya chapters but it’s his choice I guess… She bored me to death but if people are ok with these unnecessary chapters, I am happy for them but I find it ridiculous.

So we could be happier with less Tyrion and Arya chapters but every author favors his specific characters so I guess we have to deal with it.

You are so right about how Cersei, Sansa, Cat and BRAN (Asoiaf is HIS story! He is THE PROTAGONIST) are much more interesting and their chapters are much more engaging. I think Cersei suffers a little because of being Tyrion’s opponent (Martin paints Cersei as a very dark character and it makes you think that maybe Martin tries to make reader root for Tyrion?) but her chapters are really good and things HAPPEN.

I really want to praise Martin with Cat’s POVs. His choice of telling the war via her POVs is one of the things that I love about Martin’s writing (I enjoy many of his choices but I am very vocal about his errors too- but I will always defend him when it’s due and I LOVE CAT!)

About Bran… I know that Bran is the hardest POV for Martin but I think he manages to write him well- I like Bran POVs. But in my opinion, this hardship prevents him writing more Bran chapters. My dear boy has the least PoVs and this is sad.

This is also a problem because he is the protagonist but he was given the least attention. Most of the readers care about Tyrion/Arya/Jon/Dany more than they care about Bran.

And in the show we saw that this became a problem when Bran ended his story. People didn’t care about him and didn’t find his ending satisfying, they even started to see him as a villain. In the show it was mostly D&D’s fault for cutting Bran out of the story and making him a robot but Martin has also a long way to fix this in his books too. So far (and we are talking about 5 books!!) Bran looks like a mystic side character.

I understand that Martin can’t keep things fast and open when it comes to Bran because he has the power to spoil all characters and plots but if Martin won’t fix this in TWOW and ADOS… this will cause a BIG PROBLEM.. (also all my Bran thoughts apply to Sansa and her situation, too.)

So all these PoVs and their chapter numbers problem must be affecting Martin’s progress with TWOW. He has to cut things short with so many characters and he has to give more attention to some characters that he hadn’t done before. This is challenging but I have hope that he’ll manage it eventually.

Thanks for the ask. Have a nice day.

[zambie-trashart]

Riposte: Rewritten Series

This is another one that I had help from @loveswifi too bad she doesn’t actually know what’s about to go down.

Read the while series

Summary: A new girl with a competitive spirit might cause some secrets about Damian’s life to spill. Will Damian be able to keep his past life a secret or will this new girl make everything a touch more complex?

.................................

Marinette walked through the entrance of the school as her phone went off. It was a text from Jon.

-Sorry I can’t make it to tryouts Grandma is sick and my dad is on a mission up in space and won’t be back for a week, I have to look out for her until my mom can get back. Good luck, text me if you need me!

“Great, so Jon can’t help me talk to Damian from the sidelines!” Marinette said freaking out a little.

“You’ll do great Marinette, Robin said that you’re learning very fast, you can totally impress Damian!” Tikki said from Marinette’s purse. She walked into the school and got some gear and saw four other people that were going to try out with her.

They were partnered up and Marinette looked around sighing. 

“Seems like you’re looking for someone,” the person across from her said following her head.

“Yeah, I thought Damian was going to be here,” Marinette said lowing her head and Damian pulled up his mask.

“Maybe you should get glasses like Jon, might help you see what’s right in front of you, go on sword up,” Damian said flicking his mask back down. “Go on, you’re supposed to try to touch me Marinette,” Damian added and Marinette laughed at his frustration.

She put her sword up and did a good job blocking but no so much on the attacking part. She used some of the maneuvers that Robin taught her. Damian eyed the way that she moved using certain tactics that were only taught to League members and the ones that he taught to... she couldn’t be.

“Excuse me but practice has already started,” D’Argentcourt said looking down at someone dressed in red.

They were told to fence with Damian who was the best in the class. They fought and they tied two times. The machines were removed and the fight went everywhere. It was like watching two trained professionals. It was like watching two Robins.

Marinette followed thinking the person in red could have been Robin. The round had ended but Marinette couldn’t tell who touched first.

“Who did it, who touched first?” D’Argentcourt asked and Damian and the other looked curious too.

“Damian?” Marinette said unsure of herself. The other marched out in anger and Damian picked up their sword and ran after them.

Kagami was upset, all she wanted to do was beat Damian, if she beat Damian then her mother would get off of her tail about rejoining the League of Assassins. 

“I’m sorry mother but I could not beat him, you can tell Talia that I will be back for training in twenty-four hours,” Kagami said into her phone. Damian had run out of the building and saw Kagami.

“Kagami? Even after all these years, you still can’t resist a challenge, I bet you’re telling mother where I am right now,” Damian said throwing Kagami’s sword and she picked it up before a black butterfly flew into it akumatizing her.

Marinette ran outside and saw Damian standing in front of a newly akumatized Kagami.

“I am Riposte and Damian, you will have a rematch with me so I may be free from my mother!” Riposte yelled and Damian’s eyes widened as he dodged her first attack and she was kicked from the side by another opponent.

“Did I do good?” Chat said pulling Damian behind him. “You don’t have to hurt others to get freedom and what does Mr. Grumpy here have to do with your freedom?” Chat asked and she got back up charging at him again. “On second thought, we probably shouldn’t stick around too long,” Chat added grabbing Damian and launching into the air.

.................................

Riposte followed the two boys were ever they went and it was getting a little ridiculous. Ladybug dropped in with her phone to her ear.

“Yes it’s an emergency! It’s your friend who’s in trouble!” Ladybug hung up the phone and grabbed Damian. “Keep her occupied,” Ladybug said to Chat as she pulled Damian away to ind a good hiding place.

“You are not allowed to call it quits! Damian is mine!” Riposte yelled trying to run after them but was blocked by Chat’s baton.

“We’re not quite done here yet,” Chat said winking at her before pulling his baton back and swinging it like a bat hitting her square in the chest knocking her back.

“You are going to regret that,” Riposte said going to attack him.

.................................

Ladybug walked over to a coffin for mummies and asked Damian to get inside.

“I don’t need to hide from her, she won’t really hurt me,” Damian said refusing to get into the coffin. Chat went flying across the room after being hit by Riposte.

“Thank you for leading me to them,” Riposte said smirking and standing on Chat’s chest. Ladybug pushed Damian behind her and swung her yoyo making a shield.

“Where are you Superboy?” Ladybug asked herself and two seconds later, there was a huge boom and the caped boy stood behind Riposte and tapped on her shoulder.

“Wha...” Riposte was cut off with a blow to her chin that made her go flying into the air.

“This is what I get for taking a day off huh?” Superboy asked helping Chat up.

“Oh please, can we just capture her akuma and get this over with?” Ladybug asked and the others nodded. Ladybug used her lucky charm and got a radiator.

Superboy grabbed it and charged at Riposte and trying to defend herself, she got her sword hand stuck in the radiator and Superboy kicked her arm and it snapped releasing the akuma. She was transformed back to normal.

.................................

Kagami waited outside of the Louvre for her car.

“You still have a close relationship with your mother huh?” Damian asked putting a hand on Kagami’s shoulder.

“At least I can still talk to mine, I’m trying to leave the League while I still have a chance like you did,” Kagami said looking up at Damian disappointed in herself.

“Good, I don’t have to be a soldier and you don’t have to either,” Damian said trying to be nice to her.

“At least our parents aren’t trying to force us together like when we were younger,” Kagami pointed out bringing up their arranged marriage from when the were younger.

“I was trying to have a nice moment, way to ruin it,” Damian said rolling his eyes and Kagami got into her car laughing at him.

Marinette hid behind a statue and Jon was listening for her.

“So, what did they say?” Marinette asked pulling on Jon’s flannel that he was forced to wear back in Kansas.

“He’ll tell you himself when he’s ready,” Jon said winking at his cousin before running over to Damian jumping on his back making his friend fall over in shock.

“KENT!” Damian yelled.

“He’ll tell me when he’s ready, does that mean... he likes me?” Marinette asked herself smiling. “He likes me!” 

.................................

Jon Protection Squad:

@loveswifi @ash-amg @wannajointhecrabcult @mochegato @toodaloo-kangaroo

[the-loststone]

GoT & SW

Really I’m just reiterating stuff a lot of people already know about the problems with season 8 of Game of Thrones. But anyway...

I’ve compared Daenerys and Anakin before, quite a few times actually, because of their ultimate downfall from sympathetic sweetheart to dark character. 

There are many differences between the characters however, and a lot of it comes down to how they were framed. I am free to love Anakin as the dramatic trash character that he is. He is the bad guy; the moment of redemption doesn’t negate the years he spent pushing the galaxy into darkness. His good deeds before his turn don’t outweigh the bad deeds as Darth Vader. But Daenerys is more complicated... 

One of the main failings that the show came across is how they framed them. 

Both Anakin and Daenerys were shown through the point of view of people they loved and that loved them. For Anakin, he was shown through the perspective of Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Padme, Shmi, and the people that he saved, along with his own point of view. Along with her own view point, Daenerys was shown through the perspective of the slaves she saved, Missandei, Grey Worm, Jorah, and such. The main difference is this: the perspectives of those who stood against Anakin and Daenerys. 

For Anakin, the obvious tension is with the Jedi council. Now, as the audience, we always knew that Anakin was going to fall. So any tension that the Jedi had with Anakin, any disapproval or distrust was warranted according to the audience (but not according to Anakin). If someone had a reason to dislike Anakin, the audience knew to listen to their concerns because they knew Anakin would fall. Special attention was paid to those moments. The opposition was framed correctly and the audience accepted it. We knew from the start Anakin was trash, and we loved him despite it. 

Daenerys is different because the audience didn’t expect it. The show intentionally wanted to subvert expectations so they buried the perspectives against Dany. Of course, most of Daenerys opponents were slavers or pricks, so painting them as sympathetic is difficult. But anytime there was a confrontation with someone who had legitimate concerns with Daenerys, it was framed in such a way to only see her side and her argument. Her victories were shown as through she was triumphing evil. Anakin on the other hand doesn’t have these moments (at least not quite as often). Even though he was also fighting bad guys, such as the Sith, it was still iffy whenever he won. The audience is wary anytime he is victorious because it is framed in such a way that he has a little too much bloodlust, or his view point is arguably wrong and pushing him further to the dark side. For Daenerys, every victory the audience sees her being pushed further into the light, as righteous. It doesn’t frame the bloodlust or the problematic aspects of her victory as something the audience should be overly concerned about. The show deliberately pushed it down and didn’t focus on it. 

Which is why S8 was so hated. Because suddenly they were bringing it up (although in an unorganized and rushed way) and the audience was supposed to understand. 

One of the reasons Sansa is so reviled is because she doesn’t like Daenerys. It isn’t something she hides, she’s completely transparent about it. But Daenerys has only ever been disliked by characters that had been evil, or wrong, or in some way framed to seem terrible to her. So as an audience, people react to Daenerys as being the opposite of them and thus, good. And therefore, Sansa not liking Daenerys means she is wrong and evil and manipulative... 

And using Sansa was deliberate too. Sansa was always a controversial character for the audience. She was hated by a lot of people... mostly for sexist and misogynistic reasons but that’s a whole other rant... and so by making her the voice to oppose Daenerys was to make her even more hated and to continue to subvert expectation regarding Daenerys’ downfall. According to the audience, Sansa is not the Jedi council. The Jedi had real reasons to be wary of Anakin; how overemotional he is, his dramatics, his power, his anger, and most importantly, the fact that the audience knew he was going to the dark side. Sansa on the other hand was not framed in such a way that sympathized her to the audience; they didn’t see her desire for Northern independence (despite the fact that it was something she had wanted and rooted for since season 2) as legitimate or a reason for her to be wary of Daenerys. 

Now why use Sansa at all? Why not use another character? Well, because Sansa, Cersei and Daenerys are each foils of each other. And using Cersei is ridiculous. Cersei had been cast as the villain from day 1. It would be like using the Sith against Anakin. The audience knows the Sith is evil, just like the audience knows Cersei is a villain. Anakin would become a Sith that launched the galaxy into a darkness never before seen; he did terrible things that no other Sith was able to achieve. Likewise, in Daenerys’ fall, she did things that Cersei wasn’t capable of. Sansa was flawed but she wasn’t pushing kids out of towers and burning people trapped in a building or having women raped by the Mountain. In Star Wars, it is also canon that the Jedi council is flawed. Not Sith evil, but flawed. 

And most importantly, the audience was prepared for Anakin, they were not prepared for Daenerys. And it’s nothing to do with content. There was enough content that could have shown Dany’s fall (not as much as the books but...). It has everything to do with framing. The point of view we are looking at makes all the difference. If we had been in the perspective of the citizens during Daenerys’ return to Meereen in season 6, it would have been a very similar view to season 8′s sack of Kingslanding. But again, the show deliberately didn’t show it to us. 

And so it is the characters that really drive the narrative for how to view Anakin and Daenerys.  

One of the reasons Anakin is so lovable, even knowing his fall, is because we see him from the point of view of the people that love him. Obi-Wan means so much to the audience, and we know he is a great character. If he loves Anakin that means something, even if we don’t get to see Anakin’s shining qualities often. Padme is brilliant and intelligent and a badass. She falls in love with the socially awkward “I don’t like sand” dumbass and we say okay, we love him too. The perspectives did most of the work for people to love Anakin. 

Daenerys is loved and admired and respected and obsessed over by so many characters. To see it suddenly stop was jarring. Even for Anakin it didn’t stop. Even when Anakin fell, Obi-Wan and Padme still loved him. But for Daenerys, the moment she fell it was framed so that loving her seemed condemnable. The fact that Jon is capable of killing her is celebrated. Obi Wan was incapable of killing Anakin; it was a heart breaking moment where the audience saw just how much he loved him. For Jon to be able to do kill Dany speaks to the fact that perhaps he didn’t really love her. It’s a confusing moment for so many people. (Also because Jon was terribly used the entire season and no one really had any sympathy for him until he finally got his shit together and killed Daenerys.) So again, framing of the characters perspectives was so important. 

I could go on to talk about all the flaws of framing. I think one thing that kills me the most is that even though the Star Wars prequels had terrible dialogue for the most part, the plot was brilliant and everything was executed to perfection, especially that ending. Meanwhile in season 8 of Game of Thrones was like punch me in the face, what the fuck was that. I mean, the cast did the best they could with whatever the fuck that was, and hats off, of course, to the crew. But come on with that writing. I mean plot wise, it could have moved so much better. They had an adequate, acceptable, dare I say, even good (at times) plot. What the ever loving fuck was the writing though. 

I got to get over this. 

[dynamitesunshine]

Jon’s Toku Thoughts: Gekisou Sentai CarRanger

Fighting for Traffic Safety! I marathoned through CarRanger so fast because I really wanted to watch it. I was not disappointed I could not stop watching it and it was all I wanted to watch all day. It was soooooooooo amazing and fun. Each episode felt memorable because of all the craziness going on between the CarRangers, SignalMan, Dapp, or the Bowzock. By the end of it I loved everyone. The ending was freaking brilliant and unique; something that only really worked because of the characters of CarRanger. Naoki and Natsumi were my favorites of the series in the beginning by the end of it it was the entire team and SignalMan, Dapp, and VRV Master. 

