THE PROPHET'S TUESDAY TAPOUT: FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY EDITION

by The Prophet, ProphetFighting

Welcome to this week's installment of The Prophet's Tuesday Tapout. It was a fairly slow week in the MMA world, so we'll concentrate primarily on boxing this week. Actually, we'll concentrate on the topic of greatest interest to the EC audience--"the future of fight sport journalism(TM)", otherwise known as yours truly. More specifically, I'll bring you a holiday message of hope and charity. As far as "Faith", here's her picture...

I want to express my appreciation to everyone who sent cards, letters and emails saying that they had their best Thanksgiving ever after reading my Tuesday Tapout from last week. Comments ranged from "wow, I'll never view Thanksgiving the same way again" to "I'm sick of Thanksgiving being all about someone else; from here on out its all about me". Of course I wasn't *completely* serious when I suggested that you should be completely oblivious to the needs of others on Thanksgiving or any other holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas affords me the opportunity to give something back for everything I have been blessed with--my charm, my good looks, my Mensa level intelligence, my world class writing ability and my ability to still pull 20 year old girls at the age of 40 just to mention very few of these blessings. I could go on and on enumerating the personality traits that I'm thankful for, but as I said this is an opportunity for me go "give something back" and provide a little bit of "hope and charity" for those less fortunate. A hot chick like "Faith" obviously wouldn't be seen with someone who could be described as "less fortunate" so that's clearly an impossibility.

GIVING BACK: THE PROPHET'S THANKSGIVING OF CARING

Its become an annual holiday tradition for many to spend at least part of Thanksgiving and Christmas day feeding the homeless. You'll no doubt find it heartwearming to learn that I, too, help out in my own special way. Of course I'm not about to do something stupid like spend my valuable free time at a depressing homeless shelter or a scummy soup kitchen. So here's what I do--a couple of days before Thanksgiving I go by my local Publix grocery store and buy a dozen or so rotisserie chickens. I hate to have to buy them this far in advance, but clearly the grocery store is too crowded closer to Thanksgiving for me to have to deal with it. These chickens are fully cooked, so there's no problem just leaving them in the trunk of the car for a few days.

On Thanksgiving Day I start what I like to call my "drive by charity" route. After brushing the ants off of the boxes and hoping that they didn't make it inside, I put them in the backseat of my car. What's really sad about the existence that these unfortunate people live is that there's very few places in the part of town where the homeless congregate to buy a good cigar, or even a premium tequila or single malt scotch. To me, however, if my charitable work means that I must make sacrifices then, by dammit, that's what I'm going to do.

Since I won't be able to pick up any while I'm out I light up one of my $20 a stick Greycliff Espresso cigars and put a few more in the glove box for later. We talked awhile back about the importance of ignoring media hype dreamed up simply to make you fearful--like that whole bit of nonsense about "drinking and driving". I selected a bottle of tequila for the afternoon from the dozens lining the wall behind my home bar--since I was going to be among the poor and unfortunate for a few hours I didn't want to appear elitist by taking the most expensive bottle I had on hand (a $199 bottle of Cabo Uno). Besides, I was afraid someone might try to steal it and as you know the Cabo Uno is a *very* limited edition. Instead, I chose a bottle of El Tesoro Paradiso (retailing for a mere $112) along with an appropriate glass and took off for the proverbial "wrong side of the tracks".

THE PROPHET'S THANKSGIVING OF CARING: CHARITY BEGINS ON SKID ROW

First, the "charity"...what I do is find a homeless shelter or other place where a lot of winos congregate. I'll show down the car, roll down my window, and throw a chicken right into the middle of the gaggle of hobos. I'm sure some of you fed bread to ducks when you were a child--watching the bums scramble for this box of chicken reminds me of that. Of course the ducks weren't borderline psychotics with a history of violence, so I quickly speed off to the next such destination. Some years I'll actually keep the window rolled down and quickly shout greetings to the transients, but I had just had the car detailed and didn't want to run the risk of getting fingerprints on it. Actually, at one of my stops a guy did walk up to the car and try to thank me, but I had to ignore him since I was trying to get down on the USC/Arizona State game (I won with USC -3 but lost my play on the UNDER 51').

THE PROPHET'S THANKSGIVING OF CARING: HOPE = SELF RESPECT

And then, I move to the second part of "The Prophet's Thanksgiving of Caring" (another phrase that I'll have to trademark)--the "hope" part. The problems facing our homeless--mental illness, alcoholism, meth or crack addition, sexual promiscuity, poor manners, bad hygiene, and dirty clothes--are compounded because they've lost all hope and the self respect from which it emanates. So every year I do my part of help the flotsam and jetsam of society regain their self respect, and with it their lost hope.

