The first topic today will be controversial as promised above. Due to it being all over the news or if you follow CM Punk on twitter (wise men do), the major buzz has been about same sex marriage. This topic is very controversial due to how personal it can be and how ignorant people can be. I'm sure some people won't agree with me but that's fine because I do understand people's boundaries or if they were brought up by a crooked family such as myself. This is a very close debate that I'm willing to talk about because there so many different opinions. Let's get into it because we got recaps of fight, basketball playoffs, and Paul Heyman to talk about.
Marriage Can Get Heated
The heated debate has been going on for years now because the world is so diverse and different which makes things crazy. With the huge story from North Carolina on keeping gay marriage illegal, I feel the need to speak up. I'm going to be direct and say why I support gay marriage (skip this and read about how awesome UFC is if you disagree or ignorant). With the new generation coming up, people consider my generation a different breed. Old people see us as the generation that has developed degrading trends, degrading music, and basically everything with the word degrading. Now with gay marriage starting to be discussed around, it seems like old people are about to have a heart attack and bash people about it. If you don't believe me, go ask a family member older than fifty and they'll say something similar to "in my day, this garbage wouldn't go down called same sex marriage". I'm not going to get stereotypical and talk about old people booking weddings when they were nine which is a common theme in South America and Africa which is a damn shame. Whatever happened to the common logic of "love"? That seems to be lost and if you don't believe me, go look at the divorce rate and you tell me that marriage is not becoming unstable. Also the whole Christian values phrase that people love to give is becoming irrelevant because I'm pretty sure the person arguing doesn't even go to Church unless it's a holiday. I've never had a problem with gay people because I'm fortunate enough to be smart enough to not listen to my family members. That may make me sound like some evil child but you don't know how judgmental my family can be along with several Croatians. I may make mean jokes and be too harsh on people, but I'm very considerate so I can communicate with gay people. The fact that states aren't allowing them to be happy is against what living is about and that is to be happy. I've met gay people before and I've had some great sports discussions with them or even music. When you get to know them, it really starts to annoy me how they get bullied with their life decisions. I know how it feels because I still get teased to a degree about my love for writing and it's not easy to shrug off because I'm so emotional. You could imagine how emotional gay people are which makes me concerned about how much grief they get for making this decision to be openly gay and want to get married.
I'm not going to completely defend gay people though because I've had creepy experiences. I've had a gay drunk person once tell me that I make ladies hearts melt. It would have been funny and cool until the guy was in his 50's when I saw his face. I've had people at my job just come up to me and start dancing around with a gay pride shirt at my job. I have no sympathy for obnoxious gays because they are just asking for it. It's the gays like one of my favorite bartenders named Mr.Adams who is just a happy guy that you can have a simple conversation with and you wouldn't think he was gay. If you want to be gay and be obnoxious, you can do that but expect horrible results. I'm not trying to be your life coach but I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm all in support of everything to do with gay people. I'm not gay just for the record even though I think you already know that, but this is for new readers. I'm not completely defending gay people but I'm positive that they are proud of what they are and would treat marriage like it should be. It seems that marriage is being taken less seriously especially after the statistics have been shown and the major Kim Kardashian incident (let's not talk anymore about her). I'm just hoping more people can become considerate and stop being so ignorant. That's more of a wish than likely goal because so many people are on social media which makes it more prone to have ignorant people or trolls like some would say. I'm not going to hold my breath about gay marriage being legalized but it would be nice to see it happen. That's my personal opinion and I hope you respect it because this is a serious topic. I'm sure people will disagree and some possibly will poke fun, but that's fine because I'm sure many people would agree with me. People that are my age don't have a clue what love is and don't have a clue about how gay people aren't all weird. The world is a strange place to live in like you've probably realized already. It's j all evolving and starting to look deep inside issues before making a final veridic about someone or something. I wish the best for all gay people but you won't see me going hardcore about this. I'm not going to a parade or making slogans because I'm not gay and it won't make me lose sleep if it never happens. I'll just be disappointed if it doesn't get legalized because that will be a shame to people that actually believe in love. I'm sure old people will disagree with me completely and talk about their generation, when I couldn't care less about the generation. This is a new day and this is a world full of people that like to change things. I'm all for change and I respect people for speaking up for their beliefs. The moral here is that legalizing gay marriage would be a good decision and that people should stop being so ignorant to gay people because of their life decision. The first amendment is used for so many things and this is another case that the first amendment is important here. Sadly North Carolina doesn't believe in the first amendment and is in need of reading not only my blog but the internet's opinion because it is an outrage. Hopefully you understand this better and possibly I changed your mind about the whole issue.