Naoki is my favorite male Blue Ranger ever (tying Yakumo right now maybe slightly edging him out.) I saw a lot of myself in him from being a designer, worrying what my friends think, willing to go to great lengths to protect people in need, loving and wanting to protect animals, figuring things out, and more. I also enjoyed his fighting style with his kicks, his intelligence, and his blasters. The Police Fighter was also my favorite VRV Machine and Dragon Cruiser is amazing too. 

Natsumi is my favorite female Yellow Ranger, she was just strong, determined, and kicked ass; also that she was the mechanic was great too. Her personality stood out and she was a great fighter; she also believed in people too. I just loved the episode where the little girl was lying all the time but no one would believe her except Natsumi because she went through something similar and it helped stop the Bowzock. Also, it helped inspire the little girl too. I enjoyed her episode with her back story of why she became a mechanic too. She just has a lot of heart. 

Kyosuke has to be the craziest Red I’ve seen and that is very tough with seeing Kai, King, Takaharu, and Lucky lately; he ties as my favorite Red with GaoRed and TyrannoRanger too. He was an amazing leader and inspired his team many times and helped inspire Zonette which helped a lot in the end. His plot with Zonette was fantastic and hilarious especially when he fought as Kyosuke and not Red Racer and defeated a Bowzock. 

Minoru is something else, I went from not entirely liking him to loving the hell out of him by the end; I think it was because he reminded me a bit too much of some of my negative traits and that I relate to him pretty close as well. Still his compassion, belief in his friends, strength and wackiness made him an enjoyable character. I mean a guy who gets over his fear of lightning by eating Electric Eel is something else. I would put him in my top 5 Greens honestly. 

Yoko unlike some other pinks in some series actually has a character I mean sure she is your girly girl, that likes shopping but she did the accounting at Pegasus working with the Expenses and Finances so she wasn’t dumb by any means and fought to help restore the Imo King so he could be back with his wife. She really cares about everyone and totally wrecks the Bowzock when they piss her off. She is something else and I would say in my top favorite Pinks too. 

SignalMan is wonderful, I was completely blown away by how ridiculous, badass, and silly he was. I love how he would say You can’t _______ without my permission and it was a multitude of things. He grew a lot during the season and even with him being out for part of the season with him returning to his home planet it leads to a great storyline and he just leaves a great impression on you. I loved the episode where they use the Traffic Rules against him and he needs to break free from his own teachings to fight back against the enemy. Honestly, this was a great use of the Extra Hero rather than the 6th Ranger in Sentai. I felt that him helping out and having a common enemy worked better than the last few sixth rangers in Sentai at the time. (Though I have only seen DragonRanger and KibaRanger who got shafted a lot in their respective shows).   

The Support characters are all amazing, Dapp was one of my favorite mentors ever because he had a bond with the team, helped support them in battle, inspire the team, and wasn’t afraid to smack one of them lol. VRV Master was hilariously awesome and I liked how they played the mystery of who he was. Radietta was hilarious and I loved the Magical Girl/White Racer aspect of her. 

The Bowzock were amazing villains, I loved them all they had funny and fantastic characters. Zelmoda is probably my favorite of them I mean that he overcame his fear of lightning because of friendship with Gynamo was amazing. He was also very threatening and a tough opponent. Grotch was silly but also great with his inventions and figuring out that the Imo-Yokan made them grow giant. Gynamo was great he was threatening but just a bit of softy when it came to Zonette, also that he was smart in the end too. Zonette was interesting she had a lot of things going on but it was interesting to see her work things out. Professor Ritchihiker was amazing and helped lead the Bowzock into more villainous territory. He was probably the biggest villain in the beginning when he joins the Bowzock, and he was pretty successful in his takeover of the Bowzock too. 

Exhaus was something else, he is probably one of my favorite Sentai villains because of his motives that are very different than most of the other villains and that is just wonderful. Also, that he was very calculated and planned a lot of things from the start in the background made him an amazing villain. 

Both the RV Robo and the VRV Robo are two of my favorite Giant Robos ever because of how badass they are and this series had fantastic Giant Monster fights which have kind of been lacking in some Sentai. The VRV Fighters are some of my favorite Mecha ever probably because of the usefulness of their transforming ability. I also love their weapons from the ViBlades, the Auto Blaster, The Giga Formula (Especially the individual weapons of this). Hell everything about this series I love even the suits. I also loved their abilities they got when transformed too. 

Seeing the characters learn and grow as the fight against the Bowzock was wonderful and the ending of the series has to be one of my favorites. Since it’s coming out on DVD from Shout Factory or already came out I wanted to be as spoiler-free as I could. 

This is definitely one of my favorite Sentai’s ever. Tied with Kyoryuger and MagiRanger.  It’s one of the most fun Sentai’s ever too.

[emeryst]

➰ ( PARK JIMIN, DEMIMALE, HE/THEY ) *✧.:°░｡ —- is that EMERY STEELE?! you know them, right? they are the 227 year old SEELIE !! they’re known for being WHIMSICAL & COMPOSED - but i'd be careful if i were you because they’re also SHREWD & EGOTISTICAL.

*peeks in* hello it is I, ghost of the past here again. asdnf ok for whoever even remembers my very brief venture into this rp with this muse um sorry for disappearing life kicked me in the ass but here’s for round two!! ;; I’m actually superrr excited to get to do stuff with Em and yall pls come plot uwu

I’m gonna keep introductions to minimum-- I go by Fany, 26 years young, she/her most likely playing overwatch if you don’t hear back from me for a while. constantly melting from this damn heat my last 1.5 brain cells are doing their best O K

that’s good right.

.

.

.

yes.

so.

I’ll work on pages as we go don’t @me 

I’ve revamped this muse juuuust a tiny bit. here’s what you should know

looks 22 he’s stubborn and clings to youthfulness. sue him

tbh partially also bc people keep underestimating him and. that works to his advantage oops

goes by ‘em’ sometimes, or if you fancy using that to emery he honestly doesn’t care. some may only know him as ‘gemma’ but more on that later..

most important thing perhaps is to make it clear that emery is by no means his real name ( neither is steele ), nor the only one he has taken to using over the years, simply one he’s settled for currently. for the past, oh, 90 or so years anyway

no one knows his real name beside his mom, and the seelie queen I would assume. unless there’s a seelie ( or even a merperson ) who was around when he was residing in the faerieland

speaking of, he was born in the faerie realm and lived there for the first 20 years of his life with his mom ( 1790-1810+ )

never saw his dad much, for reasons I’m not disclosing here other than the man being an unseelie & involved in some shady dealings >_>

mom wanted to move back to korea where she had lived part of her life, naturally emery followed along mostly just to help her settle down and to see what it was like, ever the curious soul

she got her hands on some land and started a small business making lavish traditional clothes which ended up getting her a hefty sum of money over the years, while he was mostly helping and doing his own things on the side, going cross country for mundane as well as seelie business.

spent some good 30 years there before he decided to start travelling across globe. which is more or less what he been doing since then, not settling down for more than a max 10 years at a time really. now he’s been living in wilshire for a good 2 years

I don’t want to name a specific timeline for where he’s been when cause yo if anyone wants to plot something that happened in the past in whatever country/city, I’m down! mostly boy’s been in europe tho. that said he has been in wilshire before too occasionally so a past plot based around the city could be done ( as long as it’s some 30+ years into past )

oh ye he’s LOADED

how he’s maintained that is another thing. from early age he’s been extremely interested in gemstones and their qualities and all that, how pretty you could polish them & adding his own magic into the mix he begun experimenting with making sort of charms out of them in the form of jewellery and soon found a genuine passion in the craftsmanship ( mean he went to work as a proper apprentice for years and all, under different people too ) and he’s amassed a pretty nice following of people who vouch for his ‘product’ being of highest quality and materials. or at the very least have heard of him by the name ‘gemma’. we’re talking of a sort of legacy garnered along 150 years of him doing this so.

word has gotten around within the downworlders circles as much shadowhunters, everything is custom made so you wont be able to just say oh I want this kind of thing and expect him to have it on the go oh no. it would take minimum 2 weeks. and he’s a strict perfectionist so even if you were fine with him applying some shortcuts while crafting pride alone would have him refuse

first of all you have to get in contact with him, which is harder than it should be these days since he’s not exactly advertising, though has been giving out business cards to select few cause they’re fun. so unless you specifically know him as the jewellery/charm maker ‘gemma’ honestly your best bet is to ask around the shadow market and someone might direct you to him

in addition to all that, he’s made a name for himself in the mundane world too by having lines of jewellery sold in boutiques all over for the last 30+ years. rumour is he’s retired - which is true - but nothing’s confirmed cause he’s an ass

no one knows it’s emery tho now cause with that whole thing he heavily altered his looks as well as what name he slapped on that entire thing when handling business. as far as mundanes know ‘jon kim’ has disappeared off the face of earth and he ain’t doing a thing to prove otherwise

ok so

lives close enough to wilshire in this huge ass 5 bedroom house legit cost him nearly 3 million oops

but listen, he needs the space for work ( has one room just for that ) and other stuff and a decent sized yard for gardening cause he’s growing all kinds of flowers & shit. some illegal but shh

actually no he legit has a whole lot of stuff some warlocks might need so ring him up aye. nothing comes free tho jsyk ;)

also may or may not have subtle glamours and all kinds of wards set around the property but don’t you worry about those

likes his peace and quiet too but is a highly sociable person. lives off gossip no lie. mostly bc he just borED

loves going out and just having fun with people in general, experiencing new things and sights, taking in the nature etc

does still visit the faerieland often enough to know what’s happening over there, though he’s a little removed from the inner circle of the seelies’. beside visits to the queen. he yet remains loyal to her and their people regardless how close or not he is to them now ( no but give him a seelie friendo someone pls ;w; )

he actually has come back to that realm several times over the years and in between travels, usually when there’s a war going on in the mundane world and he’s just. not in the damn mood to deal with that

now he’s also just. kinda unbothered by bloodshed?? doesn’t like participating personally but has witnessed enough in his lifetime it doesn’t really phase him

sometimes to the point of being unnerving like

during these past events/plot drops you bet he’s the one in a corner still sipping a drink and watching it all go down with mild interest, and annoyance bc thanks for ruining the party. again. wont lift a finger to help either. until there’s a weapon pointed at own face. in which case better start praying.

will prob try to stare them down first bc excuse you want me to ruin this outfit you absolute heathen

see he’s been trained to fight too although he’s def not the best among faerie kind but can hold his own. it’s less of fighting more just whole lotta evading and letting his opponent tire themselves out like an idiot. bc that’s more fun

actually has no problem with seeing the clave burn down. might be aiding in that in the shadows ( has some.. questionable connections ) but like. not. directly. not in anyway that could ever be traced to him anyway

doesn’t necessarily want an all out war tho. that’d be just a hassle but he’s tIRED of shadowhunters and their righteous asses and superior attitudes. will still play nice with them ( most of the time.. some of the time. ) cause gotta keep up appearances and hey the more allies he can make the better

doesn’t have much of a problem with other downworlders. might clown them but means no ill I promise. had one nasty run in with a small group of vampires in europe back in the day which at the time left him on the verge of death and kind of shaken over the whole ordeal so. gets stupid tense when there’s more than two vampires in the same room

he’s the kind who acts being ( tentative ) friends with most everyone who he meets but no one really knows him. very guarded about his past & secrets and keeps everyone at an arms length, tho it might not feel like he’s doing that cause. yeah. it’s not out of ill will or anything. well, most of the time. he’s just careful over who to blindly trust– which is no one

likes messing with people but can be kind too. it all depends what mood he in and what energy you giving him

not exactly charitable, with money or anything but if you need help he most likely will agree to lend a hand. tho again, may not be for free

deep deep down wishes he could trust people, even one person enough to just be real with them and open and shit but also is well aware how dangerous that could be so. chooses not to act on those impulses of affection or whatever when they rise. tries not to at least

pansexual as hell. also stupidly picky so good luck with that

doesn’t do relationships anymore *addareyousureaboutthatgifhere* but who knows. prefers to keep it casual if anything does come to fruition either way

probably has a handful of enemies cause uh. kinda may have stabbed some people in the back along the way but in his defence they totally deserved it so. meh.

ANIMAL LOVER. THEY CAN DO NO WRONG.

a hoe for quality fashion don’t even get me started. his style itself is all over he place but if emery is wearing it, safe to assume it cost a fortune

needless to say he wears a ridiculous amount of jewellery too most of the time you can hear him coming a mile away. avid fan of arm bracelets

as most seelies he also has a tattoo on his face. lets just, pretend it looks something akin to the shadow curving down his cheek an trailing along left side of neck and further down collarbones in this pic aight

tho a lot of the times it would be at least partially covered by makeup, which he uses regularly anyway

has a weird obsession with the ocean, and by proxy the merpeople so any of you guys out there hmu

tech-savvy. has all the latest stuff. also plays computer/console games cause why not, mundanes never cease to amaze him with their creations. not that he’s necessarily all that good but it’s for fun who cares

kinda all around restless and needs something going on at all times, even if it’s reading a book, attending to the garden, any small things

for him the whole bond thing seemed intriguing as well as spelled trouble but emery’s all about that also he was deathly bored aight plus may have a personal mission to carry out and any chance to fuck with shadowhunters is tAKEN THANKS

bonded with @urslashdw :  the chaotic gays™

wasn’t too happy to know the bond would last longer than a couple weeks, but has turned that into an asset. well, as much as it can be one. totally using her as an excuse to get to snoop around and may or may not be mildly manipulative towards her and using the connection to own advantage when possible but. ya know. has grown attached as you do so is a little torn over it.

I’m stopping here jesus take the wheel thanks bye!

so ye if any of you wanted to plot come at me~ don’t have any proper pages up yet bc i’m tired and lazy just ask me if you wanna know something. seriously, I love rambling about my muse I promise it’s no problem at all

guess there’s a few roles I wouldn’t mind seeing filled so here’s a bullet point list if anyone gets an idea or wants to brainstorm specifics!

friends ( very broad term )

old friend/acquaintance ( someone he goes waaaay back with )

business acquaintance ( whatever it may be )

old flame ( could have ended on good or bad terms, should have taken place a good while ago. bonus points if they still have a piece of jewellery em made for them )

booty call ( for convenience sake :p )

enemies/frenemies ( i feel this is just him with most shadowhunters?????? maybe he betrayed/tricked you and you’re just endlessly bitter. but look, it’s your fault for trusting him at all. em probably feels bad about it now???? or just classic hating each other’s guts )

literally anything??!

actually gimme someone who was in europe during the whole vampire attack shenanigans and helped him out ( em would feel indebted. )

also someone who may also be okay with bringing down the clave and they lowkey vibing. but in secret.

idk man the messier the plot the louder i get for declaring my love for it so bring it babes~

also omg if I had a plot with you then you’d want to actually.. you know.. put in action now I’d be okay with that lmao

[myrish-lace-love]

Drunk and Disorderly

(I had to y’all.)

***

Jon needed to get drunk. Thoroughly, shit-faced drunk. And it was all Harry Hardyng’s fault. 

