THE PROPHET'S TUESDAY TAPOUT: URINE SOAKED WINO EDITION

by The Prophet, ProphetFighting

Welcome to my second Tuesday Tapout from my new digs in the Rose City of Portland, OR. If you're wondering about the title of this edition of the Tapout, it'll probably make more sense to you if you were around for our live UFC 81 round by round over at Prophet Fighting. If you weren't, you can relive my remarks about how winos/bums/homeless dudes or whatever you want to call them are a "protected species" here in Rip City. Unfortunately (or maybe it's *not* unfortunate) I couldn't come up with a graphic to match the title of this edition. So I've posted a picture of Gina Carano at a weigh-in because I know that our fearless leader Doug will like it...

SUPERBOWL MEA CULPA:

Several days ago I posted a link to my Superbowl selection at BetWWX--a sports handicapping and betting information blog--where I'm a contributing writer. If any of you read that, I want to apologize for it. Not for getting the Superbowl side and total wrong--I was hardly the only one that missed it and it wasn't my fault that the New England Patriots become such an emotionally fragile bunch down the stretch. I want to apologize for even mentioning the 2007 Pats in the same breath as the greatest team in NFL history, the 1985 Chicago Bears. I read any number of articles prior to the game speculating how a matchup between Ditka's "Monsters of the Midway" and Belichick's 2007 Pats would go--I can tell you right now how it would go. It would be ugly. If Tom Brady and the Patriots fell apart under the weight of the NY Giants pass rush, how do you think it would go for them with Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary and the nastiest defense in NFL history breathing down their necks? Brady and Belichick would have been teabagged--not "metaphorically teabagged" but *literally* teabagged.

Someone suggested that the Pats downfall was pissing off the Giants by going ahead and titling the book about their season "19-0". It probably pissed them off, but if the Pats had any stones it wouldn't have mattered. This is another place where the 2007 Pats don't deserve to be in the same conversation as the 1985 Bears. The Bears, if you'll recall, basically called their shot with a horrible rap song and downright pitiful video called "Superbowl Shuffle". And they were such badasses that no one could do anything about it!

Now, I'm not a Pats hater or anything. I honestly could care less about them. And I'm not a Chicago homer (though I've always been a big fan of Jim McMahon) but you've got to be realistic here. Consider how the Pats sleepwalked into the Superbowl with a couple of lackluster performances--the '85 Bears won their playoff games to get to the Superbowl by a combined score of 45-0. Throw in the Superbowl result and that's a 91-10 combined score in the frickin' NFL playoffs! So much for parity...

The only thing the Pats did well on Sunday was play defense--at least until it counted with the game on the line. And while I'm at it, lets talk about Tom Brady....he's got the jewelry and seems like a good guy but he didn't exactly distinguish himself with his toughness on Sunday. While we're comparing the 1985 Bears to these Patriots let's not forget the quarterbacks--Jim McMahon (who attended one of my high school's big rivals, the Roy High School Royals in...uh...scenic...Roy, Utah). McMahon's teammates have said over and over again that they'd "go to war" with the guy--and they didn't mean they'd "play hard" for him. They LITERALLY meant they'd go to war with him. Brady throws a much better ball than McMahon could ever dream of, but Jimmy Mac had a bigger set of balls and sometimes that's the important thing.

And let's consider how the two men handled the media--Brady kept preening for the cameras as he campaigned for People Magazine's "Sexiest Man in America" award and kept answering questions about his wittle hurt ankle. McMahon played most of his career on knees that Bobby Orr wouldn't have wanted and don't forget how he dealt with the media when they were obsessing over a bruise on his ass before the 1985 Pro Bowl: he dropped his pants and showed them the "brown eye". If nothing else, McMahon deserves our respect for how he handled the situation when pulled over for suspicion of DUI in Florida a few years back: instead of arguing with the cop, instead of pulling the "do you know who I am card" he got out of his vehicle and told the cop "I'm drunk; you got me".

Again I'll state for the record that I'm not a Pats hater or anything--I'm more of a hater of unjustified media hype. And I apologize for doing my little part in perpetuating it.

