THE PROPHET'S TUESDAY TAPOUT: BIG BUFFOONS AND BRAWLING BOUNTY HUNTERS!

by The Prophet, ProphetFighting

Welcome to our alliterative special edition of The Prophet's Tuesday Tapout. Like many marketers looking for a young, edgy male demographic the letter "B" has dumped longtime ad partner "Sesame Street" and now proudly brings you today's wistful look back and the week that was in fightin'--THE PROPHET'S TUESDAY TAPOUT: BIG BUFFOONS AND BRAWLING BOUNTYHUNTERS brought to you today by the letter "B" and Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor. OK, I lied about Mickey's. The UFC ran a PPV on Saturday night featuring the return of Tim Sylvia, aka "The Black Hole of Charisma". The best fight of the week happened out in California where a reality TV bounty hunter got into a bar scrap with one of the last guys in the world I'd pick a fight with. To learn about the exciting career of bounty hunting check out the film "Domino" which is based on the real life story of a female bounty hunter named Domino Harvey. The film version of Domino is portrayed by the comely Kiera Knightly, who is illustrated in the picture you see here. You can thank me for not using a picture of Tim Sylvia by emailing in care of this website...

UFC 77 RECAP:

The UFC stumbled into the post Randy Couture era as they continued their unfortunate fixation with running live shows in flyover country. UFC 77 was held in Cincinnati and wasn't exactly the high water mark for the company. The main event was spirited while it lasted, as Rich Franklin finally got his rematch against Brazilian striking machine Anderson Silva. Franklin put up a better effort this time--unfortunately by "better effort" I mean that he at least made it out of the first round before Silva sliced him up in the 2nd. Fighting Silva is like cutting your hair by sticking your head under a running lawnmower--you might get away with it for awhile but eventually its not going to turn out well.

And speaking of people who cut their hair with gardening implements, we got our first look at the future of the suddenly Couture-less heavyweight division with the return of MMA's answer to Ambien, Tim "The Maniac" Sylvia. Sylvia is a freakishly tall hick from Maine who's learned exactly two fighting techniques--to take advantage of his freakishly long reach with a jab and decent takedown defense taught to him by the fighting god who trains him, Pat Miletich. Sylvia's comeback fight was against Brandon Vera and you could almost hear Dana White cheering for Vera over the bored murmur of the indifferent crowd. Sylvia was booed coming into the ring, booed for most of the fight due to his boring performance and booed mercilessly in his post fight interview. Apparently Sylvia used to actually commit the Forrest Gump-like faux pas of wearing his UFC heavyweight title belt into Wal Mart. On the bright side, maybe Mirko Cro Cop's problems of late *were* corrected by his recent nose surgery as his camp suggests. Then we'll get to see Mirko kick Sylivia into retirement after all....

BONUS JOKE:

A 30 something stock broker gets tired of the rat race and moves to Maine right down the road from Tim Sylvia. The nearest house in each direction is over a mile away and after three weeks he hasn't met any of the locals. In fact, he hasn't *seen* any locals so he's going nuts from the isolation. Finally one day there's a knock at the door and he opens it to see a big hairy hick wearing a flannel shirt and grease stained Levi's.

"Howdy" the man says "I'm your neighbor down the road and I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. We're gonna be having this party on Saturday and you might want to come. I got to warn you though it'll be pretty wild. There's gonna be drinking....lots of drinking"

"No problem" says our young friend "I was in a fraternity in college. I can hold my booze"

"Good" the hick continues "and you oughta know that there will probably be fightin....lots of fightin and rasslin."

"No problem" says the newcomer "I played intramural lacrosse in college. I can take care of myself OK"

"Good" responds the redneck "and I gotta warn you that there's gonna be f*cking. Lots of hard core f*cking."(Insert the appropriate variant on Dana White's favorite expletive)

Now the young man is really excited. "Man I can't wait!! I can't tell you how lonely I've been since I moved from the city. By the way, what should I wear?"

"Don't matter" says the hick "you and me will be the only ones there...."

REALITY TV BOUNTY HUNTER HANGER ON VS MMA LEGEND!

I don't watch reality TV and am only peripherally aware of the series "Dog the Bounty Hunter". Apparently his kid, who has the small batch bourbon-like name "Leland Chapman" was in San Francisco for a pro wrestling fan convention that quickly became a fiasco. The organizers skipped town, no one got paid and needless to say you had a pissed off bunch of pro wrestlers and C-list celebrities.

The actual details of the story are foggy, but according to eyewitness accounts MMA legend Don "The Predator" Frye was dealing with being stiffed by getting drunk in the hotel bar. For those of you not familiar with Frye and his work, I'd suggest you head over to my website and take a look at the video footage posted there. Forward ahead to the 2:00 mark and watch. Frye is not just a garden variety MMA fighter but on a very short list with two or three other guys as the MMA fighter I'd *least* like to scrap with.

So Frye is drinking at the bar and in walks Dog's kid Leland and his boxing trainer/bodyguard, some guy named Sonny. At this point Leland and his hanger-on demonstrate that it *is* possible to be dumber than a box of rocks by mouthing off to Don Frye. At some point Frye had enough and suggested to Leland's "trainer" Sonny that they step outside and settle the thing.

The accounts of what happened next diverge somewhat, but by all indications "Sonny" had the bright idea that he'd sucker punch Frye. Frye has arguably the best chin in MMA so this wasn't the best "strategery" that "Sonny" could have executed. According to one version of the story Frye responded with a single leg takedown and was punching the bejesus out of "Sonny" from the top mount before bystanders broke it up. Another version says that right after Frye was sucker punched former Japanese wrestling badass/world arm wrestling champion Scott Norton--another guy I wouldn't scrap with--joined the fray on Frye's behalf. Finally exhibiting some good sense, Dog's kid and "Sonny" beat a hasty retreat at this point rather than fight two of the toughest SOBs on the planet. I'd imagine that the Dog camp is trying to spin this story their way to make the kid look better. Most of the accounts I trust, however, suggest that Dog's kid and his crony started the incident and at some point "Sonny" sucker punched Frye.

There's nothing I like better than when the world of tabloid journalism and fight sports intersect, so I'll be giving this story extensive coverage at ProphetFighting.com. Have a great week and check us out next Tuesday!