Jon opened the door to the bar with a bang. Nobody even glanced his way, which was perfect for his mood. The bar was an excellent choice too. Dark, seedy, a sticky floor and a crowd minding their own damn business. When he was in a stormy state of mind he knew how to pick right.

He poured his sad self onto a stool and flagged down the bartender.

Jon had been doing so well. He’d worked up the courage five times this week to ask his lovely co-worker, Sansa Stark, out on a date. After two bloody years of pining. 

Well, almost. He’d lost his nerve at the last minute each time. But today - today he had been ready to do it. He’d actually walked over to her desk.

Only to find a ridiculously outsized vase of red roses. Big enough to hide Sansa completely. And the obnoxious tag from Harry Hardyng - what kind of last name was that? - had read “Can’t wait to see you tonight.”

Sansa Stark had a fucking boyfriend, and Jon had a huge fucking crush to get over. 

Continue below or on AO3

The bartender finished wiping down the counter and slung a towel over his shoulder. He slid a napkin and a bowl of nuts over to Jon. “What’ll it be?”

“Whiskey,” Jon rasped. “Neat. You know what, just bring me the bottle.”

The bartender raised his eyebrows. “What brand?”

You’re not getting a big sale tonight. “Cheapest.”

The bartender sighed, but delivered. Jon slapped some cash down on the counter, asked gruffly for a glass, and got to work on the liquor. It burned down his throat and settled in his gut.

He probably wasn’t right for Sansa anyway, Jon thought after the third drink. Not good enough. Harry was a rich investment banker with a million dollar house and a big dick. He didn’t know that, but it felt true. 

“Hey there.” A blond man with watery blue eyes tapped him on the shoulder. “You play pool? My mate just passed out and I’m in the market.”

Jon swayed in his seat. Why the hell not. “Yeah. Sure. Be over in a minute.” He squinted at the bottle. Half gone. It was a start. He stumbled over to the pool table. He might have shouldered a few people out of the way in the process. Might have growled once or twice. Sue me. 

His opponent was liberally applying chalk to the end of his cue. He looked Jon up and down, taking in the bottle Jon was clutching. “Celebrating?”

Does it look like I’m celebrating, asshole? Jon just took a swig. He definitely didn’t want to talk about it. 

The blond man shrugged. “Suit yourself. I am. Gonna get laid tonight. Hot redhead coming by to pick me up. What’s you name?”

“Jon.”

“I’m Harry.”

Pieces of a horrible puzzle started to click into place. “Harry Hardyng?”

The man gave him a strange look. “What’s it to you?”

“Answer the question.”

“Yeah, I am. Why the fuck are you trying to corner me?”

Jon had backed him into the wall without realizing it.”Because you’re the reason for my bad mood, mate.” 

Harry started to sweat. “Look I don’t know what you’re on about, but get gone, all right? Your breath stinks and you can forget the pool game.”

“Already done,” Jon rumbled. He was stumbling away when he heard Harry on the phone. 

“Sansa, baby, I need a ride. Come pick me up, yeah? Wait, wait, calm down, yes, I’ve had a few, doesn’t mean…look, I’m not fighting about this, just come get me, all right? And I’m expecting to get laid tonight, you hear me?” He hung up. “Least she can do after what I paid for those flowers,” he muttered.

Jon wheeled around. The nerve of this jerk. Sansa Stark was a fucking gift, and no one should talk to her that way. He was going to give him a piece of his mind. Really set him straight. 

He bumped into another patron and fell into a chair instead. 

“Harry?” Sansa’s voice cut through the noise in the bar. She was dressed in her business clothes, that sexy grey suit that did it for Jon each time. She strode over to the pool table. Jon shrunk down further in his seat. He didn’t want Sansa to see him like this. 

Harry opened his arms wide. “Babe!” 

Sansa narrowed her eyes and slapped him. Hard. “That’s for standing me up at the charity event. And for assuming you were getting laid tonight. I’m not your toy. We’re through.”

“What about my ride?” Harry whined. 

Sansa rolled her eyes. “You’re a grown man. Take a cab, Harry.” 

Jon hunched his shoulders. Sansa was gorgeous when she was angry and he was besotted with her and he did not want to say something stupid as she walked out of the bar. 

“Jon?” Suddenly Sansa was in front of him. “What are you doing here? Are you all right? You’re…” She bent down. “You’re really drunk, Jon. Let me take you home.”

Keep your cool, Snow. Thank her and tell her you’re fine. You’ll…you’ll see her at the office. Yeah.

“You’re beautiful and your eyes are so blue and I think I’m in love with you,” he blurted. Fuck. He ran a hand over his face. “Sansa, I’m…I’m sorry, just leave me here, forget you saw me, forget-”

Sansa tilted her head. A smile played at the corner of her lips. “Jon, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out for a year. And, well, I didn’t imagine it quite like this, but I’ll take it.”

What? He leaned forward, his head swimming “B-but you can do better Sansa and Harry’s an investment banker and you deserve the world and-”

Sansa took him by the arm. “Would not have pegged you for a chatty, sappy drunk, Jon. Let’s go, okay? You can say nice things to me-”

“True things,” Jon slurred.

“All right Jon, true things, but do it tomorrow when you’re sober.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And Harry works at a mattress store, and he’s an asshole.”

Sansa helped Jon into her car. He did not vomit on the seat, and he did not embarrass himself further. He managed to thank Sansa without another confession before he stumbled into his apartment. 

All in all it was hardly the best “this is how our relationship started” story, but Sansa did adore telling it over the years, really relishing in the details. So at the end of the day Jon had a seedy bar, a bottle of whiskey, and Harry Hardyng to thank for the love of his life. 

[thisdaynews]

Trump's Mideast allies duck Iran confrontation

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trumps-mideast-allies-duck-iran-confrontation/

Trump's Mideast allies duck Iran confrontation

“Iran’s neighbors want Iran deterred but they don’t want Iran to be lashing out, and the question is ‘How you can deter an adversary without ever striking that adversary?’” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Barack Obama, Trump’s Democratic predecessor, used sanctions and partnered with other countries to cajole Iran into negotiations that led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. For many Arab countries, as well as Israel, curbing Iran’s nuclear program was for years a top priority.

But by the time the nuclear deal was reached, Iran’s non-nuclear behavior in the region — especially its ballistic missile program, support for proxy militias and intervention in Syria’s civil war — had become almost as infuriating as its alleged nuclear ambitions.

The nuclear deal essentially didn’t cover those other issues, so the Saudis, Emiratis and others were ultimately unhappy with it. Israel’s Netanyahu did virtually everything he could to get the nuclear deal derailed, including delivering a blistering address to Congress in which he said the agreement “paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

At the same time, Obama’s ongoing outreach to Iran put America’s longtime Arab partners on edge. Some questioned Obama’s commitment to their safety — a question Obama’s supporters say is ridiculous — and viewed his diplomatic efforts as a tilt toward Tehran.

Trump abandoned the nuclear agreement in May 2018, and began reimposing sanctions on Tehran that had been lifted under the deal.

The Arab official told POLITICO that what Iran’s opponents in the region want now is for the U.S. to keep pressuring Iran — preferably through sanctions and diplomacy — to sit down and hammer out a more comprehensive agreement that covers its nuclear efforts, its missile program and its aggressive regional behavior.

The official also said Arab countries need to have a seat at the negotiating table. The last agreement was crafted through negotiations involving Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany.

On Wednesday, Trump urged those countries to “break away from the remnants of the Iran deal” and “work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place.”

Many Iran observers say that’s unrealistic.

After all, they point out: For reasons ranging from sovereignty to pride, Iran is unlikely to sit down for such far-reaching talks; the Trump administration has done little of substance to engage Iran diplomatically; and the president has badly damaged relations with some staunch U.S. allies, making a multilateral effort harder.

Some point out that they have warned for years that Trump’s sanctions-heavy approach to Iran would eventually lead to a military confrontation. So it’s rich to see Gulf Arab states and Israel suddenly blanching at the consequences.

“What did they expect would happen?” tweeted Dina Esfandiary, a fellow at The Century Foundation.

Despite its fiery rhetoric, there are signs Iran’s leaders appear wary of taking things too far.

Thanks largely to U.S. sanctions, Iran’s economy is in dire shape. In October, the International Monetary Fund predicted Iran’s economy would shrink by 9.5 percent in 2019.

Many Iranians also are tired of the regime’s oppression. Only weeks ago, the country experienced widespread protests that alarmed the clerics in Tehran so much they shut down the internet for days.

In one of multiple signals from Iran that the escalation would end if Trump didn’t fight back using military force, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted after Iran’s missile strike: “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”

But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested further Iranian moves could be in the works. “They were slapped last night, but such military actions are not enough,” he said on Wednesday.

Soleimani led Iran’s elite Quds Force, a kind of expeditionary unit that ran operations outside Iran’s borders. He oversaw allied militia groups in other countries and was said to keep a tight grip on them.

“Some of the militia elements that are now viewing him as having been martyred could become rogue,” a former U.S. intelligence official told POLITICO.

“That’s the one piece that worries me,” the former official said, “is that a rogue element does something that is truly escalatory and we react to it not knowing whether it’s sponsored by the supreme leader or some other person.”

As if to illustrate the potential for continued danger, a pair of rockets were reported to have been fired Wednesday at the Green Zone, the area in Baghdad where the U. S. Embassy is located.

Martin Matishak contributed to this report.

Read More

[flauntpage]

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King

It took Daniel Cormier just one round to put an end to Stipe Miocic’s record-setting reign as UFC heavyweight champion. Never troubled, barely breathing hard, Cormier looked the best he ever has and he did it while performing his weird reaches and dips that have fans and pundits on edge throughout his fights. Cormier is a warts-and-all kind of fighter and as ugly as some of the technique looked when held up against a boxing textbook, it was also one of the most beautiful performances of the year.

In our Tactical Guide we examined Cormier’s peculiar "mummy guard," wherein his hands are extended towards the opponent in the manner of a Scooby-Doo mummy. It is a term that we stole from Muhammad Ali who used it to describe the awkward palms-out style of George Foreman. Foreman learned it from Sandy Saddler and Dick Saddler, who in turn attributed it to Jack Johnson. The hands are held far forwards of the traditional guard in a way that seems as though it is exposing the fighter to hooks, but the palms occupy the lines of the opponent’s straight punches. The straights are the fast ones, the ones that will catch a fighter out and the blows upon which a scientific fight is built. This mummy guard, therefore, takes away the weapons of the scientific boxer and for all Ali’s mocking of it, he couldn’t jab Foreman up, he had to go to the rope-a-dope and outlast him. Daniel Cormier also looks pretty ridiculous if you compare his striking to a "textbook" fighter, but you cannot deny that he’s making it work and jabbing up fighters who look a lot better shadowboxing in front of the mirror.

Just as he had against Volkan Oezdemir, Daniel Cormier was able to stifle much of Miocic’s straight hitting. The reaction of many fighters when confronted by an opponent checking their hands is to attempt to either swing around the outside, or to withdraw the hands into the body in order to free them, both result in opening the path for the jab of the fighter doing the hand checking. Miocic has previously shown the finest jab in the heavyweight division and yet he scarcely found a home for it and ate sharp jabs from the shorter wrestler as he tried to work it all out.

In boxing, when both hands are smothered there isn’t much else a fighter can do. In combat sports where kicking is legal, there are still plenty of options on the table and ultimately this is why Cormier struggled so much with Jon Jones. But against Stipe Miocic, Cormier was the one throwing the kicks. Slipping inside jabs, Cormier would counter with hard low kicks, and when Miocic got drawn into the hand fighting, he even snuck a step-up left kick to the liver in. Very surprising for a man who, to the casual observer, looks as though he would struggle to raise his knee to his chest.

This mummy guard is just one tricky method of fighting, of course. There’s no way to do things perfectly and there are still plenty of ways this style can be exploited. Most notably, a fighter reaching with both hands can be tied up in a stalemate if his opponent does the same, and then the man who is quicker to turn over the elbow can make his opponent’s life hell. Miocic actually met DC in the hand fight later in the first round, but rather than turning over sharp elbows, pulled Cormier’s hands out of position only to land a jab with just a few inches of momentum on it.

Cormier’s strategy in this fight seemed to be very similar to his fight with Oezdemir despite his opponents’ very different qualities and styles. Cormier went after both men, checking their hands and shooting jabs, and if they threw the right hand or slipped his jab, Cormier’s left hand shot over their shoulder. In pugilistic times this was called a "bar" of the right hand, but it is also called a "leverage guard": by straightening the arm over the opponent’s shoulder, the opponent’s punch can be obstructed and muffled at the elbow and shoulder. As we mentioned last week, it’s ugly, but back in bareknuckle days it was the most reliable method of stopping a right hand.

Where Cormier was able to pick up his high crotch straight off the collar tie against Volkan Oezdemir, Miocic was a considerably bigger, stronger man and a quality wrestler in his own right. Readers will have noticed on Saturday night, and against Oezdemir, that Cormier is quite happy to grab a hold of a headlock when he shoots his lead hand over the opponent’s right shoulder. This is generally considered a bad position in MMA but Cormier wants clinches at any cost and giving the opponent a head start seems to convince them to give him a chance.

Against Miocic, Cormier looked to shoot his arm over Miocic’s shoulder and initiate a clinch, but if Miocic dropped his head in and sunk back to escape the clinch, Cormier would keep a hold of the single collar tie with his left hand. Through threatening the clinch, Cormier has created a scenario wherein his opponent is encouraged to do all the things that make his collar tie right uppercut easier to land. After watching Cormier hammer this home against Alexander Gustafsson in prolonged clinches, it is fascinating to see that he has managed to build a clever set up for the blow into his distance-closing game.

The following clip shows what appeared to be a fairly wild pair of exchanges. On the first, Cormier attempts to tie up in the exchange and Miocic drops away, triggering the uppercut. In the second burst of action, the same thing happens but Miocic instead takes the underhook and presses in for the clinch—this seemed to be what Cormier was aiming for throughout the bout.

By driving Miocic’s head off line with his underhooked arm, Cormier could create enough space to suck his elbow back through and claim the underhook himself.

Cormier only succeeded in getting the underhook on a couple of occasions in this fight and was unable to build into his takedowns from them because Miocic was hell-bent on escaping the clinch whenever it happened. This, however, allowed Cormier to land with sneakers on the break. A sneaker is what Jack Dempsey termed a punch on the break in boxing—totally illegal when the referee has called for a break, but completely okay and absolutely devastating if the fighters break voluntarily. In MMA, getting into and out of the clinch is a much bigger part of the game but because the hands are occupied in wrestling at many points these are the best times to chin a fighter. A couple of weeks ago Leon Edwards observed the practice of cracking Donald Cerrone with an elbow on each exit from the clinch as though it were a religious tenet.

As Cormier got an underhook with a minute to go in the first round, Miocic went to that hips-back, head-in, frame across the neck posture again and Cormier dinged him with a right hook.

Shortly afterwards a similar sequence would play out. Miocic this time took the underhook, Cormier immediately swam through, Miocic recognized that he didn’t want to be in the clinch and began posturing to back out of the clinch again and Cormier caught him with a short right hook. It travelled a few inches, it might not even register on the UFC’s magical punch test machine, but it caught Miocic off guard and turned his lights off. Just as the legendary Henry Armstrong threw three or four hundred sneakers a fight, it only took one to land at the right time to end the contest.