Violence Is Great
I'm going to talk about the main story even though I'm not a boxing fan and watching boxing made me realize why I'm not a fan. The general consensus for boxing these days is that it's fading away with not many major stars and terrible production. The commentators are old and sound like two guys that belong in a retirement home. The post fight interview guy seems to be prone to a heart attack at any second. Everything seems out dated and that didn't change Saturday. I'm a Floyd Mayweather fan like I said on Friday and he was fantastic but as the fight went on, I was bored. The twelve rounds seem so dragging and the punches didn't seem to connect as much until the final round when Mayweather started to tee off on Cotto. Mayweather was in command of most of the fight but the fight lacked many big moments that made you seem really impressed. I give lots of praise to Cotto because he really worked hard and had some moments where he was really taking it to Mayweather. Despite his fan base on twitter having full of fake fans, he really delivered and it didn't come off as someone that was fighting scared. It was a solid main event fight but it still left me as someone that wouldn't watch boxing unless it was someone like Floyd. The sport just seems so out dated and it seems so predictable that you just tend to lose interest. I'm not mad though because boxing is becoming so irrelevant these days and UFC continues to grow so lets move on to the fun part of fighting.
Diaz a** kicking tradition forever lives on!
I'm proud to say that a UFC on Fox finally delivered with some great fights. Three fights ended with a true decision including two submissions which is great to see. Pat Barry needs to retire after getting totally dismantled by Lavar Johnson. Barry seemed to get a few shots early but he got drained quickly and Johnson picked him apart with shots to the face after. I'm not sure why that fight was on Fox but at least we saw a knockout out of it. The next fight was a pretty big upset for Alan Belcher against Rousimar Palhares which caught me off guard. Palhares was considered to be the next rising star in the respective division and he fell flat here. He never looked like a threat and was getting tossed around Belcher the entire fight. What made the victory so impressive was that Belcher won with a leg lock. I can't remember the last time that I saw a leg lock submission that actually worked. It totally caught me off guard and it made me realized that Palhares has lots of work to do before becoming an actual contender. The only fight that needed a scoring decision that was really close was Johnny Hendricks versus Josh Koscheck. This was the fight that I'm mostly excited for because I've seen both guys put on great fights. This was considered a disappointment because a decent amount of the fight was around the cage with both guys being pressed up on the cage. That can hurt a fight and it doesn't really make things productive. When the fight was actually happening, Koscheck looked good in the 1st round getting some shots in. That didn't last long because Koscheck made the mistake of playing Hendricks game. Instead of making it a wrestling match, it turned into striking and that favors Hendricks. Hendricks started landing some serious shots and started to hurt Koscheck's infamous eye that has been hurt for years thanks to George St.Pierre. I actually thought Koscheck won the fight because he seemed to last more punches and more on top of Hendricks, but I wasn't mad at the decision. I'm a Hendricks fan and he delivered some major shots to Koscheck so it didn't surprise me to see him win. It was a close fight that didn't blow me away but it was enjoyable.
