A thought occurred to me recently in regards to artistic expression. I was re-watching clips of UFC 83: Serra vs. St. Pierre II, which for those of you who don’t know, was Matt Serra’s first defense of his welterweight championship; and Georges St. Pierre’s first attempt to get it back since losing it to Matt during UFC 69.

Georges won, becoming the undisputed UFC welterweight champion of the world, but I realized something different as I was watching these clips of what has become the fight of the century for me, as a die-hard GSP, as we call him, fan. As I watched both men trade blows and GSP work his arsenal of takedown and submission methods, it seemed like artistic expression to me, like poetry in motion.

This way of thinking was a new one for me, because even with my family background and my own interest in martial arts, I had never once thought of it as being a form of expression. It had always been regarded by me as a form of exercise as well as self defense, but not as a way of revealing your thoughts and feelings.

As I watched GSP move from standing up with Matt to taking him down and attempting an armbar, he was displaying his thought process and strategy to the world. Inadvertently, he was also revealing the respect he had for Matt in his stand up game as well as being a fighter in general.

In older martial arts movies that I grew up on, such as Jet Li’s Wong Fei Hong series, the fluidity in their movements weaves a story about their thoughts and their self expressions in the moves that they choose to make during that particular time in response their opponent.

Aside from martial arts, however, there is art in the way someone slides a bow across a group of strings, as I watched a violinist busking in the street just today. The control that he had in how much of his self expression he wanted to reveal, the execution in the notes he chose to play, were all a part of the poetry that exists in movement.

There are movements that we would never consider to be poetic, and yet to me, seem to tell a story. I saw two teens once, young men, who usually would be loud and boisterous on public transit, curiously silent. Instead, the pair of friends were signing to each other and laughing silently at what the other was saying. The intricate way in which their hands moved was almost like a dance. Watching them, it proved the belief that the majority of communication does not come from your verbalized words.

They were different in the way they expressed themselves, with their hands flying from symbol to symbol, but they showed me why there’s art in the everyday, why even common movements can be looked at as poetry.

Seeing a performer leap and reach out across a stage is not simply dance to me, but the expression of an emotion, a story and an experience strong enough to knock you off your feet and hit you like a ton of bricks.

To be able to view a powerful, soul-invoking performance of someone dancing on stage is like feeling alive for the first time; allowing yourself to truly feel and be enveloped in the emotion of the dance as though it was your life.  

Movement is not simply for money or for everyday common occurrences. There is poetry and emotion in watching a mother fly kites with her daughter, two friends stop and chat over coffee.  Every movement creates a picture and that picture in turn, invokes emotion.

Even in the midst of blood, sweat, tears, injury and the threat of defeat, there is poetry and emotion that is ingrained in the lives of all mixed martial arts fighters. Even though there is the promise of violence of varying degrees, to see the intricate webs of strategy and thought spun out in the Octagon, and thrill of victory is poetic motion.

The art in the everyday lies all around us, it’s simply a matter of noticing those around you. And perhaps, allow your mind to open to poetry and art of all forms and possibilities.  

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urijah faber vs jens pulver

urijah faber vs jens pulver

Kimboslice vs James Thompson

Kimboslice vs James Thompson

Kimboslice vs James Thompson

In an exclusive email from Kalib Starnes I was able to uncover the real reasons behind his bizarre performance against Nate “Rock Hammer” Quarry.

Dear Internet,

Hi! How have you been?

This is Kalib. Remember me? I’m the guy who spilt orange juice on your father’s incontinence pad at our last gathering thus drawing rather a lot of unwanted attention his way. Soz and all that, hope he got it cleared up. The incontinence, that is. I know the orange juice was cleared up because I was holding a tissue at the time.

Well so anyway I was like totally in the middle of telling you about the time when I spent that whole UFC fight just kind of running backwards and stuff. What actually happened was I was posessed by an alien stoat. His name is Gorgonzola Moominpoot, and he lives in my chest. Everything was going well before the fight. I was preparing with ATT and we were saying our daily chants and praying to Satan for strength and courage. Then I was on my way home and I saw a strange light in the sky. Pow, zap, kabam, zoorp, there was a small furry creature embedded in my chest cavity. I was all like, what the hell man, fuck this shit, but the creature, who introduced himself as Gorgonzola Moominpoot, told me I better get used to it and fast.

