by Tim Stroud

The 2011 ESPYS, hosted by Seth Meyers, will air live on ESPN this Wednesday, July 13^th at 8pm CT. The ESPYS are always fun to watch and this year should be no different. It’s always great to see which player, team, coach or moment will win each award, but it’s even better that mixed martial artists are nominated.

This year, five different mixed martial artists are nominated for three different awards. Anthony Pettis was placed in a bracket of 16 plays to determine the award for Best Play. Pettis is listed as the 11^th seed against the 6^th seeded Oklahoma State football team. Pettis’ “Showtime Kick” against Ben Henderson was one of the best moves ever pulled off in MMA. However, the fans voted for Oklahoma State for its “Tag Team Interception”. Yes, the interception was great, but Pettis deserved to move on to the Elite Eight.

Fabricio Werdum vs. Fedor Emelianenko is nominated for the Best Upset award. I’m sure the Fedor will be there with a big smile on his face. Werdum & Fedor are up against the VCU run in the NCAA Tournament, Blame beating Zenyatta at the Breeders’ Cup and the Seahawks win over the Saints in the NFL Playoffs. As big of an upset that Werdum had over Fedor, I don’t see them winning this award. I feel that VCU or the Seahawks are the favorites.

Finally, we have the Best Fighter award. If there is any category that fits MMA, this is the one. The UFC have two fighters, Jon Jones and Georges St. Pierre, up for this award, so one or both will go home unhappy. Jones and GSP have some tough competition with Bernard Hopkins, Sergio Martinez and Manny Pacquiao. I hope that MMA fans took to their computers and voted for Jones or GSP, but I think Pacquiao will be the victor.

It will be upsetting if none of these great fighters go home a winner on Wednesday, but it’s great that MMA guys are involved in such a high-profile, mainstream event. MMA is growing each year and ESPN and other networks are certainly taking notice.

Affliction Retrospect Tee

The show carries the same title as the MMA business run by Fox NFL Correspondent Jay Glazer and UFC star Randy Couture. In fact, Glazer is one of the driving forces behind the show, along with co-host Rachelle Leah. Here’s episode one:

<a href=”http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=f5643265-2f07-4395-85dd-a1705286d675″ mce_href=”http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=f5643265-2f07-4395-85dd-a1705286d675″ target=”_new” title=”">MMAthletics: Episode 1</a>

The team at Midwest Training Center welcomed WGN feature reporter Marcus Leshock to their gym.  Leshock interviewed head coach Alex Trujillo and some of MTC’s fighters in a nice little feature package.   It’s always good to see a local gym get some exposure on a major local media outlet like WGN-TV.  It also looks like Marcus had a little fun while shooting this story.

The former host of “Human Weapon” currently serves as color commentator for the English broadcasts of Bellator Fighting Championships.  Chambers is also busy behind the camera serving as executive producer the upcoming documentary “MMA Legacy”, and he is working on a movie titled “Pimpin On Empty.”

Chicago’s MMA reporter L.J. Tabano talked to ”Hollywood” about the future of Bellator on the ESPN Networks, other projects, as well as his upcoming induction into Total Fight Challenge’s Hall of Fame.

We here at Chicago’s MMA are huge Bruce Lee fans. Isn’t everybody? Take a lesson from The Man.

