Last night I watched a story within a story—“American Splendor”. It is about Harvey Pekar, a filing clerk at a Veteran’s Hospital in Ohio who has recorded his rather ordinary life into an award-winning autobiographical comic series by the same name.
The film reinforced my need to write every day.The brain needs conditioning to perform with order and clarity.
Opposite of contemplative self-reflection on the spectrum of manliness, I watched UFC 100 on Saturday night.
My predictions were pretty spot on. Dan Henderson exposed Michael Bisping’s relative inexperience and knocked him out with a devastating lead cut kick-overhand right combo in the second round. (It was nearly identical to the striking technique Henderson’s former training partner Randy Couture had used to drop Tim Sylvia in the opening moments of their fight.) Georges Saint Pierre dominated a resilient Thiago Alves, despite pulling his groin in the third round. And Brock Lesnar smothered Frank Mir with his superior strength and wrestling. Then he rearranged Mir’s face with his fists.
Lesnar’s victory also confirmed some suspicions that have lingered in my mind ever since he made the transition into MMA.
Brock Lesnar is very easy to dislike.
Nearly pounding Mir’s skull through the links of the octagon cage like a human cheese grater was just the beginning of a frenzied testosterone and adrenaline-induced victory celebration for the former WWE star. Lesnar saluted the crowd with his middle fingers. He got in Mir’s face and taunted him as he recovered. Then Lesnar spit out his mouth piece and screamed something primitive into a camera man, slobbering from the mouth like a feral dog incensed by a fresh kill. During his post fight interview he encouraged the crowd to boo him more, and joked that he would drink a Coors Light because Budweiser, UFC’s biggest sponsor, refused to directly sponsor him.
“Hell, I may even get on top of my wife tonight,” Lesnar said. His wording seemed to imply that the act of “Sable-bombing” his wife, Rena Mero, is something of a rarity. It would seem that Lesnar’s true love is reserved for pushing his body to the limit in the gym, and then getting paid lots of money for it.
Perhaps Lesnar’s most charming remarks concerned his steamrolling of Frank Mir.
“Frank Mir had a horseshoe up his ass,” he said. “I pulled that sum’bitch out,”—the excitement in voice intensifying—“and I hit him over the head with it! Woo!”
The now-unified UFC champion, to which awards the spoils one of the most visible representatives in the largest weight class of the UFC, possesses not a not a single charismatic follicle of platinum hair on his head. Lesnar is like nightmarish embodiment of every bully archetype to ever torment small children. Stylized tattoos of skulls and a painfully conspicuous phallic-shaped sword (complete with brass knuckle hilt) adorn his hyperbolic physique. His arrogance and menacing looks are the stuff of Rocky movie villains. Lesnar will totally disrespect whoever stands across the cage from him and be the first to admit it. And it has reaped great rewards for him so far.
He reminds me of a younger Tito Ortiz, who in his prime, could back up his controversial antics with explosive performances in the cage. People will pay money to watch a man they hate get knocked senseless. And if villain like Lesnar can violently dispatch whatever heroes are sent his ways, people will grow to love him. Until they bring on Fedor…
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