#no cause you all think when he saw George he was also thinking of Nico??

[muxas-world]

…and now all of him will also fade away

[pitchcom]

soz if u guys arent here for this but these are MY personal grid A/B/O assignments + reasoning:

Max: alpha and i feel like i dont need to explain this one LOL

Checo: omega but i could be persuaded to see beta checo !! like take one long look into his beautiful big brown eyes n little freckles and motherly aura and tell me you dont see it ….

Charles: controversial but …. alpha. omega charles truthers i see you. i love you and hold you dearly. but to me charles is just a softer alpha u know ?? but he still has the bite too him … like hes all sharp teeth grin n you KNOW its all casual with him but you cant help but fall in love w him anyways ….

Carlos: DOUBLY controversial but I AM AN OMEGA CARLOS TRUTHER !!!! like again. look into his big brown eyes n plush lips … look at his quotes about how he was “too soft” when he was younger n just wanted to be friends w everyone … i will die on this hill

Lando: TRIPLY CONTROVERSIAL but alpha lando scratches an itch in my brain actually !! like chest puffed bravado rookie lando wanting to prove himself bc people always assumed he wasnt an alpha … now mellowed cheeky alpha lando whose gone through 2 older omega teammates (spoilers for daniel LOL) and learned a lot from them …

Oscar: alpha but i could be persuaded to see beta !! idk hes just so chill. so unbothered. people assume hes a beta bc of his attitude but hes just been raised so that he literally does not care abt designations at all

Alex: beta but i could be persuaded to others … like this one is not solid solid to me ?? but hes genuinely just so chill with everyone on the grid that hes like a stabilizing force … a calming presence u know … even though he absolutely has the capacity to be teasing n silly

Logan: omega end of sentence. look into those sad eyes and miserable aura and tell me you do not want to bundle him up. hide him away whisper sweet things to him. he would love it too the frat boy logan-ers are lying to you …

Daniel: omega LOL i mean i can see alpha danny n would not necessarily be opposed to it but his kind of mentoring of max n lando … his wide eyed curly hair braces when he came into f1 … also honey badger nickname speaks omega to me. it whispered in my ear and i saw the vision of danny stuck with angry baby alpha max n the two slowly learning how to coexist abd slowly becoming one ot the closest people ever to each other

Yuki: i actually dont have a preference LOL i mean i think the whole “shorter/smaller person is an omega” thing is a tired trope so i feel i have a little predisposed bias against omega yuki BUT i am generally open to all designations for him

Fernando: I AM ALSO AN OMEGA NANDO TRUTHER i am too hung up on his twink days w the old grid to ever really see him as anything more then a conniving little omega who absolutely kicks ass and proves the haters wrong LOL. you love to see an omega whose a little feral out there. like go forth and cause mischief or something

Lance: i wanna say omega but i could be persuaded …. like look at him. plush hair big brown eyes with fluttery lashes pouty lips. hes a little spoiled thing like hes so cat coded to me. lanky ol omega who knows what he wants

Pierre: omega !!! i dont rlly have an explanation for this one it came to me in a vision BUT i love omega pierre … pretty little bratty omega …

Esteban: beta but generally open to all interpretations !! he seems so like neutral to me … like big lanky guy whose trying his best to stand out n get his moment in the sun but gets a little overshadowed by other stronger personalities …

Lewis: alpha 100%. again hes calmed hes mellowed but this man has the calm quiet “i know im the shit. what are you going to do about it?” alpha demeanor to me. like he absolutely tore it UP when he was younger n was brash n confident (and was not the best alpha) but after the nico situation and teaming w valterri he rlly had his eyes opened and now he’s just chilling

George: alpha but i could be persuaded to other points of view … like this man was crazy n dedicated enough to powerpoint present why he should be in mercedes 😭 i think that he is deffo like hyperaware of designations/tries to do his best by everyone in the paddock tho

Kevin: omega BUT i could be persuaded for beta kevin. no real explanation again but i am once again influenced by rookie kev and also his fatherhood

Nico: alpha or beta. again no real explanation for this he just gives off cocky would-be-an-asshole-if-you-didnt-know-him-well alpha vibes but in an uncle way. like the guy who likes to tease you but goes too far sometimes and doesnt rlly apologize for it

Valterri: beta through n through 🫡 again influenced by his stint at merc where he was the perfect second driver and was also brought in to help smooth over turbulent emotions that were left from the brocedes divorce and nicos subsequent retirement. definitely grew into himself a little more post merc tho and now gives no fucks about what people think abt him or his designation. viva la vida

Zhou: i wanna say alpha OR omega. my narrative is that he was a shy rookie who’s not super comfortable in his designation yet when he first debuts but as he spends more time with “no fucks given” valterri he slowly becomes more confident and comfortable in himself. thats it sorry zhou fans im not well versed in the zhou lore 😭

[vro0m]

Hey idk if you are still doing the whole "how lewis breaks his teammates" essay but if you are, I just want to say as someone who has been watching f1 since I was a kid and seen almost all of lewis career, mercedes is a huge factor in it (noticed how you mentioned button wasn't so affected by it and that comes down two reasons 1) pre-mercedes hamilton and 2) button being able to read his teammates very well and seeing how paranoid lewis was) but really the kind of toxic environment of mercedes to sacrifice anything including their drivers mental health for greatness is what makes lewis the way he is like he was quite young when he first got to mercedes and toto wolfe who has spoken about how he likes to psycho-analyse his drivers in the past saw what button saw, an extremely talented kid who was due to his past of racial abuse and bullying was paranoid and mistrusting as he saw enemies everywhere and him and the team used that to their advantage (merc have done their best to erase it but a lot of the first cracks from lewis and nicos relationship collapsing came from inside the merc team like them telling the drivers different things in the hopes of making them more competitive and better drivers which it did tbf, but then it spiraled and even merc couldn't control the monster they created but they still got the results they wanted in the end) merc took a different strategy but we still see how they shaped everything in regard to lewis and valterri as teammates in which they did offer better support to lewis (not because they realised it was the right thing to do but because after 2016 with nico it became evident that putting lewis in that extreme of a competition causes him to be more reckless as a driver and he is more successful if he is not in that situation) but they completely mentally destroyed bottas and sacrificed a lot of his potential as a driver in order to do that (again you have to remember that mercedes no.1 priority is and always have been to be the greatest and the idea of having a driver with the most wdc was mouthwatering to them and they would have it no matter what the cost) it is hard to say what with happen with lewis and george as the car wasn't good enough this season to warrant the usual merc mind games with their drivers but mercedes shaped lewis into the legend he is today but they also shaped him into the worst teammate (huge lewis fan but not so much of mercedes if that wasn't obvious haha)

Hey Anon!

First of all thanks for the interesting message. I sat on it for a few hours to think it through before I answered because there's a lot of things there, and a lot of things I hadn't considered before.

In short, I don't agree with you. But let's walk through it one thing at a time.

(Congrats, in the end you managed to make me practically write the entire essay but hey, I'll still do it better and more methodically someday.)

So yes, I said Jenson wasn't affected as much. I don't think it has anything to do with Lewis being "pre-mercedes" though. You know when in 2012, after getting beaten by him in quali in Belgium, Lewis posted sensitive telemetry on Twitter? He claimed Jenson had a new rear wing while he didn't himself and said he was losing 0.4 on the straights. (In 2016, Jenson claimed the data wasn't even from quali but from simulations.) Pre-Mercedes Lewis, if anything, was more unhinged, in my honest opinion. Already paranoid and playing mind games. Also way more immature. If it didn't affect Jenson, from my point of view, it's rather because

Jenson is remarkably (and unusually) well balanced mentally for a Formula 1 driver but even that is directly linked to

Lewis wasn't competitive while they were teammates.

The only year he was still in contention for the title in the last race while they were both at Mclaren was 2010, and it would have taken unprecedented circumstances for him to win it. Jenson wasn't threatened. The stakes were the lowest they've ever been in a situation including Lewis in F1.

Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean I think Mercedes are good guys.

Lewis does sacrifice a lot for his career, but I don't believe it's something Mercedes created. He was willing to give a lot from the start, I believe in part because he feels indebted, notably to his dad and family, and also because he felt (at least at some point if not still) like he had a lot to prove as a Black man from a humble background. Also let's not forget his mental health wasn't good to begin with, that's not on Mercedes, as what I said about his time at McLaren showed. As far as I can tell, Lewis has always been fragile on that side, that's how it is, that's how it is for most of the drivers tbh, and that honestly kinda almost goes with the job profile. It's not even just F1 : competitive, professional sports are honestly terrible for the athletes' mental health. People are not built to withstand that kind of pressure and scrutiny and highs and lows. Also let's not forget that although he sacrifices a lot, he's been criticised for years by people claiming he has too many ventures and interests outside F1 and he's not focused enough. I obviously disagree that it's a problem, but he does indeed have a lot of other things aside from F1, so it's not like he's completely engulfed in it like some other drivers are or have been and he's devoting his entire time and life to it. As far as F1 drivers go, he's pretty much doing whatever the fuck he wants, actually.

I do think his work ethic and vision and need for grandeur and Toto's entered into some kind of resonance when they met and it intensified the whole thing a lot. (Btw let's not forget that in some ways, just like Lewis, Toto had things to prove as he also went through some hardships of his own and it also feeds into that resonance between them but that's not the subject.) I also do think winning raises expectations, yours and others. I do not buy into Lewis being or having been some kind of manipulated puppet at the end of Toto's arm. Lewis is far from stupid. Toto is a great entrepreneur who knows how to make money out of things and people and that's what he came to do, despite their current extremely exasperating "we are a family" communication campaign. Lewis knows that, he's not naive. Lewis is also a capitalist. Lewis is also in it in (non negligeable) part for the money. Lewis is great at negotiating his contracts and making as many bucks as he can out of this. He's not a victim being used, he's getting his good share out of the deal, both in fat checks and in titles. I know you didn't say that wasn't the case but I'm putting it out there as a way to balance the way I feel you painted their relationship in your ask, like Toto is this mastermind using his drivers, when in reality his drivers, and namely Lewis, are there for a reason and know what they're doing and getting out of it as well.

Yes, Mercedes used Nico and Lewis' rivalry. Undeniably. Niki said it loud and proud, that putting two competitive drivers into the same team pushed them to be even better. However, you claim the issues between them first "came from the inside". I'm not saying it definitely isn't the case but unless you have some actual receipts for that I'll treat it as nothing more than a rumour. I don't think they needed to conspire to build that rivalry, the rivalry was already there in their karting days. They didn't need to feed the flames, the fire was burning. Of course they didn't do anything to tame it down because it was profitable indeed, until it wasn't, and then they did actually try to take measures. The rivalry spiralled because that's the only thing it could do.

Lewis and Valtteri are a different thing entirely from my point of view. For the record, I haven't watched 2017 and 2018 yet but I started watching in 2019 so I did see more than half of what happened there. I wouldn't put it past Lewis to have given Toto some kind of ultimatum after what happened with Nico in the form of you put me first or I'm out, or something to that extent. Or they decided to do it anyway without him asking because as you said, it was more profitable to preserve him rather than rattle him. Anyway, I don't think they voluntarily destroyed Valtteri.

I think Valtteri came into it thinking he could win and then realised he couldn't. Both because Lewis was clearly although implicitly their n°1 driver but also and mainly because beating Lewis when he's doing well (aka not as he was during his McLaren days) – as we saw with Nico like Anon pointed out the other day, as Valtteri said himself when he departed, as Kovalainen also talked about recently – is practically impossible. Literally. Of course some of it is incredibly hard work on his part, but the fact is, even when his rivals try to work as hard as he does, they fucking can't do it. Honestly, it's like Phelps webbed fingers or something, he's truly built different.

As for Lewis and George... Well yeah. There's potential for drama there. But again, I don't think it's due to Mercedes in particular, I truly don't believe they're voluntarily pitting their drivers against each other as you seem to claim. Generally speaking F1 drivers don't need that to be extremely bent on beating each other. Teams tend to rather have to tune it down than to feed it to protect their assets, including Mercedes. As we established, rivals crashing and burning, metaphorically and literally, is definitely not profitable. So if drama there is, I don't think it'll have been generated by the team. George is a young up and comer with loads to prove, tons of potential, who could get a whole career out of it in the most competitive team in history. Lewis is the best driver in the world, he's been robbed of the ultimate proof of that, and he's also nearing the end of his career and running out of time to get that ultimate proof, whatever he says and however much we don't want it to be true. There's plenty enough at stake there for the drama to spawn by itself without being manufactured by Mercedes.

Conclusion : Lewis is the worst teammate not because Mercedes made him that way but because he is genuinely unnaturally good.

[myimaginarywonderland]

I am sorry are some of you trying to be this delusional or dense? Can you not just let Lewis say something for once without compeltly changing the meaning of what he said?

Not once did Lewis imply Max was a bad driver or that RedBull hasn't been on it for years.

Max is winning just like everyone else because he is a great driver with an amazing car. Just like Seb did or Michael, or Senna or Prost or literally anyone in the history of F1.

You can not win without an amazing car and you can not win if you aren't at least a good driver. And you can't win consistently if you aren't surounded by a high functioning team. You need strategist to be at their top, pitstops to go flawlessly, a great team manger and just an all around working environment. Seb had it, Hakkinnen had it, Kimi had it,literally every world champion had at least a good working environment if not a great one.

I am sure Lewis would say that for his titles everything also needed to be on top. Hell, we even saw how Mercedes had such a pace advantage at times that they relied on that and forget to actually work which caused stupid mistakes that ruined races.

Lewis is not hinting at anything, he is simply telling the truth. Expect for Checo and Daniel the only true competitors and comparison Max had were essentially rookies. Alex and Pierre were both inexperienced still and especially when it came to RedBull. Carlos was honestly never that good of a driverr before he got to McLaren and he literally started his rookie season alongside with Max.

And even Checo or Daniel are nowhere close to the level of caliber Lewis went up against in his rookie season let alone any other season.

Nando is probably the best driver of the 2000s if we ignore Michael. That man single-handedly beat Michael, challenged him and a young Kimi early one and nearly would have won 2 more titles in a Ferrari that he dragged up to the top because the car certainly wasn't on par with Sebs RedBull. If you can't see that Nando is probay the best of the early 2010s, hell even better than Seb possibly, you are just completely off.

Heikki was another great team-mate of Lewis. He was never a WDC but he was arguably good and had moments of genuine great drive.

Jenson is another incredible driver that is miles better than any team-mate Max has ever gone up against. I could name some races here but his title speaks for itself. He has also something that many of the drivers Max went against lacked which is a supportive environment.

And now we are down to Nico who is probably the greatest challenge Lewis ever had even though he went up against Nando. Nico is probably one of the most underrated WDC winners and genuinely a great driver.

Valtteri was quiet literally amazing at Williams even at Mercedes he did well if we ignore 2021 where it was clear that he was completly exhausted from trying to compete with Lewis.

George is a generational talent and a WDC in the making.

Meanwhile Checo is a great midfield driver and an okay top team driver.

And Daniel, he is a good top team driver. That's it. He isn't WDC material like George, one of the greats like Nando, a WDC like Jenson or Nico. He also was beaten by Valtteri so I think that tells us which of the two is better. (Let's not forget that Valtteri also had a better junior career and was getting podiums since his second year and beating more experienced drivers like Seb in worse machinery.)

Ricciardo is not on pare with any of Lewis teammates expect maybe Heikki and even that is underestimating Heikkis talents. And that's about it. It's fine to rate him highly especially as a fan but to imply that he is better than drivers line Jenson, Nico, Valtteri is just absurd.

Lewis has been against good, great or even some of the best drivers for his whole career.

The only thing Max had to face were average rookies, a good midfield driver and Daniel. This isn't be meant to shame Max, he is still an incredible driver but he never had anything close to the challenge that Lewis team-mates posed over the years. Not to mention the whole Brocedes thing which took not only fighting but also the literally destroying of a life long friendship and emotional wounds which will probably never heal.

All of Lewis teammates if not for him would at the very least be challenging for a WDC or would have in most cases won it. No one of Max's teammates comes close to that. Not Sainz, not Alex, not Gasly, not Checo and certainly not Daniel eventhough many would like to think that. This doesn't mean they are bad drivers but none of them have the winner mentality, the genuine unique talent or the incredible speed to ever come close to that, let alone the strategic thinking. They don't have that cut edge which every WDC had but which could he different for everyone.

