Inside the UFC

Inside the UFC is a testosterone-charged TV “news” show hosted by veteran UFC commentator Joe Rogan. The show’s various segments focus on upcoming UFC fights, highlights from recent UFC fights, and interviews with current UFC fighters. Yes, there is a pattern here. The show is 100% focused on the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) world of the UFC franchise. For those of us who also watch Pride and K-1 events, it seems a little one-sided. But considering the UFC pretty much has the MMA market in the US cornered, I guess it is covering most of the bases. Thankfully, Rogan does occasionally ask some insightful questions of his guests, which raises the show above the level of a simple UFC infomercial.

The interviews provide some insight into what drives these fighters to train as hard as they do and what their personal lives outside of the Octagon are like. Unfortunately, we still have to watch some of those irritating pre-fight commercials we see before every UFC PPV event. You know the ones…

UFC 379: The Castration

Fighter 1: “I’m just going to come out there and ya know, go wild. That’s my game plan. Just go wild and punish him with fists, knees, and elbows. He’s going to think his skull is a maraca when I’m done with him.”
Fighter 2: “If he thinks he can just come out there and exert his will on me he’s got another thing coming. I’ve got skills he’s never seen. Trust me, when that bell rings it’s my hand that they’ll be raising.”

After about the 50th time of seeing these commercials I’m screaming at the TV! “I get it. You’re going to beat the crap out of this punk and he says he’s going to beat the crap out of you. But he’s a dumb-ass and doesn’t know what he’s talking about cause he’s never faced a bad-ass like you.” I get it, just bring on the damn fight!

Thankfully, Inside the UFC’s other commercial breaks are much more enjoyable. In fact, a horny teenager…or middle-age guy, for that matter, couldn’t ask for more. 30 Seconds of a Hot Chick is exactly what the name implies. A bikini-clad woman lying on a sofa reading a magazine for 30 seconds. Genius! Pure genius! Or another commercial segment called Because We Can with three bikini-clad women playing twister. Wow, give me more of that, except that at my age I occasionally see one of these girls and think, “Hmmm, she looks a little like my niece. Maybe I shouldn’t be watching this…”

Inside the UFC is by no means a perfect show. Coverage of other combat sports and explanation of common MMA techniques would give the show more depth. As it is, the show doesn’t take itself too seriously and revels in the fact that MMA is one of the fastest growing sports in the US. It is a show and a sport that is now in it’s adolescence and perhaps this “immaturity” is what gives it it’s charm.

3 Octagon Warriors out of 5

Zen in the Martial Arts

The martial arts world has changed a great deal since this book was first published in 1979. Before Tae Bo, Steven Seagal, (BTW, Seagal like Elvis is best when skinny) and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) there was a small book about how studying the martial arts and Zen could transform your life. This is not a book to learn martial arts techniques or even a great deal about Zen. But it serves as a nice introduction to both.

The book’s small size and easy to read chapters make it a very accessible, quick read. Each chapter covers a traditional Zen idea that is then explained through the author’s training and experiences with the powerhouses of the Martial Arts world in the 1970s. Guys like Ed Parker, Bruce Lee, and Bong Soo Han teach Hyam classic Zen concepts like how to “Empty your cup”, “Conquer Haste”, and “Extend your Ki”. Most of these teachings have stood the test of time well, though just having someone tell me how to “un-think pain” is not going to be enough to keep me from shrieking like a 6 year old little girl when the dentist starts drilling into my un-anesthetized tooth.

At it’s best, the book still serves as an example that even in this day of combat based fighting, there is more to the martial arts than simply beating the crap out of someone. The martial arts can indeed by a way to grow as a person, achieve a “sense of self” and a level of spiritual tranquility. But the next time you’re at the dentist, don’t skimp on the Novocain.

4 Kung Fu fighters out of 5

Afro Samurai

If you enjoy graphic cartoon violence set to a hip urban beat then you’ll love Afro Samurai. Afro Samurai stars the vocal talents of Samuel L. Jackson and is set in a futuristic, apocalyptic world. It is a feudal society with limited technology and is ruled by a warrior known as “Number One”. Number One rules until he is killed in battle by Number Two. Each warrior wears a ceremonial headband denoting his rank. Number Two must not only strive to fight Number One, but must also take on all the wannabes who want his job.