UFC 81: BROCK LESNAR LOSES, ANTONIO RODRIGO NOGUEIRA BECOMES INTERIM HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP

At UFC 81--which I did another masterful job covering live over at ProphetFighting despite some barbaric working conditions--former WWE superstar Brock Lesnar lost his UFC debut when he got overly aggressive and made the mistake of dangling his ankle in the face of Frank Mir. Mir happens to be a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt and jumped on the ankle like a rabid wolverine jumping on a pork chop, forcing Lesnar to tap to a deep knee bar. Lesnar had dominated until that point and the match went much the same way as Mir's UFC heavyweight title win over Tim Sylvia a few years back--only Lesnar had the good sense to tap rather than wait for his limb to be broken in half like Sylvia did.

In the main event, the aforementioned Tim Sylvia used his height and reach advantage to keep Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira on the outside for a couple of rounds. Early in the third, however, "Minotauro" took Sylvia down and locked in an Anaconda choke forcing the tapout. Credit Sylvia from learning from the Mir loss; he had the presence of mind to tap before the Brazilian choked him into unconsciousness.

The big story of the night was Lesnar, who despite the loss showed a ton of promise. I wrote before the match that the man was no joke, and despite not beating a mudhole into Mir's face for the victory his performance only enhanced by belief that Brock is the real thing.

BARNETT/YOSHIDA SCHEDULED, MIRKO CRO COP NOT RETIRING:

In other MMA news, yet another new promotion launches in Japan with their first show scheduled for March 5th. "World Victory Road", who hopes to emulate the top notch matchups and lame organization name that PRIDE set the standard for, will feature a matchup between judo badass Hidehiko Yoshida and arguably my favorite MMA fighter, the "Baby Faced Assassin" Josh Barnett. Don't be fooled by Yoshida's 7-5 record as a MMA pro: he was basically thrown in over his head from the beginning of his MMA career to capitalize on his huge popularity in Japan. The guy fought Don Frye--maybe the toughest man walking the face of the earth--in his MMA debut! Yoshida is a legit legend in his sport and basically one of the most respected judoka walking the face of the earth. They don't just give away Olympic Gold Medals in judo and Yoshida has one.

Josh Barnett is on a short list of the top heavyweight MMA fighters in the world. He's a former UFC heavyweight champion and went on to an impressive career in PRIDE after that. If you're wondering why he's not in the UFC now it's because Dana White doesn't like him. Really.

This should be a great fight--Barnett is a wrestling monster and I think his size and strength, along with his wide array of submissions, gives him the edge. There's no doubt that Yoshida will show up to fight since he's about the toughest SOB anywhere--after all he had the balls to fight Don Frye in his first MMA bout. He's been in since with a veritable who's who of the sport--the freakishly large and strong James Thompson, Mirko Cro Cop, Wanderlei Silva (twice), Frye, Royce Gracie and Mark Hunt. In other words, he's not going to be intimidated and this has the potential to be a fight of the year candidate.

Here's the latest from our Croatian MMA insider--if you watched Dana White's post UFC 81 press conference you heard him say that Mirko Cro Cop has essentially been MIA. The f-bomb spewing head of the UFC said that he hadn't heard from Team Cro Cop since his last fight and that the Croatian striking machine had until yesterday--the ever diplomatic White called it a "deadline"--to let him know his plans. White insinuated that Cro Cop might retire and this became a big story in the online MMA media and in Mirko's home country. Problem is nobody told Cro Cop about the deadline--he told the Croatian media that he didn't know what Dana White was talking about, that he'd been in touch with the UFC offices in Las Vegas and that he was in training and ready to fight anyone put in front of him. You can read more about this at ProphetFighting by clicking the link below:

Dana White says Cro Cop might retire; Cro Cop says "Whaaaa?" @ ProphetFighting

BACK LATER THIS WEEK WITH BONUS PROPHET PONTIFICATION!

Dammit...I'm all out of time and I didn't get a chance to tell you about my run-in with a couple of urine soaked winos. I want to apologize for getting preoccupied with the MMA news and neglecting to cover what you *really* come here for--to hear about me, my life, and my philosophies of life. To rectify that I'll be back later this week with a bonus column. If I can think of a good alliterative, MMA related word that starts with a "W" I may be back as soon as tomorrow; otherwise it'll be a special "Thursday Tapout"...or a "Friday Frontkick". Anyway, just pay attention...

To stay up to date on the world of boxing and MMA go to ProphetFighting

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Until next time, keep the bugs off your glass and bugs off your ass. (I hear CB lingo is due for a big comeback)