This need to use anything Lewis says and twist it to fit into a narrative is something I thought we left behind. This need to undermine Lewis's success and subsequently everyone who was alongside him for that is toxic and harmful, not to mention incredibly disheartening because it discredits so many drivers in the protest.

To act like Lewis teammates are bad purely to uplift a good driver is damaging the reputation of those drivers even more although all of them are clearly great drivers.

To act like Lewis has always been in his prime Mercedes days is just a false narrative. Lewis has been one of the greats since he came in and nearly won the title in his rookie season against a much more experienced drivers and another highly skilled driver.

I don't care what you think about Max even in 2016, he was far too reckless and hot headed to have won a title if he would have had the Mercedes.

I don't think some of you guys understand how incredible what Lewis did was especially since he was in a field of such skilled and well established drivers.

And if you guys want to bost some slightly better than mid driver (in the grand scheme of F1) by discrediting some of the greats of this decade and one of the best in the sport, you better be prepared to face this backlash because Ricciardo isn't even close to any of Lewis teammates and he clearly wasn't a challenge to Max either.

Max has never had to fight a team-mate like Lewis has had to fight Nando or even Nico.

This doesn't make Max a bad driver or makes him accomplishments any less meaningful. He is still a great driver and to admit that he didn't face the same fights as Lewis isn't taking that away.

But you can not compare them.

Lewis has been fighting for titles against some of the best for his whole career.

The only fight Max ever had was against Lewis and neither one of them truly won that.

Max has had average teammates, good at most and never great like Lewis did.

I'm sorry.. What a shit take 😂 Max is winning because he is MAX! There is no need to hint at Max's team mates current or past that they're ”bad” or slow.

Daniel's metacarpal alone is better than half of those he named.. 🙄 AND! Red Bull were best at strategy and pitstops even when they weren't winning.

[russilton]

Hi, I just saw your WIP/PLANS List and wanted to ask if you have any more details on the panic heat and rut fic as this sounds so promising with Valtteri as care taker. Only if you are up for it and also have a lovely evening :)

I can give you a few! It’s a bit of a new idea I’ve been kicking around thanks to @engineers-curry who I think I can credit for the idea originally, but here’s the gist:

Alpha Lewis and Omega George as a bonded couple, Alpha Valtteri and Beta Daniel as a bonded couple. Vaugely ‘22 seasonish, Gewis both drive for Merc, Val at alfa, Dan at Mclaren. Honestly it wouldn’t be out of the realm to say this could be a future addition to the 2021 a/b/o AU I’ve talked about before.

Because it is my favourite, even if he’s no longer his Teammate Lewis considers Valtteri his second in command. Merc has a pretty fluid pack structure, Toto is kinda pack alpha but Lewis isn’t far from that top rung, and since he has a lot of responsibility leading the pack it’s natural most Alphas have a trusted other alpha they want to take over for them in times or Rut or sickness etc.

When it comes to Merc, George and Lewis are equal, Lewis insists on it, but when it comes to pack, Lewis trusts Valtteri to act as a leading alpha in his place. When he left for alfa Val doesn’t leave the pack, it’s just not what you do, and Lewis has snapped and grumbled at him for even considering it. That’s his best friend don’t you dare go leaving just cause you’re in a new team (Zhou would probably also be invited, he’s got his own space at the alfa pack that’s a lot smaller, but they don’t want to pull Val away entirely), Dan is a new edition to the Merc pack, but he and Val get together and George is delighted because now he can drag Dan into his nests with Bono and shov? Fuck. Yes.

Whoops, went on a Val & Lewis tangent again huh… well anyway, THE IDEA IS, that much like Monza 21 Lewis has to bolt after a race to an event or something, either way he’s out the country, when George drops into a panic/surprise heat for some reason.

It’s not scheduled, nobody knew it was coming, neither George nor Lewis could smell it, and now George, a young, bonded Omega, is without his alpha when his body is used to getting one. Heats without an alpha before you’re bonded can be painful, but when you are? It’s awful, and George is nervy, panicky and in pain bc he wants Lewis and he’s not sure how to get him. He’s not fully in his right mind bc it’s a strong one (something something, we’re leaning into tropes here), and when the team call Lewis frantic to tell him what’s happening, that’s when Lewis makes the call to ask Val for help.

It’s not something they’ve ever had to do before bc bonding is new to all of them, and Valtteri’s role as Lewis second is mostly ceremonial? Toto makes most major pack choices, alphas don’t rlly pull rank at Merc since nico bc they don’t believe in it (and lbr Bono could kick the shit out of any alpha who tried), and there’s no other reason for Lewis to need another alpha in his place usually, until now, as Val is confronted with a sweaty, slightly feverish and close to tears George in the Merc pack room.

So, George drops into heat in the Merc pack room -> Merc calls Lewis -> Lewis calls Val, who heads right over to look after George till Lewis can get on a return flight and take over. Val brings Dan with him, because George likes Dan, Dan is a beta and thus pretty immune to all the hormone shit going on, and Val is kinda terrified of possibly doing something wrong. Between them they get George picked up, and hustle him back to his and Lewis’ hotel room where there’s going to be less overstimulation and eyes on him, and it’ll smell like Lewis and help a little.

Merc could in theory look after George, there’s alphas there, but it’s not ideal and Lewis doesn’t trust them like that. Lewis does trust Val, and so for the next 24 hrs till Lewis can get back, Val looks after George, with Dan by his side to help George stay calm when he’s more delirious, and help Val from panicking. Idk if this will be sexual or non sexual in the fic, depends on what calls to me when I’m writing haha, but for now it at least means lots of cuddling, scent marking, rumbling and restraining.

And angst. When he’s at his deepest George doesn’t really know it’s Val, he just knows it’s not his mate and he’s upset. He wants Lewis and there’s some unknown alpha lying on top of him trying to make him calm down. That’s where Dan also comes in as a calming helper, running his fingers through George’s hair and telling him to breathe, it’s okay, Lewis is coming Russell, just let us help. He also provides snacks and water cause Val is so focused on George he forgets to eat himself sometimes.

Val is no nonsense and often tight lipped most of the time, but he finds himself being softer and more open than normal bc George needs it, he needs the comfort. Dan teases that he’s never like this with HIM VB, what the hell. Val points out that all he had to do was ask, Ricciardo, he’s just busy right now (busy with George whimpering into his shirt bc Val stopped rumbling gently for him)

Eventually Lewis does rejoin them, and he drops into a sort of stress induced mini rut of his own, cause his body needs to know George is safe, his, cared for. Needs to remind George that Lewis is his alpha and he’s here to care for him too. He ends up reaching out for Val who’s assuming it’s time to leave.

See Lewis is worried he’ll hurt George, he’s dropping deep and fast, and he doesn’t want them both to crash together when George can’t stop him (Lewis would fold like paper if George so much as whimpered, but he doesn’t know that yet). So begs Val to stay, Dan to stay too, stop him if he hurts George. And they do. Cause Val is the only person that can push through when Lewis is in rut, the only person that he trusts could pull him off George if he had to.

Lots of angst and hormones later, they just end up in a big cuddle puddle. Lewis wrapped round George, reaching a hand out for Val. Dan pressed between Val and George wondering what weird little micro pack he’s become apart of and when exactly did it become that he would rather die than be without it.

Would it be a bit much to watch your friends fuck? Probably but this is a/b/o baby! Rules are off! It’s all hormones!

There you go, that’s a long ramble about an idea that’s basically ‘Val looks after George bc Lewis is away’

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X4

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

This week we finally got the answer to the question that was on everyone’s minds: Who’s on the beach?!?!? And the answer was none other than George O’Malley! I was right! Ha! I love it when that happens. Yes George was on the beach and we got to see him have a lovely heart to heart with Meredith about life and death, how things were for her and the others after he died, and what life is like for her now.

I was surprised that the heart to heart meaningful conversation turned out to be between Meredith and George and not Meredith and Derek, but I feel like that is coming later. I think the meaningful conversation with Derek will happen right at the end of Meredith’s beach adventure just before she recovers and comes back to the land of the living.

I like that they addressed why Derek and George look older than they did the last time we saw them by having George say that maybe they look older to Meredith and by virtue the audience because that’s how she likes to think of and picture them. The sand isn’t real, the water isn’t real, and Meredith’s perceptions of them and their physical appearances aren’t real either.

We see Richard and Bailey join Meredith and George on the beach at the end sequence when the real life Richard and Bailey move closer to Meredith’s bedside and talk to her which establishes that the beach is neither here nor there. It’s not the afterlife, but it is. It’s not heaven or hell, but it can be. It’s all happening in Meredith’s head, but it’s not. It’s a dream, but it’s also reality.

I liked the call backs to how Meredith, Alex, Cristina, and Izzie laughed a George’s funeral at the ridiculousness of it all. We also got some introspection from Meredith when George asks if she still dances it out like she used to and she says no and that she hasn’t really since she lost Cristina. George gently reminds her that Cristina isn’t dead like him. 

She’s still very much alive she just lives someplace else and that she shouldn’t give up on something she loves that makes her happy because Cristina lives in Zurich, Switzerland instead of Seattle, U.S.A. But we also get some insight here that to Meredith, Cristina moving an ocean away felt like a death and still does. She hasn’t danced it out like that since she left because she’s mourning that loss and to her not being able to see Cristina whenever she wants to is akin to not being able to see people like Derek, George, and Lexie like she used to because they’re gone.

Alex’s departure is different in that way in that once the pandemic is over and travel has opened back up and she’s done being mad at him she can go see Alex and Izzie and the kids whenever she wants. She doesn’t even have to get on a plane if she doesn’t want to. She can drive or take the train. The same holds true for Callie and Arizona. But the loss of people like Cristina, Derek, George, Mark, and Lexie is different because she can’t. Getting to Cristina means enduring at least two separate several hour flights across an ocean and she hates flying. 

Seeing all of those other people is impossible because they’re not alive anymore. And she feels that loss everyday whether she’s able to verbalize it or not. I loved Meredith’s ending line about finding your people and holding them close because those are the ones that get you through the tough times. The fact that she made Richard her POA comes full circle in this episode when we see him trying to comfort her and make a decision at her bedside. 

Richard is struggling about whether to enroll Meredith in the trial when he realizes she’s trying to say something. He gets closer and tells her he’s here for her only to realize she’s mumbling in her sleep and talking to George. Because Richard has seen Meredith and the others through it all he knows exactly who George is. He knows what the significance of that is and he realizes that she’s not trying to speak to him or get better. She’s talking to her friend George on the other side. She’s dying and if he doesn't do something soon she’ll join him. This realization causes him to decide to enroll Meredith in the trial.

I like that we also got an update on George’s Mom who we last saw in Season 8 talking to Callie about her marriage to Arizona and the birth of her daughter Sofia. George tells Meredith that grief is different for everyone and that his mother carries hers and that makes him sad and that sometimes he tries to shake it out of her and try to let her know that he’s still there and he’s still him even though she can’t see him anymore.

I loved how Meredith commented that he’s basically haunting her and George replied, “Well sure if you want to call it that.” The gentle teasing nature they had between them as friends was one of the things I loved most about their relationship and it was nice to see that here. I also liked their conversation about choices. Meredith asks if it’s her choice whether she stays or goes, and George says that it depends. Some people get to choose, and some don’t. He would have stayed if he could, but she appears to have a choice. On the one hand she’s worried about the kids and how losing her and becoming orphans will affect them.

On the other hand, she’s tired and has been through a lot and all the people she loves are on that beach. So, it’s a tough call for her to make. When they were sitting there on that beach and George turned to Meredith and said, “If you stay here you might break him,” and they turned to reveal Richard sitting next to her? Ugh that got me! Also watching Meredith shake convulsively from COVID while unconscious and talking to her dead friend was unnerving and a little scary especially since this is a real disease that is hurting real people. My heart breaks for anyone going through this in real life.

I also loved their exchange about the kids. Where he tells them how great they are and she says he never got to meet them and he tells her that he checks in on her and them from time to time. I also love that his comment establishes that all of the other people Meredith has lost are able to check in on her and the kids and that the other people that other characters have lost can do the same. It’s a nice image and something I think all of us in the real world like to imagine and believe when we lose a loved one. That they’re watching over us.

I loved how in Meredith’s Voice Over this episode she says that Medical schools often ask applicants for an essay describing a time they faced adversity and how they overcame it because they want to know how people will cope with the challenges they'll face as a doctor. And that some students worry they have nothing to write about because they haven't faced difficulty. She didn't have that problem. LOL!

Meredith is the main character, the lead star, and the anchor of the series and they introduced this plot in the premiere this season which mostly likely means that she won’t die or be sidelined by this permanently. And since the show is reflecting a real world disease and pandemic that means that if Meredith lives one of the other characters or someone else close to them will be dying from it most likely. Sadly, it looks like that might be Tom after this episode.

Tom’s got some funny dialogue when he tries to interrupt the staff meeting Richard is holding about COVID by tablet and with Helm when she comes by to drop off his COVID test. I liked how Jackson just walked over and knocked over the tablet to shut him up and everyone just laughed and carried on. His scenes with Helm were pretty funny too. The Zombie appearing on screen scared me though!

In the end we see that Teddy finally comes to talk to him and bring him soup after Helm tells her how bad he’s doing and how much he needs a friend as she desperately tries to save Meredith. When Tom didn’t answer the door or make a sound my first thought was that he had collapsed, but no it’s worse than that because as Teddy turns to leave the camera pans over and we see Tom cold and shaking in a blanket on the other side of the door unable to respond.

Which means his condition has worsened and he’s in pain, but he can’t communicate that to Teddy because he’s too weak to speak or he can’t make his voice loud enough to be heard over the pouring rain. Man that was some downpour! I wonder if it was fake rain that they created or if it rained that heavily the day they filmed that scene. Good to see Tom finally bought a house though! Seeing as last we saw he was living out of a hotel and then got Teddy a beautiful apartment only to find out at the last minute that she had gotten back together with Owen so he went back to living in a hotel again. Glad to see he got some digs.

I’ll be sad if they write Tom off as a character as I’ve really come to like him and he’s interesting and complex. Plus, I love seeing someone call Owen on his crap with such humour! We also got some good social commentary on how health practitioners often base treatment protocols and assessments on the standards of care and presentation developed for white patients, but that because diseases present differently in people of different races and genders that needs to be accounted for.

Especially because your race, gender, and where you grew up affects your predisposition for certain illnesses and can affect the presentation. Owen failed to catch something serious with his patient when they were initially brought in because he was using the standard developed for white patients which is different from the standard for Asian patients. 

One of the new interns who is Asian brings this up to Nico who eventually says something to Owen who brings it up to Bailey who calls him on his privilege and reminds him that he needs to not only check himself, but because he is white and is the head of Trauma for the hospital it is his responsibility to update and improve protocols to make sure that every patient is getting the best care possible.

As Bailey says true equality means taking into account that we are all different. And when it comes to medicine conditions present themselves in different ways based on race and other factors. Giving everyone the exact same care based on a standard of care developed by and for white people is not equality because it means that people of colour like his patient receive a lower standard of care which can lead to unnecessary suffering and death.

True equality means providing equitable care that takes into account who a patient is physically when treating them. As Bailey says equitable care is not the same as equal care. One takes into account the reality and ensures true equal treatment while the other gives the appearance of equality while disadvantaging anyone who’s not a white straight cisgender man. While I like that they addressed that Nico was a complete jerk to everyone this episode.

He acted like the whole thing was no big deal when the intern brought it up and brushed off her comments about Anti-Asian racism from earlier in the episode that we’re totally valid. The intern was looking for some solidarity and for someone above her to back her up on some real issues. Instead Nico blew her off and talked down to her only to bring the issue up himself to Owen in the exact way he told her not to. Nico’s a good surgeon and he was right to say something, but he is a horrible human being, teacher, and boyfriend.

He continues to treat Levi horribly for no reason and as Jo says Levi deserves better. I liked Jo and Levi’s interactions this episode. They were funny and I love them! Also did anyone else think it was weird that Jo and Levi were having a conversation about how horrible Nico is as a person and how horribly he treats Levi when Nico was literally a metre or two in front of them and could hear everything they were saying? Nico’s an ass and apparently, he doesn't care that he’s an ass and that everyone thinks that of him.

I’m actually liking the whole Jo and Jackson friends with benefits situation. So far, its made for some good comic relief! I like too that we finally saw Jackson admit that he’s jumped from one relationship to another way too fast for his whole run on the show and that he needs to take some time and get some therapy and figure out what he wants. I love that Jo was immediately on the same page and laughed at the idea of them having a relationship right now. She needs a sex buddy, not a partner. He’s got work to do on himself and as she says she feels broken and is still trying to heal from the trauma she has experienced.