The main event delivered despite being mostly one sided. I'm not a fan of one sided fights unless I'm a big fan of the guy or it ends in a great knockout or submission. I'm not a big Nate Diaz fan but that finish to the fight was incredible. Jim Miller was always considered to be solid but he never beat anyone major. This was his chance against a huge up and comer in Nate Diaz. After the win versus Cerrone, I've been a big believer in Nate Diaz. He didn't fail here and was in control the entire fight. Other than a few nice leg kicks by Miller, Diaz was dominant. Diaz landed in a few nice punches to the ribs of Miller before taking down Miller locking in a guillotine. Miller attempted to get out of the position with a roll out but Diaz perfected in a complete roll up to lock in the guillotine. It reminded me of Frank Mir tapping out Big Nog with the arm bar that still has people talking. The roll through was incredible and it has created some buzz. Now I'm aware that UFC on Fox 3 drew bad ratings which makes sense to me because their weren't any major stars. They didn't have a Rashad Evans or Junior Dos Santos or Chael Sonnen compared to the first two UFC on Fox cards. That doesn't surprise me but this still was the best UFC on Fox television because it had three fights that ended in a conclusive way. Hopefully they continue to put UFC on Fox once every three months or so because it could be a major success regardless of the down fall of ratings. I really enjoyed it and I'm happy to see Nate Diaz win in dominant fashion. I've given the Diaz brothers a lot of grief for a while now, but they are starting to grow on me. They may be bonafide a**holes but they are terrific fighters that have a fun personality. It was cool to see Nick Diaz in the corner because when have you seen Nick lately ever since the loss to Carlos Condit. The show was fun and UFC continues to blow away boxing from my point of view. I'm sure many would agree because the unpredictability factor and the different intangibles to mixed martial arts but it simply is evolving. I'm a very happy fan and I'm so excited for Frank Mir versus Junior Dos Santos that will be covered when the time comes.
I'm a Paul Heyman Guy
Before I get into the subject, I'm going to say something quick to all the haters. I was thinking of doing a huge blog about it but I'm not going to do that yet you either get it or you don't I haven't talked much about wrestling lately despite all the craziness that has been going on. I really enjoyed Extreme Rules although I'm not a fan of Lesnar losing to Cena. For the 2nd straight year, Extreme Rules was better than Wrestlemania which doesn't surprise me because Extreme Rules doesn't waste 30 minutes on preview segments and awful rap concerts. Now I've gotten some grief for talking about wrestling because wrestling is still considered "not cool". The on going struggle with people that don't understand wrestling but love to criticize people continue to go on. I'm not going to debate with people especially after a quote I read from Tyson Kidd (underrated talent). He tweeted a very strong quote "For those that don't get it, no explanation will do. For those that love it, no explanation is necessary". I think that basically explains everything which applies to everyone. If you want to watch Glee then go ahead. I'll give you grief for about a minute then lay off. I'm not going to get on your case time and time again which people love to do when I tweet about wrestling. I'd consider myself a pretty passionate fan even though their was a period when I didn't watch it. The last three years I've watched has got me into the full swing of things wrestling wise after watching from 1998 to 2005. I'm not forcing anyone to watch it because people have the right to do whatever they want. It's my entertainment and its what I like to watch, while you can go watch Jersey Shore or Teen Mom or whatever garbage MTV is showing. I could call it garbage which is my opinion just like you could call wrestling garbage even though you probably have no idea how much sacrifice these wrestlers put into the business. That's fine I'm not going to look down on you, I'll just simply ignore your opinion. That's my mini rant and I don't even get that mad when people joke around about my love of wrestling because it's my interest and nobody is going to make me stop watching it. Hopefully the non fans can understand and realize that people can do whatever they want, not downgrade someone for watching something they like. It's not like I'm doing drugs or gaining excessive weight or cheating on a girlfriend. Now enough ranting to the idiots that don't understand, lets talk about another legend returning!
The evil genius is back!