The premiere begins with Afro witnessing the death of his father, the current Number One, at the hands (all 3 of them) of Justice, the current Number Two. Justice is voiced by Ron Perlman from Beauty and the Beast. (The TV show, not the Disney movie)

Nice Pussycat

Q: Justice you just decapitated Number One. What are you going to do now?
A: I’m goin’ to Disney World!

Justice is a gun toting cowboy who only uses his six-shooters to block Afro senior’s katana blade. I’m not a warrior-god, but it seems like it would be pretty easy for Justice to just shoot Afro Sr., take his headband and call it a day. But for whatever reason he doesn’t do that. The fight culminates with Justice decapitating Afro Sr. (Editorial note: Folks help me out here. If you’ve seen the show please leave a comment as to how Justice manages to decapitate Afro Sr. I have watched this scene frame-by-frame and can not for the life of me figure out how he manages to decapitate Afro Sr. )

Senior’s head lands at Afro junior’s feet. As Justice places the Number One headband around his cowboy hat he tells junior to look him up when he’s old enough to fight for the title. But for now Justice is Number One and is going to hang out on a mountain top and be a god.

The show picks up several years later when Afro is an adult and a fully-trained samurai with only one goal, to avenge his father’s death. He has the title of Number Two and is such a formidable fighter that he even has time for a smoke break while hacking and slaying a gang of bad guys.

Ninja-Ninja is also voiced by Jackson and serves as Afro’s wise-cracking companion. Ninja always seems to appear just in time to let Afro know that trouble is about to happen. He also acts as Afro’s moral compass. “Oh, man that was off the hook how you cut off all those dude’s heads and all that, but ya know – maybe it’s bad to kill so many people?”

During his travels Afro stops in for a glass of lemonade, yes lemonade, at Okiku’s bar/restaurant. Okiku is a soft-spoken, gentle spirit in this harsh world and is voiced by the ever hot Kelly Hu.

While making his way to Justice’s mountain Afro is spied upon by a bunch of cone-headed warrior monks called The Empty 7. The leader of the Empty 7 is known as Brother One. (not to be confused with Number One) Brother One thinks that if he can capture the Number One and Number Two ceremonial headbands he will have the secret to god-hood. Then he can be all cool and sit on a mountain top just like Justice.

Each member of the Empty 7 has their number tattooed on the side of their heads and they bear an uncanny resemblance to Ki-Adi Mundi, the cone headed Jedi from Star Wars. Don’t believe me? Just look below:

Afro Samurai is based on the Japanese dōjinshi manga series, created by Takashi Okazaki, and airs on Spike TV. The stylized animation is rich and looks great. But I found the story lacking and while the violence was gratuitous, it didn’t do enough to move the plot along. Character names like Number One, Number Two, Brother One, etc. are confusing and uncreative. Naruto on Cartoon Network and Avatar – The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon, are both much better martial arts cartoons.

2 brooding, hip samurais out of 5.

Final Fu

With the success of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter it was inevitable that other martial arts reality shows would follow.

The Final Fu is MTV2s response. Final Fu puts it’s contestants through various physical challenges and sparring matches to earn points. The contestant with the most points wins and all of our contestants have their eye on the grand prize of $25,000.

One of the big differences between Final Fu and The Ultimate Fighter is that Final Fu focuses on what are known as the “traditional martial arts”. Tae Kwon Do, Karate, and other striking arts that have been around the US for decades. If you are a student of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, MMA or other arts that have become popular since the mid 90’s, this show is not for you.

Final Fu’s sparring matches are low contact and award points for hitting various body targets:
• 1 point for most kicks
• 2 points for punches to the torso as well as more complicated kicks.
• 3 points for jumping/spinning kicks.