I also liked the scenes with Amelia and Link. I like that Amelia was able to express herself and her frustrations and that Link made the decision to support her. My best friend that I watch with made comment that she felt like under the same circumstances Owen would have just stormed back into the house whereas Link angrily moved some toys aside so that he could sit next to Amelia while she felt all her feelings and talked about them because that’s what she needed to do. 

I also liked that when Amelia tried to push Link to talk later on he opened up about his process and was straight with her. Talking about all of her feelings out loud and in the open because if she bottles them up, she’ll wind up relapsing is her thing. Link’s thing is to focus on the positive and play his guitar. As Link says he’s happy to support her on her thing, but if she wants their relationship to work she has to support him on his thing. And she does. 

My favourite line this episode? “What are you playing?” “It’s a song called ‘If The Virus Doesn’t End Us, Then Climate Change Probably Will.’” Too funny! And accurate! We also learn that Amelia loves to garden and is apparently quite good at it and they appear to have a herb and vegetable garden at Meredith’s house. We get some awkward dinner interaction courtesy of Maggie and Winston’s relationship this episode when he invites her to a virtual Birthday dinner for his beloved Grandmother which is then crashed by his estranged father. 

His Grandmother invited him and within five seconds of being on the call he insults Winston and says that the idea that his son who is a Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Tufts is a genius is laughable because apparently he failed sixth grade. This man is an asshole and I can see why Winston hates him. That being said Winston exiting the call and leaving Maggie hanging there with his Grandmother, father, and some other relatives that she’s never met was not okay.

It was extremely rude. He should have told Maggie he had to go before signing off or said that they should both leave the call. Maggie is a class act for staying on that call and asking his upset Grandmother if there was cake. Side note: I did love Maggie and Winston’s conversation about what pencil nerds they both are! This is a match made in heaven so whatever issues they do have they’ll work through them because this is clearly meant to be.

My only real complaint about this episode was the absence of one Cormac Hayes. As my best friend said after we finished watching, “Did you notice who wasn’t in this episode? McWidow. Where the hell was McWidow?” I concur with this sentiment 100%. Hayes makes everything better and I’m sad when he’s not there. I get that Meredith was on the beach with George this episode and that was the focus on her storyline, but it would have been nice to see Hayes stand outside her window or sit next to her or talk to Jo about her condition.

That’s the other thing. Season 16 established that Jo and Hayes are friends and that she’s rooting for him and Meredith to be together and live happily ever after. So I’m surprised that they haven’t had a scene yet this season. We’ve seen Jo interact with Link who she’s close friends with and Levi who’s her roommate, but not Hayes. I’m hoping we’ll get that next episode. So far the majority of Hayes’ scenes have been with Meredith, followed by Jo, followed by Bailey. 

If Hayes can’t interact with Meredith like he normally would because she’s unconscious I want to see him interact with Jo, Bailey, Maggie, and Richard more. The fact that we’re seeing intimate scenes with Jo and Jackson gives me hope that we’ll get to see those kinds of scenes for Meredith and Hayes. Although it’s entirely possible that those scenes were filmed last season before the pandemic hit so maybe not. 

I also like that we got some important timeline information this episode. Jo mentions murder hornets (remember those?) which puts this episode at the beginning of May. She also says that her and Alex divorced the same year they got married which means that Seasons 14 and 15 span the same year. Which makes sense given the other information that we have and means that the relationship we saw in Season 15 only lasted a matter of months. 

Which is good news in the sense that nobody really liked any of the ships from that season apart from Tom and Teddy and Amelia and Link and this establishes that all of those relationships were short lived and occurred over a matter of months, not a full year or more. Based on what I caught of next week’s promo it looks like Meredith’s condition is improving (!) while Tom’s condition is deteriorating, and Bailey’s Mom is in bad shape and is being admitted! COVID is no joke! Buckle up everyone!

Until next time!

[alwaysmarilynmonroe]

Firstly, I want to apologize in advance for any insensitivity or inaccuracies in this post. I cannot pretend I am as educated as I would like to be, but I am extremely passionate in learning about others and using my privilege for good.

Since the horrific murder of African American, George Floyd on May 25th 2020, rightful outrage has broken out worldwide over the injustice and disgraceful blatant racism that is still going on in 2020. Fifty seven years since Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his, “I Have A Dream” speech during the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom on August 28th 1963. Fifty one years since Marsha P. Johnson, a Black Trans Woman, Sylvia Rivera, a Latina American Transgender Activist, Raymond Castro, a Latino gay man, Miss Major Griffin – Gracy, a Black Trans woman and Storm Delaverie, a Mixed Raced lesbian, fought during the Stonewall Riots on June 28th 1969. Which begs the question, why is it half a century later so many Black Lives are being taken mercilessly each day?

With June being the month of PRIDE and as I am hugely passionate about LGBTQ+ Rights, I feel it is important to note that the first riot protesting was led by Black Trans Women and Gay Men. I must mention that Black Trans Women have an average life span of 35 YEARS – just let that sink in for a moment.

We are all the same, we are all human, nobody is born racist. It is so wonderful to have so many colours and cultures within our world and yet a huge number of people are hurting this. Without variety we would not be able to educate one another and learn about each others history.

For the people that are posting about how, “All Lives Matter” I can’t emphasize enough how frustrating this is. No one is saying that white people don’t matter, the injustice is not harming white people, there is no racial prejudice and harm coming to myself because of the colour of my skin. Yes, every single person in the world suffers and has hard times, but BAME are the only ones being persecuted because of their skin. The “Black Lives Matter” movement is bringing awareness to the dangers so many people suffer every single day, living in fear doing the most mundane things that we so often take for granted. It is worth noting that white people will never understand this pain and fear, but we can understand the suffering so many people of colour go through and try and prevent it from continuing. I have started a thread on my Twitter, to share each petition I have signed, hoping that others will take a few minutes to do the same – it is the least we can do.

I’m also going to share each of the petitions in this post, with information about the victims who have suffered such pain. People may have seen the murder of George Floyd and think this is the first of it’s kind and tragically, it is not. Police brutality is extremely real and not only is it happening in the USA, it is happening in the UK too. Inquest, have stated there have been 1741 DEATHS in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police in England and Wales since 1990, with 14% and 183 of them being of BAME . In 2019, mappingpolicebrutality states there were only 27 DAYS IN 2019 where police did not kill someone, 24% of the victims were black, despite being 13% of the population and in 99% of the killings NO ONE HAS BEEN CHARGED.

I simply must take the time to thank the amazing Nico, who runs blacklivesmatters, because of you I have been able to educate myself and sign petitions on incredible people, that I admittedly had no idea existed. Thanks to thehindu website, I have learnt that between 2013 – 2019, 42 PER MILLION populations of African Americans were killed in police shootings – the highest among races, with statistics showing they are THREE TIMES more likely to be murdered than white people. Furthermore, over 17% of African American victims were UNARMED.

Here are a few of the many lives which have been lost and families which have been destroyed. It is important to remember these victims and share their stories. I’m ashamed to say that I had only heard about one of the stories that I am posting, which goes to show how many are ignored, and never spoken about. This is not acceptable, no one deserves such inhumanity and suffering. I am aware that these facts are hard to read and may be triggering to some, which I do apologize for, not because they have to be read, but because they ever happened in the first place. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves and not turn a blind eye to the injustices and tragedies which is happening daily in our world.

Marsha P. Johnson (left) and Sylvia Rivera (right) at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Gay Pride Parade photographed by Leonard Fink on June 24th 1973.

Black Trans American Gay Rights Activist, Marsha P. Johsnon.

Derek Charles Livingston walks in the Million Man March in Washington DC by Roderick Terry on October 16th 1995.

Black Lives Matter Artwork by @Beccallen_design

I can’t find any information on the people, protest or photographer, if anyone knows please contact me!

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SAY THEIR NAMES.

TRAYVON MARTIN:

A 17 year old African American teenager, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman, on February 26th 2012. Trayvon was walking alone to his father’s fiancée’s house from a store and Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Trayvon and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. Several minutes later, there was an altercation and Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon in the chest. Zimmerman was NOT charged at the time and when he eventually was tried, he was ACQUITTED of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

SANDRA BLAND:

A 28 year old African American woman, who was found hanged in her jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13th 2015. Sandra had been pulled over for a minor traffic violation, three days earlier by State Trooper Brian Encinia, who ended up arresting her with the charge of assaulting a police officer. Part of the exchange was recorded and after authorities reviewed the footage, Encinia was placed on administrative leave for failing to follow proper traffic stop procedures. However, in December 2015, a grand jury decided AGAINST indicting the country sheriff and jail staff for any misdemeanors regarding Sandra’s tragic death. Encinia was eventually indicted for making false statements about Sandra’s arrest and was fired. However, in June 2017 the perjury charges against him were DROPPED, with the confirmation he would end his law enforcement career.

KATHRYN JOHNSTON:

A 92 year old African American woman, who was killed by undercover police in her home on Neal Street in northwest Atlanta on November 21st 2006. They broke down her door and fired 39 SHOTS at her, with five or six hitting – she fired one, which didn’t harm anyone. The officers were found to have falsified evidence, stating drugs were present in her home, which was the original cause for the raid. Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier, and Arthur Tesler were tried for MANSLAUGHTER and sentenced to only 10, 6 and 5 YEARS.

SEAN BELL:

A 23 year old African American man, who was killed the morning before his Wedding, on November 25th 2006. Detective Paul Headley fired one shot, officer Michael Carey fired three times, officer Marc Cooper shot FOUR TIMES, and officer Gescard Isnora shot ELEVEN TIMES and officer Michael Oliver shot 31 TIMES, reloading his gun AT LEAST once. Two of Sean’s friends, JOSEPH GUZMAN and TRENT BENEFIELD were severely wounded but thankfully survived. Isnora and Oliver were charged with first and second degree MANSLAUGHTER, whilst Cooper was charged with RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT. All three were ACQUITTED, only being fired or forced to resign from the force.

ERIC GARNER:

A 43 year old African American man, who was killed by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo, after he was placed in a chokehold whilst being arrested on July 17th 2004. The medical examiners actually RULED HIS DEATH AS A HOMICIDE however, Pantaleo was NOT charged with murder and was only fired on August 19th 2019, MORE THAN FIVE YEARS after Eric’s death.

REKIA BOYD:

A 22 year old African American woman, who was killed by an off-duty Chicago police detective, Dante Servin, on March 21st 2012. Rekia’s friend, ANTONIA CROSS was also shot in the hand. Over a year later, in November 2013, Servin was charged with INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER, but was CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES, by Judge Dennis J. Porter on April 20th 2015. Servin resigned two days before his departmental hearing on May 17th 2016, FOUR YEARS after Rekia’s murder.

AMADOU DIALLO:

A 23 year old Guinean immigrant, who was murdered by four New York City plain clothed police officers, Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss, on February 4th 1999. They fired 41 SHOTS, of which 19 HIT AMADOU and were charged only with SECOND DEGREE MURDER – all ended up being ACQUITTED. In 2015, Boss was PROMOTED to sergeant – he had already murdered PATRICK BAILEY, a 22 year old Jamaican born American Citizen on October 31st 1997.

MICHAEL BROWN JR.:

A 18 year old African American man, who was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, on August 9th 2014. Michael was UNARMED with his friend, DORIAN JOHNSON and his body was left in the street for FOUR HOURS before he was removed. On August 11th, a Civil Rights Investigation was opened, but on March 4th 2015, CLEARED Wilson of any civil rights violations. He was NOT charged. On November 29th, Wilson resigned from the force, citing security concerns.

KIMANI “KIKI” GRAY:

A 16 year old African American boy, who was murdered by two plain clothed New York City police officers, Mourad Mourad and Jovaniel Cordova, on March 9th 2013. He was shot at ELEVEN TIMES, and was hit by SEVEN of them. Mourad was nominated for, “Cop Of The Year” in 2014, despite being named in THREE FEDERAL LAWSUITS FOR VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS along with another shooting in 2011. Both have NOT been charged.

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN SR.:

A 68 year old African American man, who was murdered by police officer, Anthony Carelli after inadvertently triggering his LifeAid medical alert necklace. The officers broke down his door, even after Kenneth stated he did not need assistance and had asked them to leave. They stayed for one hour trying to force the door open and an officer called Stephen Hart, swore at him and called him horrific racist words. Kenneth was UNARMED, which DNA evidence has proven and was TASERED and shot at TWICE. In 2012 the case was reviewed by a grand jury and the officers were NOT charged.

TRAVARES MCGILL:

A 16 year old African American boy, who was murdered by security guards, William Patrick Swofford and Bryan Ansley, in a parking lot on July 16th 2005. Originally, the two men were NOT charged, it wasn’t until FOUR MONTHS later in November, that Swofford was charged with MANSLAUGHTER and both with SHOOTING INTO AN OCCUPIED VEHICLE. The charges later ended up being DISMISSED.

TAMIR RICE:

A 12 year old African American boy, who was SHOT TWICE in Cleveland, Ohio by police officer Timothy Loehmann, on November 22nd 2014. He was simply playing with a TOY GUN and ended up dying in hospital the next day. Loehmann was NOT CHARGED and was only fired THREE YEARS LATER in 2017, after it was revealed that he had been labelled an EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE RECRUIT and UNFIT FOR DUTY in his previous job.

AIYANA STANLEY-JONES:

A 7 year old African American girl, who was murdered by police officer, Joseph Weekley, during a house raid, on May 16th 2010. In October 2011, Weekley was charged INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER and RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT WITH A GUN. Weekley ended up having two mistrials and the judge actually DISMISSED the involuntary manslaughter charge in the second one. Five years later, on January 28th 2015, Weekley was CLEARED of his reckless endangerment with a gun charge, meaning the third retrial would not happen.

FREDDIE GRAY:

A 25 year old African American man, who was arrested on April 12th 2015 by lieutenant Brian W. Rice, officer Edward Nero, and officer Garrett E. Miller, after running away from them, whilst they were patrolling. Freddie was subsequently charged with having a knife in his possession, although no harm was caused and the knife was not used. Freddie was then placed in a transport van within 11 minutes of his arrest and half an hour later he was IN A COMA. He died on April 19th, a week after his arrest, with his cause of death being stated as injuries to his spinal cord. The medical examiners ruled his death a HOMICIDE, saying that his injuries had been sustained whilst being transported and that the officers FAILED TO FOLLOW SAFETY PROCEDURES. Six officers were filed with various criminal charges, including MANSLAUGHTER, ILLEGAL ARREST, RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT and SECOND DEGREE “DEPRAVED-HEART” MURDER for officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van. Each officer was granted a separate trial, Porters resulted in a MISTRIAL, whilst Nero, Rice and Goodson were all ACQUITTED. Any of the various other charges were subsequently DROPPED.

SEAN RIGG

A 40 year old black man, who died following a cardiac arrest whilst in police custody, in South London, England on August 28th 2008. Sean suffered with paranoid schizophrenia and was in a vulnerable mental state, resulting in the hostel staff he lived with calling 999 FIVE TIMES over a period of THREE HOURS. They were informed by operator, Maurice Glove that Sean was NOT A POLICE PRIORITY. Response was eventually made after members of the public had observed Sean acting strangely in the street. Four police officers chased him and he was handcuffed and restrained in a face down position, being LENT ON FOR 8 MINUTES. FOUR YEARS LATER in 2012, Southwalk Coroner’s Court concluded police had used, “UNSUITABLE AND UNNECESSARY FORCE” and their failings, “MORE THAN MINIMALLY” contributed to his death. In March 2013, sergeant Paul White and officer Mark Harratt were arrested on perverting the court of justice, regarding the evidence presented at Sean’s inquest. However, in October 2014, the CPS decided NOT to charge them. Sean’s family did request a Right To Review policy and White was charged with PERJURY – ultimately, he was ACQUITTED in November 2016.

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PETITIONS TO SIGN:

Here are some of the petitions I have came across to support, it simply takes a few seconds of your time and every signature helps. Please also take the time to read the victims stories and share, together our voices have power and can hopefully help in moving towards a happier and healthier society.