I'm happy to see Paul Heyman back in a WWE ring. I'm a long time supporter of ECW even though I only saw it until the end but I got to see the One Night Stand shows to realize how awesome it was. Even though people will remember his financial downfalls, Paul Heyman will forever be remembered as one of the most creative geniuses ever in the business. Heyman is highly respected by just about anyone because of his ideas and how powerful he is on the mic. Who could forget that shoot promo he did in 2005 ripping on JBL, Edge, and Eric Bischoff. It was one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen and it just made you love Paul Heyman even if you remember as the jerk general manager from Smackdown. I was young growing up seeing Paul Heyman be the psychotic heel manager for Brock Lesnar so it took some time for me to appreciate Paul. In 2004-2005 when I started realizing how wrestling works and how the characters were playing out, I started to realize how brilliant Paul was (I realized it was fake after Wrestlemania 17 damn it!). I'm sure most of the wrestling community has missed Paul Heyman even though he's still very social on the internet with his website and having some really informative interviews with Ariel Helwani (my man!). Who could forget Ariel interviewing Paul after Brock Lesnar made Shane Carwin submit and Paul being in absolute tears. I'm a pretty emotional person but Paul Heyman is on an entire different level of being emotional because he's so passionate in the things that he loves. That's why I love the guy so much and to see him finally return to deliver just a five minute promo had me standing up in joy to see Paul again. He informed everyone that Lesnar wasn't coming back and delivered it in his epic voice that only Paul Heyman can do. This was obviously story line related and Brock will be back shortly facing Triple H at Summerslam likely. I'm hoping this means that Paul Heyman will be on TV again because Paul can still deliver on the microphone with the best of them. It was a breath of fresh hair to see Paul back and the internet literally exploded which is always fun to witness. I'm sure this isn't the last we saw Paul on WWE programming and I'm sure the best has yet to come. With so many epic returns in 2012 from Jericho to Lesnar to now Heyman, things continue to be exciting in the world of wrestling and I'm happy that I'm more involved with it than ever because it has been really compelling.
Quick Playoff Thoughts
I'm going to talk more about this Friday obviously in my Playoff Playout but I'll talk about five quick things that have caught my eye. This is going from Friday night all the way to now.
What a joke
1. The quick playoff exit of the Dallas Mavericks was pretty shocking even though I predicted they were going to lose in Game 4 last Friday. The only time I've ever witnessed a championship team get eliminated in the first round by getting swept was the 2007 Miami Heat (horrible team to watch as a fan). Unlike Game 3, the Mavericks didn't lay down but they couldn't contain Kevin Durant or James Harden. I had a feeling Harden was due for a break out game and he finally did it with 29 points on 11-16 shooting which is ridiculous. Oklahoma City shot 52 percent while Dallas shot just 41 percent which told the story. Dallas has shot poorly all series with veterans like Jason Kidd and Jason Terry having horrible series. Delonte West has been a non factor and Shawn Marion lost his defensive presence after Game 2. It all fell apart in the end for Dallas who simply played a team that had more talent and was more hungrier. Dallas ran into a rough matchup and I knew it wasn't going to last long but the fact that they couldn't win one game after playing them so well in the first two games in Oklahoma City is pretty shocking.
2. Even though I'm positive that the series will end today, Carmelo Anthony deserves his due. I'm aware that he can be considered a coach killer (good luck in your future endeavors D'Antoni) and played poorly most of the season (barley shooting 40 percent) but Carmelo went on a tear in April. He was easily the most valuable player in April and it showed with the award. Even though he's been horrible through the first three games of the playoffs, Carmelo was absolutely unstoppable in Game 4. Carmelo couldn't be contained and it wasn't just because of his shooting but he was becoming a play maker. He was finding people open like Amarie Stoudmire who somehow showed up and played an efficient game. He even made a pass to Mike Bibby and Bibby hit a huge three. Carmelo hasn't played well in the playoffs through out his career but he truly delivered last Sunday and deserves his praise.
