This card and this fight, more specifically, really is an MMA fans wet dream. The Nose had it right when he said this is what MMA is all about. Two guys the fans just love who have awesome fighting styles just squared off in a main event to see who is, pardon the pun, badder. The UFC marketed it perfect – the Baddest Motherfucker Title, putting it in MSG, not trying to push a story line. The combatants showed the utmost respect for each other, from the moment Nate Diaz called for a fight with Masvidal to Masvidal being Diaz’s most vocal supporter during the bs USADA scandal last week. It’s all really been perfect.
And now this. Masvidal is well known as a guy who, although insanely talented in all facets of MMA, came from a background of underground, bareknuckle fighting on Kimbo Slice “undercards” in Miami. Backyards, boat yards, it didn’t matter. The guy liked to compete in the most primal of manners. So he decided, apparently, to share his experiences with his fans and let them glove up and spar each other on stage in front of the gathered masses rather than hit mitts himself. The UFC let it go, at Masvidal’s urging, for what seemed to be three or so groupings of body shot-only pugilism before breaking it up. I can only imagine the lawsuit if someone broke a rib or something so it makes sense. Still, what a sight. I cannot wait for this fucking fight.
IGN – Game of Thrones’ planned prequel series is no longer going forward at HBO. After a pilot for the Naomi Watts-starring series was filmed earlier this year, the network has opted not to move forward with the untitled Game of Thrones spinoff..Set 5,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the prequel would have explored the Age of Heroes and likely key historical figures like Bran the Builder — but, notably, wouldn’t feature the Targargyens. Martin had said that while the Starks and direwolves will be featured in the show, it would be a different Westeros than what fans are used to.
The Game Of Thrones universe really has taken a lot of blows over the last 6 months. Yesterday we got news of David Benioff and DB Weiss getting 86’d from Star Wars and now HBO isn’t picking up The Long Night prequel series despite already shooting a pilot.
To be honest a prequel starring Naomi Watts and focusing on characters like Bran the Builder, pre-Targaryens, pre-White Walkers, pre-7 kingdoms didn’t really sound all that interesting. Well, it looks like HBO agreed.
However I am a schill for anything Thrones related so I will watch anything and everything they put out. It would be interesting to see the buildup to the first appearance of the White Walkers and hopefully get some actual meat on the bones around their origin. If you recall this scene from Season 1, Old Nan tells Bran a story about The Long Night, which took place thousands of years before the Game of Thrones we know and love.
A lot of Thrones news has broken this week, including Benioff and Weiss deciding to leave (i.e. got fired) the next Star Wars trilogy they were hired to develop. Benioff and Weiss basically admitted in a recent Q&A not even understanding the GoT characters until they were *forced* to write more scenes due to contractual obligations.
Who admits that?? Seriously, just look at some of the exchanges these two gave.
Two months before the pilot was to air, the episodes were averaging 39 minutes and HBO made then write and film 100 minutes of scenes to meet their contractual obligations. For example, they added a scene with Robert and Cersei – and realized that there was no scene with them.
Dan is saying that he let the actors redefined the roles, esp Maisie and they began writing for the actors, it is like the actor moved into the “house” and redecorated. He said he learned about the characters from the actors.
I understand its supposed to be self deprecating and tweets don’t convey tone and context, which can mean a lot, but these guys are basically confirming what every one of their critics has been hammering them on since Season 8 ended.
It would seem like the next best bet of seeing Thrones on your TV any time in the near future would be HBO picking up the script for George RR Martin’s Targaryen prequel “Fire and Blood,” which takes place hundreds of years before Thrones and focuses on how the Targaryen dynasty came to be.
The series is co-created by @GRRMSpeaking and Ryan Condal. Miguel Sapochnik will partner with Condal as showrunner and will direct the pilot and additional episodes. Condal will be writing the series. pic.twitter.com/9ttMzElgXm
Thankfully, Miguel Sapochnik is attached as executive producer and director which is great news since he directed some of the best Thrones episodes ever. Sapochnik directed Battle of the Bastards (which won an Emmy), Hardhome (wildlings battle with White Walkers), Winds of Winter (Cersei blowing up the Sept), as well as Season 8 eps The Long Night (battle with the White Walkers at Winterfell) and The Bells (Khaleesi destroying Kings Landing).