• MINNEAPOLIS DISTRICT ATTORNEY: RAISE THE DEGREE • JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (1) • CHARGE MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICERS FOR MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD (2) • JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (3) • GET THE OFFICERS CHARGED: JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (4) • SENATOR BLUMENTHAL: GEORGE FLOYD: WE NEED NATIONWIDE POLICE DE-ESCALATION (5) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (1) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (2) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (3) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (4) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (5) • DISBARMENT OF GEORGE E. BARNHILL • JUSTICE FOR AHMUAD ARBERY (1) • DISTRICT ATTORNEY TOM DURDEN: JUSTICE FOR AHMAUD ARBERY (2) • GOVERNOR BRIAN KEMP: JUSTICE FOR AHMAUD ARBERY (3) • DEFUND MPD • MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE FOR POLICE BRUTALITY • JUSTICE FOR REGIS KORCHINSKI-PAQUET • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (1) • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (2) • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (3) • JUSTICE FOR JOAO PEDRO • SAVE INNOCENT JULIUS JONES FROM DEATH ROW • JUSTICE FOR BELLY MUJINGA • GOVERNOR KAY IVEY: FREE WILLIE SIMMONS • HANDS UP ACT • NATIONAL ACTION AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER • ILLINOIS GOVERNOR: CORRECT WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF KYJUANZI HARRIS • JUSTICE FOR ALEJANDRO VARGAS MARTINEZ • CENSORSHIP OF POLICE BRUTALITY IN FRANCE • JUSTICE FOR SEAN REED • MAYOR JOE HOGSETT: JUSTICE FOR SEAN REED • JUSTICE FOR KENDRICK JOHNSON • JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE (1) • JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE (2) • FIRE RACIST CRIMINAL FROM THE NYPD • JUSTICE FOR JAMEE JOHNSON • JUSTICE FOR DARIUS STEWART (1) • JUSTICE FOR DARIUS STEWART (2) • ABOLISH PRISON LABOR • FREE SIYANDA MNGAZA • JUSTICE FOR CHRYSTUL KIZER (1) • JUSTICE FOR CHRYSTUL KIZER (2) • JUSTICE FOR ANDILE “BOBO” MCHUNU • FREE ERIC RIDDICK • JUSTICE FOR AMIYA BRAXTON • JUSTICE FOR EMERALD BLACK • JUSTICE FOR ELIJAH NICHOLS • JUSTICE FOR ZINEDINE KARABO GIOIA • RETRIAL FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF ANGEL BUMPASS • SCOTLAND POLICE: INVESTIGATE THE DEATH OF SHEKU BAYOH IN POLICE CUSTODY • JUSTICE FOR JENNIFER JEFFLEY • FREE ALBERT WILSON • MADISON SOUTHERN HIGH SCHOOL: JUSTICE FOR MACIE • JUSTICE FOR AMARI BOONE • JUSTICE FOR CRYSTAL MASON • JUSTICE FOR RASHAD CUNNINGHAM • GOODWOOD MAGISTRATE COURT: JUSTICE FOR TAZNE VAN WYK • PORTLAND POLICE: JUSTICE FOR TETE GULLEY • DROP CHARGES ON MARSHAE JONES & CHARGE THE SHOOTER OF HER & HER UNBORN BABY • TEMPLE POLICE DEPARTMENT: JUSTICE FOR MICHAEL DEAN  • STAND WITH #BLM • MOVEMENT4BLACKLIVES • PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: JUSTICE FOR DION JOHNSON • FIRE RON FREEMAN • MANCHESTER POLICE: JUSTICE FOR SHUKRI ABDI • DISTRICT ATTORNEY JIM WARD: JAIL TIME FOR DYLAN MOTA AND JACOB ROBLES • NSW POLICE: MANDATE THE POLICE FORCE ACADEMIES TO TAKE RACIAL BIAS TEST • JUNK THE ANTI-TERRORISM BILL AND UPHOLD HUMAN RIGHTS • NIGERIA POLICE FORCE: JUSTICE FOR YOUNG UWA • SCHOOLS MUST SPEAK UP NOW • SEATTLE POLICE: ARREST JARED CAMPBELL (1) • TERMINATE JARED CAMPBELL (2) • POLICE DE-ESCALATION TRAINING • PARDON CRYSTAL MASON IMPRISONED FOR VOTING. • JUSTICE FOR CAMERON GREEN • UNITED NATIONS: BAN THE USE OF INHUMANE RUBBER BULLETS (1) • UN AND US GOVERNMENT: BAN THE USE OF RUBBER BULLETS (2) • STOP USING ICE TO POISON IMMIGRANTS • THE TRAYVON MARTIN LAW – STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN • COOKS COUNTY ILLINOIS POLICE: FREE CHAFFIN DARNEL Y • SUPPORT FORMER BUFFALOE POLICE OFFICER CARIOL HORNE TO RECEIVE HER PENSION • IMPROVE WORKING CONDITIONS FOR BLACK PEOPLE IN ITALY • DEFUND DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT AND INVEST IN THE LARGER DALLAS COMMUNITY • JUSTICE FOR BRITTANY CHRISHAWN WILLIAMS • RICHMOND CITY COUNCIL & MAYOR STONEY: MARCUS ALERT & CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT OF RPD • JUSTICE FOR QUENTIN SUTTLES • SAVE INNOCENT KENNETH REAMS FROM DEATH ROW • KING COUNTY POLICE OFFICERS GUILD: REQUIRE DASH AND BODY CAMERAS • DEFUND THE POLICE • JUSTICE FOR JAMES SCURLOCK (1) • JUSTICE FOR JAMES SCURLOCK (2) • CLASSIFY WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS TERRORISTS • JUSTICE FOR DAVID MCATEE • NO POLICE PRESENCE AT TACOMA BLM PROTEST • DEFUND SDPD • FIRE LAPD CHIEF MICHAEL MOORE • MAKE WASHINGTON STATE POLICE ACCOUNTABLE FOR POLICE BRUTALITY • FIRE OFFICER CAMILLE STEPHENSON • STOP ILLEGAL EXPORT OF RIOTING EQUIPMENT • JUSTICE FOR SHELLEY FREY • JUSTICE FOR ASHTON DICKSON • BAN/RESTRICT TEARGAS • KNOCK DOWN SLAVE MARKET CENTER • FREE ANTHONY WITT • JUSTICE FOR SANDRA BLAND • PROTECT UK BLACK TRANS WOMEN • REJECT TRUMP’S VIOLENCE TOWARDS PROTESTORS • MAKE POLICE BRUTALITY ILLEGAL • FIRE AUSTIN CHIEF POLICE • JUSTICE FOR BRAD LEVI • JUSTICE FOR JONAS JOSEPH • JUSTICE FOR DOMINIQUE CLAYTON • JUSTICE FOR ANDERSON ARBOLEDA • FREE CURTIS PRICE ______________________________________________________________________________

DONATIONS:

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“PLEASE, I CAN’T BREATHE. MY STOMACH HURTS. MY NECK HURTS. EVERYTHING HURTS. THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ME.”

– George Floyds last words.

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Firstly, I want to apologize in advance for any insensitivity or inaccuracies in this post. I cannot pretend I am as educated as I would like to be, but I am extremely passionate in learning about others and using my privilege for good.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Grey's Anatomy: You'll Never Walk Alone (17x04)

Awww George! That was the best possible answer as to who was waiting for Meredith in the pseudo-afterlife. It was so amazing seeing him!

Cons:

I thought Maggie's boyfriend's thing with his dad was a little unrealistic in how blunt it was? Like, he saw his dad on a Zoom call and was immediately like "here is the major family drama that we have, let me explain it to the viewer and then sign off the call." It might have just been an issue of clunky writing.

Okay, Jo and Jackson... tread very, very lightly. I don't mind a good old fashioned friends with benefits situation, but that never seems to go the way we want it to, and I'm not about Jo/Jackson as an actual romantic pairing. This show has convinced me of weirder, but at the moment I just don't want them to pair up because they both happen to be single. Also, any storyline that touches on Jo healing from Alex just gives me visceral flashbacks to how stupid Alex's exit from the show truly was. It's hard to see past that.

Pros:

Okay, starting with a small thing, but I actually thought Nico and Levi's conversation was hilarious. I'm not aboard the ship for them anymore, after everything Nico put Levi through, but it's just occurred to me what the funniest and best way forward would be for them, if they keep this story going. What if Levi actually does a good job with boundaries, is totally emotionally over Nico, and really is just using him as a sex buddy, and then Nico catches overwhelming feelings and realizes how badly he screwed up? And Levi is just like... "nah, man. Thanks, but no thanks." I would watch the hell out of that. I just liked when Levi was like "I want to invite you over, but you and I were not good to each other and nothing's changed." And Nico's like "there's a global pandemic." And Levi's like "good point, let's go." It made me laugh.

While I have serious reservations about Jo and Jackson, I do think their friendship is really sweet, and I hope they continue to be able to lean on each other through the tough times. I'm all aboard the pandemic sex buddy agenda.

George and Meredith talking was so great! I loved how he described being dead, and not getting a choice, and regrets, and do regrets matter? It was so cute, when Meredith got all giggly, asking George if he haunted his mother sometimes. And George bringing up the way Meredith used to dance it out when she got stressed or sad. It was such a lovely callback to the earlier days of the show, the twisted sisters... I miss Cristina so much, I really do.

Giving the main character of the show Covid-19 makes a certain amount of sense from a dramatic perspective, but I was a little nervous going in that they were going to be disrespectful about it. It's still possible they could make some bad choices here, but so far I think the balance is working well. See, Meredith is hovering in this in-between place, and she gets to see Derek, she gets to see George, that's all well and good... but they aren't really implying that it's entirely Meredith's choice. This isn't some metaphysical decision about whether or not to live. She needs to have the will, but also, on the outside, she's sleeping all day and really sick, and her doctors and friends need to make medical decisions to save her life. If it's even possible.

Speaking of, I like the conflict we're setting up here with DeLuca, Teddy, and Richard all taking different roles in Meredith's healthcare. Obviously Andrew is pushing for a risky new trial, and Teddy backs him up, which seems to set Richard at ease... but it's still a big decision for him to make. If he puts her in the trial and she dies, will it be his fault? I loved the moment when we saw Richard come into the dream space with Meredith and George, that subtle blending of these two states of mind.

Amelia and Link for the win! I loved that Amelia lost her shit a little bit, but instead of devolving back into the Amelia of old, who would have totally spiraled and caused big drama, we got Link trying to be a good partner for her, and then telling her in no uncertain terms that he too needs support as he deals with the situation his own way, by not talking and processing, but by focusing on the good things and playing his damn guitar. Open communication for the win!

Poor Tom really cannot catch a break. If they kill him off in a "surprise, you thought Meredith was in danger but it's actually Tom" kind of way, I will be PISSED. The guy is acerbic, and kind of a jerk, but I honestly think he's a good person who tries his best, and he doesn't deserve the crap he's gone through. I'd love for some sort of hilarious reconciliation between Owen and Tom where they put aside their differences and become friends, and both leave Teddy behind in the dust. It's what she deserves, to be quite honest. In any case, I loved Helm and Tom talking about a zombie apocalypse game and doing simulations for COVID... I think this is based on a true story of something that happened in an MMORPG game, although I can't remember which one... probably WOW... it was used to test pandemic conditions.

Even though there was a bit of awkwardness in the writing, I still really love Maggie and her boyfriend. I like how chill and reasonable she's being about this, in a clear example of growth from... oh... all of Maggie's other plot threads! I hope that these two can stay together, and that their long distance relationship will continue to grow throughout the season. I think they're really cute!

I wasn't entirely sure what to think of Owen's racism plot at first, but ultimately I liked how it was portrayed, how you can't exactly hate Owen for making this mistake but at the same time, he needs to own his biases and do better. He says "there's no excuse" and then makes an excuse immediately... and Bailey calls him on it. Owen sucks and I don't like him, but I hope he learns from this mistake. I also liked the intern lady whose name I don't know, who wanted to talk to Owen about his mistake but couldn't figure out how to do it, and the fact that Nico did it for her, basically, telling Owen off in no uncertain terms. That was a good character beat for him.

As always, I feel fairly certain I'm missing someone. This show is just too huge, too many characters to juggle! For now, I'll end things there. This was a perfectly fine installment, it felt like filler for things to come, but I don't mind that! And we got to see George!

8/10

[mistressemmedi]

Meeting the drivers - Canadian GP

Ferrari

Charles - he came out first of all the drivers. There was a group of guys that had a massive Ferrari flag and a Monaco flag and you could tell he was super happy to see it. He always has this look of “I can’t believe these people are here for me omg” on his face. He’s 10 times more cute and adorable in real life. Bless

Sebastian - he came out with Lewis, which caused the crowd to go CRAZY. They were bantering with each other, which was fun to watch. He went through the crowd as quickly as he could because everyone was pushing and screaming. He still took the time with everyone, and was super nice to @lookitsbee when her phone got stuck trying to take a selfie. His legs are so skinny (also, he has a scar?), someone feed him!

Mercedes 

Lewis - ok he is so cute in real life? He was sooo happy to see team LH there, especially when everyone was chanting “VETTEL, VETTEL” in his face. He was very gracious and took his time with the two kids that had Merc gear at our corner. 

Valtteri - DAT ASS THO. Ok, he came out last and we were all like “???? Where he at???” and then realized that he probably had press conference duties. I think everyone fell in love a little bit with him after he talked to us. I’m surprised by the amount of people that were telling him “I hope you win this weekend”. I think he was surprised too. Very nice dude though, although his beard power is too powerful for even me. His PR guy is a riot, we talked shoelaces.

Red Bull 

Max - very business-like. Poor guy was probably not having the greatest time, he barely spoke a word. Although I managed to get him to smile and crack up a bit when I yelled “YO HAVE FUN THIS WEEKEND”. I even got a thank you. Mission accomplished.

Pierre - I still would like to throw myself into the sun after our interaction. FML. I was talking to his PR lady, her shoes were lit, and I don’t know how we ended up talking for a few seconds ABOUT SHOES. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. I barely got a picture, I think he thought I was hilarious. Or crazy. Or shoe obsessed. Excuse me while I jump in the canal.

Alfa Romeo

Kimi - he is every bit the guy you see on TV. No bullshit, no PR face. He still took his time with everyone, and he is very much loved still. Amazing. 10/10 would drink vodka with him

Antonio - MY LIL BABY. We chatted in Italian while he was signing for the people around me, told him to enjoy the race and that he’s making us Italians proud. Also, boy loves his skinny jeans (emo boy at heart lmao). He was absolutely adorable, and he was so pleased when the people next to me tried to wish him well in broken Italian. 

Renault 

Nico - he is so soft. Him and Daniel get along so well, you can see by the way they interact. He was cracking jokes all around, high fiving all the kids on the way. Stopped for a selfie, great dude. Zeus is doing great btw. 

Daniel - y’all, someone got him to sign a shoe. I KID YOU NOT, everyone was cheering. This guy took off his shoe and was holding it up and the entire corner started chanting “sign the shoe!”. When he did it sounded like a bomb went off because everyone started cheering all at the same time. Good banter all around, he’s a great sport. 

Haas 

Kevin - soft viking boy. Fact, he’s a lot smaller than he appears on tv? He is such a soft boy tho. Smiles all around, especially for the kids. Second time meeting him and chatting with him, 10/10 he’s a soft dog dad

Romain - he LOVES kids. He’s such a dad and you can tell. He is so patient and graceful with the mob of people yelling at him. He singled out every kid, made sure to thank them for being there, high fives and pictures all around. The little boy on the corner was ecstatic. Him and Kevin were out there the longest because they wanted to make sure they got to everyone. 

Williams 

Robert - there was a polish squad out there for him, and you could tell he was happy about that. Otherwise he is a real quiet guy, he said even less words than Kimi 

George - I almost scream-laughed when he spoke because he sounds so british and so posh. Legit, think of the stereotypical British accent and that’s George. 20$ says he stops everything he does at 5 and has tea NO MATTER WHAT. Probably has a picture of the queen in his car #confirmed. Good sport though

McLaren 

Lando - fucking yeeted out of there because he forgot he had a press conference. Didn’t talk to him, I’m quite sad. Yes, he is quite short. 

Carlos - he is giving Fernando a run for his money re: luscious hair. He didn’t say much, but this have a bit of a conversation with the Mexican squad next to us. 

Force India Racing Point 

Checo - ok, so we had a bunch of Mexican fans right next to us. Hilarious people, they brought a selfie still and were here to partyyy. Some of them dressed up as Pink Panthers lol. I quickly got my autograph and stepped aside because I wanted these people to have their moment, you know? Checo was soooo fucking happy to see the Mexican flag. He took his time, had a few laughs with them, and was generally in a great mood. He’s very proud of who he is, and his country. It was lovely to see.