3. Even though they lost last night, the 76ers have been impressive in the playoffs. They are up 3-2 headed into Philadelphia for a pivotal Game 6 against the Bulls. I got to see good part of Game 3 and some of tonight's game even though it was really ugly. The 76ers still deserve their praise of taking care of their home court and making fans believe that they can beat the number one seed that still played at a high level without their franchise player for a good chunk of the season. Spencer Hawes has really broke out in this series with back to back 20 point games and being a force everywhere on the court. He has developed into a solid spot shooter from anywhere on the court and has been a defensive force with blocked shots. Hawes has been the break out star for the 76ers that I'm sure nobody expected especially missing most of the season. Jrue Holiday also gets credit for becoming a game changer from not only his driving ability but also his assists. Philadelphia has been a joy to watch and I'm really pulling for them to pull that huge upset because nothing is better than seeing the 8th seed beating the 1st seed as a fan. Hopefully the 76ers can get over the horrific shooting performance from tonight and finish the Bulls off in their home court for Game 6.
4. The series has been very interesting so far as expected but it hasn't gone like most people said it would go. I'm happy to say that my pick of the Clippers beating Memphis is looking good after seeing the Clippers taking care of business at their home court. My playoff preview received a lot of praise other than the Clippers pick which received a lot of criticism. I knew Memphis was a solid team but I didn't expect this much backlash from picking the Clippers. I've been right so far thanks to Chris Paul showing why you never pick a team led by Paul to go one and done. Also it's thanks to Memphis' brutal outside shooting that I was concerned about from the start. Game 4 was an absolute treat especially to see Blake Griffin have a monster game. Blake has been criticized all season despite putting up excellent numbers for not improving his game. He proved with toughness and grit that he can still put up huge numbers in playoff games while being efficient against the best. The Clippers made the Grizzles an outside shooting team which led to some awful shot selection for Rudy Gay who has struggled this series. Then they forgot that Marc Gasol can score and he hasn't been used properly. The Clippers are out smarting the Grizzles which is shocking considering Vinny Del Negro is their coach and he's not very good. I'm not sure the Clippers can keep this going in the next round because two main scorers and a bunch of inconsistent role players don't create much success but right now the Clippers stars are playing as well as anyone while Memphis is having an identity crisis getting players involved.
5. San Antonio dominated like I expected in the first round with a complete sweep of the Jazz. The matchup was shown from the start with Tony Parker dominating the series due to the lack of point guard play in Utah. Utah tried very hard in Game 4 and Al Jefferson showed fire with a huge performance despite saying that the Spurs will win the NBA Finals. Game 4 was a gritty win but the Spurs have looked very good so far with their deep rotation. The Spurs know they're going to have different players stepping up whether its Thiago Splitter or Gary Neal or Stephen Jackson. It has been a different occurrence every game which shows how good the Spurs are. This team looks scary right now because they're going to get plenty of rest that a veteran team needs in the playoffs and they don't seem on stopping this hot streak that leads back to early April. Manu Ginobili had a strong series as well and continues to show that he is the ultimate game changer off the bench. This team is going to be a tough out and they finally have people believing in them after questions about how the team is aging.
Final Word & Plugs
This was different from the recent ones because so much is coming on. I could have done one huge story but I felt this was the best way to do it. I'll be back Friday with the playoff play out discussing all playoff series and possibly the next playoff series for the semifinals. I'm thinking Indiana versus Miami is the only game that can be discussed but things could change. Since my brother's wedding is Saturday and I got lot to help out with, it will be a shorter Friday edition than usual. I'll probably just cover the basketball but I'm not ruling out adding something else but it just seems more likely. I do have something to plug but I'll wait to Friday because it's a pretty cool announcement even though it only should really interest soccer fans. Anyway have a great day and I'll enjoy mine later tonight when the Heat end the Knicks and their ridiculous fan base.
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