Moments before the knockout, Miocic had shown one of his consistent bad habits that we discussed in the Tactical Guide and have examined many times before that: he threw his right hand, got carried away, and left his chin out and his hands down as he stood perfectly square. Cormier cracked him with a stiff one two while he was out of position and seconds later the ending sequence took place. Whether Cormier’s counter punches "set up" Miocic for the surprisingly short knockout blow, no one can say, but it is concerning that Miocic continues to throw himself into these positions when he gets trigger happy.

With the victory, Daniel Cormier becomes a simultaneous two-division champion. "Simultaneous" is a word the UFC added emphasis to when Conor McGregor fought Eddie Alvarez because it had to be a world first somehow… the fact that the UFC stripped McGregor of the featherweight title immediately after the photographs with both belts should tell you all you need to know. Should Cormier actually manage the Henry Armstrong feat of defending the belt in both divisions, that would truly be a first, but it’s probably not something you should hold your breath for. There’s a good chance he vacates the light heavyweight division (which might as well be disbanded at this point) to fight at heavyweight full time.

Endeavor was even able to trot out Brock Lesnar to help Cormier (a mark for the business) act out his childhood pro wrestling fantasies following the fight. Should that match-up materialize it might be the least deserved title shot in modern UFC history, but it would also make everyone involved a whole heap of money as Lesnar is a guaranteed million dollar attraction. One way or another, Daniel Cormier’s turbulent athletic career looks set to reach a happy conclusion, and those are just far too rare in the fight game.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast.