Points are deducted for being too aggressive or hitting too hard. That’s right, a fight where you are penalized for hitting too hard. And there is no clinching or ground fighting. MMAers – See, I told ya so!

The matches are designed to help showcase the techniques and skills of the various arts, but more times than not they come across as playground scuffles between 2nd graders. Many fights on the show devolve to the point of having the 2 combatants stand toe-to-toe and literally machine-gun light impact punches at each others torsos in an attempt to rack up points. Has anyone fought like this past elementary school? If this is showcasing the skills of these martial artists then I have just got to get my 9 year old nephew on the show. He’s got that style of punch-fu down and even has a pretty mean shin kick!

Like other reality shows each of the contestants has “confessional” time alone with the camera. A few of the male contestants come across like Napoleon Dynamite describing his skills. “You know, there’s like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I’m pretty good with a bo staff.” And just like Napoleon they’re living in a fantasy world. While these guys might be champions of low impact point matches, they would be chum to the sharks of the MMA world.

There is still a place in the world for the traditional martial arts and I think some of the challenges show that. While they may seem cheesy these challenges focus on the skills that the traditional martial arts are still arguably better at developing than the newer arts. Self-control, balance, discipline, respect etc. Many of these contestants are very graceful, athletic individuals and those skills were developed by their chosen art.

As someone who has studied martial arts from both worlds I was disappointed with Final Fu. I can’t help but think that a show focused on the traditional martial arts could be made better by focusing more on how these arts have transformed the lives of the participants and not try and prove their effectiveness in combat. We’ve been there done that. It was called UFC 1.

2 Kung Fu Fighters out of 5

Last One Standing

Last One Standing is an unusual mix of combat reality shows like Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter or the History Channel’s Human Weapon, with just a hint of National Geographic’s Explorer thrown in to make things interesting. As a huge fan of all of those shows, I had high hopes for Last One Standing. Unfortunately, I was left a little disappointed.

The premise places our six contestants with indigenous tribes from across the globe where they learn the “warrior ways” of that particular tribe. As these are “warrior” sports it only makes sense for our western contestants to be warrior athletes of one sort or another. Martial Artists, Boxers, Wrestlers, the Armed Forces. People like that, right? Wrong. What we have instead is a weightlifter, an avid hiker, a BMX champion, a rugby player and a fitness guru. So, they’re athletes, but…

The first episode places our contestants with a group of Amazonian tribesmen known as the Kalapolo. The disclaimer at the beginning of Last One Standing tells us, there is indigenous nudity in the episode. What you mainly see are the buttocks of some of the men and a couple of topless young women. I do not really understand what the label indigenous nudity means. Is it somehow different from none-indigenous nudity? Ugly butts are ugly butts, but whatever.

The narration for the show is in my opinion over the top. The narrator has lines like, “Rajko (one of the contestants) has honed his body to perfection.” Perfection? Really. He looks pretty fit, but perfection – give me a break. Or something to the affect of, “the Kalapolo practice one of the toughest sports on Earth.” Not really. They wrestle. The object is to get a take down, or get a dominant position, like someone’s back. Whoever does that first wins. There are no pins, submissions, strikes, etc. What makes it interesting is that it is done on sand and the combatants wear very little clothing. Plus, the practice of the sport has huge cultural significance for the Kalapolo. Holding this annual competition between the tribes has replaced war for them. It’s sort of like their Olympics. Too bad participation in our Olympics doesn’t have the same ability to keep the more “civilized” world from warring with each other.

All of the Kalapolo are really taken with Brad, the very large African-American strong man. While out in the woods, the Kalapolo Shaman conjures the spirits who tell him that Brad will be the winner of the competition. Just like his western counterparts, the Kalapolo Shaman is kind of stating the obvious. The spirits told you that the guy who is by far bigger and stronger than anyone else just might win the wrestling competition? Way to go out on a limb spirits!

I found the cultural aspects of the show much more interesting than the wrestling competition. One of the rites of passage that the contestants had to endure was to have their legs scraped with rows of piranha teeth. After that, chilies and salt were rubbed into the wounds. If they cried out or showed any signs of weakness during this process they would not be allowed to compete.