Lance - poor guy looked to dazed. I can just imagine the amount of PR he has to do at his home GP. He didn’t say much but he did make a point to sign for everyone around us. 

Toro Rosso 

Alex - he is such a happy kid omg. His face is literally the :3 emoji. He laughed when I told him to go for it and enjoy the track. He took a bit of extra time with us gals, great sport all around.

Dany - my boy. Honestly. First off, he is as much of an awkward dork as you would imagine. The support for him was amazing in our area, I think people are quite happy to see him back for real. I chatted with him in Italian, my brain short circuited and I could not English at that point. He was super nice about it haha. He saw the guys with the Mexican flag next to me and greeted them in spanish. Then talked to someone else in French. Then English again. Daamn Dany, showoff. 

Overall experience was a m a z i n g. I’m glad I got to chat with some of the drivers. And some of the staff too, it’s nice to see the PR teams let loose.

Looking forward to next year. 

[writingsubmissions]

UFC 212 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, thank God that main event came through. UFC's Sunday morning offering from Stockholm wasn't a bad card, just...sort of plodding and pointless until hometown hero Alexander Gustafsson came out and had the best performance of his career, putting away Glover Teixeira in the fifth round. Teixeira was ridiculously tough, and given Gustafsson's history of big losses, there was always the possibility the Brazilian could've landed a huge blow, but for the most part, Gustafsson finally put his reach and his speed to optimal use, keeping Teixeira at a distance and just destroying him with combinations, including the barrage of uppercuts that finished the fight. The only downside was that Gustafsson would often back himself up and, when he was against the cage, decide to just turn his back and run away from Teixeira. That won't work whenever he faces someone who can catch him, but if it's this version of Gustafsson, I'm not sure who that guy is. Anyway, Gustafsson proposed to his girlfriend after the fight, so this night went about as well as possible as it could've for the Swede - and while I wouldn't pick him against Jon Jones or Daniel Cormier, Gustafsson looked good enough here that he suddenly finds himself, once again, as the top contender to the light heavyweight title. *The co-main also saw some moving and shaking in the light heavyweight division, as Volkan Oezdemir suddenly stopped all the jokes about him as quickly as he stopped Misha Cirkunov, knocking the top prospect out in just 28 seconds. Oezdemir had a top-five ranking coming into the fight based solely off a win over Ovince St. Preux, a fight where St. Preux looked horrible and probably still deserved to win the decision. So, most people expected Cirkunov to just run through Oezdemir and prove that ranking to be a fraud, but instead Cirkunov ran in for a clinch and got popped right behind the ear, falling to the mat unconscious. So, amazingly, Oezdemir is in the running for the next light heavyweight title shot after Gustafsson, as he's already been matched up against fellow top contender Jimi Manuwa on UFC 214. *If the most impressive performance of the night (well, day) wasn't Alexander Gustafsson, then it definitely belonged to Peter Sobotta, who got a stoppage victory of Ben Saunders after a one-sided round and a half. Sobotta was coming off a career-best performance against Nicolas Dalby, and that looks to be the trend - I thought Saunders's length and athleticism would give Sobotta problems, but Sobotta just showed off a vastly-improved striking game, forced Saunders to chase him, and just obliterated him on the feet. Unfortunately, Sobotta apparently broke his hand pretty badly in the fight, enough so that he apparently needs to have a bone removed from his hip to be put into said hand - really bad timing, given that UFC is running Sobotta's native Poland in October, and this would likely take him out of what one would presume was going to be a pretty prominent fight. *Not a ton else to report, as not much went vastly different than expected. Ghana's Abdul Razak Alhassan got exposed badly as a prospect in a weird fight against Omari Akhmedov - to date, Alhassan has just thrown bombs and knocked out his opponents as soon as possible, but this fight saw him pace himself for the first time in his career. And there's still a lot to like - Alhassan hits like a truck, and probably would've still knocked out most opponents, and while Alhassan didn't really gas, Akhmedov also exposed his complete lack of takedown defense. If Alhassan develops a well-rounded game, he'll be an amazing fighter, but I don't know if he can rack up enough wins to stay on the UFC roster in the meantime. Jack Hermansson ran through Alex Nicholson in just two minutes, fighting against his usual type as a distance striker and just taking down Nicholson and beating the piss out of him in an impressive performance. And the biggest result on the undercard was probably Damir Hadzovic's stunning upset of former Bellator title contender Marcin Held. Held was dominating the fight with his elite-level grappling game, but rolled in for a kneebar to start the third round and just ate a knee upside the head that rendered him immediately unconscious. That's now 0-3 in the UFC for Held, one of the more stunning busts of a hyped signing in a while, although if it wasn't for this fluky knee, or for him losing one of the worst decisions of the year against Joe Lauzon in January, we wouldn't be talking about any of this. One would think Held would be cut, but given his talent and that UFC is running Poland in October, the door might not be closed just yet. *Some other stuff happened. Debuting prospect Oliver Enkamp was game, but in over his head against Nordine Taleb, as Taleb's experience just won out over Enkamp's athleticism and willingness to throw whatever came to mind. Bantamweight prospect Pedro Munhoz beat Damian Stasiak, but showed off a lot of his weaknesses in the process - Munhoz struggled a bit with an evasive striker like Stasiak, and while Munhoz got things to the ground here and there, his signature submission game didn't look all that effective. Trevor Smith beat Chris Camozzi using wrestling in a horrible fight. Joaquim Silva rebounded from a rough first round to piece up Reza Madadi on the feet and earn a narrow decision - Madadi, a Swedish favorite, is now uncommitted about this being his retirement fight, as was expected. Sweden's Nico Musoke came back from a two-plus year injury layoff and had a fine, if kind of boring fight against Bojan Velickovic, until Velickovic stunned Musoke in the last minute and caused him to dance a bit before putting him away for the finish. And England's Darren Till continues to be a fun and interesting prospect after a win over Jessin Ayari - I love Till's upside, but him missing weight by six pounds here was fairly concerning. *Well, UFC from Stockholm wasn't the biggest MMA event in Europe over the weekend, and only by...about 45,000 people. KSW, the top promotion in Poland, drew 58,000 into a soccer stadium in Warsaw, which marks the second-biggest MMA crowd of all time. And yes, that's bigger than any UFC event ever - the record is 71,000, held by a PRIDE/K-1 co-promoted show in 2002 that was headlined by Mirko Cro Cop and Kazushi Sakuraba, and the UFC record is "only" 56,214 for the Rousey/Holm card in Australia. MMA in Poland's an interesting one - while UFC has historically focused on more potentially profitable countries like Sweden and Germany, it's Poland that has one of the biggest appetites for MMA, and we've seen that with a few decent fighters making their way into the UFC. But in Poland, thanks to the strength of local promotions like KSW, it's the Polish promotions that are really seen as the bigger deal, while global brands like UFC are fairly secondary. This may change if UFC gets a Polish male star that breaks through, and there's some noise in these numbers, but reports are that Joanna Jedrzejczyk's fights are only watched live by a few hundred people in Poland, and she's one of the most dominant fighters in the world. Just an interesting backdrop, particularly since UFC runs their second card in Poland this October. *So, women's featherweight continues to be a complete disaster. Champion Germaine de Randamie has now outright said that she refuses to fight Cris Cyborg, due to Cyborg's repeated drug test failures, and that she still might need hand surgery anyway. I mean, in a way she's not wrong, but you also could've told us this all a lot sooner. Anyway, de Randamie has said she's now focusing on a return to 135 and expects to be stripped of the belt, so...once again, what exactly are we accomplishing here? Apparently UFC may try again, as Cris Cyborg is apparently fighting...someone on UFC 214, though it apparently won't be Invicta champ Megan Anderson, who has already been announced for a future Invicta card. Word is that Cyborg's opponent will probably be Cat Zingano, which...please make that for an interim women's featherweight belt. I demand an interim belt in a division with only two fighters. *A few other things, but nothing that deserves an entire paragraph, so here's a rundown. Roy Nelson's loss to Alexander Volkov was apparently the last on his UFC contract, as "Big Country" has finished his contentious run with the company and signed with Bellator, which is an interesting get. Georges St. Pierre disclosed that an eye injury is what's keeping him from fighting Michael Bisping until later this year, as he apparently won't be cleared to train until September. Cortney Casey's big win over Jessica Aguilar at UFC 211 has been overturned, because Texas - Casey apparently had a slightly elevated T/E ratio, which may just be random noise, as she passed all her USADA drug testing, but that alone is enough to get a win overturned in Texas. UFC has gone outside the box, surprisingly signing Dutch kickboxing legend Gokhan Saki, despite Saki only having a 0-1 record in MMA. And Ronda Rousey will apparently be a coach on a revival of ABC's "Battle of the Network Stars" - hopefully she comes off better on that show than she did on TUF. ------ BOOKINGS: *So, UFC 214 is filling out nicely, as it's gotten the biggest fights announced over the last week. As mentioned above, Cris Cyborg is fighting....someone, and top light heavyweight contenders Jimi Manuwa and Volkan Oezdemir are squaring off. Plus top featherweight prospects Brian Ortega and Renato Moicano square off in a pretty great fight - Ortega looked excellent before being out with major shoulder surgery, and Moicano is coming off a win against Jeremy Stephens - and Sara McMann returns to take on Ketlen Vieira. McMann and Raquel Pennington seemed like a natural #1 contender's fight to me, but UFC has instead chosen to fast-track Vieira - this is probably too much, too soon, but as far as prospects go, Vieira might at least be strong enough to shut down McMann's wrestling and make things interesting. *UFC filled out some of their July cards. Somewhat surprisingly, UFC 213 isn't looked all that deep from a starpower perspective, as the biggest name added to the undercard is probably...Alan Jouban? And even then, UFC doesn't seem to know what to do with him - whenever he comes off a win, Jouban is featured fairly prominently, as he's coming off a co-main event against Gunnar Nelson, but when he comes off a loss, like he is here, UFC goes down the roster and just pulls out a guy for him to destroy. So in this case, Jouban is set up to destroy Brian Camozzi, who's coming off a debut loss to Randy Brown - I wonder if this is some weird deal where UFC is trying to get back at his brother for not learning takedown defense. Anyway, also slated for UFC 213, Jordan Mein, a former top prospect who, at this point, looks like he wants to be anywhere else but fighting, is facing the underrated Belal Muhammad, and Rob Font and Douglas Silva de Andrade face off in a pretty fun bout between bantamweight bangers. And Long Island got a few more fights to a card that, well, looks interesting but not exciting, if that makes sense. Case in point, Alex "Cowboy" Oliveira, an interesting prospect, will be facing Ryan LaFlare on this card - LaFlare's a fine test, but, just...eh. There are way more interesting options for Oliveira. Also on Long Island, Rafael Natal faces Italian prospect Alessio Di Chirico in what looks like a case of UFC trying to get Natal a win, and local welterweight Lyman Good returns from a two-year layoff to face Brazilian striker Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. Also, a fight between Corey Anderson and Tyson Pedro, which seemed interesting, is now off the card, as reports of it happening were a bit premature. *August and beyond are getting some stuff. The only card for August officially announced so far, the Moreno/Pettis card out of Mexico City, added three interesting fights. Flyweights Dustin Ortiz and Hector Sandoval square off in a veteran-versus-prospect fight, and TUF: Latin America 3 winner Martin Bravo gets his first post-TUF fight, dropping to featherweight to face Chris Gruetzemacher. Also, TUF: Latin America season one alums square off at bantamweight, as Mexico's Jose Quinonez faces Chile's Diego Rivas. Rivas is an interesting story - he knocked out top prospect Noad Lahat with a flying knee in a huge upset back in February of 2016, and then pretty much vanished. Well, as it turns out, Rivas actually had cancer, but he's apparently all clear now, even though in the process of treatment, he lost so much weight that he's now at bantamweight instead of featherweight. The Fight Pass card from Rotterdam has its main event, as the Netherlands' own Stefan Struve will take on Russia's Alexander Volkov in a battle of heavyweight giants. The locals are apparently not happy with this main, as they expected Gegard Mousasi against Luke Rockhold to top this card - but with Mousasi still negotiating a new contract and Rockhold a bit unhappy with the company at the moment, that just didn't get done. And UFC 216 in Edmonton has its first fight before UFC 215 has even been announced, as Halifax's Gavin Tucker, who looked excellent in his UFC debut this February, returns to take on Rick Glenn at featherweight. *And some other minor stuff here and there. Next week's card in Auckland has an undercard change, as Australian strawweight Nadia Kassem has pulled out of her UFC debut, so instead J.J. Aldrich will face Korea's Chan Mi Jeon, who becomes the youngest fighter on the UFC roster, as she was born in August of 1997. Eek. Singapore the week after has also seen an undercard change, as per Jingliang Li, his opponent, Jonathan Meunier, is out, so Li will instead face the debuting Frank Camacho, who becomes, best I can tell, the first UFC fighter out of the Northern Mariana Islands. Singapore also adds a bout between Lucie Pudilova and Ji Yeon Kim at bantamweight - UFC actually apparently initially targeted Kim to take on Holly Holm at this event, just to get Holm a win, before Holm's management demanded a bigger name, which turned out to be Bethe Correia. Lina Lansberg takes on Leslie Smith at bantamweight in Glasgow, in what should be a fun fight. And UFC is reportedly planning their first South American event outside of Brazil for sometime later this year, with Buenos Aires or Santiago being the two cities I've heard thrown out there. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Roy Nelson (22-14 overall, 9-10 UFC, last fought 4/15/17, L vs. Alexander Volkov): And so ends the weird ballad of "Big Country", as the veteran heavyweight is off to Bellator. Nelson was regarded as one of the better heavyweights outside of UFC about a decade ago, but there were questions if the promotion would ever sign him thanks to his fat, slovenly appearance. So when Nelson was brought on for an all-heavyweight season 10 of TUF, he was regarded as the ringer of the group, though, amusingly, coaches Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans didn't really seem aware of Nelson's rep and just didn't take him seriously. But Nelson won the season rather easily - and in the process, had a win over Kimbo Slice that is still one of the most-viewed fights on television of all-time - and from there, it was off to the races. A bit strangely, as soon as he got into UFC proper, Nelson completely abandoned his grappling game - which was always sort of his secret weapon, as nobody expected this super-fat dude to actually be a pretty great submission grappler - in favor of hunting for spectacular knockouts, and it actually kind of worked; while Nelson fell short against top contenders at the time, like Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir and Fabricio Werdum (wow, heavyweight hasn't changed all that much), Nelson's highlight reel of KOs and ability to take abuse made him one of the biggest fan favorites in the promotion. At some point in here, Nelson started to feud with UFC brass - namely Dana White, who didn't really take Nelson seriously and would chastise Nelson for not keeping himself in shape and being too much of a cartoon character. This all culminated with season 16 of TUF, which saw Nelson and Shane Carwin act as coached in a complete disaster of a season - the fights were awful, Carwin had absolutely no personality, and the whole season seemed to exist solely to bury Nelson for not being as smart as he thinks he is. And, well, with time, they weren't exactly wrong - while initially it seemed like Nelson was a deceptively smart and clever guy, as time has gone on he's sort of exposed himself as a dumb guy thinking he's a smart guy pretending to be a dumb guy. But anyway, TUF 16 ended, Nelson knocked out Matt Mitrione after Carwin had to retire due to injuries, and with another knockout win over Cheick Kongo, Nelson suddenly found himself as a top contender for the heavyweight title. And then he pretty much risked it all. UFC 161 was one of the first high-profile instances of someone fighting out their UFC contract - Nelson was taking on Stipe Miocic, and if Nelson won, he was probably getting a title shot and a huge new contract, and if he lost, he was losing all his leverage. And as it turns out, it was really bad timing for years of Nelson not taking care of himself to catch up to him, as he was suddenly too slow to get a big knockout, and lost a one-sided decision. And that was pretty much the end of Nelson being pretty good - he got wins over decrepit versions of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Antonio Silva, plus a scared Jared Rosholt, but the Miocic loss started a run where Nelson lost seven of ten fights and just started circling the drain. In his last few fights, Nelson even started relying on his wrestling again, and even had some success getting opponents to the mat, but at this point, he's just too slow and unathletic to do anything but hold his opponent there, so that hasn't really accomplished anything. So, yeah, it's been a bit of a depressing end to Nelson's UFC career - though, hey, the state of the Bellator heavyweight division is such that Nelson may yet be able to make an impact there. Plus we can get that Cheick Kongo rematch. 2) Roan Carneiro (21-11 overall, 4-5 UFC, last fought 2/11/17, L vs. Ryan LaFlare): Roan Carneiro is out of the UFC once again, as the two sides apparently couldn't agree on terms for a new contract. At least this run went better than the first one - Carneiro came into UFC about a decade ago as a highly-touted grappler, but didn't really accomplish much, even getting tapped out by Kevin Burns, both an embarrassing result and one of the biggest upsets of 2008. After getting cut following another loss, Carneiro fought rather sparingly - I'm not really sure when Carneiro became a grappling coach at American Top Team, but that surely took attention away from his fight career - but got back on the MMA radar in 2014, thanks to BattleGrounds MMA. BattleGrounds MMA actually ran a pay-per-view, commentated by wrestling legend Jim Ross and legend in his own mind Chael Sonnen, built around an eight-man tournament for a fifty grand cash prize. Anyway, Carneiro won the tournament - and apparently bankrupted BattleGrounds MMA in the process, as the promotion hasn't run another event - and when a spot opened opposite Mark Munoz on a card the following February, Carneiro got the call, and somewhat shockingly managed to choke Munoz out in just a shade under two minutes. And, well, that was the highlight of Carneiro's second UFC run - after another long layoff, Derek Brunson obliterated him, and then Carneiro went 1-1 in two fairly unmemorable fights. I can see why the two sides couldn't agree on money - Carneiro could be a valuable gatekeeper, but his fights can be fairly dull, so I understand why UFC wouldn't try too hard to keep him around. 3) Sam Sicilia (14-8 overall, 5-7 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Gavin Tucker): Speaking of gatekeepers. Sam Sicilia made his name on TUF 15 alongside friend and training partner Michael Chiesa, and while Chiesa won the season and became a lightweight contender, Sicilia started carving out a niche as a featherweight striker. And, well, save a weird fight with Yaotzin Meza in 2015, where Sicilia decided to suddenly grapple his way to victory, Sicilia pretty much looked like a striker out of a camp best known for developing submission artists, as Sicilia never really evolved or was able to adjust within fights. Every once in a while he'd get a knockout over a Godofredo Pepey or an Akira Corassani to stick around, but for the most part he was used to either have a fun mid-card action fight or test an up-and-coming prospect. And at this point, we were hitting the point of diminishing returns, even with that role, as Doo Ho Choi obliterated him, and Sicilia didn't really show much against Gabriel Benitez or Gavin Tucker. So, this was probably the right call, and frankly Sicilia did well to even have this long of a UFC run for someone so one-dimensional. 