Issue 112
March 2014
The UFC bantamweight isn’t called ‘Young Guns’ for nothing – he’ll fight anyone on Call of Duty
Q. Have you always been a gamer?
A. “Yeah, I’ve been a gamer since I was a kid. Since college I’ve spent my time between practices playing video games. Now that MMA is my job, all I do is train, kick back with my son and play video games.”
Q. What’s the first console you remember having in your household?
A. “It was a Nintendo; I got that when I was a kid. However, I was lucky because my uncle had an Atari and he stayed with us a lot so I’d get to play that a bit. My console history started with Nintendo and then I stayed with that until I got a PlayStation, and I gradually progressed from there.”
Q. What were your favorite games growing up?
A. “I absolutely loved playing Tecmo Super Bowl on the original Nintendo and then I started to play a lot more sports games: Tecmo, Madden NFL and any basketball, baseball or football game I could get my hands on. I wasn’t too much into fighting games, although I was into Contra, then Fight Night and the original UFC game for the PlayStation. Now I pretty much play Call of Duty competitively to try and find another way to compete and have fun.”
Q. Do you ever play online with fans or anything like that?
A. “I’m part of Team Razer which is one of the biggest teams around in the eSports community. Recently I’ve been getting into some of the games those guys play like Dota 2 and League of Legends. They have a Call of Duty team too and they hooked me up with some of the professional players on their team. They’ve introduced me to some of the guys who play on the MLG (Major League Gaming) and those guys are huge fans of MMA.
“I’ve got a fan account (younggunsufc) which is what I play on all the time. I started a crew on GTA V and I play guys on Call of Duty all the time. It’s a cool way for the fans to jump in and interact with me.”
Q. Will you be getting involved in any tournaments?
A. “I’m definitely going to try a few tournaments out. Razer has a Call of Duty team and that’s kind of my clutch game to go to. I always played Team Deathmatch mode, and in the league and the tournaments most of it’s all objective based so I’m still learning the ropes and trying to add in strategy. When Razer stuck me in with some of the pros I was lost. I thought I was pretty good but these guys are on another level.”
Q. What are the chances of you creating a team full of MMA fighters?
A. “I’ve played with Lauzon before and that was fun, but that’s a great idea. If I could figure out who does play and put together a team I’d do it in a heartbeat. I think it’d be fun.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Video Game History of MMA: THE BIGGER THEY ARE
It’s been seven years since Pride held its last event, yet, in a world where there are some MMA fans who haven’t even heard of the Japanese promotion, debates still rage as to who would’ve won if the UFC and the now-defunct organization had decided to pit their fighters against each other.
Although unfortunately a full Pride vs. UFC clash never took place, Capcom vs. SNK: Pro was able to show the two big-league MMA firms that a little healthy competition between two rival entities could have brought the best out of both brands.
Considered by many as one of the best fighting games of all time, Capcom vs. SNK: Pro pitted the likes of Ryu, Zangief and M.Bison from the legendary Street Fighter series against characters such as Kyo Kusanagi, Rugal Bernstein and Iori Yagami from SNK’s The King of Fighters.
Combining two of the biggest 2D fighting games, which split fanboy gamers right down the middle during the early noughties, was considered a masterstroke by many, and brought supporters of both franchises together to finally settle the argument as to which fighters were the best. The game itself centers around two of the world’s biggest organizations: Garcia Financial Clique and the Masters Foundation, which have joined forces to put together a special event called ‘Millennium Fight 2000,’ with hopes it will ease political tensions between the two.
Now don’t get us wrong, we never expected a Pride vs. UFC event to help relations between the Japanese and US governments, but an event of that magnitude might have brought in more new fans than either promotion could ever have dreamed of at the time.
Fast forward seven years and Pride is now dead and buried, and the UFC is the biggest promotion in the world. That doesn’t mean the lure of a promotion vs. promotion pay-per-view has suddenly disappeared. At the beginning of January the World Series of Fighting issued a challenge to Bellator for a winner-takes-all, outfit vs. outfit promotional play-off.
Is it likely to happen? Probably not. But that won’t stop us hoping.
1. Blanka looking confused as Kim Kaphawn tries to explain why you can’t electrocute opponents in MMA.
2. How awesome would it be if Bruce Buffer announced a KO win via hadouken?
3. We know spinning kicks are all the rage in MMA now, but we’ve yet to see a successful hurricane kick.
LAUZON'S BEST BITS
Geek and UFC 155lb contender Joe Lauzon shares morsels from his life in video games
JOE LAUZON ON TITANFALL
“The game I’m really looking forward to most coming out on Xbox One is probably Titanfall. There’s a bunch of good games that are going to come out but I think Titanfall is the big one. I’ll probably still put the most time into Call of Duty: Ghosts initially, but Titanfall will definitely take up a lot of time come the spring.”
Separated at birth
Rampage Jackson - Barrett (FF7)
Has there ever been a mixed martial artist and video game character with more in common than Bellator’s Rampage Jackson and Barrett from Final Fantasy 7? Not only do these two burly, behemoths look near-identical, they also have personalities that are eerily similar too. Both have a shoot (or punch in the case of Jackson) first and ask questions later attitude, and both of them love nothing more than a brawl.
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