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MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani

On Monday, June 20, Jason was a guest on MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.

Check out the video HERE.

Strange dreams…

I’ve been debating all week whether or not to write about this dream I had. First off let me say this, I’m not religious, at all. I’ve been to church, but only when I was young and my mother forced me. Other than that I find organized religion quite appalling in general. With that said, I’ll get into this awkward dream.

The dream starts out with me treading water close to the shore. There are people around. I’m not sure whether I know any of these people or not. Ahead of me onshore is a beach and a cave behind that. I can’t see inside the cave. Behind me is more water. The premise of the dream is that there’s a choice to be made. Either I go forward into the cave, with God (in this instance God wasn’t Jesus, Allah etc just God) or I go back into the open ocean. So I ask this guy, who looks scraggly and unkept like he’s been at sea for awhile, what’s in the open ocean. He says to me “The Federalist Papers”. The Federalist Papers? Yes really. I had a dream about God vs The Federalist Papers. Anyway, if you don’t know what the Federalist Papers are, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers

The nameless scraggly guy chooses The Federalist Papers and immediately he begins to regret his decision. He discovers that he made the wrong choice. It reminded me of this scene from Indiana Jones:

The only difference was the guy didn’t turn to dust. Instead he jumps on me in the water in an attempt to save himself. At this point I make my decision and head towards the cave. With this guy attached to me I cross into the shadow of the caves entrance. As soon as I hit this point the guy on my back is forcibly removed from me. It felt like each of our skins were Velcro and we were being separated. It wasn’t painful it just felt strange. Next thing I know Ann is shaking me awake because I’m making a loud humming noise in my sleep, a noise that I’m pretty sure was a yell in my dream. That was it. I remember Ann asking me what my bad dream was about, I was so embarrassed and dumbfounded that I had to tell her “It was about God and the Federalist Papers” She probably thought I was crazy. Anyways, that’s my strange dream, what do you guys think?

Dynamite!! 2010

http://bit.ly/fLNcbY

I came across this video of Josh Thomson’s Dynamite!! experience on bloodyelbow.com and it got me thinking a little bit. It was really cool kicking it with Josh a little bit last weekend. He and his whole team were super cool. It’s always really strange for me going to these shows with guys like him and standing shoulder to shoulder with them. These are people that I’ve looked up to for years. Josh has been fighting since 2001, which is around the time I discovered MMA. Then there’s Mach Sakurai. A guy who’s been fighting since I was in high school. The first fights I ever watched weren’t the UFC, they were Pride. Guys like Sakurai, Gomi, Wanderlei Silva, Crocop, Fedor. I always felt like the fighters in Japan at that time were a bit ahead of their American counterparts in terms of technique and well roundedness. The fighters in America were specialists. Wrestlers or kickboxers etc. The guys fighting in Japan were our first real Mixed Martial Artists.

Sakurai walks in with these fly ass yellow air max’s on. I’m thinking “damn, I should go ask him where he got those” then I’m thinking, “man, fuck Sakurai!”

I get in the ring and the famously distinctive ring announcer, having just announced my name in grand fashion, is furiously fanning herself with one of those folding japanese fans.

In the program they had a photo recap of every Dynamite!! show that had been. Pretty crazy to be a part of it all. Sakuraba’s ear fell off and shit. What an experience. I spent the New Year on a bus with all these great fighters drinking sake with Brett and Vince. Awesome.

Walkout Music for Dynamite!! 2010

Here are the 3 choices I’ve come up with for the walkout on
NYE. Leave a comment with your choice for one of them. Thanks for
the help guys!!

1. “Respect” The Notorious B.I.G.

2. “Two Words” Kanye West

3. “So What’cha Want” The Beastie Boys

Walkout Music for UFN 21

Ok everybody, here are the three songs for the upcoming fight. Even though you may hve your favorites please listen to them all before making a choice. Hit me with a comment on the website so I can keep track of them all. Thanks for th help!!

“The Game” Common

“Grown Simba” J. Cole

“You’re nobody (till somebody kills you) The Notorious B.I.G

Big Bear…

I train with a great group of guys. Aside from being fighters that I can admire and learn from they all have their personality quirks that make them interesting and eternally entertaining. The past week has been especially entertaining as a group of us have been in close quarters for over a week. I thought I might give you all a all glimpse of the happenings in camp….

Antonio needs to have a cell phone surgically attached to his ear. Seriously, I’d say he’s on the phone 85% of the time. The only time he’s not on the phone is when he’s showering (which isn’t very often). I can hear him talking from my room, and so far, everytime I go to sleep he’s on the phone, and everytime I wake up…..he’s on the phone. It’s eerie. I often wonder who he talks to. He doesn’t sleep much, so normally, when I get up to take a piss at night, he’s talking to someone.

Brett Cooper eats more than any human I’ve ever been around. We went to the store an Brett offered to pay for more than his share of the groceries and I wondered why. Well, as it turns out Brett actually just eats that much. He’ll tell you that he just snacks alot but that’s bullshit. He snacks alot, then when it’s time for a meal he eats more than all of us, even the heavyweights. At nearly every meal he’s cleaning his plate and then asking “you g’on eat that?” like we’re in prison or some shit. I just started giving anything I didn’t plan on eating to Brett, “thanks man” no objection at all. The boy can eat.