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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UFC Fight Night 109 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, UFC 211 was stacked on paper, and it pretty much came through with flying colors, as this was pretty easily UFC's best show of the year. The undercard was particularly excellent, but the main card was mostly about some great individual performances, led by Stipe Miocic, who knocked out Junior dos Santos in just two and a half minutes to retain his heavyweight title. The fight was simple enough - dos Santos actually had a bunch of success early with a game focusing on leg kicks, but it appeared that damaging Miocic's leg just caused the champ to get more aggressive and try to end things, as he pretty much backed dos Santos against the fence and went to work for the knockout. There's not an obvious next challenger (unless Cain Velasquez is actually for once), but Miocic is suddenly among the ranks of UFC's greatest heavyweights - this marked four straight first-round knockouts, and if he retains his belt one more time, it'll be the most title defenses of anyone in UFC history - admittedly, that says a ton about how volatile the division has been, but a record is a record. *The co-main may have had an even more impressive performance, though, as Joanna Jedrzejczyk absolutely dominated Jessica Andrade in her defense of the strawweight title. Andrade figured to be Jedrzejczyk's toughest test to date - she combined the wrestling power of someone like Claudia Gadelha, Jedrzejczyk's most difficult opponent, with some real knockout power - and while Jedrzejczyk did get hit with one or two hard shots per round, she mixed up her footwork and basically stuck and moved the whole fight, forcing Andrade to chase her and eat a bunch of shots in the process. Jedrzejczyk's now sort of entered that Demetrious Johnson territory where you pretty much have to pick her every time out regardless of style matchup - not that there are any difficult-seeming matchups on the horizon. In fact, this actually also reminded me a bit of Conor McGregor's second fight against Nate Diaz, where McGregor pretty much went against type and completely changed up his game for the challenge in front of him - Jedrzejczyk typically plants before she attacks, but here we saw none of that, with her cutting off angles and making her most dangerous foe look completely outclassed. At this point, it seems the only challenge for Jedrzejczyk is to move up to flyweight and see what new opponents are there for her, which I guess we'll see once that division gets up and running. *Well, for the second (at least) fight in a row, it looks like Demian Maia has earned a title shot - and Dana White agrees - but now it's just a matter of seeing if Maia actually gets it. Maia's fight with Jorge Masvidal was an interesting one, and ridiculously difficult to score - the first round saw Maia get the back of a standing Masvidal early and work for submissions, but get shaken off in the last twenty seconds or so and hit a bunch of times on the ground, and the subsequent two rounds were pretty much split down the middle between two and a half minutes of Masvidal piecing Maia up on the feet, and two and a half minutes of Maia doing his submission wizard thing on the ground. But at the end of the day, a narrow Maia win was probably the right call (also - hey, Jorge Masvidal lost a close decision, you don't say), and hopefully, finally, Maia gets his long-deserved shot at Tyron Woodley. Even though, frankly, Woodley's tendency to stay defensive when he needs to may mean the fight is fairly awful, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. *And Maia may not have been the only guy to earn a title shot on the card, as Frankie Edgar absolutely beat the piss out of Yair Rodriguez. Rodriguez still remains an uber-prospect and potential star who'll be fine in the long run, but wow did this fight do nothing for him, as there were pretty much no positives to be taken away - Edgar just took him down, mauled him, and eventually brutalized Rodriguez's eye so much that the fight had to be stopped thanks to the ridiculous amount of swelling going on. I guess you could say this showed Rodriguez what he needs to work on, but...yeesh, you could've done that slowly working him up the ladder rather than throwing him to the wolves like UFC did here. If Max Holloway beats Jose Aldo for the featherweight title in a few weeks, Edgar's the obvious next challenger, and even if Aldo wins, an Edgar trilogy fight may still be the best option, even if Aldo dominated Edgar at UFC 200 - looking at the rankings, Aldo's also dominated everyone else who could realistically get a shot, and Edgar's the obvious next-best guy, so he's as good an option as any. *And...then there was the opener of the main card between David Branch and Krzysztof Jotko, which was the clear lowlight of the card. People acted like the fight was absolutely awful, but, I don't know, I kind of expected worse, since neither guy is all that exciting to begin with, and at least there was constantly something going on, even if it wasn't particularly exciting. Anyway, Branch, a former two-division champ in World Series of Fighting, made a successful return here and got the decision win over a top ten guy, and rightfully so - his takedown game pretty much shut down Jotko's range kicking game, leaving Jotko to just sort of rely on clinch-work that didn't really get him anywhere against the stronger Branch. Given the reception towards the fight, I don't expect Branch to start moving up into big fights, but if this cements him as a top ten guy going forward, you'd have to say it was worth it. *And then there were the prelims, which delivered every fight out, topped by two excellent brawls. Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier took a bit to get going, but the second round turned into what everyone expected, with both guys just winging punches at each other and sparking off into a crazy brawl. Unfortunately, the end of the fight was somewhat disappointing, as Alvarez kneed a grounded Poirier right in the head, ending the fight in a no contest after Herb Dean deemed the blow to be unintentional, since Alvarez wasn't looking at Poirier's knees. Poirier's appealing the result - not so much because he cares about the win, but because despite the excellent fight, UFC management apparently decided not to pay Poirier his win bonus, which is fairly bullshit and another reason why fighters aren't so quick to do the company favors at this point. On the plus side, though, at least maybe this means we can run the fight back. Low-level heavyweights Chase Sherman and Rashad Coulter had the best fight of the night, though, as Sherman pretty much destroyed Coulter's leg with kicks but had trouble putting him away - Coulter would keep fighting back, and eventually Sherman gassed, so things just turned into a back and forth slugfest between a one-legged man and a guy who was just all too willing to get hit, at least until Sherman finally put Coulter down with a standing elbow in the second round. Some mid-tier prospects also looked excellent, led by Jason Knight putting on a shockingly great performance against fellow rising featherweight Chas Skelly. Knight had a bit of trouble early with Skelly's wrestling, though he was able to mostly squirm out of trouble, but eventually Skelly tired and had nothing for Knight, who started putting volume on Skelly before finishing things early in the third. Texas's own James Vick firmed up his rep as a prospect-killer, knocking out Polo Reyes in the first round - UFC's weirdly just mostly used Vick to take out talented prospects rather than book him like a normal lightweight, so hopefully they finally do that and give Vick some higher-level competition. And Gadzhimurad Antigulov just ran through Joachim Christensen, as the Russian looks like an interesting talent in a light heavyweight division that badly needs it. Rounding out the card were two fun decisions - Cortney Casey more or less outclassing former top strawweight Jessica Aguilar, and Peru's Enrique Barzola showing off his relentless wrestling game in a win over Mexico's Gabriel Benitez - making the card pretty excellent from top to bottom. *There's been so much drama since, but I guess I should start with the presser leading up to UFC 211. As UFC does every so often, they have a big presser to announce their lineup of big fights for the next few months, and this one was a fun one, as for better or for worse depending on the fighter, everyone seems to be willing to follow the Conor McGregor model and just talk a lot of shit. Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, who were finally officially confirmed for the main event of UFC 214, took center stage, as both sniped at each other back and forth, Cormier for Jones's fakeness and drug use, and Jones for the fact that, well, he partied and did cocaine and still beat Cormier. Amusingly, Cormier seemed to finally embrace and be ready for the crowd to boo him, as they've done since Cormier won what was seen as a fake belt, but of course the crowd in Dallas was the first one in a while that was fully behind DC. Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko, confirmed for UFC 213, were probably the lowlight, as the broken English trashtalking between the two is fairly hit-or-miss in terms of charm, and I thought the breakout star of the whole thing might have been lightweight Kevin Lee. First, Lee was dressed fairly ridiculously, apparently paying homage to Russell Westbrook since Lee is headlining a card in Oklahoma City, but he continued his approach from social media of trash-talking in quantity, not quality, taking shots at everyone in the division he could. First, he had a pretty amazing line about Michael Johnson - paraphrasing, Johnson is on stage talking about killing people, but he's had thirty fights, lost half of them, and hasn't killed a motherfucker yet - but once he set his sights on his next opponent, Michael Chiesa, things heated up and the two got into a fight onstage, complete with Lee swinging at Chiesa. It wouldn't surprise me if this was somewhat pre-planned between the two - the line that set Chiesa off, where Lee said Chiesa's mother was going to be watching her son lose in person, didn't seem to be enough to warrant the overreaction, but given that the death of Chiesa's father and his closeness to his family was a huge part of Chiesa's season of TUF, it all could've been completely natural. At any rate, it helped greatly in terms of getting a bit of buzz around Chiesa and Lee's fight in late June. *Two fighters who surprisingly weren't there were Cody Garbrandt and T.J. Dillashaw, who seemed to be an obvious late cut from the presser, given that the two factored in greatly on the promotional material UFC was airing during the presser, and that Dillashaw mused on social media that his flights to Dallas were suddenly cancelled. It came out shortly thereafter that Garbrandt was actually in Germany dealing with some severe back problems, and after about two weeks of UFC hemming and hawing about if the fight was still taking place, the title fight was taken off of UFC 213. This was apparently the third planned main event that fell through for that card - there was the obvious public hope that Michael Bisping/Georges St. Pierre would be ready by July, and when it became clear that wasn't happening, apparently UFC tried to put together a Nate Diaz/Tony Ferguson interim lightweight title fight before settling on Garbrandt/Dillashaw. So with Garbrandt/Dillashaw out, Amanda Nunes will wind up headlining the big July card two years in a row, this time against Valentina Shevchenko, and don't worry, we're still getting an interim belt, as Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker will square off for an interim middleweight title. Assumedly, that keeps the GSP/Bisping pairing alive for...whenever, even though Dana White said before all this shook out that that fight was dead and Bisping/Romero would be the next fight. Also, maybe UFC should've just caved in to Anderson Silva and done Romero/Silva if they were doing that interim belt, though that wouldn't have helped UFC 213. Anyway, middleweight's a mess, but at least we're getting on with our lives while Bisping does his UFC champion fantasy camp. *The UFC 211 presser wasn't the only mess that happened when a bunch of UFC fighters got together, as the company also held a fighter's retreat last weekend. Things seemed to mostly go well, but there were a few exceptions. The one that got the most headlines was Cris Cyborg socking Angela Magana and getting cited for battery, which definitely looks like a situation where it's hard to root for either party. If you're not aware who Magana is, she's a shit-stirrer from season 20 of TUF who's shown little in two UFC fights to date but is still under contract, even though she hasn't fought since a July 2015 loss to Michelle Waterson - Magana then took some time off for a custody battle I assume must've gotten resolved, and then there's been radio silence regarding her career since then. So while Magana, from all accounts, is a person who's been through a lot of tragedy and crazy stuff in her life, and I do think there's some unnecessary slut-shaming going on over how she conducts herself on social media, she also seems to be, well, not a nice person, as this apparently all stemmed from a series of tweets where Magana was comparing Cyborg's appearance to Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Which is dumb enough, but adding fuel to the fire is that apparently, some of the pictures Magana used were from Cyborg visiting the children's ward of a hospital where Cyborg's father is currently receiving treatment for cancer. So there's a brief video going around of Cyborg confronting Magana, Magana saying she can post what she wants, and then Cyborg socking Magana in the mouth. Since then, there's been the citation for battery and Magana threatening to press charges - Cyborg's released a statement talking about being bullied and the UFC management culture allowing this all to go on, going years back to Dana White comparing Cyborg to "Wanderlei Silva" in a dress, while Magana's come back with a whole bunch of stuff about how Cyborg is the bully since she takes a bunch of steroids and beats up women much smaller than her. So, again, a situation where you can't really root for anyone, at least in my opinion, even if public opinion seems to be behind Cyborg. Anyway, the other big thing was some brief attention, once again, being given to a fighter union of some sort. The first incident that made some news was when WME-IMG brought in Kobe Bryant to speak to the fighters, and Leslie Smith asked Bryant about how important of a role the NBA players' union played in his career. Bryant talked positively about the union and how it looked out for the players, so, yeah, WME-IMG kind of cut their own throat there. There was also an incident when they had a Reebok rep speak, as undercard lightweight Kajan Johnson decided to speak up about how he knows the deal makes sense for UFC and Reebok, but it's badly hurt the fighters, and that a lot of them are unsure exactly where all the money promised to them has gone. You may remember Johnson from a similar incident over UFC 200 weekend, where he kind of crashed a Q&A with CM Punk and Donald Cerrone to ask Punk about a fighter union - anyway, Johnson was apparently escorted off by officials, whatever that means, but per Johnson, it apparently led to some productive discussions between himself, UFC, and Reebok reps. There were some other anecdotes - an Anheuser-Busch rep apparently came off horribly talking to the fighters, showing up drunk, then telling everyone they want fights to be themselves, like Conor McGregor (which, um, does anyone wanna tell him), and that they don't want to sponsor guys who want to get knocked out. Helpful. Also, Al Iaquinta apparently briefly showed up, then shit on the whole thing afterwards - Snoop Dogg did a concert at the fighter retreat, and Iaquinta made the point that hey, why can they afford to pay Snoop Dogg but now any of the fighters, but then he turned around and kept calling Kajan Johnson a "dork" on social media, so who knows what Iaquinta is looking for. *Let's finish up with a whole bunch of quick hitters, starting with even more UFC programming. Also announced during the UFC 211 presser was "Dana White's Tuesday Night Contender Series", a weekly fight show on Tuesday nights, exclusive to Fight Pass. Essentially it'll be four or five fights at the Ultimate Fighter gym every week for a few weeks, featuring a combination of prospects looking to get into UFC and UFC fighters on losing skids fighting, essentially, to keep their jobs. Lesbian weddings! UFC got two of them during the UFC 211 card. After losing to Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Jessica Andrade proposed to her girlfriend inside the cage, and bantamweight Raquel Pennington and strawweight Tecia Torres, a known couple, announced their engagement the same night. MMA being, in its own way, one of the more LGBT-friendly sports out there amuses me. The California commission passed a whole bunch of new weight-cutting regulations, and it'll be interesting to see how this affects UFC 214. There's higher monetary penalties now, and while most of the other penalties seem to be rather toothless, apparently there will be a lot more periodic weigh-ins for fighters fighting in California, just to get an idea of exactly how much weight these people are cutting. If nothing else, that data will be interesting. At the fighter summit, UFC announced a partnership with the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City - essentially, HSS doctors will now be backstage at UFC events to check on fighters and recommend treatment, and UFC is going to steer fighters to get treated there. This was apparently another thing that sent Al Iaquinta off, as this was the hospital in question when Iaquinta feuded with the UFC over paying for knee surgery. Anthony Johnson's big post-MMA opportunity is apparently attempting to open weed dispensaries in Canada. Okay. In this week's drug failure, Jessica Penne is the latest fighter to be flagged by USADA - interestingly, this is apparently the first test to trip something up thanks to USADA's "biological passport" for fighters, flagging certain chemical changes that may cause USADA to go back and test a sample that once passed as clean, which is what happened here. And UFC also apparently signed its first fighter of Indian decent, as heavyweight Arjan Bhullar has signed a contract. Bhullar's a native of British Columbia who is of Sikh descent, and represented Canada in freestyle wrestling at the 2012 Olympics. Still, it'll probably be a while until we see a fighter from India proper, unless they moved to another country in their youth or just get signed based off anything but merit, as the scene there seems to be way behind even China, if there even really is one. ------ BOOKINGS: *So UFC announced a few main events for July and August, the biggest of which is probably what might be Chris Weidman's last shot to redeem himself as a middleweight contender, as he faces Kelvin Gastelum to headline the Fox card on his native Long Island. Weidman's suddenly lost three straight, and like the Mousasi fight before it, Weidman once again faces a rising talent (and in this case, a much younger one) trying to take his spot among the middleweight elite. The other big one is the headliner of the upcoming TUF finale, as Michael Johnson welcomes former World Series of Fighting champion Justin Gaethje into the UFC. This is a big test for Gaethje right off the bat - his brawling style is pretty much built around all offense and no defense, so seeing if Gaethje can get past a UFC-level athlete with quick hands like Johnson will pretty much immediately tell us if Gaethje is a contender or just a fun, violent addition to the roster. UFC's return to Scotland has a bit of a weird main event, as Gunnar Nelson takes on Santiago Ponzinibbio. Nelson headlining isn't much of a surprise, since he's a popular European fighter, but I'm surprised he didn't get a fight against someone considered either at or above his own level, like a Neil Magny or a Kamaru Usman, to try and break him into contention, rather than a fun veteran like Ponzinibbio. The more interesting fight might be the co-main, where Scotland's own Joanne Calderwood will take on rising prospect Cynthia Calvillo. UFC's putting all their weight behind pushing Calvillo, a Team Alpha Male product who has a long amateur career, but has been a pro for less than a year, and while I don't see it, a win here would go a long way towards making Calvillo a thing. And UFC announced their return to Mexico City on August 5th, and shortly thereafter, a pretty fun flyweight main event, as rising Mexican prospect Brandon Moreno takes on Sergio Pettis, who was slated to face Henry Cejudo at this UFC 211 card before Cejudo had issues with a hand injury. It's a solid next step up for Moreno, who keeps overachieving - might as well see how far you can take things for the time being. *So, UFC is apparently returning to Seattle sometime in August, and native son Demetrious Johnson is likely to headline, but it's unclear exactly who the flyweight champ will be facing. Since Cody Garbrandt pulled out of his bantamweight title defense against former champ T.J. Dillashaw, Dillashaw's now angling for that slot. And it makes sense - it's not a money fight, but it's the best option available for either guy in the short term, and it'd be an awesome fight - add in the fact that Johnson's next title defense will break Anderson Silva's UFC record, and it's pretty much a perfect test to see if Johnson can make history. So everyone seems in, except for Johnson, who would like to see Dillashaw take at least one fight at 125 first, partially so that he can earn the shot, and partially to prove that Dillashaw can even make flyweight. Which makes sense, but it looks like the other alternative is Ray Borg - who's a fine fighter, but still more of a prospect at this point, and is really more of a "best challenger available" rather than someone who's actually gotten the big wins to actually earn a shot, at least as of yet. Add in that Borg has missed weight at 125 twice himself, and, well, it's kind of an eh option. So we'll see what happens come August. *UFC 214 is rounding into shape with a pretty fun card supporting the big Cormier/Jones rematch. There were whispers a week or two ago about Cris Cyborg facing Cat Zingano at featherweight on this card, but there doesn't seem to be anything really to those rumors, though Zingano would apparently take that fight and Cyborg has been pushing a fight on this card. But what's there is pretty great, headlined by UFC's two most exciting Korean fighters. "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung faces Ricardo Lamas in a pretty awesome featherweight bout that was rumored for the Long Island card a week before, and "The Korean Superboy" Doo Ho Choi returns after his awesome fight against Cub Swanson to take on Andre Fili in another fun featherweight fight. Also, former bantamweight champion Renan Barao comes back to 135 after a two-fight experiment at featherweight to take on Aljamain Sterling in another main-card-worthy fight, even if it's a bit weird that this isn't on the Long Island card, given that's where Sterling is from. And then there's a bunch of weird undercard stuff featuring a bunch of fighters I didn't think we'd see again in the UFC. Josh Burkman somehow gets another fight against Drew Dober - Burkman's essentially 1-6 in his UFC comeback and has seemingly had diminishing returns with each fight, which makes this a weird deal, unless UFC is being nice and giving him a retirement fight or something. Dmitrii Smoliakov, a Russian heavyweight who had one of the more awful two-fight runs in recent UFC history, gets a third fight for some reason, as he takes on the debuting Adam Wieczorek of Poland, and hey, Aleksandra Albu is back on this card. Albu's had a bizarre career - she was signed in 2013 with only a 1-0 record, which wouldn't really make sense until, well, you do a Google image search for her. Then it makes a lot of sense. So she was supposed to fight Julie Kedzie at bantamweight, but pulled out of the fight with an injury (thus giving us Bethe Correia in the UFC), and then dropped off the face of the earth for about a year and a half, before debuting on UFC's 2015 card in Poland, beating Izabela Badurek (who was then cut from the promotion) at strawweight. And then Albu vanished again, this time for two and a half years, apparently to work on her doctorate. But anyway, she's back here, and she's taking on Kailin Curran, a Hawaiian strawweight who seems marketable and talented, but doesn't really ever seem to put it together - she's kind of like what people who hate Paige VanZant think VanZant is. And speaking of VanZant, her male counterpart is also back, as Sage Northcutt takes on TUF: Latin America 3 runner-up Claudio Puelles, as UFC once again turns to TUF: LA to find someone for Northcutt to beat. *The rest is all mostly undercard stuff, so let's run through it all chronologically. UFC 212 has two late changes - injuries have scrapped an interesting lightweight bout between Leonardo Santos and Olivier Aubin-Mercier, and Iuri Alcantara will not face Felipe Arantes as reported, but instead the debuting Brian Kelleher, which, well, still seems like a waste of a veteran like Alcantara. Next month's card in Auckland added one fight and saw changes to two others - Australian strawweight Nadia Kassem debuts on that card to take on J.J. Aldrich, Tim Elliott steps in for an injured Joseph Benavidez again Ben Nguyen, and with frustrating Brazilian prospect Warlley Alves injured, it'll instead be Zak Ottow taking on Japanese vet Kiichi Kunimoto. That changes the dynamic of the fight quite a bit - rather than a redemption opportunity for Alves, it's probably going to be two nondescript guys fighting for their job. The Oklahoma City card finally got filled out, with the two biggest new fights probably being a fun welterweight bout between Tim Means and Alex Garcia, and a lightweight bout between Tony Martin and Johnny Case. Jared Gordon and Michel Quinones, taken off UFC 211 at the last minute thanks to Gordon having food poisoning, will instead take place here, and just weeks after getting tapped at UFC 211, Joachim Christensen returns to take on debuting Russian light heavyweight Azamat Murzakanov. Darrell Horcher, who you may remember from getting thrown in against Khabib Nurmagomedov last year in Khabib's comeback fight, returns from that and a near-fatal motorcycle crash to take on Devin Powell on this OKC card, and oh, shocker, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira has pulled out of his fight on this card against Ilir Latifi. From there, it's on to international fight week, where there's not much new - past the Gaethje/Johnson fight and the whole shuffle with Garbrandt/Dillashaw out and Romero/Whittaker in, the only new fight is Brazilian strawweight Amanda Ribas debuting against Juliana Lima. British heavyweight Mark Godbeer is out of the Glasgow card, so Justin Willis will instead face the debuting James Mulheron. Long Island added a few fights, two of which may be on the main card - hometown featherweight Dennis Bermudez will take on Darren Elkins in a solid bout between wrestlers, and UFC's rushing Australian light heavyweight Tyson Pedro up the ladder quickly, as he'll be facing Corey Anderson. Plus there's some undercard stuff - featherweight prospects Shane Burgos and Jeremy Kennedy get some interesting tests in Godofredo Pepey and Kyle Bochniak, respectively, and we get some trashy heavyweight fights - Tim Johnson faces debuting Brazilian Junior Albini, and a Damian Grabowski/Christian Colombo fight scrapped from this Stockholm card due to injury will take place here. And only two more notes - UFC 214 will see flyweights Eric Shelton and Jarred Brooks square off, and the company has announced a September 23rd return to Japan, even though, well, they don't really have many Japanese fighters left to headline. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 6/3 - UFC 212 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Jose Aldo ( c ) vs. Max Holloway (ic), Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Vitor Belfort vs. Nate Marquardt 6/10 - UFC Fight Night 110 - Auckland, New Zealand - Mark Hunt vs. Derrick Lewis, Derek Brunson vs. Daniel Kelly 6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler 7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Gunnar Nelson vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Weidman, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis ----- UFC Fight Night 109 - May 28, 2017 - Ericsson Globe - Stockholm, Sweden Well, this is the final nail in the coffin for Memorial Day being a big UFC weekend. UFC used to fairly reliably have a few tentpole events at certain times of the year - Super Bowl weekend, Memorial Day, July 4th or so, and sometime at the end of the calendar year - but now it looks like Memorial Day is out of that rotation. 