Friday, May 6, 2011

Tough guys don't act tough. Strung out, scrawny drunks do.

While writing a code of conduct for members at our MMA club a friend of mine wrote this:
"Tough guys don't act tough, they do tough things"
That couldn't be more true.  Being involved in combat sports at a relatively high level for most of my life, I've been around some tough dudes.  I mean REALLY tough dudes.  These guys come from all different places, and have all kinds of different stories.  The one thing they have in common is that the really tough guys don't act tough.  They know they are and they don't have to prove it.  Don't get me wrong, most of these guys aren't going to tuck their tail between their legs and run from a situation, but they aren't going to start one either.
There's a whole other league of guys out there though, that some people think are tough.  They're the guys who haven't really accomplished much.  Maybe they got in a fight with another drunk moron who has no actual combat skills and won, fueling their belief that they are in fact tough.  These are the guys who go around posturing, talking tough and mean mugging people all the time.  Sometimes they're big guys, all juiced up to help their insecurity, sometimes they're little guys who feel like they have something to prove.  Some people actually believe that these guys are tough because no one ever calls them on their BS.

A little while ago I was out watching a friends band and I ran into a guy like this.  He was a guy that I knew from around town.  He was about the same height as me and about twenty pounds lighter, meaning that he was so small there wouldn't even be a weight class for him in MMA.  He was a drunk and  had never done anything to prove that he was tough in any way but had a mouth that well overshot his tough-guy experience.  This particular night I had already separated myself from the fella in question because I couldn't stand to listen to him talk any more.  I had run into another guy that wrestled for a cross-town highschool at the same time I wrestled.  We were talking about the good old days and how awesome we used to be when douchy mcdouche strolled up and started instigating.  He was saying stuff like "wrestling's for fags and hommos.  A bunch of guys rolling around grabbing each other's dicks.  If anyone ever touched me like that I'd kick their ass".  Those last words left me with only one thing to do.
I poked him in the dick.
He didn't like that.  I don't think that he was used to being called on his false bravado.
He imediately got flustered, puffed out his chest and in his best angry-man voice said something along the lines of "I'm not kidding, if you do that again I'll kill you!"
So I poked him in the dick again.
Needless to say, he didn't kill me. He didn't even make a move.  I rolled the dice on the fact that he was "all show, no go" and I was right.  He didn't have a clue what to do when someone stepped up to call his BS.  His friends, some of whom I know, came over soon and ushered him away, apologizing the whole time. 
Once again, tough guys don't act tough.


Six months seems like a reasonable amount of time to put together a story about an event, no?
The last time I fought was in November for King of the Cage.  After the fight I did a video interview with a local reporter, which never aired.  Somebody recently clued me in to the fact that this video was just posted on the local news site this week.  Better late than never I guess.  Here's the video.  Go to 4:35 for my section.


Updates!
Last week I wrote a blog about Karlin Armstrong; a guy I thought was a bit of a poser in the MMA community.  I mentioned that the only thing that gave him any credibility whatsoever was that he trained at a respected MMA club called BDB martial arts in Calgary and had some reputable fighters, including UFC Nick Ring, participating in seminars he was helping to organize.  Well, it turns out neither of things hold any water.  Brad Cardinal, the new Wreck MMA lightweight Champion responded to a post I made about the guy.  Here's what he said.
"I was part of the seminar from the link above that was organized by Karlin Armstrong. I'm not going to get into details, as I don't want to contribute negatively in any way to Canadian MMA, but in the future neither Nick Ring or myself will be having anything to do with Karlin.

Also, I read in the blog linked above that he claims to have been training at BDB Martial Arts in Calgary. I don't think I've seen him on the mats there more than a few hours, and I'm there everyday."  - Brad Cardinal
On the charges of being an MMA poser/wannabe and vastly overstating his influence, participation and involvement in the MMA community I find Karlin Armstrong guilty.


I also blogged about having a matchmaker put my name on an event that I had not agreed to fight on.  It seems that once my manager made this information public the floodgates opened.  There's been roughly 50 comments on the story, most by other managers, matchmakers, fighters and coaches who have had problems with the matchmaker in question.  You can read what people are saying about him here.
It's also interesting that my name is still listed on the fight card, even though I was never remotely interested in this fight and there have been requests to remove my name from the website. There are also rumours going around that the matchmaker is now offering a lot of money for fighters on this card because it is only a few weeks away and they only have 5 fights booked.  Panic time?  Hopefully this organization will get with a legit matchmaker for their next fights and make a successful run at MMA in Ontario after a rough start.

5 comments:

  1. cute.

    dont be so quick to judge someone ;-)

    you labelled me. which means you passed judgement. your no better than anyone to pass judgement on another human being. just for the record.

    and fyi.

    im a man. why not talk to me first....?

    you want answers, ask the right questions. its simple.

    Im not scared. I persevere adversity. I love a challenge and haters keep me motivated. Im flattered your putting my name out there.

    Anything else...?

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  2. That was unneccessary, karlin. And it pretty foolish and it can very dangerous to have haters. Just saying

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  3. Karlin is a poser? haha..say it isn't so!! Shocking!! lol!!

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