4) Michinori Tanaka (11-3 overall, 2-3 UFC, last fought 2/4/17, L vs. Ricardo Ramos): A fairly disappointing cut here, since Tanaka has enough talent to stick on the roster, and a bit strange given that UFC is running Japan in September while rapidly running out of Japanese fighters. Japanese MMA has been in a weird spot for a while now, falling behind a bit due to outdated training methods, but a wave of Japanese prospects a few years back was supposed to come in and change all that, headed by Kyoji Horiguchi (who's since succeeded enough he got paid huge money to return to Japan), Ulka Sasaki, and Michinori Tanaka. And while Tanaka impressed greatly in his UFC debut against Roland Delorme, that momentum halted almost immediately, as Tanaka then lost to Kyung Ho Kang in a fight that showed just how physically outmatched Tanaka was as a bantamweight. Plus, to add insult to injury, Tanaka also failed a drug test and was suspended for nine months because of an over-the-counter allergy medication. Tanaka returned in 2016 with a narrow win over Joe Soto that impressed, but Tanaka got a tough draw against veteran grappler Rani Yahya, and then followed that up with a close loss to top Brazilian prospect Ricardo Ramos. Tanaka looked game in both losing efforts, so, again, I'm a bit surprised he's gone - though he can probably get more money fighting back in Japan, and that might also be at play here. 5) Mike De La Torre (14-7 [1] overall, 2-4 [1] UFC, last fought 4/8/17, L vs. Myles Jury): Not a ton to say about the other "El Cucuy", except that his all-offense approach resulted in the occasional fun decision - like his debut loss to Mark Bocek or win against Yui Chul Nam, but often saw De La Torre get obliterated within the first round. And after Godofredo Pepey and Myles Jury each took care of De La Torre in under four minutes, UFC cut bait. 6) Rich Walsh (9-5 overall, 2-4 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Jonathan Meunier): "Filthy Rich" Walsh was the standout of the Australian half of the cast on TUF: Nations, but that wasn't saying much, as the Canadian team pretty much rolled to victory. But while some guys like Jake Matthews and Dan Kelly eventually evolved, Walsh just kind of didn't - he could be a solid action fighter, but his decent mix of skills just didn't really seem to be a match for anyone with a gameplan, as Walsh just kind of didn't really adjust and...did stuff. And frankly, while Walsh did try to evolve a bit as a fighter, it just sort of made his fights more boring - I'm a bit surprised Walsh didn't get a last chance on, say, next week's card in Auckland, but sometimes fighters you have hopes for just don't pan out. 7) Viscardi Andrade (18-6 [1] overall, 2-1 [1] UFC, last fought 3/19/16, NC vs. Rich Walsh): Andrade had a decent amount of success for someone who really left no impression. An alum of TUF: Brazil 2, Andrade got a quick win over Bristol Marunde in his UFC debut, then got a prominent main card spot where he spit the bit and lost a clear decision to Nico Musoke. After that, Andrade broke his leg in a training accident, then upon recovery, got two fairly unmemorable undercard wins over Gasan Umalatov and Rich Walsh to stay afloat. But after the Walsh fight, Andrade's drug test got flagged, and after a drawn-out appeals process, Andrade got served with a two-year suspension by USADA. I'm assuming that's why Andrade got cut or let go or whatever - UFC's contracts are typically four fights, and if a guy can't fight for two years, there's no point in keeping him around, particularly for someone as, frankly, unmemorable as Andrade. 8) Guangyou Ning (5-4-1 overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Marlon Vera): And this marks the last of the TUF: China cast members to get cut, and frankly, it's a bit of a surprise it took three years. UFC went gung-ho into China in 2014 without realizing they'd go nowhere without government backing, and part of that was TUF: China, a season full of horrible fights and unintentional comedy whose featherweight bracket was won by Ning, who at 32, wasn't even much of a prospect. To his credit, Ning actually did improve greatly - his early UFC fights just saw him circle at a ridiculous range while trying to dive in for a knockout, and he started to develop a bit of a functional MMA game, but it's not like it ever developed into anything at a UFC level. UFC does seem to be thinking about China once again after signing Guan Wang to feature prominently on the upcoming Singapore card, so I'm a tad bit surprised they cut Ning, but he's also not going to be that potential star anyway, so it's understandable. 9) Reginaldo Vieira (13-5 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Aiemann Zahabi): Well, TUF: Brazil 4 was officially a washout. While the lightweight bracket was won by an actual prospect, Glaico Franca, who was a surprising cut a few months back after being rushed into some tough fights, the bantamweight bracket was won by Reginaldo Vieira. Vieira was more low-upside regional vet than prospect, and to add insult to injury, the decision he got was fairly undeserved and over Dileno Lopes, an actual top bantamweight talent. Vieira immediately lived down to expectations, getting tapped by Marco Beltran, but he actually had a fairly impressive performance against Canadian prospect Aiemann Zahabi that suggested Vieira could be a solid gatekeeper against debuting talent. Vieira actually could've won that decision against Zahabi, but the judges went the other way, and so the Brazilian's UFC career is over. 10) Garreth McLellan (13-6 overall, 1-4 UFC, last fought 3/11/17, L vs. Paulo Borrachinha): Garreth McLellan pretty much followed in the mold of the other South African fighters UFC has signed over the years, washing out fairly quickly. Similar to Australia, but at a lower level, South Africa is a circuit that doesn't have many wrestlers, so any amount of wrestling talent can get you a ton of success there, and that's what happened with McLellan. But, well, pretty much everyone in UFC can wrestle, so once these guys get signed, their entire game more or less falls apart without that wrestling to fall back on. McLellan did earn a come-from-behind win over Bubba Bush, but past that McLellan didn't have much success outside of showing that he can take a lot of damage - and, well, when that's your takeaway, things aren't going well. 11) Alessandro Ricci (10-5 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Paul Felder): Alessandro Ricci was a solid enough vet, but a bit of a surprising signing last year, as the Ontario native was part of UFC's apparent decision to sign any Canadian talent possible for a show in Vancouver last August. Ricci didn't show much in a loss to Jeremy Kennedy, but figured to have a better time of things against Mexico's Alvaro Herrera, who also hadn't really shown much, for his next fight. But then Herrera got hurt, and UFC instead decided to put Ricci against Paul Felder, who's, you know, actually really good. Ricci did show some decent striking in a fight that was fun while it lasted, but then Felder used his elbow to break Ricci's nose, and things ended about as poorly as possible for Ricci. 12) Daniel Jolly (5-2 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 2/4/17, L vs. Khalil Rountree): We never really got to see what Daniel Jolly had to offer at a UFC level, which, well, I guess wasn't much. Jolly was signed as a late-notice replacement for top prospect Misha Cirkunov to debut against, and Cirkunov, rather unsurprisingly, handled him rather easily. After a long layoff, Jolly got the call to face Khalil Rountree, and had the right idea by trying to take Rountree down, but in going for the takedown, Rountree uncorked a knee that put Jolly out in under a minute, and so ends Jolly's UFC career. 13) Alex Enlund (14-2 overall): Enlund's a rare cut who never got the chance to fight in UFC, as the top British featherweight was signed for a fight on the Hamburg card this past September, but was pulled from the bout for undisclosed reason that, well, have now been disclosed. According to Enlund, his pre-fight medicals got flagged because of a possible tumor on his brain stem, and a follow-up appointment a few months later showed no additional growth, but still suggested that Enlund probably shouldn't fight again. Enlund was then referred to a neurologist, who pretty much cleared Enlund to fight, as the lesion didn't really appear to be a major deal and was likely something that had been there since birth. But, at some point during all this, UFC terminated Enlund's contract, so he's no longer with the company. Enlund has a few more scans left to go, which seem to be precautionary, and while it's unclear at this point if he plans to continue fighting, judging from the statement he put out, he seems to be in a pretty good place. So, good on him. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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, Andrei Arlovski vs. Marcin Tybura, 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, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC 212 - June 3, 2017 - Jeunesse Arena - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Well, while this should be a pretty fun show, it's definitely on the B-level in terms of pay-per-views, as it's pretty much a two-fight card. Not for lack of trying, though - this was rumored to be the initial landing for the Amanda Nunes/Valentina Shevchenko rematch that, as it turns out, will headline UFC 213, and there's been the well-documented process of Kelvin Gastelum being pulled from his fight with Anderson Silva because of a weed test, only for Silva to turn down potential fights with Luke Rockhold, Vitor Belfort, Ovince St. Preux, and some other names that I'm sure I'm forgetting. But as is, this sort of reminds me of the inverse of the last card UFC ran, the Belfort/Gastelum show from Fortaleza this past March - whereas that was a shockingly deep card for a FS1 show that just needed a more compelling main event, this one features one of the best title fights UFC can put on at the moment, a solid contender's bout at strawweight, and then...a whole bunch of nothing, except Belfort's retirement fight...maybe? I mean, I like Oluwale Bamgbose, but jeez. I mean, that main event is worth your money alone, given that it's an all-time great against a shockingly complete contender coming off an amazing win streak, but, well, that main event alone is really all that's worth your money. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Featherweight Championship: (C) Jose Aldo vs. (IC) Max Holloway Women's Strawweight: (#1) Claudia Gadelha vs. (#2) Karolina Kowalkiewicz Middleweight: (#11) Vitor Belfort vs. Nate Marquardt Middleweight: Oluwale Bamgbose vs. Paulo Borrachinha Welterweight: Yancy Medeiros vs. Erick Silva PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Bantamweight: (#3) Raphael Assuncao vs. Marlon Moraes Middleweight: Antonio Carlos Junior vs. Eric Spicely Bantamweight: (#10) Johnny Eduardo vs. Matthew Lopez Bantamweight: (#13) Iuri Alcantara vs. Brian Kelleher PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: Jamie Moyle vs. Viviane Pereira Welterweight: Luan Chagas vs. Jim Wallhead Flyweight: Deiveson Alcantara vs. Marco Beltran THE RUNDOWN: Jose Aldo (26-2 overall, 8-1 UFC, 8-0 WEC) vs. Max Holloway (17-3 overall, 13-3 UFC): I think Conor McGregor knocking Jose Aldo out in just thirteen seconds might be the most stunning moment I've ever seen as a fight fan. Not because McGregor backed up his considerable trash talk, not because it was the fastest finish in UFC title fight history, but mostly because Aldo had looked so damn invincible up to that point. I don't even know where to start with Aldo - probably his eight-second knockout of Cub Swanson in 2009 that earned him a WEC title shot, and the subsequent victories over Mike Brown and Urijah Faber that cemented him as the best featherweight in the world. And from there, Aldo never really got tested - a title defense against Mark Hominick, Aldo's first UFC fight, was closer than it needed to be thanks to a brutal weight cut, and past that, most of Aldo's fights were one-sided, but never really blowouts mostly because of Aldo's own choice. Aldo's regarded as one of the best defensive fighters of all-time, and after shutting down opponents for a round or two, Aldo rarely saw fit to do anything but coast, and just continue pitching a shutout - in fact, of all his UFC title defenses, only the first Chad Mendes fight was a clean finish, as I don't really count the Chan Sung Jung fight, where Aldo swarmed Jung after Jung dislocated his shoulder. So Aldo just reigned over featherweight, undefeated for over a decade, in the conversation with Jon Jones and Demetrious Johnson as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. And then came McGregor. Most hoped that McGregor's personality and trash talk would bring out the star in Aldo, similar to what Chael Sonnen did for Anderson Silva - taking an immensely talented, non-English speaking champion who was among the pound-for-pound greats, and provide enough of a foil to get people to care about both guys. And, well, McGregor did that, but when the time came for the fight at UFC 194, instead of an all-time great war to continue the rivalry, we just got one of the most stunning results in UFC history, solely for how it played out. Aldo didn't return for a few months, and come UFC 200, there were a ton of questions about how Aldo would rebound from one of the most crushing losses in the hospital of the sport - and, well, Aldo may have looked better than ever, as he pretty much dictated things against Frankie Edgar, who looked like a complete wrecking ball both before and after that fight. Aldo just shucked off all of Edgar's takedowns, and from there just essentially played matador, as after about a round to warm up, Aldo was just evading Edgar's strikes and using angles perfectly to counter. The win earned Aldo an interim title and a shot at McGregor, but, about that - it doesn't look like the Irishman is coming back down to featherweight anytime soon. And in fact, thanks to a whole mess involving fights falling through and UFC needing a belt to draw on pay-per-view, Aldo has since been promoted to outright champ, and your new interim champ is Hawaii's Max Holloway. It's rare to see things click for a prospect as beautifully as they have for Holloway - originally a lanky twenty-year old reliant on big strikes, sort of like a starter kit version of Anthony Pettis, Holloway showed a bunch of potential, but it looked like UFC was losing the plot a bit in 2013 when it came to bringing him along. First, Holloway got thrown against fellow rising prospect Dennis Bermudez and lost a narrow decision, and then put Holloway against McGregor in McGregor's big stateside debut, a weird fight where McGregor tore his ACL early on and then surprisingly dominated using wrestling. Then it was time for the young Hawaiian to rehab his career, and, well, did he ever. Holloway went 4-0 in 2014, finishing four lower-level foes, and then broke out with an April 2015 win over Cub Swanson, a fight that looked fairly even coming in but turned into Holloway outboxing the savvy vet with some beautiful footwork and combinations before jumping on a guillotine for the win. From there, it was basically just a case of keeping Holloway busy while the featherweight title picture sorted out, and wondering when Holloway got his shot - Charles Oliveira, Jeremy Stephens, Ricardo Lamas, Anthony Pettis, all potential contenders to make a move at featherweight, and none of them had any answer for Holloway. So now Holloway's interim champ, he's riding a ten-fight win streak, he's an absolute machine, and, somehow, he's only 25 years old, as he was one of the youngest fighters on the UFC roster when he was signed. So, yeah, this is one of the best fights UFC can make in any division, pitting an all-time great against a contender who's firing on all cylinders, and as far as how it's going to go, I just want to throw up my arms and just tell everyone to enjoy it. Both guys are going to look to keep it standing - while Aldo has a grappling background, we almost never see it, and while Holloway has some submission skills of his own, he's relied more and more on his kickboxing, only going for the choke when he's knocked down a stunned opponent. And from there, I'm not really sure how things are going to interact - Aldo will have his signature vicious leg kicks, even if he has seemed to get away from them a bit, and I'm not really sure how Aldo's defense and elusiveness will be able to fare against the length and skilled combination striking of Holloway. Edgar was able to hit Aldo a bit in the early parts of their fight, and Edgar isn't nearly as fleet or venomous on the feet as Holloway, so that may favor Holloway, but at the same time, Aldo did adjust, and McGregor fight aside, Aldo's in the same sort of territory as Demetrious Johnson and other all-time strategic greats, where you pretty much always have to count on their ability to adapt and find a path to victory - particularly if Aldo's form from the Edgar fight holds and his loss to McGregor has sort of lit a fire under the champ and allowed him to refocus. I feel like kind of a fool for doing this, but even with all the praise I've heaped on Aldo, I'm picking Holloway, since his game is just clicking at a ridiculously high level, and I have faith in him to be able to chase down Aldo, and essentially just keep throwing combinations at such a pace that some of it will break through Aldo's defenses and allow him to win rounds. Though honestly, my real prediction is an all-time classic and a fight we'll want to see again - just enjoy it. Claudia Gadelha (14-2 overall, 3-2 UFC, 1-0 Invicta) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (10-1 overall, 3-1 UFC, 1-0 Invicta): A really interesting fight here, even though I'm not really sure where it leads in the short term - Claudia Gadelha and Karolina Kowalkiewicz, particularly Gadelha, have given Joanna Jedrzejczyk her two toughest title defenses as champion, but losses are still losses, and UFC has been loathe to do title rematches recently. But in a division rapidly lacking challengers, either woman could easily be back in title contention sooner than expected, and again, it's an interesting fight on top of that. Jedrzejczyk and Gadelha have pretty easily had the best feud in women's strawweight history thus far - their first fight in 2014 was a nip-tuck affair that consensus said Gadelha won, but Jedrzejczyk got the narrow decision and then proceeded to obliterate Carla Esparza, win the strawweight title, and lord over the division. From there, the two wound up coaching season 23 of TUF, which was one of the better seasons in a while as far as a good, old-fashioned blood feud, as the two obviously have grown to hate each other. Then their rematch was one of the best fights of 2016, an epic battle that saw Gadelha surprisingly take advantage early using her grappling and takedowns, only to gas out and drop the latter stages of the fight, as well as a clear decision. But the rivalry isn't over, at least where Gadelha's concerned - a lot of people gave her flack for not understanding that a lot of Jedrzejczyk's trash talk was just to sell the fight, but, well, you can't exactly expect to tell a Brazilian woman to "go back to the jungle" and then have everything be cool. So Gadelha still has unfinished business, and hopefully their second fight was good enough that UFC doesn't balk from a trilogy fight, like Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez - but before all that, Gadelha has to get past Jedrzejczyk's countrywoman, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. The parallels between Jedrzejczyk and Kowalkiewicz are kind of funny - they're both from Poland, they both came up through Muay Thai, hell, the two even faced off in Kowalkiewicz's lone amateur fight, but when Kowalkiewicz made her UFC debut in December of 2015, expectations were that she'd be a fun roster addition rather than a future contender, thanks to her relative lack of athleticism. But Kowalkiewicz wound up establishing herself as a title challenger within a year - after two decent wins, she was the obvious b-side in a #1 contender's fight against Rose Namajunas, but wound up using her clinch-work to take a fairly clear decision and earn a title shot at Jedrzejczyk in Madison Square Garden. That fight wound up being a mixed bag - it was a dominant Jedrzejczyk performance for most of it, but Kowalkiewicz did manage to nail the champ as hard as anyone has, rocking her in the fourth round, even if Kowalkiewicz's complete lack of finishing power meant she couldn't end the fight. At its core, this seems like a fairly basic striker-versus-grappler fight - while Kowalkiewicz may not be that intimidating, she's technically proficient and ridiculously tough, and she fights like someone who knows she can't be hurt. So as much as Gadelha's striking has improved over the time, unless there's been another giant jump (entirely possible, since Gadelha sort of went off and formed her own camp before her last fight), Kowalkiewicz should be able to handle things on the feet, so Gadelha should be looking to use her strength and physicality and take things to the floor. The good news is that Gadelha might be the most powerful grappler in the division, but the bad news is that Kowalkiewicz has been surprisingly effective in the clinch thus far. Hell, that's what won her the Namajunas fight - whenever Namajunas moved inside and into the clinch, Kowalkiewicz just ate her alive with her Muay Thai skills, destroying her with knees and basically being surprisingly strong, which combined with her ability to take a punch makes Kowalkiewicz one of the more unassuming, yet indestructible fighters on the roster. So it really comes down to who gets the best of things in the clinch, which should dictate where the fight takes place - again, Kowalkiewicz has been sneakily great with her ability to just stay standing and make opponents who, on paper, should be more powerful pay for trying to take her down, but Gadelha might be the best in the division at doing what so many have failed to do. This could go either way, but I'll actually go with the minor upset and say Kowalkiewicz is able to keep things standing, make Gadelha pay in the clinch, and win a narrow decision, even though Gadelha will surely have her moments. Vitor Belfort (25-13 [1] overall, 14-9 [1] UFC, 5-3 PRIDE, 0-1 Strikeforce) vs. Nate Marquardt (35-17-2 overall, 13-10 UFC, 1-1 Strikeforce): Well, Anderson Silva's not on the card anymore, but at least the Brazilian faithful will get the retirement fight of Vitor Belfort...maybe? Since his loss (well, no contest) to Kelvin Gastelum, Belfort angled for his retirement fight on this card, but in the last few weeks, Belfort has since suggested that this'll only be his last UFC fight, and he has many tests left for him in the future, most of which he named are fellow aging name fighters that all happen to be in Bellator. Hint, hint. Post-TRT Belfort's been a weird one, as he's looked good in spots and still seems