2015 was the last big one - initially supposed to be the Jon Jones/Rumble Johnson fight that it looks like will never happen, it instead became Daniel Cormier beating Johnson for the vacant belt and Chris Weidman beating the TRT out of Vitor Belfort. Last year was a bit scaled down, with an FS1 card headlined by Cody Garbrandt beating Thomas Almeida - though that looks a bit bigger now with Garbrandt subsequently becoming bantamweight champ - and then there's...this. This was initially supposed to be UFC's debut in Denmark, but things got shifted for some reason and instead it's UFC's return to Stockholm, where the Swedish faithful have always been an excellent crowd. And for their trouble, they get hometown hero Alexander Gustafsson, and...a whole lot of nothing, frankly. There's some interesting prospects deeper on the card, but for the most part this is my least favorite type of UFC card, as a lot of the prominent guys are known quantities, and there's not a ton in terms of upward mobility or high stakes. The action probably won't be that bad - UFC has a deep enough roster that it's hard to put on an outright awful show nowadays - and the early Sunday start time means you can have the rest of the day ahead of you after watching it, but this is, frankly, the most skippable card of the year thus far, and I'm shocked it's on cable rather than Fight Pass. They can't all be winners! MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 1:00 PM ET): Light Heavyweight: (#1) Alexander Gustafsson vs. (#2) Glover Teixeira Light Heavyweight: (#5) Volkan Oezdemir vs. (#7) Misha Cirkunov Welterweight: Ben Saunders vs. Peter Sobotta Welterweight: Omari Akhmedov vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan Welterweight: Oliver Enkamp vs. Nordine Taleb Middleweight: Jack Hermansson vs. Alex Nicholson PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 11:00 AM ET): Bantamweight: (#12) Pedro Munhoz vs. Damian Stasiak Middleweight: Chris Camozzi vs. Trevor Smith Lightweight: Reza Madadi vs. Joaquim Silva Welterweight: Nico Musoke vs. Bojan Velickovic PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 10:00 AM ET): Welterweight: Jessin Ayari vs. Darren Till Lightweight: Damir Hadzovic vs. Marcin Held THE RUNDOWN: Alexander Gustafsson (17-4 overall, 9-4 UFC) vs. Glover Teixeira (26-5 overall, 9-3 UFC, 3-0 WEC): Well, this is certainly the right fight to make - these two are ostensibly the best fighters in the division save Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones, and somehow haven't faced each other yet, despite light heavyweight being so stagnant - but it's also a bit hard to get excited for this one, as neither guy has much momentum and have already pretty much proven themselves to be below the level of Cormier and Jones. It's still pretty crazy that Alexander Gustafsson is only 30 years old, since it's already almost been four years since his all-time great title fight with Jones, and it feels like it's been a slow decline since. Gustafsson earned a rematch with a win over Jimi Manuwa, but that's pretty much been forgotten in the years since for a few reasons - one, because Gustafsson got injured and replaced by Cormier, whose rivalry with Jones overshadowed everything else, and two, because when Gustafsson was ready to fight again, he got knocked out in deflating fashion by Anthony Johnson in front of the Swedish faithful. Amazingly, the state of the light heavyweight division (and UFC being loathe to give Ryan Bader a title shot) meant that Gustafsson still got a crack at the belt once Jones vacated it and Cormier beat Johnson to win it, and Gustafsson once against lost an excellent five-round war in a light heavyweight title fight. There were some talks after that fight that Gustafsson might retire after everything he's put himself to, but he returned last September, and while he beat Jan Blachowicz in what was obviously meant to be a tune-up fight, his performance wasn't overly inspiring - for someone with such a great reach, Gustafsson got hit a ton, and was only really to separate himself from Blachowicz by pretty much taking him down at will. Still, Gustafsson's still among the top fighters in the division, despite being sort of an unexciting known quantity at this point, and you could say the same about his opponent, Glover Teixeira. Teixeira spent years fighting in his native Brazil thanks to some visa issues, but UFC was finally able to bring him stateside in 2012, at which point Teixeira pretty much ran through the division, earning a title shot against Jones within two years. That was a one-sided loss, and by Teixeira's account, he came back too quickly thereafter for another decision loss to Phil Davis, but it looked like Teixeira was making another run after taking some time off to heal up, and beating Ovince St. Preux, Patrick Cummins, and Rashad Evans - all flawed opponents, but about as good as you can do at light heavyweight nowadays. But like Gustafsson, Rumble Johnson stopped that momentum dead - in this case with a 13-second knockout this past August - and while Teixeira rebounded with a win over Jared Cannonier in February, like Gustafsson's last win, it was sort of an uninspiring affair that saw Teixeira rely on his wrestling. It's a hard fight to call - I honestly have a bit more faith in Teixeira to be more consistent every time out, but the outlines of the matchup really do favor Gustafsson. Gustafsson has that super-long reach, and at his best, I can see Gustafsson just keeping Teixeira at range, and not letting him get in on any takedowns. But Gustafsson, as mentioned, also got hit a bunch by Jan Blachowicz, and while Daniel Cormier's quite a bit underrated as an all-time great, he's way smaller than any of these other guys mentioned, and was able to get inside and take down Gustafsson without much trouble. But Teixeira is no Cormier in terms of wrestling, and while Teixeira's also a much better fighter than Blachowicz, Blachowicz still might be a bit faster and more athletic at his best, which he seemingly brought against Gustafsson. There's a chance that Gustafsson just shits the bed and loses a lukewarm striking contest over twenty-five minutes, but I'll say he's buoyed a bit by his hometown crowd here in Stockholm and wins a clear decision. Hopefully it's fun, and hopefully Gustafsson looks good enough that this is the start of another run towards light heavyweight relevance. Volkan Oezdemir (13-1 overall, 1-0 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Misha Cirkunov (13-2 overall, 4-0 UFC): In contrast to the main event, this fight pits ostensibly the two best up-and-comers at light heavyweight against each other, even if it's kind of funny that Volkan Oezdemir is the higher ranked guy here, since Misha Cirkunov is obviously the much better prospect. Cirkunov, a Latvian judoka whose family relocated to Toronto when he was a teenager, came into UFC as the most hyped Canadian prospect in a while, and has pretty much lived up to it in the ensuing year and a half - UFC fed him a string of debuting opponents that Cirkunov mostly handled rather easily, and Cirkunov passed his first big test with flying colors, taking out fellow top prospect Nikita Krylov in just four and a half minutes with a guillotine choke. There's some concerns about Cirkunov - mainly, his striking remains a little bit stiff, and he's already 30 - but after the Krylov win, he looks like he can at least be somewhat of a star, either as a top Canadian attraction or a top light heavyweight. After a messy contract dispute, Cirkunov returns against Volkan Oezdemir, UFC's first fighter from Switzerland, who comes off a win over Ovince St. Preux that shot him up the rankings. I don't mean to rag on Oezdemir too much - the MMA bubble has already kind of done that enough - but that win, which Oezdemir probably didn't deserve in the first place, really said more about how much OSP has fallen than announcing the arrival of a new contender, as both guys looked sort of flat and the judges just sort of collectively shrugged and gave the nod to Oezdemir. Oezdemir's a perfectly fine fighter, but he's probably closer to the fringes of the top fifteen than a top-five contender, at least at the moment - if nothing else, Oezdemir is just 27 in an old division, so he'll probably work his way up into being a concern as time goes on and light heavyweight starts to turn over. Oezdemir ostensibly has a striking background, but I haven't really seen a ton of it - he did some striking in the St. Preux fight, but most of the pre-UFC stuff I watched saw him mostly focus on taking his opponent down and working from there, and that'll get him nowhere against Cirkunov. I could see this fight being a bit tricky for Cirkunov, if only because Oezdemir should be the much quicker fighter, but at some point Cirkunov probably catches him and then this fight is over. I'll just say things are over with quickly and Cirkunov gets the first-round submission, and then Cirkunov may surprisingly only be one or two wins away from a title shot. Ben Saunders (21-7-2 overall, 8-4 UFC, 7-3 Bellator) vs. Peter Sobotta (16-5-1 overall, 3-4 UFC): When UFC decided to break into Europe about a decade ago, they focused on two countries - and while the sport has taken off in the United Kingdom, things never quite took in Germany. It's easy to see why Germany would be a target for UFC - it's one of the richest nations in Europe per capita, but for whatever reason, unlike neighbors like the Netherlands and Poland, Germany's just never really had the appetite for MMA. Anyway, when UFC decided to run Germany for the first time - all the way back in 2009 - they signed a bunch of German fighters, including Peter Sobotta, a young submission specialist. And, well, Sobotta really showed nothing, going 0-3 against Paul Taylor, James Wilks, and Amir Sadollah. But Sobotta kept at it, going undefeated in his post-UFC career, and after UFC attempted international expansion once more in 2014, and that included a card in Germany, Sobotta was once again one of the first names they called. His second run has been a bit strange - UFC seemed to obviously be giving the hometown favorite some softball fights against Pawel Pawlak and Steve Kennedy on those German cards, an impression only bolstered when Kyle Noke then obliterated Sobotta with a body kick in just two minutes - but with his back seemingly against the wall, Sobotta put in a career-best performance in Hamburg last September, surprisingly cracking Nicolas Dalby on the feet before taking things into his usual grappling realm. The time has probably passed for Sobotta to be anything more than a European favorite who can have some fun fights, but that's perfectly fine, and his fight with Ben Saunders should be a fun one. Saunders is another guy who had to go outside of the UFC to improve, as he was cut after two losses back in 2010, back in the days when even being an excellent action fighter could still get you cut after two losses. From there, Saunders caught on with Bellator, which was still fairly new, and while he never quite reached title contention, he just kept improving as one of the more interesting threats out there, combining a vicious muay thai game with some venomous submissions from his back. His recent return to UFC has also gone surprisingly well - his lone loss was last year to a then-resurgent Patrick Cote, and besides that he's beaten some solid vets like Kenny Robertson and Court McGee. This should be a fine fight, but I'm not really sure what Sobotta can offer Saunders - Saunders should be the better fighter on the feet, and his physical gifts and willingness to go for submissions on his back should make things tricky for Sobotta even if he's able to take things to the ground. If this turns into a grappling match, I could see this becoming a close decision if Saunders just isn't able to get a ton going from the bottom, but I still think Saunders gets a decision win rather handily - and like a lot of fights on this card, I just hope it's a fun one. Omari Akhmedov (16-4 overall, 4-3 UFC) vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan (7-0 overall, 1-0 UFC, 2-0 Bellator): There are probably better prospects on this card, but Abdul Razak Alhassan might be the most interesting. A judoka out of Ghana, Alhassan's a freak athlete whose entire approach is to just throw bombs the entire time, and, well, it's worked, since he's 7-0 with seven knockouts, all within 86 seconds or less. Past that, who the hell knows, and even his lone UFC fight didn't really tell us much, as it was a sub-minute knockout over Charlie Ward, who's only in the UFC because he's a teammate of Conor McGregor and isn't particularly good. So, the first real test of Alhassan's MMA career will be Omari Akhmedov, who's fallen from top prospect status but should still be a tough first test. Akhmedov, one of many Dagestani fighters on the roster, followed a similar route as Alhassan to the UFC, racking up quick knockouts before getting signed. But after another first-round win over Thiago Perpetuo in his UFC debut, the finishes sort of dried up for Akhmedov, and the flaws in his game got exposed. Akhmedov, though not with the same frenzied flurries as Alhassan, throws heat behind everything, including some particularly vicious leg kicks, but the end result of this is that he inevitably wears himself out, which cost him third round losses in fights he was probably winning against Sergio Moraes and Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. Akhmedov figured to be cut after that, but wound up getting one last shot against Kyle Noke and came through, still gassing but being able to rely on his wrestling to at least control things and minimize the potential damage late in the fight. This seems like a pretty binary fight - either Alhassan blitzes Akhmedov and scores yet another quick knockout, or then things fall apart quickly - you could make the case that maybe Alhassan has the judo to neutralize Akhmedov's wrestling and allow the Russian to tire himself just as quickly, but if Alhassan's gassed enough that he's stopped throwing, I figure the fight is pretty much over by then. I really have no idea if Alhassan can get Akhmedov out of there - Akhmedov does seem to have some ridiculous toughness, but his punches do have some wind-up to them and Alhassan could just nail him with ten punches for every one Akhmedov can throw - but Alhassan's such a question mark that I really can't trust him just yet. Not that Akhmedov isn't a fine next step - this isn't a case of UFC throwing Alhassan too much, too soon, but even this is a huge step above what Alhassan's faced to date with such a (seemingly) limited game. So I'll take Akhmedov to weather out the storm and grind out a decision, with a chance of a late finish, which is about the most disappointing way things can go. Oliver Enkamp (7-0 overall) vs. Nordine Taleb (12-4 overall, 4-2 UFC, 2-1 Bellator): Nordine Taleb is a perfectly fine fighter. And I kind of mean that as a compliment - after coming in through a surprisingly fun Canada versus Australia season of TUF, Taleb seemed like sort of a quadruple-A sort of fighter who'd wash out of UFC fairly quickly, but the Frenchman-turned-Quebec native turned out to be a pretty solid addition to the welterweight division. Taleb has some pretty well-defined strengths and weaknesses - he's extremely fundamentally sound, and he's gigantic for the division, but that comes at the expense of speed, which has cost him in losses to an explosive athlete in Warlley Alves and a speedy combination puncher like Santiago Ponzinibbio. Taleb figured to be an interesting test for Emil Meek, a charismatic Norwegian coming off a debut win over Jordan Mein in December, but Meek got hurt about two weeks out, and Taleb will now face the debuting Oliver Enkamp, who seems to be the consensus top prospect in Sweden. There's a lot to like about Enkamp - he was on UFC's radar for that McGregor/Faber season of TUF, but decided to take almost two years off because of injuries, and since coming back he's shown off both his solid karate base and some decent submissions. But I think Taleb is a tough ask at this moment in time - for one thing, Enkamp's going to be dwarfed here - again, Taleb's giant for the division, while most of Enkamp's fights before that injury layoff took place closer to lightweight. And Enkamp's grappling game seems more opportunistic than anything, and really just in general, I don't see Taleb giving Enkamp the sort of openings that the Swede needs to make a big debut. Taleb should win a fairly clear decision here - it's just of a matter of hoping that Enkamp impresses in the loss. Jack Hermansson (14-3 overall, 1-1 UFC, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Alex Nicholson (7-3 overall, 1-2 UFC): Mike Perry gets a lots of attention for basically being the human embodiment of Florida and sort of a garbage human, but teammate Alex Nicholson is the more insidious one of the two, with all the casual racism but with a 2016 domestic violence incident at a 7-Eleven hanging over his head, which got swept away when his fiance declined to press charges. As far as in the cage, like Perry, Nicholson is an excellent athlete, but unlike Perry, who just focuses on a fairly simple power boxing game, Nicholson uses his athleticism to throw all sorts of stupid stuff, like flying head kicks and spinning backfists and stuff. It's made for a weird UFC career - Misha Cirkunov destroyed him in his UFC debut, but Nicholson rebounded with a come-from-behind victory over Devin Clark via fluke knockout, then almost pipped a decision from Sam Alvey in November. Nicholson's walking a tightrope with a low-percentage approach, but if it ever suddenly mentally clicks, look for him to be yet another problematic fave on the UFC roster. Nicholson faces Sweden's Jack Hermansson, who figures to be the local favorite - Hermansson had a brief and unsuccessful run in Bellator when he was just 5-0 and two years into his career, but he recovered from that to become one of the best middleweights in Europe before signing with UFC last year. Hermansson beat Scott Askham in his UFC debut, and is seemingly set to settle in as one of UFC's random collection of decent European middleweights, as a loss to Cezar Ferreira in November stopped a bunch of Hermansson's momentum. Hermansson has a weird, movement-heavy striking game, and should be able to avoid Nicholson's big strikes - Ferreira only gave Hermansson problems once he decided to take things to the mat, and for all his dynamism, Nicholson has pretty much been out-struck in every UFC fight save that fluke finish of Clark. Hermansson's game is rather one-dimensional, so if Nicholson had a decent camp behind him I could see him adjusting between rounds and taking over, but given that Nicholson is training out of a UFC gym on the outskirts of Orlando that his father apparently owns, give me Hermansson by decision. Pedro Munhoz (13-2 [1] overall, 3-2 [1] UFC) vs. Damian Stasiak (10-3 overall, 2-1 UFC): It looks like Pedro Munhoz might finally be building some momentum, after a bit of a rocky start. Munhoz came into UFC as a highly touted prospect in 2014, but was pretty much thrown to the wolves right away, coming in as a late injury replacement against top contender Raphael Assuncao and getting outclassed. Munhoz then beat lower-level guys Matt Hobar and Jerrod Sanders, but the Sanders win wound up stalling his momentum once again - the athletic commission in Nova Scotia flagged Munhoz for some elevated testosterone levels, and what ensued was a long legal battle that ate up most of Munhoz's 2015; and one the Brazilian returned, he got another tough draw, losing a narrow decision to fellow up-and-comer Jimmie Rivera, who's since turned into a top contender himself. Meanwhile, Munhoz spent 2016 regaining his momentum with two solid wins over Russell Doane and Justin Scoggins, both via his lethal guillotine choke, and he'll probably make it three in a row against Poland's Damian Stasiak. Stasiak was one of a bunch of Polish signings UFC made when they debuted in Krakow in 2015, and he pretty much immediately disappointed, losing a decision to Yaotzin Meza in what was obviously set up to get Stasiak an easy win. Whoops. Stasiak then cut down to 135, and while he's gotten wins over Filip Pejic and Davey Grant, they weren't particularly great performances over lower-level guys. I can see why UFC did this matchup, though - Stasiak's a weird fighter, who relies on his grappling but has a funky, distance-based karate style, and while Munhoz is a solid striker with some power, guys who can move and keep a distance do seem to give him some trouble. We saw that in Munhoz's last fight against Scoggins, who was briefly fighting up from flyweight - Scoggins was doing pretty well just sticking, moving, and picking Munhoz apart at range until he slipped throwing a low kick, at which point Munhoz jumped on that guillotine for the win. But Stasiak isn't near the level of fighter Munhoz is, and given that Munhoz may have the quickest and most lethal guillotine in the UFC - seriously, watching him just immediately jump on that thing as soon as an opening comes available is wonderful - it's hard to envision any scenario other than Munhoz getting that choke and the tap; I'll say it happens in the second round. Chris Camozzi (24-12 overall, 9-9 UFC) vs. Trevor Smith (14-7 overall, 4-4 UFC, 2-2 Strikeforce): Oh, God. Existentially meaningless middleweight fights may have reached a new peak here, and there's not even a local rooting interest - Sweden's Magnus Cedenblad was originally supposed to be in this fight, but with him injured, it's Colorado's Chris Camozzi against the Pacific Northwest's Trevor Smith. Man, where to start with Chris Camozzi, who for being such a bland fighter has had a weird career spanning three different stretches with the UFC. His first stretch was just a normal post-TUF run where he was cut after his first loss, but he quickly earned his way back and then shockingly went on a four-fight winning streak. It was mostly just blah kickboxing match after blah kickboxing match, as Camozzi just kind of narrowly proved better than the rest of the mid-tier at middleweight, but that eventually earned him a spot against Jacare Souza...where Camozzi got absolutely smoked in just three and a half minutes. After that, Camozzi's luck suddenly swung the other way, as that started a four-fight losing streak - the last two by split decision - that eventually wound up with Camozzi suddenly finding himself out of the UFC. But he won a few fights, and, once again, when Jacare needed a late-notice opponent in 2015, Camozzi was the only man crazy enough to step up, coming in on about a week's notice and losing even quicker than he did the first time. From there, Camozzi actually started to gain some momentum with a three-fight win streak, including an impressive win over Vitor Miranda where Camozzi finally mixed in his wrestling, but Thales Leites and Dan Kelly more or less ran through him and now Camozzi suddenly finds his career stalled once again. He faces Smith, who there's not a ton to say about - he's just a big, veteran grinder who's not particularly athletic, but can hold his own against the lower reaches of the roster, taking out prospects like Brian Houston and Joe Gigliotti, and some low-level vets like Tor Troeng and Dan Miller. There's a chance he can do the same thing to Camozzi - if the last two fights have shown anything, it's that Camozzi is still helpless once he gets taken down, and has trouble with guys like Kelly who just lurch forward and keep eating damage, but Camozzi really should be too quick and athletic to prevent Smith from catching up with him. I predict a Camozzi win via unmemorable decision, and then we will all move on with our lives. Reza Madadi (14-5 overall, 3-3 UFC) vs. Joaquim Silva (9-0 overall, 2-0 UFC): Well that all sort of worked out - Sweden's Reza Madadi asked for a retirement fight on this card once it was announced, and most people figured he'd get it, given that UFC's been in the business of hometown retirement fights lately - but once this card was finalized, Madadi wasn't on the lineup until an injury to Mairbek Taisumov opened up a spot here. Madadi looked to be settling in as a local favorite on Swedish cards, particularly with a surprising submission win over Michael Johnson before Johnson broke out as a contender, but a 2013 arrest caused Madadi to be cut. Essentially, Madadi was implicated as an accomplice in a robbery of a luxury handbag store, and while his defense of "it wasn't me" wasn't enough to win over the Swedish authorities, it was apparently good enough for UFC, since the company signed Madadi right back up after he spent a year and a half in jail. And from there, Madadi's continued as a mid-tier guy on these European cards, sandwiching a win over Yan Cabral in between losses to Norman Parke and Joe Duffy. In his retirement fight, Madadi faces Brazil's Joaquim Silva, who's an interesting prospect. An alum of TUF Brazil 4, Silva's sort of like old-school Vitor Belfort in that he'll talk all about the power of jiu-jitsu, then go out there and just ignore his submission game in favor of knocking a dude out. He won a narrow decision over castmate Nazareno Malegarie, then obliterated Andrew Holbrook in just 34 seconds, so it's kind of hard to tell what Silva will have to offer in his toughest test to date. I think Madadi takes this one, unless the late notice takes its toll - Madadi's a controlling grinder, pure and simple, and there's nothing suggesting that Silva will have a ton to counter that. In the Malegarie fight, Silva just didn't really accomplish much when he was put on his back, for all his talk about BJJ, and Madadi should be stronger there - and while there's theoretically the possibility of Silva landing a knockout blow, Madadi's nothing if not ridiculously tough - Madadi's never been finished in his career, and that Joe Duffy fight basically turned into Duffy teeing off on Madadi's face while the Swede just stood there and ate it. Madadi should be able to walk through Silva's shots and just grind out a win here - it probably won't be too exciting if that's the way it goes, but hey, at least the fans should be happy with the result. Nico Musoke (13-4-1 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Bojan Velickovic (14-4-1 overall, 1-1-1 UFC): You'd be forgiven for forgetting that Nico Musoke used to be a thing, given that we haven't seen the Stockholm product since January of 2015. After upset wins over Alessio Sakara and Viscardi Andrade to start his UFC career, Musoke actually co-main evented a show in San Antonio in 2014, giving a then-raw Kelvin Gastelum a surprisingly strong test. After beating Alexander Yakovlev to rebound, it looked like Musoke would be a mainstay of these European cards, but then he lost a fight to Albert Tumenov on that January 2015 card, and hasn't been seen since thanks to a nagging back injury. So Musoke finally returns in his hometown against Serbia's Bojan Velickovic, who's looking at his last chance to stay in UFC. Velickovic came into UFC as a fairly regarded prospect, but he hasn't really done a ton - he beat Alessio Di Chirico, but then got a draw against Michael Graves and lost a fairly one-sided decision to Sultan Aliev in December. The way the Aliev loss played out was particularly deflating - Velickovic usually tends to rely on his size to give him in advantage in grappling work, but Aliev was mostly able to take him down at will. It's still a close enough fight, particularly with Musoke being such a question mark while coming back from injury - even at their best, both guys are sort of a jack of all trades, master of none type. Velickovic's size and reach may give Musoke trouble, particularly as he adjusts from a long layoff, but I'll still say Musoke squeaks out a decision, since it really does seem like Velickovic has trouble controlling things against UFC-level athletes. Jessin Ayari (16-3 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Darren Till (13-0-1 overall, 1-0-1 UFC): A fun fight here between two promising 24-year old welterweights, and it's good to see Darren Till finally back in action. Till was a pleasant surprise in 2015 - a native of Liverpool, England who's spent most of his career in Brazil, Till got the call as a late notice replacement on a card in Brazil that May. Not much was expected of Till - he came from a gym in Brazil somewhat notorious for feeding their prospects easy fights in order to inflate their records - but he impressed, not only scoring a second-round knockout of Wendell Oliveira, but also translating his own post-fight interview from English into Portuguese. Which, if you've never heard Portuguese in a scouse accent, it's...certainly something. Anyway, Till followed that up with a fight against Nicolas Dalby that was one of 2015's more underratedly fun fights, ending in a draw - Till was winning the first two rounds rather handily, but popped his shoulder out and then spent the third round just trying to survive. So Till has only now recovered from that shoulder injury, and hopefully he picks up where he left off, since he's a fun striker with enough swagger and personality to be a bit of a minor star on these European cards. Till faces Germany's Jessin Ayari, who's been just as effective, if not particularly interesting - Ayari just sort of cruises along as a distance kickboxer; he didn't really impress me much in his pre-UFC film, and his debut win over British vet Jim Wallhead was fairly boring. Again, not that it's not effective, but Ayari just never really elevates things above a mild simmer and seems fairly content to cruise to a decision. This could wind up being a distance kickboxing match, but wherever it is, I've liked what I've seen from Till a ton more thus far - Ayari might be able to survive, but I'll say that Till eventually lays on the volume and gets the third-round KO. Damir Hadzovic (10-3 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Marcin Held (22-6 overall, 0-2 UFC, 11-3 Bellator): Well, Marcin Held's UFC tenure hasn't gone quite as expected - the Pole was one of the top lightweights in Bellator when he decided to leave for UFC, and the struggles of both Held and former Bellator champ Will Brooks in the UFC thus far has led to a lot of questions about former Bellator guys being able to handle high-level UFC athleticism. Held's UFC debut, against Diego Sanchez, was pretty emblematic of this - admittedly, some of this was Held's fault, as he kept deciding to initiating grapples, but once he did, his tricky submission game was pretty much shut down by Sanchez's good old-fashioned powerful American wrestling. Held's last fight was much more of a mixed bag - UFC put him in a co-main event once again, and while he mostly controlled things in a pretty fun grappling match with Joe Lauzon, for whatever reason, the judges gave the nod to Lauzon, a poor enough decision that Lauzon himself immediately protested it. But even if the loss was fairly BS, Held suddenly finds himself going from the co-main event to the curtain jerker, likely fighting for his job against Bosnia's Damir Hadzovic. Hadzovic's had a tough draw of things - he got thrown against talented Russian Mairbek Taisumov and looked pretty good before getting knocked out, but it looked like he would face Yusuke Kasuya next in a winnable fight. But visa issues for Hadzovic scrapped that, and now Hadzovic gets another tough fight against Held. Hadzovic showed some pretty sweet striking in that Taisumov fight, but he'll probably be out of his depth as soon as Held decides to take things to the ground - if anything, the Sanchez fight showed that Held might grapple too much, and what was a weakness in that fight would become a strength here. I'll say Held goes ahead and just gets the first-round submission, but I do feel bad for Hadzovic, who probably has the talent to stick around as a lower-level action fighter similar to Polo Reyes, but just hasn't gotten the right fights to make that happen.