Yes House of the Dragon is based on the prequel Martin wrote while he was too busy to finish writing the main books that would have saved the TV show. Benioff and Weiss got exposed badly in the last 2 seasons once the play by play directions (and dialogue) from Martin were no longer there. The internet mob has already played judge, jury, and executioner with Benioff and Weiss earning all the blame for the meh Season 8. But Martin should get just as much blame, especially after working with those two guys for a decade. He knew what they were and what they weren’t actually creating and he probably knew the show would take a hit once his playbook wasn’t there for them to lean on. So he decided to write a 736 page history of the Targaryens instead of finishing the only important Game of Thrones story.
What the fuck man?
Thats negligent malpractice on Martin’s part so that final Game of Thrones novel better be the best goddamn book since the Bible.
PS – I know its too closely tied to the show that literally just ended, but give me a mini-series of Robert’s Rebellion and I would watch the shit out of that. Everyone already knows the key characters so you don’t need to spend years building it up. Get in, get out, make a billion dollars.
Shoutout to this guy for sacrificing the body to make sure his beers stayed upright, cool, and crispy. He took it off the chest like it was a lob pass in soccer. Except it wasn’t, it was a goddamn rock hit 330+ feet. Do you know how fast that baseball was moving? I took a sabermetrics class in college under the guise of a Math and Economics class so please excuse the baseball nerd jargon. According to Fangraphs, the mean exit velocity of a home run in the MLB this season was 103 mph. 103! So this guy took a triple digit baseball off the chest all so he could maintain the dignity of his Bud Lights. God bless him because that shit is gonna leave a mark, but hey at $13 bucks a beer he really had no other choice.
This dude even got free tix to Game 6 out of it courtesy of Bud Light. What a time to be alive.
JUST IN: @budlight is sending “beers over baseball” guy, Nationals fan Jeff Adams, to tomorrow night’s Game 6 in Houston. They’ve also made him a shirt. Media value to Bud Light, according to @ApexMarketing, was $7.2 million. pic.twitter.com/fvP2bz2PoH
It sure looks like he did. Kanter just put this up on his IG Story, which The Athletic’s Emily McCarthy is speculating could be the Celtics’ new City Edition jersey.
The City Edition jerseys are basically a shameless cash grab by Nike and the NBA, which I’m okay with because I’m a self proclaimed jersey guy. But only when they’re good. These jerseys would seem to hit the right note with the Gaelic lettering, but I can’t say I understand the teal coloring? Unless thats a deep cut Irish reference (Saint Patrick’s blue?) that I’m missing, it actually looks more like a Charlotte Hornets jersey, at least from the back. Welp, either way looks like Kanter should just put Whistleblower on the back of his jersey for this leak. Appreciate the early look!
PS – I’m still holding out hope Nike brings back the NBA Christmas Edition jerseys that the league used to do. Nike did away with it when they took over the jersey contract, most likely so they could roll out the City Edition jerseys. But give me a new Christmas Kemba jersey and you can charge my credit card today.
I am a nerd when it comes to this stuff so take these casting and movie rumors and inject them into my damn veins.
“[Sources] have informed us that inspired by the success of Joker, WB is now looking to do more standalone, dark and mature DC movies. And one project they’d like to make happen is a live-action Batman Beyond with [Michael] Keaton in the lead role.“
There is a rumor floating around that Michael Keaton could be in line to star as Bruce Wayne in a live action Batman Beyond movie. Batman Beyond was one of the best takes on Batman without rehashing the same old origin story that everyone goes back to. It focused on an old Bruce Wayne who used to be Batman with the mantle of the Dark Knight going to a young Terry McGinnis in the not so distant future. If that doesn’t give you a pants tent, well the internet has already started designing fake posters for this non-existent movie.
Then there are people who are doing the mental gymnastics around how this project could already be in the works. Theres been a TON of mystery and secrecy around Robert Pattinson’s upcoming Batman movie and mostly because nobody knows what its about. Especially after Ben Affleck’s script got thrown in the trash. So some people are theorizing that Pattinson could actually be playing Terry McGinnis with Keaton sliding in to play the older Bruce Wayne.
Sign. Me. Up.
And if you really wanted to fuck with people you could bring back Mark Hammil, who voiced the Joker in Batman the Animated Series and in some of the video games, for the fourth iteration of the Joker in the pasts decade.
Also, unrelated yet hilarious, a picture of Henry Cavill’s mustachioed Superman has finally leaked and it is glorious. Honestly, for all the dark tones these DC movies tried to force down our throats, maybe a man of steel with a flavor savor wouldn’t have been the worst thing.