• “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
• “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”
• “A good fight should be like a small play…but played seriously. When the opponent expands, l contract. When he contracts, l expand. And when there is an opportunity… l do not hit…it hits all by itself (shows his fist). Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.”
• “There is no opponent.”
• “Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!!”
• “Knowledge in martial arts actually means self-knowledge. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and accept the consequences of his own doing. The understanding of Jeet Kune Do is through personal feeling from movement to movement in the mirror of the relationship and not through a process of isolation. To be is to be related. To isolate is death. To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phoney things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that is very hard to do.”
• “I believe in having a few pupils at one time as it requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine… each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his student’s vulnerability (and) causing him to explore both internally and finally integrating himself with his being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately.
• “Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being “wholly” and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come. The danger of training with the heavy bag is that it doesn’t react to one’s attack and sometimes there is a tendency to thoughtlessness. One will punch the bag carelessly, and would be vulnerable in a real situation if this became a habit.”
• “A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.”
• “Let me give you a bit of warning: just because you get very good at your training it should not go to your head that you are an expert. Remember, actual sparring is the ultimate, and the training is, only a means toward this. Besides running, one should also do exercises for the stomach – sit-ups, leg raises, etc. Too often one of those big-belly masters will tell you that his internal power has sunk to his stomach; he’s not kidding, it is sunk and gone! To put it bluntly, he is nothing but fat and ugly.”
• “Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely – lay your life before him.”
• “The main characteristic Jeet Kune-Do is the absence of the usual classical passive blocking. Blocking is the least efficient. Jeet Kune-Do is offensive; it’s alive and it’s free.”
• “Jeet Kune Do is training and discipline towards the ultimate reality in combat.”
• “Jeet Kune-Do is the only non-classical style of Chinese Kung Fu in existence today. It is simple in its execution, although not so simple to explain. Jeet means ‘to stop, to stem, to intercept,’ while Kune means ‘fist’ or ‘style,’ and Do means ‘the way’ or ‘the ultimate reality.’ In other words–’The Way of the Intercepting Fist.’”
• “I have not invented a “new style,” composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from “this” method or “that” method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see “ourselves”. . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don’t, and that is that.”
• “Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.”
• “If I tell you I’m good, you would probably think I’m boasting. If I tell you I’m no good, you know I’m lying.”

source: equotes

And me? I’m in the middle. Part of me is thankful that I can watch an MMA news show and watch it whenever I please on my laptop. That being said, I do not watch it every week. After reading the 2 articles I got to thinking if I would be a weekly viewer if it was on TV. The answer is yes. I would definitely set a series recording for it, and navigating back and forth or through a show is much easier on a DVR. And while the production values are excellent, web video simply can’t compare to TV, especially HD.

I think Anik is fantastic in his role and he gets the most out of whatever talent is beside him on any given show. Bloody Elbow thinks that the analysis is woeful, save for Florian and the occasional piece with Mir. I agree to an extent — the 2-3 word answers after an Anik question are awkward and sore-thumby — but I still get something out of the show and its analysis.

Bloody Elbow also thinks part of the problem is money and location. “The problem is that the number of folks capable of offering entertaining and meaningful on air analysis in MMA can be counted on one hand, so by recruiting regionally ESPN unfortunately narrows the scope of an already shallow talent pool.”

I would think that if they did talkbacks with analysts in other cities it would work out well. What they would have to pay other people, as well as other production costs and satellite time fees, etc. is probably negligible. Especially considering the big numbers MMA Live is pulling. Or perhaps they are just content with McNeil, Florian and the like.

So would a talkback like the recent one with Loretta Hunt and more like them add to the content and quality of the show? A bit. It probably wouldn’t alter my viewing habits. I suspect the same of other viewers.

I found this note about Ken-Flo especially funny from the MMA Junkie article:

Poise, however, wasn’t one of Florian’s stronger assets in those frantic moments when a studio director’s countdown is down to a single hand. Butterflies may be swarming when the referee asks him if he’s ready for battle. Bats were seething seconds before the red light went on and Florian received the cue he’s on the air – not wearing gloves, trunks and Vaseline, but in jacket, tie and makeup.

I hope he knows it’s not really live. And if he screws up they can pretty easily cut and do it over. I’m kidding of course, but it’s interesting to hear how nervous it makes Florian.

I don’t think MMA Live is overrated. I also don’t think it’s the greatest thing ever in the history of MMA coverage. But I like it and think it’s well done. It serves its purpose. I think I’ll go watch it right now…