Because You Didn't Ask: Jon Jones, The Lottery, & Southpark's Britney's New Look Episode

A few years ago there was a Southpark episode which cleverly paralleled American culture's sadistic joy in watching the elite crash and burn in real time. It satirized Britney Spears' crack-up on social and celebrity media and ends with the alluding to Miley Cyrus as the next sacrifice.

It's a clever satire which borrows from the American short story, "The Lottery" which hopefully you read in an American literature or short story fiction class.

Let me get the disclaimers out of the way:
1) I don't condone illegal behavior

2) I think the wealthy often get away with egregious behavior and it underscores one of many disparities in a system fraught with inequality.

3) I do believe our justice system criminalizes addiction and related behavior(s) rather than treating it/them as an illness.

4) We have a system which is unfairly influenced by dogmatic adherence to statistically ineffective punishment methods (including a clear lack of rehabilitation efforts), and undue influence from those who stand to profit from privatizing the criminal justice system by incarcerating rather than rehabilitating members of our society.

5) His notoriety is a blessing and a curse and like it or not, being in the public eye will garner more scrutiny. 

That being said, let's look at some assertions/speculation:
Jon Jones had weed with him.
Okay.
What percentage of our population has smoked weed? How many others continue to do so successfully/not getting caught?

Jon Jones was busted for cocaine.
Okay.

Again, a sizable portion of our population has tried the schedule 1 substance.
Now, you may begin to say "well, I only tried it...." and that's where the rationalization begins.
If you tell yourself weed isn't a drug the way cocaine is...again....you're rationalizing.
If you smoke weed regularly, but look down on Jon Jones for using cocaine, depending on the state in which you live...you're either a criminal or totally within your rights.

There's a number of rationalizations or inner narrative deal-making methods when people publicly voice their outrage about Jon Jones' alleged behavior.

Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge while drunk and left a woman to drown to death in it.
This I don't say to mitigate his behavior but to then point out the ensuing justice system basically white washing Kennedy's behavior and giving him a pass. There will always be apologists and I am not one for Jon Jones.
I am, however, depressingly unsurprised to see the faux outrage by many people who have plenty of skeletons in their own closet, there's just aren't publicly known.
I say this also to point out that the majority of those crowing the loudest didn't like Jon Jones to begin with.
We often resent those more successful than us.

We love to resent those we feel are more smug and successful than us.

Remember all the TMZ style MMA coverage when it was alleged GSP has gotten some girl pregnant?
What are we? High school girls in the locker room? 

Ultimately, what was likely a youthful indiscretion (the cocaine positive test) has become a full blown problem. 

It's hard to convince someone who's the undisputed best in the world at something that they are not in control (of an addiction for example). 

It's likewise hard to convince someone like Mayweather he has a problem beating women as long as he makes a ton of money, has sycophants in his ear(s) and largely gets a pass for it. 

I write all this not because I think Jon Jones needs this punishment or that punishment, I write it because much of the outrage is simply rationalized hypocrisy on display. 

You can believe he should be held accountable without the vitriolic, emotionally charged tirades you see being thrown around by people who've likely at some point done similar behavior or others along the same lines. All the moral grand standing is just sad, self-justified hypocrisy.

All Grappling PPV Warz! Female matches, Counter-Programming, Free Streaming, Oh My!

It sound like 5Ive is going to anti-Metamoris and ante up by offering one of the biggest cash prizes in grappling for females. It's a smart move, akin to Copa Podio streaming their event free to counter the counter-programming of Metamoris scheduling their card on the same day for the second time in a row. 5Ive will endear itself to virtually every female grappler and also pick up the male fans who choose not to economically support Metamoris going forward.


Fellow Jiu-Jitsu/Grappling blogger extraordinaire posted his thoughts and position of the economic feasibility of women grappling and PPV money dollars with a number of salient points among them, this one: "Think of a blue and a purple belt sitting 10 rows up for Nicolini-Musumeci: even if those people aren’t interested in, say, Chael-Babalu, having a match featuring one or both of those women draws them in even if you wouldn’t otherwise get them to buy the event."

For whatever fans you may get that will pay to see Chael Sonnen or a Jeff Monson, there are, I believe, enough hard core Jiu-Jitsu enthusiasts that would pay to see a Galvao/Dern match or a Nicollini/Mesquita match that would not be tuning in due to a Sonnen or a Babalu (I'm a HUGE Babalu fan, please note). 

Jeff's other most salient point, that it is a better business model to garner support rather than alienate women grapplers and by extension those willing to support women's grappling by adopting an anti-Metamoris stance also rings true. For those of us who train with, see the dedication of our female counterparts, or even date a girl who also trains, it's tough to spend $$ to support an organization with such a blanket and patently dismissive stance toward the ladies of the mat.

Ralek and company have taken a very, very UFC-monopoly style approach to the market and that is their choice. I think a key difference is that Jiu-Jitsu with it's larger aggregate of skill divisions make this harder to corner the market. Obviously the IBJJF and black belt and nogi expert whatever divisions can be somewhat skewed in the reality of only a handful of truly elite level competitions, but a regular competitor such as myself will gladly support events like Jiu-Jitsu battle or Osiander's Finisher Series and that Metamoris runs the dangerous risk of alienating it's own relatively niche audience almost before it truly takes flight. Even if not morally sound if done solely as "insurance," perhaps, putting on some female matches would have been akin to doing what they said they would do rather than that they actually did when they subbed in a Marcelo Garcia brown belt rather than the Royce Gracie black belt who won the online poll to face Magalhaes in a previous PPV event.

At any rate, with the option to free stream Copa Podio versus support the ladies whom I personally see train, compete, and have refereed for I find myself having to stand across the line in the sand and side against what could have been the premier grappling event, or at least one of them, in the world.


It's stupid and a waste and honestly I expected better business acumen from them if nothing else.
It's hard to listen to commentary and talk about the nobility of the sport and competition but then out of earshot or at a different venue lament that women matches don't make $ so we don't do them.

Le sigh.

Because You Didn't Ask: Ken Shamrock's Opinions on Boxing and Mayweather

In the event you have $12 to blow in 60 seconds or less, you can call Ken Shamrock through callachamp.com and speak to him directly.
No, I'm not making this up.
On to the real "point" of this post if I can even call it that:
Ken Shamrock has a love/hate relationship with MMA fans, as they do with him.
Whether it's his priceless quotes leading up to his drubbing at the hands of Tito Ortiz, or the phantom tap with Royce Gracie, or the sad spiral into obscurity as he fights all manner of no names on the regional circuit, he is that part of old school MMA that will never truly die.

At any rate, here are some of his thoughts on boxing...because, well, you didn't ask:
"I think that's what really hurt boxing in the long run," he today told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). "People were sick and tired of these paper champions, these guys who were bringing kids in and giving them 10 fights so they could knock [all their opponents] out.
"All of the sudden they're getting title shots against a guy who has no business being in there with them. But they'll throw in so many chumps that the guy knocks them out. Then they throw him on TV, they do some Big Mac commercials, and they show these incredible knockouts of guys who shouldn't have been in there, and people are like, 'Oh, wow. This would be a great fight.' But fans got wise."
Who remembers this gem from early days of MMA on cable television?

"I will not go quietly into the night."