For a while, I was able to hide him from my training partners. He would hide deep within my chest, nestled between my small heart and lungs. He promised only to come out on public holidays and said he wanted nothing more than two scoops of chocolate ice cream and a stroll round the park on sunny days. I reluctantly agreed and we shook hands as best we could.

Then on the night of the UFC I felt that familiar rumbling in my chest while we were warming up in the locker room. Oh no, I thought. Please Satan, not now. I looked at my trainers who looked at me puzzedly, pausing in the middle of slaying a chicken and pouring the blood over themselves. It must have been the crowd noises, or the lack of humidity, I don’t know, but Gorgonzola emerged with a vengeance. He told me, nay, ordered me, to lose the fight. He said that if I did not do it he would tug on the long stringy thing that was next to his leg until it snapped. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about but it sounded painful so I agreed. Satan only knows why he wanted me to lose the fight, but what else could I do?

So the fight began, and although I really wanted to engaged and be knocked out cold by Nate Quarry’s punches, I could not. Each step I made to attack, I felt a strange tugging sensation deep within my torso. I knew that Gorgonzola had not been bluffing when he made his threat.

Towards the end of the fight I received a message telepathically. Gorgonzola had made contact with another alien parasite embedded in Nate Quarry’s head. He sounded very pleased and told me that he would attempt to communicate. At that moment Nate began doing some kind of strange intergalactic communication ritual, holding his arm and extending it out towards me in a kind of rock hammer fashion. Gorgonzola squealed with glee in my chest, which hurt. He told me that Nate had a very rare Golden Stick-Insect Type alien named Murgatrod Palalapstank in his brain which was very friendly but known throughout the galaxy for the gory way it implodes its host’s brain when it gets bored with it.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Nate, but Gorgonzola says you better keep Murgatrod amused or else your brain will be melted down.

So as you can see, I really did do my best in that fight but alas circumstances meant that I could not shine like the bright star I am.

Gorgonzola and I will be moving to the forests of Norway where we can be alone.

Love,

Kalib and Gorgonzola.

PS There was also a guy with a laser pen in the audience and he was shining it in my eye which totally put me off.

PPS I have attached a picture so that you know I am not lying or anything.

PPPS Can I have my nasal hair trimmer back? You’ve had it for like months already, jeez.

I cannot believe it’s gone!! I was watching some of the fights from UFC 83 and noticed Mazzagatti had shaved off his mustache. What’s going on with that? I know the thing was getting thick, but was it obscuring your vision Mazzagatti? Seriously, that was your trademark! You could have added some aviators and you would have been the idol of cops everywhere. Now it’s gone? An era in MMA Reffing has come to an end.

Kalib Starnes: “The Running Man”

By: Christina Sears

searstina@hotmail.com

If you weren’t present at the Bell Centre in Montreal, or (like me) you were working the night of the fights and couldn’t even catch the paper view. BY NOW you should at least have heard of the bout between Nate Quarry and Kalib Starnes at UFC 83.

In round one, Quarry puts the pressure on Starnes early just pushing the fight forward. And for the first 50 seconds it really just looks like Starnes is using the space in the cage to move around and stay loose. HOWEVER after the first minute in the round it’s clear that wasn’t the case.

The more Quarry came forward with some combos the more we seen Starnes back up and circle out. Quarry was hitting some pretty hard kicks that Starnes wasn’t even attempting to block or even avoid and ate every one of them all three rounds.

Anytime there was a clinch it was usually Quarry against the cage while Starnes basically working just to get away again.

According to Mike Goldberg Starnes has never lost a fight in Canada, it makes me wonder how he could choke now. You’re in front of 22,000 people in your country (which is every fighters dream to be with a crowd of people from your own country), not only that it was the FIRST ever UFC PPV in Canada. Win or lose every Canadian on that card should have been just fighting their heart out to put on a good show for the fans who not only paid a good chunk of change to be there in the Bell Centre BUT also those who paid the $50.00 to watch the PPV.

When I seen the highlights of this particular fight and I seen Quarry put his hand in front of his face and start punching like a tard I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the fight looked like. And then the emails started pouring in from my American Friends about the bout, and it was the hot topic around the water cooler at work

What shocked me is after the round ended and both fighters went to their corners, Starnes was breathing heavy? And I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why are you breathing so heavy… your not doing anything.”