[flauntpage]

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King

It took Daniel Cormier just one round to put an end to Stipe Miocic’s record-setting reign as UFC heavyweight champion. Never troubled, barely breathing hard, Cormier looked the best he ever has and he did it while performing his weird reaches and dips that have fans and pundits on edge throughout his fights. Cormier is a warts-and-all kind of fighter and as ugly as some of the technique looked when held up against a boxing textbook, it was also one of the most beautiful performances of the year.

In our Tactical Guide we examined Cormier’s peculiar "mummy guard," wherein his hands are extended towards the opponent in the manner of a Scooby-Doo mummy. It is a term that we stole from Muhammad Ali who used it to describe the awkward palms-out style of George Foreman. Foreman learned it from Sandy Saddler and Dick Saddler, who in turn attributed it to Jack Johnson. The hands are held far forwards of the traditional guard in a way that seems as though it is exposing the fighter to hooks, but the palms occupy the lines of the opponent’s straight punches. The straights are the fast ones, the ones that will catch a fighter out and the blows upon which a scientific fight is built. This mummy guard, therefore, takes away the weapons of the scientific boxer and for all Ali’s mocking of it, he couldn’t jab Foreman up, he had to go to the rope-a-dope and outlast him. Daniel Cormier also looks pretty ridiculous if you compare his striking to a "textbook" fighter, but you cannot deny that he’s making it work and jabbing up fighters who look a lot better shadowboxing in front of the mirror.

Just as he had against Volkan Oezdemir, Daniel Cormier was able to stifle much of Miocic’s straight hitting. The reaction of many fighters when confronted by an opponent checking their hands is to attempt to either swing around the outside, or to withdraw the hands into the body in order to free them, both result in opening the path for the jab of the fighter doing the hand checking. Miocic has previously shown the finest jab in the heavyweight division and yet he scarcely found a home for it and ate sharp jabs from the shorter wrestler as he tried to work it all out.

In boxing, when both hands are smothered there isn’t much else a fighter can do. In combat sports where kicking is legal, there are still plenty of options on the table and ultimately this is why Cormier struggled so much with Jon Jones. But against Stipe Miocic, Cormier was the one throwing the kicks. Slipping inside jabs, Cormier would counter with hard low kicks, and when Miocic got drawn into the hand fighting, he even snuck a step-up left kick to the liver in. Very surprising for a man who, to the casual observer, looks as though he would struggle to raise his knee to his chest.

This mummy guard is just one tricky method of fighting, of course. There’s no way to do things perfectly and there are still plenty of ways this style can be exploited. Most notably, a fighter reaching with both hands can be tied up in a stalemate if his opponent does the same, and then the man who is quicker to turn over the elbow can make his opponent’s life hell. Miocic actually met DC in the hand fight later in the first round, but rather than turning over sharp elbows, pulled Cormier’s hands out of position only to land a jab with just a few inches of momentum on it.

Cormier’s strategy in this fight seemed to be very similar to his fight with Oezdemir despite his opponents’ very different qualities and styles. Cormier went after both men, checking their hands and shooting jabs, and if they threw the right hand or slipped his jab, Cormier’s left hand shot over their shoulder. In pugilistic times this was called a "bar" of the right hand, but it is also called a "leverage guard": by straightening the arm over the opponent’s shoulder, the opponent’s punch can be obstructed and muffled at the elbow and shoulder. As we mentioned last week, it’s ugly, but back in bareknuckle days it was the most reliable method of stopping a right hand.

Where Cormier was able to pick up his high crotch straight off the collar tie against Volkan Oezdemir, Miocic was a considerably bigger, stronger man and a quality wrestler in his own right. Readers will have noticed on Saturday night, and against Oezdemir, that Cormier is quite happy to grab a hold of a headlock when he shoots his lead hand over the opponent’s right shoulder. This is generally considered a bad position in MMA but Cormier wants clinches at any cost and giving the opponent a head start seems to convince them to give him a chance.

Against Miocic, Cormier looked to shoot his arm over Miocic’s shoulder and initiate a clinch, but if Miocic dropped his head in and sunk back to escape the clinch, Cormier would keep a hold of the single collar tie with his left hand. Through threatening the clinch, Cormier has created a scenario wherein his opponent is encouraged to do all the things that make his collar tie right uppercut easier to land. After watching Cormier hammer this home against Alexander Gustafsson in prolonged clinches, it is fascinating to see that he has managed to build a clever set up for the blow into his distance-closing game.

The following clip shows what appeared to be a fairly wild pair of exchanges. On the first, Cormier attempts to tie up in the exchange and Miocic drops away, triggering the uppercut. In the second burst of action, the same thing happens but Miocic instead takes the underhook and presses in for the clinch—this seemed to be what Cormier was aiming for throughout the bout.

By driving Miocic’s head off line with his underhooked arm, Cormier could create enough space to suck his elbow back through and claim the underhook himself.

Cormier only succeeded in getting the underhook on a couple of occasions in this fight and was unable to build into his takedowns from them because Miocic was hell-bent on escaping the clinch whenever it happened. This, however, allowed Cormier to land with sneakers on the break. A sneaker is what Jack Dempsey termed a punch on the break in boxing—totally illegal when the referee has called for a break, but completely okay and absolutely devastating if the fighters break voluntarily. In MMA, getting into and out of the clinch is a much bigger part of the game but because the hands are occupied in wrestling at many points these are the best times to chin a fighter. A couple of weeks ago Leon Edwards observed the practice of cracking Donald Cerrone with an elbow on each exit from the clinch as though it were a religious tenet.

As Cormier got an underhook with a minute to go in the first round, Miocic went to that hips-back, head-in, frame across the neck posture again and Cormier dinged him with a right hook.

Shortly afterwards a similar sequence would play out. Miocic this time took the underhook, Cormier immediately swam through, Miocic recognized that he didn’t want to be in the clinch and began posturing to back out of the clinch again and Cormier caught him with a short right hook. It travelled a few inches, it might not even register on the UFC’s magical punch test machine, but it caught Miocic off guard and turned his lights off. Just as the legendary Henry Armstrong threw three or four hundred sneakers a fight, it only took one to land at the right time to end the contest.

Moments before the knockout, Miocic had shown one of his consistent bad habits that we discussed in the Tactical Guide and have examined many times before that: he threw his right hand, got carried away, and left his chin out and his hands down as he stood perfectly square. Cormier cracked him with a stiff one two while he was out of position and seconds later the ending sequence took place. Whether Cormier’s counter punches "set up" Miocic for the surprisingly short knockout blow, no one can say, but it is concerning that Miocic continues to throw himself into these positions when he gets trigger happy.

With the victory, Daniel Cormier becomes a simultaneous two-division champion. "Simultaneous" is a word the UFC added emphasis to when Conor McGregor fought Eddie Alvarez because it had to be a world first somehow… the fact that the UFC stripped McGregor of the featherweight title immediately after the photographs with both belts should tell you all you need to know. Should Cormier actually manage the Henry Armstrong feat of defending the belt in both divisions, that would truly be a first, but it’s probably not something you should hold your breath for. There’s a good chance he vacates the light heavyweight division (which might as well be disbanded at this point) to fight at heavyweight full time.

Endeavor was even able to trot out Brock Lesnar to help Cormier (a mark for the business) act out his childhood pro wrestling fantasies following the fight. Should that match-up materialize it might be the least deserved title shot in modern UFC history, but it would also make everyone involved a whole heap of money as Lesnar is a guaranteed million dollar attraction. One way or another, Daniel Cormier’s turbulent athletic career looks set to reach a happy conclusion, and those are just far too rare in the fight game.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast.