Emmanuel Newton is quite hilarious. I think he has a future as a comedian. Pretty much every night we come upstairs for bed and he’s entertaining himself by becoming any number of characters and calling this hook up line to mess with people. Sometimes it’s Joker, a Latino gangster from LA. Other times it’s Victor, a metro sexual rich guy that lives in Hollywood and is looking for people to party with. Then it’s…well…he acts like a girl, but I’m not sure I caught a name for her yet. It’s hilarious.

Chase Gormley is working on race issues. I think he’s just mad that he can’t turn around in the upstairs shower, it’s hard being a heavyweight. We used to give Chase shit about being an undercover racist, but then he went and had a beautiful baby girl with a Latina, so we had to stop.

Anyways, just a few snippets from camp. More to come…

Catching Up…

It’s always nice to be on a road trip amongst a bunch of unfamiliar and possibly adversarial fighters and run into someone you haven’t seen in awhile. This morning as i was making my way down to breakfast alone i ran into Tyron Woodley. Many of you may know him as one of the best up and coming welterweights in MMA today, i know him as a guy I’ve grown up wrestling with. Some history….Tyron and I first met, I’d guess, around 1997 or 98. Me being from Kansas City and him from St Louis we say each other frequently at a lot of wrestling tournaments. I can still remember the wars between him and one of my best friends in high school (who later wrestled at Northern Iowa) on the wrestling mat. From high school I went to STLCC at Meramec and later, to the University of Nebraska. Tyron ended up at the University of Missouri where he would, again, participate in some classic matches with another close friend of mine. Later he would end up a 3 time all American for the University of Missouri.

It’s funny to me how we ended up at breakfast this morning, talking about everything from our kids to MMA organizations. It occurred to me that him and i have taken a somewhat similar path to this place. From wrestling to MMA. I’ve always thought very highly of Tyron and it was gratifying to know that he thinks the same of me. I realized, sitting with him this morning, that we are in similar spots in our career, both trying to take care of our families and make ourselves a name while doing what we love. And then i realized that one day, i may stand across the cage from Tyron. When and if that day comes, i know I’ll probably be in for one of the toughest fights of my life. But for now, it’s just good to share the spotlight and catch up with an old friend.

Gi Reviews

Before i begin these reviews I’d like to first apologize to the three companies that supplied me with their products for review. I wasn’t getting quite as much training time with the gi as i would have liked, therefore it took me a little longer to get a feel for each one.

The three companies in question are Vulkan, Ouano and Gracie Barra. I’ll be reviewing them all independently in three separate entries. I hope you gain some insight into which gi may be better for your needs.

-Vulkan Ultra Light
The first gi that i received was from Matheus at Vulkan. I asked all the jiu jitsu players around the gym about the quality of Vulkan’s products and received rave reviews about Vulkan’s quality, weight and durability. I received the gi and the first thing i noticed was how light it was, like, really light. This would be a great gi for training in the summer and also competition. I’ve never done a gi jiu jitsu tournament but from what i understand you must weigh in your uniform right before you compete. The Vulkan weighs in at just under 3lbs, about 2.7. The fit of the Vulkan is ideal, i wear an A-2 but my legs are a little bigger than normal so i was worried that the pants wouldn’t be big enough. Fortunately the pants fit very well with plenty of room for my thunder thighs to breathe. I was worried that the gi would shrink when i washed and be too small afterward but Vulkan’s claim that their gi’s are “pre shrunk” held up, i hung dry the uniform and the fit was the same as pre wash. I also noticed that the Vulkan dried a bit quicker than the other two, i presume because it’s lighter and is made of less material. Overall this is an outstanding gi that i think is perfect for summer training as well as competition. It’s light, durable and stays true to size. For more information about Vulkan and their products check them out here:

Has it been 3 weeks already??…my bad guys…

It’s been quite awhile since i’ve written a blog entry and for that i apologize. Initially i promised a new entry every three weeks or so but recently i’ve felt that i haven’t had much to write about. So i thought to get started again i might leave it up to you all. Right now i’m on a plane to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to corner Jesse Juarez and Emmanuel Newton for MFC 23. I foresee an ample amount of free time so after i post this “entry” along with requests for topics on Twitter i’m going to try to knock out the next entry. I’ll also be working on the long over-due gi reviews for the three companies (Vulkan, Ouano and Gracie Barra) that sent me gi’s.

I always thought it’d be cool to have a blog and let everyone know what i think, but once i got one i realized that it’s very difficult to keep up. Partly because i wanted to write something engaging and interesting and not just , “well, i went to wal-mart today”…I’ve got Twitter for that kind of stuff. Every time i started writing one i scrapped it because i thought it sucked. I started one defending Mirko Cro Cop after his last fight, but it didn’t make the cut. Then i started another one about my training partner, Emmanuel Newton, and his last fight (a loss). I began writing about my frustrations with Emmanuel, his level of talent, some bad decisions he’s made blah blah blah. The problem with this was, not only was i rambling, but i felt like this wasn’t the kind of thing that needed to be talked about on my blog, but with Emmanuel personally. It wasn’t meant to be insulting to him, but if one read it without explanation it would’ve seemed that i didn’t care for Emmanuel, which isn’t the case.

So, I’ll post this and if you have ideas either leave comments on the blog, or if you’re on Twitter shoot me an @ message (@kcbandit) with you’re idea. There’s really no prize for getting picked…except that you get to hear me ramble about your choice of topic.