At the end of round three, when we knew that Quarry took all three rounds (shocking enough 30/24 for all of them), BUT what shocked me the most is Starnes allowed Quarry to not only imitate the running man, but also he sat there for the ten seconds that was left on the clock and just mocked Starnes. Starnes just sat there and didn’t even attempt to do ANYTHING? Not a head kick… not a punch… not a kick… HE didn’t even move forward?

The crowd in the bell centre wasn’t shy about how they felt either, anytime the big screen went to Starnes an echo of boos hit every corner of the Bell Centre in Montreal, and when it switched back to Quarry it was the exact opposite. The Canadian crowd wasn’t picking their Canadian favorites, they were cheering and booing for those fighters who put on a good fight.

Although I’m not a fan of show boating at all and really what Quarry did COULD be considered show boating I can understand how frustrating it probably was to train your butt off for one of the biggest PPV’s and be on a card like that, make the weight, just to have an opponent coward his way though the fight while you do everything you can to not only make the fight a good one, but to also win. It bothered me more when I heard Starnes say something like “Why aren’t you fighting faggot? Fuck You.”

What did he expect he had no heart or drive in that fight, sure you’re a fighter and from experience I know a lot of people do chirp more then their fair share and probably couldn’t even take a fight in a cage HOWEVER, in the same sense… he didn’t really do much and just gave those who chirp more fuel for their fire.

In an article I read on mmasplater.com Starnes talks about the fight and his feelings on it saying:

“…I would like to apologize to my coaches, trainers and the fans for what happened. It was by far the worst fight of my career, much to the credit of my opponent who proved to be a real monster in the ring, I think that they should keep him in a cave somewhere and feed him raw meat!”

The person who wrote the article that was on mmasplatter.com didn’t feel that Quarry should be considered a high level fighter saying, “No disrespect to Quarry, but I wouldn’t be labeling him as an elite level fighter in the division right now.”

I think Nate Quarry has improved and looks good, obviously all fighters can get even better there is never an “expert” out there in the world of MMA everything inter twines with each other. I notice that the UFC commentators are always calling everyone a “world class fighter” with “world class…” whatever they specialize in. BUT in reality what we have seen in MMA you can’t be a one dimensional fighter, a fighter has to be very well rounded and part of being well rounded (in my opinion) is being humble and accepting new ways and variations of doing things from many people. Keeping an open mind and learning from everyone is what I think is “world class.”

Starnes also goes on to say:

“This sport is as much about losing as it is about winning. There is a winner and a loser in every fight. I tried to win b

“During the fight I received a broken bone in my right foot and I find out tomorrow if I need to have surgery and get a pin put through it so that it will heal properly. I also have severe bruising on my left thigh, lumps on my head, a fat black eye, a sprained jaw and damage to the nerves in my molars.”

I guess maybe Starnes psyched himself out before he even stepped in the cage, knowing Quarry’s history, watching his tapes, and reading about his rep and stats… PLUS the nerves of it being in your home court of Canada, everyone watching you etc. You will be surprised how much that takes out of a fighter and sometimes not all fighters can handle it.

I’m glad Starnes rethinking being a fighter, because it’s not really the first time nerves and what not got to him. It happened on TUF too.

Video: Kalib Starnes VS Nate Quarry

Opinion Piece Featured on Xtreme Lifestyle Magazine

That’s right “another one bites the dust” so to speak. Starnes was cut for his cross-country performance that only Olympic caliber athletes could match and now Lutter has been cut as well.

Both of these fighters recently were on the UFC 83 card. Lutter’s match was against former MW Champion Rich “Ace” Franklin. Lutter came out and put everything into a first round submission attempt which was foiled by Franklin. After the first round everyone could tell Lutter was gassed from this attempt. Coming into the second round Franklin just took his time picking apart the gassed Lutter until the bout was stopped.

Lutter defeated Patrick Cote in the TUF 4 finale to guarantee him a shot against MW Champion Anderson Silva. But guess what? Lutter did not make weight for the match so it was a non-title bout. And yes, it caused quite an uproar with fans and the UFC. Even with not making weight Lutter provided a solid performance the first round of his match with Anderson Silva then lost via strikes in the second.

