"The Half-Guarded Truth"

By: Mike Coughlin

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

"Angry Rantings (from a guy with a cold and a cavity) About Fedor"

DISCLAIMER: This column is really, really vulgar. Easily the most vulgar thing I've ever written. It's hate-filled, childish, and takes numerous, unwarranted pot-shots at a number of people who probably have nice mothers. Whatever.

Fedor fought. Great. I was there, I saw it, it was cool. This was the third time I've seen him live and he keeps on winning. Yippee. My friend had a suite, so I didn't bother going as press. I tried to convince myself I'd do a "amongst the people" story or something, but that's a lie. Mostly, I wanted to enjoy chocolate mousse, chocolate cookies, and other assorted chocolate things. It was really, really grand. I also had (and still have) a nasty virus (pig flu?), so ... actually, maybe I should've sat with the press guys, getting them all sick and such. Hey, they've made me sick with all their bullshit coverage of the fight (what a shit, shit, shit joke). For fuck's sake, you'd think Jesus rose (came back? I'm not exactly sure what happens - sorry, Sister Mary) and fought Ghandi while Abe Lincoln reffed. I like Fedor. He's a great, great fighter. He legitimately can be called the greatest heavyweight of all time, but I hope he goes away. I want him to lose in an embarrassing fashion, knocked out by, well, a Brett Rogers or someone else who kinda sucks so I can stop hearing about him, and all these assfucks who are so transparently anti-UFC it's laughable can find someone else to lie about. Maybe Alistair Overeem.

Here's how this will go (some of it has already started). The ratings come out. They aren't that great, but they're not the worst ratings of all time (thank you Jake Shields and Robbie Lawler - forever setting the bar low). However, it's Fedor, so this is automatically spun as the biggest positive of all time. Remember how Affliction would draw about 35 PPV buys, but everyone acted like this was HUGE business and that Affliction was JUST about to challenge the UFC? This will be that and then some. If the UFC makes $20 million on a show instead of $25 million, it's a failure. But if Affliction/EXC/Strikeforce/bodogFIGHT lose $5 million, well, they're just investing for the future. Money marks have burned more money trying to "beat" the UFC than Japan spends on national defense. For the record, fucking reruns of Law and Order and an airing of COPS (fucking COPS, of all shows - I swear, I had no idea that show was still on) did better ratings than Strikeforce. Why do I feel like if the UFC was beat by an airing of COPS that Sherdog and Co. would never let us hear the end of it?

It WAS really nice out, at least here in Chicago. One of the nicest November days I can ever recall. Maybe everyone was too busy barbecuing to watch. Or maybe Russian-Americans have an ideological beef with Nielsen.

Oh, I know, I know, we don't have the Fedor number in yet*. Whatever. I don't even care. A billion people could tune in and 1) the anti-UFC crowd would lie, claiming it was 2 billion; 2) no one would care because, seriously, what's next? Cung Le returns, to show everyone why a guy can draw locally and not really mean anything nationally as he fights, wait for it, SCOTT SMITH! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! SCOTT SMITH!!! And, after that, maybe we can get Lady Cyborg against someone no one's ever heard of and Fedor against Werdum. The Strikeforce announcers can hype Werdum the way they did Sokoudjou: telling us how this guy sucked in the UFC, but suddenly he's winning again. That really happened. Seriously. It's mind boggling to hear this shit.

(*Because, heaven forbid you time your show to end when it should. You have X number of minutes to show fights. You have Y number of fights. Z is the maximum amount of time the Y number of fights can last. This all equals Q or something. I dunno. All I know is the UFC manages to hit their mark all the time. Also, it takes the train 90 minutes to get from New York to Albany.)

Also, expect some idiot to make a renewed call for CO-PROMOTION! Yeah, that's what we need. We need the UFC to encourage shit like this. I also hear MLB wants to co-promote with the softball league I was in 2 years ago.

By the way, building your promotional success around Fedor is a HORRIBLE idea. Do people not get that his entire operation is shady as hell? This isn't a joke: when your life is run by Russian "family members" who have a 3rd grade understanding of economics combined with a 3 year prison stint understanding of negotiating, you're fucked. When your brother, who has fucking prison mob tattoos (I watched Eastern Promises, I know how this shit works), says you're being tooled around, you know something is fucking weird. All this for a fat fucking little pudgy Russian guy who wouldn't survive that gauntlet of the UFC's huge wrestlers?

Line of the night was from Mauro Ranallo: "I don't know who's happier: Fedor or his entourage." I will personally pay $50 to the first person to punch Jerry Millen in the face. Aren't people embarrassed to be hanger-ons? I get that Fedor's your ONLY meal ticket, that because y'all are incredibly incompetent no one would piss on you if you were on fire, so this is it for you, but FUCK, people, have SOME shame.

Fuck it. Fedor's not #1 any more. I don't care. Lesnar is. I like Brock. He's a giant, scary, out of control maniac and most importantly, he pisses off the Sherdog readers. So, he gets to be #1. What voodoo would Fedor use to beat him anyways? His shit-sloppy armbar that caught a retarded Mark Coleman and couldn't tap Brett Rogers (of all people)? Fuck him. Brock takes him down and Brock's him to death. I take the beer-drinking wife-fucker over the Vodka-drinker who saunas with men (yeah, I'm throwing in homophobia now).

Cue the article from someone explaining how competition is a good thing. It is, but, again, third grade understanding of economics. GOOD competition is a good thing. Competition from HUMAN BEINGS WITH HALF A BRAIN is a good thing. Competition for competition's sake is pointless. Support Strikeforce if they put on a quality product, don't support them because you think it's "GOOD FOR THE SPORT" (greatest bullshit catch-all line around today). If you have a company selling candy and another company comes along selling candy laced with poison, I want the 2nd company to go out of business. Yeah, that's right, Strikeforce is giving your kids poisonous candy. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (Check the apples for razorblades too, while you're at it.)

That said, I still kinda like Strikeforce. Scott Coker has made money before. I even enjoyed the show on Saturday (well, Jake Shields can go away for a long, long time). Fedor IS good. Somehow he escaped the fate that befell CroCop, Shogun, Wanderlei Silva, and everyone else from PRIDE: looking stupid in America. But for the sake of eliminating the pathetic pieces of shit that are the "MMA media" (not all, but, well, fuck it, all of them - myself included because I'm a hack-fuck too), I say we do something. Pray for a Fedor loss. I don't even know anymore. Just fuck what Fedor represents.

Mike Coughlin hosts Five Star Radio. He's concerned that this anger will come out in unhealthy ways. I HATE YOU DAD Fedor!