The most touching portion of the episode to me was the Spirit Tree ceremony. Trees have been cut down in the forest to symbolize the people the tribe has lost during the last year. The entire village decorates the trees in ways to help them remember their loved ones and then they cry and mourn in remembrance. Lastly, the trees are burnt symbolizing releasing the spirits to the heavens. While watching these people mourn I was struck, as I always am, by how similar we all are. We all laugh and love and miss those dear to us when they pass away.

Thanks to divine intervention, Brad is determined the winner among our contestants. As a sign of respect, the Kalapolo Chief rubs Brad’s sweat onto his other fighters so that they can share in Brad’s strength.

If the idea of Last One Standing is to learn the warrior traditions of indigenous people, then I think it would be a better show if the western contestants were fighter’s themselves. People who could “compare notes” with the tribesmen. Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, Judoka or other grapplers would have a better appreciation of the Kalapolo’s style of wrestling and both sides might learn something from the other. But in a world that is growing ever smaller it is always a joy to visit these unique cultures while they are still here.

2 1/2 Funky Shamans out of 5

Requiem for an Assassin by Barry Eisler

I first discovered the Rain series from an ad in Grappling Magazine when I first started training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a few years ago. I bought the first book, Rain Fall, and quickly devoured it. This was the first series I had ever come across that took grappling seriously and showed how effective it could be in real life-or-death situations. There are no “wire-fu” moments or magic tricks in these books. The action is very gritty and believable. Eisler has done extensive research in quick, efficient hand-to-hand combat techniques. This, and the fact that he is a Judo black belt himself, has helped him create one of the most believable Thriller/Mystery characters ever. This attention to detail shows in every aspect of the Rain series. The characters, locations, politics, technology, and even sex are the most realistic you will find in a Thriller or Mystery series.

Requiem for an Assassin is the 6^th book in the series, and is in many ways, the best so far. In some of the earlier books I would become annoyed when Rain would explain ad nauseum each step he would take to make sure he was “clean” and not being followed. As an assassin, with a lot of enemies, these were steps he obviously needed to take, but became repetitive when occurring multiple times in the story. With Requiem, Eisler has developed a sort of shorthand, to let us understand that Rain is still being careful, but in much more concise terms.

The world events in the story are taken from today’s headlines with Eisler providing a little extra “what if” to create a very intense plot. If you follow the news, you don’t have to suspend disbelief much at all to buy into the plot line of Requiem.

The story in Requiem revolves around the kidnapping of Rain’s smart-talking sniper buddy, Dox, and the steps Rain must take to rescue him. Rain’s relationship with Delilah, the beautiful Israeli spy, is also explored and continues to evolve.

Perhaps most importantly though, we see Rain struggle internally, trying to come to grips with his past and consider the possibility of a new, more “normal” life. Sometimes, though, you’ve just got to stand aside and let the “Iceman” do his thing.

The sex in Requiem, like everything else in the series, is very graphic and realistic. I’m starting to think that Mr. Eisler got his start writing for Penthouse.

“Dear Penthouse.

I am an international assassin, with a talent for making deaths appear to have occurred from natural causes. I never thought this would happen to me, but the other night…”

With each book Rain’s small band of, for lack of a better word, friends continue to grow. I enjoy reading as Rain struggles to come to grips with the fact that he is no longer flying solo, but has people who actually care about him, helping him out.

The grappling has decreased over the course of the series, and this is a disappointment for me. I understand, though, that Rain is aging and so he is less willing to engage multiple assailants in hand to hand combat. There’s Eisler and his realism at work again… This reluctance to have an aging assassin continue to destroy multiple opponents is one of the factors that elevate these books into something more than just “martial arts” stories.

These books will eventually be translated into major motion pictures, so I strongly recommend you read Requiem for an Assassin and the other books in the Rain series now. You won’t regret it.

5 single-malt whiskeys out of 5

Barry Eisler is one of the hardest working writers in the biz today. You can check out his Myspace page at myspace.com/barryeisler