For more information check out Pramit Mohapatra’s post at www.fightticker.com

If anyone watched UFC 83 they know about the Quarry vs. Starnes fight. It was a 15 minute chase scene with Starnes going cross-country style and Quarry trying to keep up to unleash anything he could to finish the fight. It was simply a horrible and bizarre fight. For the duration of the 15 minutes Starnes ran away for 14 minutes and 20 seconds of the fight. The other 40 seconds he tried to get a taebo workout in.

Through the entire fight you could tell Quarry was getting frustrated. Finally in the last minute he started mocking Starnes trying to goad him into an exchange. That didn’t work, but it got the Canadian fans behind him. After the bout Quarry gave the Rocky IV speech to top it off.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Quarry:

“I just decided to make light of the situation and be like, hey man, this is what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a running man. That just came to me out of nowhere. When there were ten seconds left I just said to myself, all right, I’m calling the technique the rock-hammer. I don’t know if that name will stick or not.”

Quarry continued, “I was just like, okay, he’s just going to run away from me. For ten seconds I’m going to do this and maybe, just maybe he’ll step in and try to hit me and we’ll see what happens. When I’m doing that, he’s still running away from me backwards. It was just unbelievable to me.”

For the entire article read QUARRY TALKS STARNES AND THE ROCK-HAMMER.

Yeah, I’d argue this is the best week in sports, and not just American sports. World sports.

Firstly, we have the Indian Premier League heating up and exciting cricket fans.

Champions League football and a heated up title race between Chelsea FC and Manchester United.

NBA playoffs.

NHL playoffs.

The young MLB season

NFL Draft.

St-Pierre beat Matt Serra in UFC 83 to win the Welterweight title.

Exciting times, and if you’re a sports fan you’re watching almost all of it. Only thing that’s missing is college sports. March Madness just ended and college football hasn’t quite geared up yet unless you count the incoming rookies.

Don’t bother me, I’m enjoying athletic competition.

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I won’t bore you with the same tripe being regurgitated by ten million other blogs out there, and just say a few things that I felt watching the card.

I really enjoyed it. The only fight I skipped through was Kalib Starnes vs. Nate Quarry, and then in the end I had to go back and watch it because of the controversy. Thank you, Nate Quarry, for providing some entertainment in what would have otherwise been a ridiculously boring fight. Here’s one of the better videos (jeez you guys are fast, it takes me about three days to export anything from Premiere… piece of shit!)

Quarry came across as a really top bloke. He was funny and well-spoken, and probably scared shitless of the godless killing machine cult that is ATT. How the fuck Starnes is still in ATT, which makes you swear some kind of blood allegiance to honour and awesomeness, is beyond me.

I actually got just as excited for Bisping vs. McCarthy as I did for Serra vs. St. Pierre, just because Bisping is a Brit. He looked pretty mean out there and successfully ignored McCarthy’s antics. Who the fuck is captain miserable anyway? I have never, ever heard his name mentioned as anybody worth watching at all. He is a mosquito bite on the arse of the UFC and how they managed to drum up any kind of hype for him to fight Bisping is beyond me. Luckily, The Count tore him a new one and did so in style. I’m looking forward to his next test at 185.

Franklin / Lutter was pretty good, although Lutter looked like he had spent about half the preceding months training jiu jitsu and the other half eating double cheeseburgers and watching Family Guy. What the fuck? He was exhausted after about four minutes. Franklin and his strangely circular arms looked pretty good, although what is his reward, another merciless drubbing from Anderson Silva? No thanks.

I generally tend to avoid jokes as simple as pointing at someone and yelling “GAY” but Rich Franklin, You Are A Gay. *points*

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And, naturally, GSP de-pulverated Matt Serra. Everybody is being too nice to throw the word “fluke” around when talking about Serra’s original win over GSP, but I’m flinging it with extra gusto directly at your face. It was a fluke (much as I love Matt Serra), and GSP righted the universe the other night.

I’m still pumped for Hughes / Serra, though I need a few cheesy UFC hype videos to remind me about the bad blood between these two warriors who will leave it all in the octagon and warrior with blood and spirit warrior.

Overall, a very entertaining card.

Is it typical at Canadian events to have such a vocal crowd singing songs? Or was it the English contingent there for Bisping? Either way it sounded like a football (soccer) stadium, it was great.