THE PROPHET'S TUESDAY TAPOUT: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY EDITION!

by The Prophet, ProphetFighting

Welcome to this week's installment of The Prophet's Tuesday Tapout. To be honest with you, this was a pretty slow news week in the MMA world. Randy Couture and the UFC's Dana White continued their back and forth slapfight like a bitter married couple in the counselor's office. We'll talk about the remotely interesting MMA news in a minute but before that we're going to talk about personal responsibility. We're also going to talk about the revelation I've had about my professional habits which led me to hire a virtual assistant. Here's a picture of what I'd like my virtual assistant to look like...

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

A week ago Saturday my friend Amanda was rear ended by a hit and run driver. He smacked into the back of her car at about 30 MPH, pulled next to her and asked if she was injured and before she could answer drove off into the night. Unfortunately for him, my plucky friend had written down his license plate number. In an impressive display of police work, the local constabulary located his SUV--without him in it--in about 20 minutes.

So why did a guy with a job, insurance and no outstanding warrants bolt like that? The only thing I can figure is that he'd had a few cocktails and bought into the media hype that driving drunk is tantamount to treason. He figured he'd take the chance that he'd get away scot free rather than run the risk of being cited for "driving while blind". Instead he got tracked down like an animal, had his SUV impounded, got arrested while at work and is now facing several charges potentially more serious than drunk driving. His insurance company is now on the hook for not only the cost of my friend's car, but for all sorts of added costs related to the fact that their policy holder tried to pull a hit and run. Now his premium will skyrocket or, more likely, will get canceled since the last thing a insurance company wants is to be responsible for a guy like this.

The moral of the story--always take responsibility for your actions. Its bad karma to not do so, and if you get caught it'll be much much worse. I know there's not a lot of you with an interest in women's fashion, but Amanda runs the most entertaining fashion site on the web called "Art of the Steal". Even if you're not interested feel free to visit and click on her sponsors ads if you're so inclined...

THE 4 HOUR WORK WEEK AND MY VIRTUAL ASSISTANT:

I read a lot of business books and, frankly, a lot of them suck. Most are things like Pat Summit exhorting me to motivate my sales staff like she motivates freakishly large college girls to play hoops. With all due respect to Ms. Summit, who's a fine coach and by all accounts a classy lady, her rah rah motivational efforts have little if any impact on my life. Expecting very little I read a business book last week that blew me away--its called "The 4 Hour Work Week" by a guy named Timothy Ferriss. His message is that you need to value your time more, to outsource everything you can, to automate your money making methods and generally enjoy life while still housing enough cash to pay the bills. He swears by the use of "virtual assistants"--these are basically administrative assistance and support staff, only they're not in your office. Instead of bellowing orders to them you contact them via phone or email and they do your bidding. Anyway, I'm in the process of getting a virtual assistant so I'll hopefully be much more efficient in the very near future. Seriously, I advise you to check out this book. I'm going to be implementing its suggestions into my own life and writing about my experiences on a blog. I don't have it set up yet but I'll let you know when I do....

CAN BROCK LESNAR SAVE THE UFC HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION?

The UFC got a little bit of good news concerning the state of their heavyweight division with the addition of former pro wrestler and WWE champion Brock Lesnar. Despite the fact that he very well may have been tea-bagged by Vince McMahon at some point as part of a storyline, Lesnar is no joke. Amateur wrestlers have fared very well in MMA and Lesnar may be the best amateur wrestler *ever* to enter the sport. All the guy did in college was get named "All American" 4 times, win the Big 10 heavyweight title twice, win the NCAA heavyweight championship once after having finished second the year before. He finished his amateur career with a glossy 106-5 record.

Lesnar quit the WWE and tried to make the NFL Minnesota Vikings. He did surprisingly well before eventually turning down an offer to play in NFL Europe. After filing a lawsuit against the WWE to get out of his non-compete clause he returned to pro wrestling in Japan for New Japan pro wrestling. He quickly won the IWGP title but after a while decided that he wanted to give mixed martial arts a shot. He dropped the title to another former amateur wrestling badass turned pro, Kurt Angle, in Tokyo.

Lesnar made his MMA debut in June of 2007 against an overmatched guy named Min Soo Kim. Lesnar quickly took his opponent down and slapped him around for a minute or so before winning by a tapout after a series of strikes. It was an impressive enough victory, but didn't answer many questions about his MMA potential. Everyone knew that he'd be a monster on the ground but since he didn't have to deal with any submissions or engage in standup striking he's still a big question mark. All reports are that he's been training hard in submission defense and that his standup is pretty impressive given his inexperience. Of course,to paraphrase Mike Tyson, "they all have a plan until they get hit" and these superlatives mean little until he has to deal with them in an actual fight.

Still, Lesnar has some of the best raw talent ever to enter the sport. He's a big, rugged dude and as noted above has perhaps the best amateur wrestling pedigree ever in MMA. Plus for whatever reason pro wrestling--and particularly Japanese pro wrestling--has been on the resume of some of the baddest MMA fighters around: in addition to Lesnar there's Don Frye, Josh Barnett, and a whole slew of Japanese PRIDE veterans who's names you wouldn't recognize. Assuming that he's getting as good at standup and defense as claimed he could be the next big thing. He's got good name recognition from his WWE days and can now concentrate on fighting without having to worry that Dana White will want to tea-bag him on TV as part of a storyline.

MMA FIGHTER BUSTED IN FLORIDA!

...for participating in a MMA fight. This story is breaking as I write this so details are sketchy but reports are that former UFC fighter Din Thomas has been arrested and is facing felony counts of holding a "illegal cage fight" after cops saw a couple of guys fighting in an octagon type cage in his gym in Port St. Lucie. Details are still forthcoming but one thing that is certain is that the cops in Florida should have *much* better things to do with their time...we'll keep you posted here and over at ProphetFighting.com. That's where you can get the latest news and commentary on MMA and boxing. Have a good week and join us for the next TUESDAY TAPOUT