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King

It took Daniel Cormier just one round to put an end to Stipe Miocic’s record-setting reign as UFC heavyweight champion. Never troubled, barely breathing hard, Cormier looked the best he ever has and he did it while performing his weird reaches and dips that have fans and pundits on edge throughout his fights. Cormier is a warts-and-all kind of fighter and as ugly as some of the technique looked when held up against a boxing textbook, it was also one of the most beautiful performances of the year.

In our Tactical Guide we examined Cormier’s peculiar "mummy guard," wherein his hands are extended towards the opponent in the manner of a Scooby-Doo mummy. It is a term that we stole from Muhammad Ali who used it to describe the awkward palms-out style of George Foreman. Foreman learned it from Sandy Saddler and Dick Saddler, who in turn attributed it to Jack Johnson. The hands are held far forwards of the traditional guard in a way that seems as though it is exposing the fighter to hooks, but the palms occupy the lines of the opponent’s straight punches. The straights are the fast ones, the ones that will catch a fighter out and the blows upon which a scientific fight is built. This mummy guard, therefore, takes away the weapons of the scientific boxer and for all Ali’s mocking of it, he couldn’t jab Foreman up, he had to go to the rope-a-dope and outlast him. Daniel Cormier also looks pretty ridiculous if you compare his striking to a "textbook" fighter, but you cannot deny that he’s making it work and jabbing up fighters who look a lot better shadowboxing in front of the mirror.

Just as he had against Volkan Oezdemir, Daniel Cormier was able to stifle much of Miocic’s straight hitting. The reaction of many fighters when confronted by an opponent checking their hands is to attempt to either swing around the outside, or to withdraw the hands into the body in order to free them, both result in opening the path for the jab of the fighter doing the hand checking. Miocic has previously shown the finest jab in the heavyweight division and yet he scarcely found a home for it and ate sharp jabs from the shorter wrestler as he tried to work it all out.

In boxing, when both hands are smothered there isn’t much else a fighter can do. In combat sports where kicking is legal, there are still plenty of options on the table and ultimately this is why Cormier struggled so much with Jon Jones. But against Stipe Miocic, Cormier was the one throwing the kicks. Slipping inside jabs, Cormier would counter with hard low kicks, and when Miocic got drawn into the hand fighting, he even snuck a step-up left kick to the liver in. Very surprising for a man who, to the casual observer, looks as though he would struggle to raise his knee to his chest.

This mummy guard is just one tricky method of fighting, of course. There’s no way to do things perfectly and there are still plenty of ways this style can be exploited. Most notably, a fighter reaching with both hands can be tied up in a stalemate if his opponent does the same, and then the man who is quicker to turn over the elbow can make his opponent’s life hell. Miocic actually met DC in the hand fight later in the first round, but rather than turning over sharp elbows, pulled Cormier’s hands out of position only to land a jab with just a few inches of momentum on it.

Cormier’s strategy in this fight seemed to be very similar to his fight with Oezdemir despite his opponents’ very different qualities and styles. Cormier went after both men, checking their hands and shooting jabs, and if they threw the right hand or slipped his jab, Cormier’s left hand shot over their shoulder. In pugilistic times this was called a "bar" of the right hand, but it is also called a "leverage guard": by straightening the arm over the opponent’s shoulder, the opponent’s punch can be obstructed and muffled at the elbow and shoulder. As we mentioned last week, it’s ugly, but back in bareknuckle days it was the most reliable method of stopping a right hand.

Where Cormier was able to pick up his high crotch straight off the collar tie against Volkan Oezdemir, Miocic was a considerably bigger, stronger man and a quality wrestler in his own right. Readers will have noticed on Saturday night, and against Oezdemir, that Cormier is quite happy to grab a hold of a headlock when he shoots his lead hand over the opponent’s right shoulder. This is generally considered a bad position in MMA but Cormier wants clinches at any cost and giving the opponent a head start seems to convince them to give him a chance.

Against Miocic, Cormier looked to shoot his arm over Miocic’s shoulder and initiate a clinch, but if Miocic dropped his head in and sunk back to escape the clinch, Cormier would keep a hold of the single collar tie with his left hand. Through threatening the clinch, Cormier has created a scenario wherein his opponent is encouraged to do all the things that make his collar tie right uppercut easier to land. After watching Cormier hammer this home against Alexander Gustafsson in prolonged clinches, it is fascinating to see that he has managed to build a clever set up for the blow into his distance-closing game.

The following clip shows what appeared to be a fairly wild pair of exchanges. On the first, Cormier attempts to tie up in the exchange and Miocic drops away, triggering the uppercut. In the second burst of action, the same thing happens but Miocic instead takes the underhook and presses in for the clinch—this seemed to be what Cormier was aiming for throughout the bout.

By driving Miocic’s head off line with his underhooked arm, Cormier could create enough space to suck his elbow back through and claim the underhook himself.

Cormier only succeeded in getting the underhook on a couple of occasions in this fight and was unable to build into his takedowns from them because Miocic was hell-bent on escaping the clinch whenever it happened. This, however, allowed Cormier to land with sneakers on the break. A sneaker is what Jack Dempsey termed a punch on the break in boxing—totally illegal when the referee has called for a break, but completely okay and absolutely devastating if the fighters break voluntarily. In MMA, getting into and out of the clinch is a much bigger part of the game but because the hands are occupied in wrestling at many points these are the best times to chin a fighter. A couple of weeks ago Leon Edwards observed the practice of cracking Donald Cerrone with an elbow on each exit from the clinch as though it were a religious tenet.

As Cormier got an underhook with a minute to go in the first round, Miocic went to that hips-back, head-in, frame across the neck posture again and Cormier dinged him with a right hook.

Shortly afterwards a similar sequence would play out. Miocic this time took the underhook, Cormier immediately swam through, Miocic recognized that he didn’t want to be in the clinch and began posturing to back out of the clinch again and Cormier caught him with a short right hook. It travelled a few inches, it might not even register on the UFC’s magical punch test machine, but it caught Miocic off guard and turned his lights off. Just as the legendary Henry Armstrong threw three or four hundred sneakers a fight, it only took one to land at the right time to end the contest.

Moments before the knockout, Miocic had shown one of his consistent bad habits that we discussed in the Tactical Guide and have examined many times before that: he threw his right hand, got carried away, and left his chin out and his hands down as he stood perfectly square. Cormier cracked him with a stiff one two while he was out of position and seconds later the ending sequence took place. Whether Cormier’s counter punches "set up" Miocic for the surprisingly short knockout blow, no one can say, but it is concerning that Miocic continues to throw himself into these positions when he gets trigger happy.

With the victory, Daniel Cormier becomes a simultaneous two-division champion. "Simultaneous" is a word the UFC added emphasis to when Conor McGregor fought Eddie Alvarez because it had to be a world first somehow… the fact that the UFC stripped McGregor of the featherweight title immediately after the photographs with both belts should tell you all you need to know. Should Cormier actually manage the Henry Armstrong feat of defending the belt in both divisions, that would truly be a first, but it’s probably not something you should hold your breath for. There’s a good chance he vacates the light heavyweight division (which might as well be disbanded at this point) to fight at heavyweight full time.

Endeavor was even able to trot out Brock Lesnar to help Cormier (a mark for the business) act out his childhood pro wrestling fantasies following the fight. Should that match-up materialize it might be the least deserved title shot in modern UFC history, but it would also make everyone involved a whole heap of money as Lesnar is a guaranteed million dollar attraction. One way or another, Daniel Cormier’s turbulent athletic career looks set to reach a happy conclusion, and those are just far too rare in the fight game.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast.

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King

It took Daniel Cormier just one round to put an end to Stipe Miocic’s record-setting reign as UFC heavyweight champion. Never troubled, barely breathing hard, Cormier looked the best he ever has and he did it while performing his weird reaches and dips that have fans and pundits on edge throughout his fights. Cormier is a warts-and-all kind of fighter and as ugly as some of the technique looked when held up against a boxing textbook, it was also one of the most beautiful performances of the year.

In our Tactical Guide we examined Cormier’s peculiar "mummy guard," wherein his hands are extended towards the opponent in the manner of a Scooby-Doo mummy. It is a term that we stole from Muhammad Ali who used it to describe the awkward palms-out style of George Foreman. Foreman learned it from Sandy Saddler and Dick Saddler, who in turn attributed it to Jack Johnson. The hands are held far forwards of the traditional guard in a way that seems as though it is exposing the fighter to hooks, but the palms occupy the lines of the opponent’s straight punches. The straights are the fast ones, the ones that will catch a fighter out and the blows upon which a scientific fight is built. This mummy guard, therefore, takes away the weapons of the scientific boxer and for all Ali’s mocking of it, he couldn’t jab Foreman up, he had to go to the rope-a-dope and outlast him. Daniel Cormier also looks pretty ridiculous if you compare his striking to a "textbook" fighter, but you cannot deny that he’s making it work and jabbing up fighters who look a lot better shadowboxing in front of the mirror.

Just as he had against Volkan Oezdemir, Daniel Cormier was able to stifle much of Miocic’s straight hitting. The reaction of many fighters when confronted by an opponent checking their hands is to attempt to either swing around the outside, or to withdraw the hands into the body in order to free them, both result in opening the path for the jab of the fighter doing the hand checking. Miocic has previously shown the finest jab in the heavyweight division and yet he scarcely found a home for it and ate sharp jabs from the shorter wrestler as he tried to work it all out.

In boxing, when both hands are smothered there isn’t much else a fighter can do. In combat sports where kicking is legal, there are still plenty of options on the table and ultimately this is why Cormier struggled so much with Jon Jones. But against Stipe Miocic, Cormier was the one throwing the kicks. Slipping inside jabs, Cormier would counter with hard low kicks, and when Miocic got drawn into the hand fighting, he even snuck a step-up left kick to the liver in. Very surprising for a man who, to the casual observer, looks as though he would struggle to raise his knee to his chest.

This mummy guard is just one tricky method of fighting, of course. There’s no way to do things perfectly and there are still plenty of ways this style can be exploited. Most notably, a fighter reaching with both hands can be tied up in a stalemate if his opponent does the same, and then the man who is quicker to turn over the elbow can make his opponent’s life hell. Miocic actually met DC in the hand fight later in the first round, but rather than turning over sharp elbows, pulled Cormier’s hands out of position only to land a jab with just a few inches of momentum on it.

Cormier’s strategy in this fight seemed to be very similar to his fight with Oezdemir despite his opponents’ very different qualities and styles. Cormier went after both men, checking their hands and shooting jabs, and if they threw the right hand or slipped his jab, Cormier’s left hand shot over their shoulder. In pugilistic times this was called a "bar" of the right hand, but it is also called a "leverage guard": by straightening the arm over the opponent’s shoulder, the opponent’s punch can be obstructed and muffled at the elbow and shoulder. As we mentioned last week, it’s ugly, but back in bareknuckle days it was the most reliable method of stopping a right hand.

Where Cormier was able to pick up his high crotch straight off the collar tie against Volkan Oezdemir, Miocic was a considerably bigger, stronger man and a quality wrestler in his own right. Readers will have noticed on Saturday night, and against Oezdemir, that Cormier is quite happy to grab a hold of a headlock when he shoots his lead hand over the opponent’s right shoulder. This is generally considered a bad position in MMA but Cormier wants clinches at any cost and giving the opponent a head start seems to convince them to give him a chance.

Against Miocic, Cormier looked to shoot his arm over Miocic’s shoulder and initiate a clinch, but if Miocic dropped his head in and sunk back to escape the clinch, Cormier would keep a hold of the single collar tie with his left hand. Through threatening the clinch, Cormier has created a scenario wherein his opponent is encouraged to do all the things that make his collar tie right uppercut easier to land. After watching Cormier hammer this home against Alexander Gustafsson in prolonged clinches, it is fascinating to see that he has managed to build a clever set up for the blow into his distance-closing game.

The following clip shows what appeared to be a fairly wild pair of exchanges. On the first, Cormier attempts to tie up in the exchange and Miocic drops away, triggering the uppercut. In the second burst of action, the same thing happens but Miocic instead takes the underhook and presses in for the clinch—this seemed to be what Cormier was aiming for throughout the bout.

By driving Miocic’s head off line with his underhooked arm, Cormier could create enough space to suck his elbow back through and claim the underhook himself.

Cormier only succeeded in getting the underhook on a couple of occasions in this fight and was unable to build into his takedowns from them because Miocic was hell-bent on escaping the clinch whenever it happened. This, however, allowed Cormier to land with sneakers on the break. A sneaker is what Jack Dempsey termed a punch on the break in boxing—totally illegal when the referee has called for a break, but completely okay and absolutely devastating if the fighters break voluntarily. In MMA, getting into and out of the clinch is a much bigger part of the game but because the hands are occupied in wrestling at many points these are the best times to chin a fighter. A couple of weeks ago Leon Edwards observed the practice of cracking Donald Cerrone with an elbow on each exit from the clinch as though it were a religious tenet.

As Cormier got an underhook with a minute to go in the first round, Miocic went to that hips-back, head-in, frame across the neck posture again and Cormier dinged him with a right hook.

Shortly afterwards a similar sequence would play out. Miocic this time took the underhook, Cormier immediately swam through, Miocic recognized that he didn’t want to be in the clinch and began posturing to back out of the clinch again and Cormier caught him with a short right hook. It travelled a few inches, it might not even register on the UFC’s magical punch test machine, but it caught Miocic off guard and turned his lights off. Just as the legendary Henry Armstrong threw three or four hundred sneakers a fight, it only took one to land at the right time to end the contest.

Moments before the knockout, Miocic had shown one of his consistent bad habits that we discussed in the Tactical Guide and have examined many times before that: he threw his right hand, got carried away, and left his chin out and his hands down as he stood perfectly square. Cormier cracked him with a stiff one two while he was out of position and seconds later the ending sequence took place. Whether Cormier’s counter punches "set up" Miocic for the surprisingly short knockout blow, no one can say, but it is concerning that Miocic continues to throw himself into these positions when he gets trigger happy.

With the victory, Daniel Cormier becomes a simultaneous two-division champion. "Simultaneous" is a word the UFC added emphasis to when Conor McGregor fought Eddie Alvarez because it had to be a world first somehow… the fact that the UFC stripped McGregor of the featherweight title immediately after the photographs with both belts should tell you all you need to know. Should Cormier actually manage the Henry Armstrong feat of defending the belt in both divisions, that would truly be a first, but it’s probably not something you should hold your breath for. There’s a good chance he vacates the light heavyweight division (which might as well be disbanded at this point) to fight at heavyweight full time.

Endeavor was even able to trot out Brock Lesnar to help Cormier (a mark for the business) act out his childhood pro wrestling fantasies following the fight. Should that match-up materialize it might be the least deserved title shot in modern UFC history, but it would also make everyone involved a whole heap of money as Lesnar is a guaranteed million dollar attraction. One way or another, Daniel Cormier’s turbulent athletic career looks set to reach a happy conclusion, and those are just far too rare in the fight game.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast.

How Daniel Cormier Killed the King published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/