technically sound, but his signature aggression has pretty much left him, and he's mostly been offered up as a sacrifical lamb for guys like Gastelum, Gegard Mousasi, and Jacare Souza. At least thankfully this time he gets a step down in competition against Nate Marquardt, who at 38 years old and almost two decades into his career himself, might be close to his own retirement fight. Marquardt looked absolutely shot for the vast stretches of his UFC return, going 1-4, but he's actually been fairly solid lately, scoring knockout wins over C.B. Dollaway and Tamdan McCrory in two of his last four fights. Admittedly, he's still at a disadvantage against younger athletes, and he's pretty much reduced to being an opportunist if his opponent offers up the chance for a knockout blow, but that's still viable enough and way better than he previously looked. I have no idea how to read this one, since it's kind of hard to peg Belfort - he hasn't had much success lately, but it's hard to tell how much of that is his reduced skillset and how much of that is being thrown in there with what might be three of the best five or six middleweights in the world at the moment. Either guy could knock the other out at any moment - half because each guy has always had power, and half because each guy is old enough that they could crumble fairly easily - but I kind of fear the worst for this bout, that Belfort isn't able to pull the trigger enough anymore to get a quick finish, but won't offer up enough opportunities for Marquardt to take advantage and do anything. But I still sort of trust Belfort to do more, so, amazingly, I'm going to pick Belfort to win a decision, which would be weird, given that Belfort hasn't gone to a division since 2007, and all of his UFC wins save one have come via first round finish - and even the odd one out was a second round finish of Michael Bisping. But, hey, Belfort's always made a habit of being weird and surprising, so what better way to go out than that. Oluwale Bamgbose (6-2 overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Paulo Borrachinha (9-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): Well, being this high on the card probably means that UFC sees something in TUF: Brazil 3 alum Paulo "Borrachinha" Costa. And there's stuff to like about Costa - while he showed nothing on a TUF run that came just three fights into his career, his MMA career thus far is nine up, nine down, all via first round knockout. And that last one at least proved he could do it on somewhat of a UFC level, as he more or less annihilated Garreth McLellan, who if nothing else is a durable guy, in just 77 seconds. But, of course, getting everyone out of there so quickly raises a bunch of questions, particularly how the heavily muscled Borrachinha will hold up past the first round, and the returns from that lone TUF fight aren't that good, since he gassed pretty badly and hasn't really learned to pace himself since. Anyway, none of this may matter against Oluwale Bamgbose, who has a lot of the same problems as Costa. Bamgbose is a memorable character - dude calls himself the "Holy War Angel", has a cross shaved into the back of his head, and does a ton of histrionics and praising of the Lord, as he's using his purse money to build churches in his native Nigeria. But Bamgbose is a similar first-round-or-bust fighter - before the UFC, he was also undefeated with five first round knockouts, and that really seems to be all he has to offer - while he hasn't shown signs of gassing as badly as Costa has, Bamgbose has been completely helpless as soon as he's been put on his back, as Uriah Hall tripped him and was able to pound him out shortly thereafter, and Cezar Ferreira relied on his wrestling to take Bamgbose out of the first round for the first time, and win a grinding decision. Borrachinha may have a secret weapon here if he decides to use it - while none of his recent fights have shown any of this, his TUF fight saw him do some clinching and actually work for submissions, so if he chooses to fight completely against type, he might be able to get a quick submission or at least avoid danger against Bamgbose and coast to an easy win. But more than likely, these two dudes are throwing down, and from there it's kind of a pick 'em, even if I do favor Bamgbose with his speed, reach, and arsenal of kicks. So, given how both guys win, I guess I'll pick Bamgbose by first-round knockout, though I expect a weird, fun sprint that could go either way. Yancy Medeiros (13-4 [1] overall, 4-4 [1] UFC, 2-0 Strikeforce) vs. Erick Silva (19-7 [1] overall, 7-6 UFC): I do like the positioning of Paulo Costa and Erick Silva back-to-back on this card, since Silva's sort of a cautionary tale when it comes to hot prospects. Silva looked amazing when he made his UFC debut in 2012, destroying opponents in the first round, but after a while a pattern began to emerge - UFC would throw him against a top fighter like Jon Fitch or Dong Hyun Kim, who could survive into the second round with Silva, he'd get outclassed, and then in his next fight, UFC would give him another guy to destroy, push him back up the card where he'd get outclassed, and then keep repeating the cycle. And, well, after three years of this, people just kind of came to see Silva for what he is, an exciting, flawed fighter who's more action favorite than future champion - it was probably after a flat loss to Neil Magny that the public gave up for good on Silva, and if not, it was definitely a loss last year to Nordine Taleb, by knockout no less, that caused UFC to pretty much lose faith in Silva ever really becoming a thing. On the plus side, they seem to have embraced his destiny as an action fighter, as September saw him win a fun bout over Luan Chagas, and now they've teed up another fun fight on paper against Hawaii's Yancy Medeiros. Medeiros has one of my favorite career arcs - a middleweight in Strikeforce, Medeiros was out for three years due to injury, and thanks to training with the Diaz brothers, when he finally made his return (in UFC, which had absorbed Strikeforce by that point), he had lost thirty pounds and was suddenly a lightweight. Unfortunately, training with the Diaz brothers may also explain why his first UFC win was overturned due to a failed pot test. Anyway, Medeiros has established himself as a fun action fighter - he's lost to ranked guys like Dustin Poirier and Francisco Trinaldo, but in all of his other fights he's shown knockout power and a solid submission game; like teammate Max Holloway, Medeiros can often stun an opponent and then, with his long limbs, clamp on some sort of funky choke for the tap. Which is, in fact, what Medeiros actually did in his debut at welterweight in September, stunning Sean Spencer with a head kick before diving in for the rear naked choke. As far as the fight, Silva's obviously been trying to address his first round or bust tendencies, moving to a few different camps, and the results have been a mixed bag - yes, Silva's been able to pace himself, and he got a third-round victory against Chagas, but that's come at the cost of his aggression, and he's still fairly hittable, so it's hard to say he's really all that more effective. I'll take Medeiros here - Chagas was able to tag Silva a bunch in their fight, and if nothing else, Medeiros is a lanky striker who can cause some damage if opponents give him the opportunity. This should be fun while it lasts, but I see this ending a bit like the Medeiros/Spencer fight, where Medeiros can stun Silva, and then jump on some sort of submission to finish him - I'll say it comes in the second round. Raphael Assuncao (24-5 overall, 8-2 UFC, 3-2 WEC) vs. Marlon Moraes (18-4-1 overall): UFC's pretty much raided all of World Series of Fighting's champions at this point - two-division champ Dave Branch made his return at UFC 211, Justin Gaethje is headlining the TUF finale in July, and finally, bantamweight champ Marlon Moraes is coming over to ply his trade and see if he can become a contender. I remember watching the first WSOF card, and Moraes was sort of an afterthought when he was put against former WEC champ and bantamweight great Miguel Torres, as the Brazilian was just sort of an unassuming young fighter with a fairly nondescript record. But Moraes won a narrow decision, and from there, things rapidly clicked into place, as Moraes first became an exciting top prospect and then established himself as one of the best bantamweights outside of the UFC, becoming WSOF's sole bantamweight champion. Moraes never really had incentive to leave for most of his run - he was a client of the controversial manager/former WSOF matchmaker Ali Abdelaziz, who pretty much used WSOF to make himself and his clients money, but with WSOF running out of cash and changing forms, Moraes finally saw it was time to make a run in the UFC. And at 29, Moraes is right in the prime of his career, so UFC is making a smart move by immediately throwing him in there against a top contender like Raphael Assuncao. Assuncao's had a weird run - he's effective, but not particularly exciting, as his style is mostly built around countering his opponents, which makes everything into a slow chess match. And as soon as he actually managed enough wins to earn a bantamweight title shot, his career basically lost all momentum. Assuncao was the clear top contender in May of 2014, but an ankle injury kept him from taking a fight against then-champ Renan Barao - so instead, T.J. Dillashaw, who Assuncao had narrowly beaten the previous October, wound up getting the shot and winning the title, and was rematching Barao while Assuncao was stuck fighting Bryan Caraway. And from there, Assuncao's ankle betrayed him - between the long winning streak and the win over then-champ Dillashaw, Assuncao loomed over the division for a good year and a half, but by the time he could actually get healthy, he had missed almost two years and Dillashaw had already lost the belt. So Assuncao finally came back, lost a rematch to Dillashaw at UFC 200, but rebounded with a narrow win over Aljamain Sterling in January, leaving him sort of in limbo - at this point bantamweight is deep enough that UFC probably won't let the colorless Assuncao get anywhere near a title shot, but he's still good enough to knock off a lot of fighters in the division. I'm favoring Moraes to take this, but I worry it won't be an overly impressive debut past the result, since I could see Assuncao making the fight play out with a lot of...Assuncao-ness. As mentioned, Assuncao just sort of prefers to sit back and counter his opponent's strikes, and he's excellent at it, which prevents his opponents from getting too aggressive and doesn't really let a fight get particularly exciting. I do think Moraes is the better striker and should be able to pick Assuncao apart, particularly with his leg kicks, but I just don't see Moraes popping off the kind of violence we could see in WSOF, or making a huge statement in a win. But a win over Assuncao is a statement in itself, so even if it's just a mediocre decision, Moraes would still be among the divisional elite. Antonio Carlos Junior (7-2 [1] overall, 4-2 [1] UFC) vs. Eric Spicely (10-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): I like the dynamic here, as UFC is pitting a frustrating talent against quite possibly the company's biggest overachiever. Eric Spicely, quite literally, shouldn't even be here. An alum of TUF 23, it seemed iffy if Spicely would even get a contract, given his unassuming build and the kind of boring, grinding style that he used in the house and Dana White seemed to hate, but after getting a post-TUF fight and, somewhat embarrassingly for a submission specialist, getting tapped out by Sam Alvey, that almost definitely seemed to be it for Spicely's UFC career. And, well, it was supposed to be, except a funny thing happened. The WME-IMG purchase of Zuffa happened shortly thereafter, and amidst all the transactions, UFC essentially forgot to cut Spicely. So they offered him one of two options - get cut, or get thrown in essentially as a sacrificial lamb against ranked middleweight Thiago Santos on a card in Brazil. Spicely took the fight, and, in one of the biggest upsets of 2016, managed to tap Santos out, and after doing the same to Italian prospect Alessio Di Chirico, Spicely attempts to make it an unlikely three in a row against Antonio Carlos Junior. Carlos Junior, who might be better known by his nickname "Cara de Sapato" - or "Shoe Face" thanks to his giant jaw, is a tantalizing prospect, but a frustrating one. A former world BJJ champion, Carlos won TUF: Brazil 3 at heavyweight and showed some knockout power in the process, so as a giant guy with both elite submission skills and that finishing ability, the sky looked like the limit. But after cutting down to 205 for his first post-TUF fight, Carlos got absolutely schooled by the American wrestling of Patrick Cummins, and a further cut down to 185 has been a mixed bag. Carlos, as you'd imagine for a former heavyweight, is gigantic for middleweight, but he seems to be a fairly clear example of a guy who looked amazing when things are working and he's rolling downhill, but tends to look awful as soon as the tables turn. Hell, his lone loss at middleweight, against Dan Kelly, is a perfect microcosm of that - Carlos was a massive favorite and was taking Kelly to school with his grappling for a good two rounds or so, but once Carlos tired and Kelly just relentlessly kept trying offense, Carlos crumbled and eventually got shockingly finished. Carlos does seem to focus on what brought him to the dance with that grappling game, but even his last fight, a fairly one-sided win over Marvin Vettori, saw some spots where Vettori was able to get advantage and things started falling apart instantly. Still, I think the style matchup favors Carlos here, since Spicely is looking to do the same thing that Carlos is and take things into the clinch. And while there's certainly a chance that heart trumps talent - it did in the Kelly fight - and Spicely just survives long enough for Carlos to wear down and crumble, I think Spicely just basically winds up going right into Carlos's wheelhouse and gets rag-dolled for his troubles. So I'll say Carlos by first-round submission, even if I probably should be more confident in someone who has the talent to make a win here look easy. Johnny Eduardo (28-10 overall, 3-2 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Matthew Lopez (9-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): Ah, it's a good old fashioned striker-versus-grappler battle, and a pretty fun one at that. Johnny Eduardo is 38 years old, and somehow, that still seems a bit young, given that Eduardo was fighting on Vale Tudo shows in Brazil all the way back in 1996. So, yes, Eduardo's been doing this for over two decades, though not very frequently anymore - since signing with UFC in 2011, he's only had five fights under the promotional banner. But he's been effective - contenders like Raphael Assuncao and Aljamain Sterling have handled him fairly easily, but as you'd imagine from the striking coach at Nova Uniao, he's a pretty damn good kickboxer, and has knockout wins in two of his last three fights, including a huge upset win over Eddie Wineland in 2014. Eduardo gives it another go here against California's Matthew Lopez, who's an interesting prospect. Lopez was a wrestling coach at Mark Munoz's old Reign MMA gym, and grappling is obviously his background, as Lopez has impressed in two tough, but fun, submission-based fights. It's been weird matchmaking - Lopez is still fairly raw, but UFC went ahead and threw him against two of the best grapplers in the bantamweight division; Lopez acquitted himself well in a great back-and-forth loss against Rani Yahya, but managed to pull out a win against divisional darkhorse Mitch Gagnon. With this fight, UFC is still keeping Lopez on the fast track, but going a completely different route against a striker like Eduardo. It's a fascinating matchup, but I'll favor Eduardo here - Lopez is still kind of a work in progress on the feet, and got clipped by Gagnon in their fight, so Eduardo should be able to tag him. If Lopez gets this to the ground, it's his fight - Aljamain Sterling was the last guy to get Eduardo on his back, and Eduardo looked fairly helpless, for all his experience - but, well, I don't think he'll get it there before getting nailed. So I'll say Eduardo by second-round knockout, even if I'm not particularly confident. Iuri Alcantara (35-7 [1] overall, 9-4 [1] UFC, 1-0 WEC) vs. Brian Kelleher (16-7 overall, 0-2 Bellator): Well, kind of a weird deal here - it's a strange matchup to begin with, and, well, I can't find much relevant footage on the debuting Brian Kelleher. Iuri Alcantara has pretty much proven himself the gatekeeper extraordinaire for the division - Alcantara's big, durable, a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type, so if you beat him, you're probably worthy of being a ranked fighter. So UFC's just fed him rising fighter after rising fighter - Frankie Saenz and Jimmie Rivera were able to win, but Russell Doane, Leandro Issa, and Luke Sanders all lost. That Sanders fight was a notable one - Sanders was pretty much winning the entire fight before Alcantara pulled off a miracle kneebar, of all things - and one would've hoped that would get Alcantara a bigger fight or something. But no, instead he gets a debuting fighter in Kelleher, which is odd - it's not like Kelleher really projects as a top prospect who can make a run up the division quickly, like, say, a Tom Duquesnoy. The Long Islander's on a bit of a run, though, racking up a bunch of wins in the Northeast, including a win over the since-signed Andre Soukhamthath in 2015. Again, there's not much to go on, since anything out there on Kelleher is from before he really became a prospect, but this seems like Kelleher being thrown in over his head, so I'll say Alcantara wins a decision. Jamie Moyle (4-1 overall, 1-0 UFC, 3-1 Invicta) vs. Viviane Pereira (12-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): A really fun fight between strawweight prospects here, and a bit of cheeky matchmaking, as since both women are just 5'1", it pits two of the shortest fighters in the division against someone their own size. Brazil's Viviane Pereira came into UFC with a decent regional record, but her UFC debut was a weird deal - she faced former bantamweight Valerie Letourneau, and between Pereira's size disadvantage and Letourneau being drained from a bad weight cut, it was just sort of a boring fight as each fighter struggled to do anything. But despite the size difference, Pereira got enough takedowns to narrowly win the decision. For her sophomore effort, she'll take on Las Vegas's Jamie Moyle, a TUF 23 alum who's a solid prospect. Moyle was on the Vegas amateur scene for a while before getting a shot in Invicta, and she's proven herself to be a solid grappler, even if like with Pereira, the size disadvantage can give her a bit of trouble at times. This is pretty much a pick 'em, since Pereira is still a bit of an unknown - pre-UFC footage of any worth on her in scarce, and not enough really happened in that Letourneau fight to make a ton of conclusions. But if nothing else, being able to move Letourneau shows that she has some natural strength, and I've seen Moyle struggle against opponents who have the strength advantage on her. So I'll take Pereira to win a decision, though, frankly, I'm probably a bit more confident at the moment in what Moyle brings to the table. Luan Chagas (14-2-1 overall, 0-1-1 UFC) vs. Jim Wallhead (29-10 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-2 Bellator): A decent prospect-versus-veteran fight here. Curitiba's Luan Chagas has had a fun two-fight run in UFC thus far - he got to make a late-notice debut in his hometown at UFC 198, fighting Sergio Moraes to a draw, and then had a "Fight of the Night" against Erick Silva in September that turned into a fun brawl, even if it was Chagas's first career loss. Chagas has a fairly simple gameplan of throwing a ton of power behind absolutely everything, which has its obvious advantages and drawbacks - dude hits really hard, but gasses by the end of the fight - but Chagas is still just 23, so there's a ton of potential for him to turn into something more than an action fighter. He takes on England's "Judo" Jim Wallhead, who looks for a shot at redemption. Wallhead's one of those regional vets who has just plugged away on random shows for years, so it was nice to see him get the UFC call in September, but he kind of spit the bit in his UFC debut, looking tentative and giving away a winnable fight against Jessin Ayari. I'll favor Chagas here - Wallhead's quite tough, so I'd be surprised if Chagas knocked him out, and I assume Chagas will drop the latter stages of the fight, but I see this as a fight where Chagas does a whole bunch of damage to start, tires late, and wins a close, but clear decision. Deiveson Alcantara (11-0 overall) vs. Marco Beltran (8-4 overall, 3-1 UFC): Mexico's Marco Beltran started his UFC career with about the softest three-fight win streak you'll see - after beating TUF: Latin America season one castmate Marlon Vera, he beat TUF: China winner Guangyou Ning and TUF: Brazil 4 winner Reginaldo Vieira, all fairly uninspiring talents. So Beltran's fight with Joe Soto this past November was going to answer a lot of questions about how good Beltran is, and, well, he got tapped by a leglock in under two minutes. So Beltran, a bit surprisingly, has decided to cut down to flyweight, and he'll face debuting Brazilian Deiveson Alcantara. At least, I think that's the name Alcantara is going to go by - he has two last names and two nicknames, so it's unclear exactly which one UFC is going to officially go with. Anyway, Alcantara's best known for his viral "pimp slap KO" of Denis Araujo last September, where he seriously just backhanded the dude into unconsciousness, but Alcantara looks to be much better as a power grappler - in fact, he was probably losing that fight with Araujo after getting touched up on the feet until, well, pimp slap knockout. Beltran's a weird fighter - his takedown defense is fairly horrible, but he does seem to do his best work from his back, where he's fairly crafty and slippery. So while Alcantara should have no problem taking Beltran down, there's the off chance that Beltran's length for his new division makes things a bit tricky for the Brazilian to try and implement his game. Still, Alcantara has shown enough that I'll brush away those concerns, so I say the newcomer takes it by first-round submission.