At this point I'll drive back across town and stop at a 7-11 in a higher income zip code. Though I'm a good sized guy and a very capable fighter by this point I'm usually four glasses in to that bottle of tequila and not in any shape to introduce a gang banger to an anaconda choke. At the 7-11 I pick up a Slurpee for myself, and a bag full of the sort of staples we take for granted for my homeless brothers...er...my homeless distant cousins: smokes, beef jerky, potted meat, malt liquor like UFC sponsor Mickey's Big Mouth ("Get Stung"), the latest issue of "Scientific American", "Swank" and "Hustler" and so forth. My car restocked, I then drive back to the shitty part of town to begin my "mission of mercy".

People frequently ask me to articulate the difference in the mental makeup of professional prizefighters--your boxing and MMA competitors--and the sort of guy who gets in fights in bars. It is very simple: the bar patron fights because he is afraid, while the prizefighter fights because he knows no fear. The kind of fearlessness displayed by warriors like Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, Fernando Vargas and Randy Couture is a by-product of years of developing self respect through training and discipline. It is the sort of toughness, heart, desire and courage that few of us mere mortals will ever know--but you've got to start somewhere and I'm determined to set at least a few hobos on the right path.

In the crucible of the prize fight ring, champions are forged. And no situation reveals the depths of a man's heart and soul like hand to hand competition with a highly skilled equal. Few of us will ever know what that is like--to compete on the highest level where talent alone doesn't get the job done. It is a place where heart, determination and character are the only things that separate two equally skilled warriors from one another inside the ring or cage--the winner can then say that they've been at a point where they looked down into the deepest recesses of their psyche; the same places that have enabled our species to survive and thrive on this planet. And they can then claim something that no one can ever take from them--that inside the heat of a contested battle their will was equal to the task.

I'm not kidding myself that the sort of sad tramp that sleeps in his own puke and feces every night will ever have the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about. Still, there's no reason they can't benefit from being in a good fight. So I go to the city park favored by the "dumpster dwellers" and pair them off: two will fight for this ant infested box of chicken, two will fight for this carton of L&M's, two will fight for this bottle of "Night Train", two will fight for this bag of porno magazines, and so forth. I typically try to keep the fights fair and contested under the unified rules of MMA but soon the task becomes far too daunting as the event degenerates into a full fledged brawl with every wino in the park throwing punches and trying to choke each other out. Had I more time I would have tried to work with some of them on proper technique, but since I had a date that night with a 25 year old yoga instructor I simply didn't have that luxury. Instead, I finished videotaping what had now become nothing short of a riot in hopes that one day I can submit the footage to the Nobel Prize committee. I then quickly flee the scene before the authorities arrive.

Clearly I wouldn't go anywhere near the aforementioned park after dark but I can envision in my minds eye what transpires later that night. The defeated bums who've regained consciousness are treating their wounds, vowing to train harder and to dig deeper the next time their in a fistfight for a six pack of Colt 45. The winners are enjoying the spoils afforded to the victor, be it potted meat, malt liquor or a Phillies Blunt and basking in a renewed feeling of self respect.

Most of the year I'm busy with writing, eating out at pricey restaurants, smoking fine cigars and sipping expensive cocktails at trendy bars in the company of leggy twentysometing women in tight dresses. I just don't have the time to help these people but you can be damn sure of one thing--that even when I'm enjoying a martini with an aerobics instructor named Misty in my lap that my heart is with the winos and bums in that park across town.

THE FIGHT GAME WEEK IN REVIEW:

Slow week in the fight game--the highlight was probably the PPV card last Friday headlined by Fernando Vargas v. Miguel Cotto. Vargas, who's long been a favorite of fight fans for his heart and toughness, had announced that this would be his last fight and true to his word he retired afterwards. Cotto won by majority decision in a surprisingly entertaining fight. Actually, this entire PPV was surprisingly entertaining--on the undercard Kermit Cinton got all he wanted and then some from his hand picked "tune up" opponent for an upcoming fight with Paul Williams. His opponent, Jessie Feliciano, had taken the bout on short notice and didn't get the memo that he was supposed to be cannon fodder for Cintron. Feliciano fought like a crazed wolverine until the ref stopped it in the 10th after Cintron started unloading on him. Also, Roman Karmazin looked very good in stopping Alejandro Garcia by third round KO.

In MMA, the biggest news was the injury to Matt Serra that forced him to pull out of a UFC welterweight title defense against Matt Hughes on 12/29. Faced with the potential for another subpar PPV UFC President Dana White pulled one out of his ass when he announced that Georges St. Pierre would face Hughes for an interim title with the winner to fight Serra down the road. GSP was the only guy around with the balls to fight Hughes on short notice, and it promises to be a better fight than the one originally scheduled.

That's it for this week--see you next Tuesday and as always stay on top of the latest news in boxing and MMA at ProphetFighting.com