Now that we’ve gone through DC’s latest rumors, lets head on over to the big kid on the block in the MCU.
In his new role as Creative Czar of Marvel, Kevin Feige is reportedly rebooting all of the Marvel TV shows that had mixed results. This comes as no surprise after each of the Marvel Netflix shows was slowly and methodically cancelled. Some like Daredevil and the Punisher were legitimately great shows and others like Iron Fist I could not make it through the pilot. Now its a real shame that Marvel plans to reboot these shows because it just makes the whole Netflix Marvel era feel like a waste of time. (Ironically enough thats been DC’s fundamental flaw forever) HOWEVER, there are now rumors circulating that while Feige will indeed reboot these shows he wants to keep some of the key actors in these roles.
“Our sources – the same ones who recently brought us accurate scoops such as Wiccan will debut in WandaVision, General Ross will appear in She-Hulk and the Inhumans will show up in Ms. Marvel – say that the Man Without Fear is likely to be played by Charlie Cox again. From what we understand, Feige still wants Cox as Daredevil, Jon Bernthal as the Punisher and a few more actors to reprise their roles, but for the most part, the TV characters will all be recast and whether they’re brought to life by a new performer or not, they’ll all be rebooted, with the super producer basically wanting to wipe Marvel TV’s efforts from continuity/existence.”
That is nothing more than a whisper in the wind, but that would be incredible and not to mention entirely unprecedented. I can’t think of one instance of a show or movie getting rebooted with the same actor returning to the role. That would be like Jared Leto and his weird, hoodrich version of the Joker reprising his role in the Todd Philips’ dark, grounded, gritty standalone film.
Don’t mess with me, internet message boards. These rumors are too good to not be true.
I think to classify as a “random” shirt or jersey it has to be a guy that was elite for a short period of time, a cult hero in no way due to their actual athletic prowess ( I was *this* close to buying a Gabe Kapler Yomiuri Giants jersey in 2005), a player that was only on a team for a hot minute (I’ve seen two John Lynch Patriots jerseys in Allston over the years), or a jersey that is so obscure that it should not realistically belong to you.
I am an unabashed jersey guy so I have a closet full of obscure pieces beyond just the Boston teams. The Priest Holmes jersey I bought in a Connecticut Marshalls in 2007, Byron Dafoe, Antoine Walker (shirt and jersey), Tim Tebow Patriots shirt, Sergei Samsonov shirt, banana yellow Marcus Mariota Oregon jersey, JR Redmond Patriots jersey, Pedro Mets shirt, a literal blank Athletics jersey, the list goes on and on.
Ya know, now that I think about it, this $12 purchase at the downtown Minneapolis Marshalls may have to take the cake.
So I pose the question, whats the most random sports shirt or jersey you own?
AP – The rules have changed since Lee Ann Walker lasted played competitive golf. She found out the hard way.
Walker shot rounds of 85 and 74 at the Senior LPGA Championship at French Lick Resort in Indiana. That was before she realized players no longer can putt when their caddies have been standing directly behind them.
She had to add 42 penalty shots to her first round, turning that into a 127, and 16 more penalty shots for the second round, turning that into a 90…
She played the first round with Jackie Gallagher-Smith and Cathy Johnson-Forbes and said neither noticed her mistake. The second round, she played with Laura Baugh and Laura Shanahan Rowe. They did.
How nice of the Lauras. To point out Walker’s mistake “on 14 or 15,” as Walker recalled. At least it wasn’t a phone-a-friend calling in a rules violation from home. But still, enforcing a rule like this, in this manner, would make even Al Riveron blush. Worse, a rule like this probably would have prevented Happy Gilmore from winning the Waterbury Open, making “the tour,” and winning that Gold Jacket.
At least Walker took the news better than I would have. [Her 127 score on round one still probably would have beaten me, too.] My clubs would have been at the bottom of the pond before I got back to my car. Maybe that’s why I don’t own clubs currently.
I’ve been unofficially retired from amateur golf for five years. I’m on strictly driving range and bachelor party circuits these days. Stories like this don’t really make me eager to go grab some clubs and drop $80, just to have some jackwagon course ranger constantly berate me and tell me I’m playing too slow.
The only desire I have to ever play golf again is if I’m on The Price is Right. I’m terrible at golf but would bet my mortgage I could make a Hole in One (or two).
So I pose the question, whats the most random sports shirt or jersey you own?