[nadbooks]

My Favorite Books of 2016

So I know this is really late but I only just decided to start a book blog and what better way to start than with this kind of post. So here we go! Here are the top ten books I read in 2016, rank-ordered, all of which I gave 5 stars to.

10. Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

This book is about a pair of twins who like to pretend to be each other until one day, one of the twins refuses to switch back. It’s basically a look at how people’s perceptions of you can really influence your entire life trajectory. It’s the most insane case of a self-fulfilling prophecy I ever read about and as a psychology student, I’m a complete sucker for it. The story does get a bit dramatic and it seems that anything bad that can happen to our main character will happen. Still, it is a really interesting look at how the way we judge people can really influence who they become and also highlights some of the worst parenting I’ve ever read about. Kind of an eye-opening book which is why it made it onto my list!

9. Genesis by Bernard Beckett

This book... man, I don’t even know how to describe this book. It’s some sort of dystopian I guess but it’s a relatively short book that takes place over the course of a few hours. The story follows our main character as she takes a history exam about her society so we get to learn about the history of this society and how it came to be from her answers on the exam. It’s a really interesting way of introducing the world that was informative and felt genuine and didn’t feel like info-dumping. Other than the way the story is told, this book also discusses really interesting philosophical questions like how different is artificial intelligence really from humans and what gives humans our humanity? Overall, a really mind-blowing read which I did not expect at all, and one that will make you think.

8. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

You will soon realise that I am a huge fan of dystopian books and I will likely feature many of them on my blog. This is one of the most classic dystopians out there so I thought I should give it a read if I wanted to proclaim myself a dystopian fan. It’s easy to see how this book became such a staple for the dystopian genre. It is creepy and unsettling in a quiet way, as all dystopians should be. I thought the idea of language as the thing that allows us to have independent thoughts was fascinating and the idea to severely limit the vocabulary of the society so that people cannot even think rebellious thoughts was the creepiest thing I had ever read about. That is essentially mind control in the subtlest yet most powerful way. There were so many quotable passages in this book and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy so that I can highlight them all! I also liked how the ending was different from many other dystopians in that it is a pretty bleak one and essentially nothing has changed. Much more realistic in my opinion, albeit a tad depressing. That’s just the way I like my books though!

7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book is extremely well-loved in the book community and perhaps it is surprising that it is only number 7. Unfortunately, this is entirely my own fault as I saw the movie before I read the book (I know, burn me at the stake) so I knew what was going to happen in the end. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I still felt all the emotions that I was supposed to throughout the entire story (though maybe a little less strongly). I thought having Death as the narrator was genius and made the writing so interesting. It was dark but also funny. The plot of the story itself was a little lacking perhaps so what I really enjoyed about this book was the writing. I really do wish I had read this before I saw the movie because I think it would have packed a much bigger punch but oh well... Still a wonderful story and an instant favorite.

6. Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this book. This is a story about a girl who was raped and is trying to deal with that. I thought this book showcased a way of dealing with rape that is different from what I usually see in other stories. Our main character in this story is actually quite high-functioning and is able to go about her life like usual. It is only when she is alone at night that the nightmares come. I thought this was an interesting portrayal of that. I also loved the romance and friendship in this story. It is not a ‘love fixes mental issues’ kind of story but more like ‘love gives you the strength to face your issues’, which I thought was beautiful. The love interest was so kind and respectful and I just want every love interest to be like him. I am so done with the bad boy trope, give me more nice guys! Contrary to popular belief, they don’t finish last, at least not in my books. The mystery element and sibling relationship in this book were also really great.

5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This has got to be my absolute favorite historical fiction so far. The story follows a blind Parisian girl and a German boy sent to Hitler Youth and it is a slow build-up to when their paths eventually cross. I don’t usually care about beautiful or poetic writing but Anthony Doerr, man, you sucked me right in. The writing was truly, truly beautiful and was absolutely perfect for a story like this. I fell in love with all the characters and although this book was a chunker, I never wanted it to end. I wanted to keep following these characters forever. Unlike other historical fictions, I thought this one also had a pretty solid plot that had an element of mystery in it, which I loved. This book is just so beautiful (inside and out) and I can’t recommend it enough.

4. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

This is the fourth book in The Heroes of Olympus series. Last year, I read the whole Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and The Heroes of Olympus series and it was incredible. The world of Percy Jackson is so cool! I was always fascinated by Greek mythology as a kid and I only wish I had discovered Percy Jackson sooner! It is just as enjoyable to read these books even now when I’m 23 though! The Heroes of Olympus is definitely my favorite of the two series because I just love all of the characters and their character development was just incredible. You know Rick Riordan is an incredible author when he is able to fully flesh out 10 characters in the space of 5 books. The House of Hades is my favorite one because this was like the peak of all the character development (especially precious Nico!!) and it was also incredibly exciting because we were building up to the finale. Also, Percy and Annabeth are #relationshipgoals. I can’t wait to dive back into the Percy Jackson world with the Magnus Chase and Trials of Apollo series!

3. Champion by Marie Lu

Ahhh here we go again with the dystopians. Champion is the third book in the Legend trilogy. I was pleasantly surprised by this trilogy. I thought it would be just another dystopian, following the same kind of formula all dystopians seem to follow these days. And yes, it kind of did, but it did it well. I thought the Legend trilogy was a bit more political than most other dystopians which I actually enjoyed. I like seeing how people actually carry out decisions in these societies and the kinds of biases that pervade the people. I also think this series is different in that the characters actually work together with the government (or at least a member of the government) to bring about a better society, rather than to just rebel and cause social upheaval and violence. June and Day are also OTP and while many people hated the ending of Champion, I actually really loved it, especially the epilogue. It really struck me and left me thinking about them long after I closed the book, which I can’t say for many other couples in books.

2. Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Whoo boy, how do I even begin to explain my love for this book and this series in general. The Unwind dystology consists of four books and is a dystopian series (surprise, surprise) set in a world where parents are allowed to harvest their children’s organs if they want to. Sound creepy yet? This world is so incredibly fleshed out (no pun intended) and I think that is largely due to the multiple POVs. We get so many interesting POVs throughout the series that really let us see this world and society from every possible angle. It is also the dystopian that seems closest to our real world which is incredibly scary. The process of unwinding really got me shook. Aside from the world and the multiple POV writing, our main characters are also so interesting and brave and just human. I love love love Connor, Risa and Lev and I think they are some of the most interesting but relatable heroes ever. Gaaaaahhhh I can’t say enough good things about this book and it pains me that it is not more well-known or well-loved. It has quickly become my favorite dystopian series, even surpassing The Hunger Games! If that doesn’t tell you to go read this series, I don’t know what will.

1. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I really struggled between Unwind and A Monster Calls for the number one spot but I decided to give it to A Monster Calls. This book packs such an emotional punch for one that I read in two hours. It is a story about a boy dealing with grief and I think it is such an important read for everyone. Another beautiful story with simplistic but beautiful writing. The story is just so incredible and I am amazed at how it is able to capture so many themes and ideas about grief in such a short and simple story. A must read for anyone who is dealing with grief and highly recommended for everyone in general. The movie was also incredible and really brought out all the raw emotions I felt while reading this book. Please, do yourself a favor and read this if you haven’t. You’ll get a whole new understanding of grief and life and eventually being okay again.

So those are my top ten books of 2016! I’m excited to start book blogging although I’m not sure how often I can do it. I planned to start in 2018 but I thought I would give it a go first with some posts. I will soon post my Least Favorite Reads of 2016 and also Booktube’s Favorite Reads of 2016 where I list out the definitive top ten list of books based on 30 booktubers’ Favorites of 2016 videos. 

Cheers and happy reading!