Issue 116
July 2014
The 10-0 UFC featherweight and his brother used to super smash each other over who’d get to play Mario first.
What was the first console you remember playing as a kid?
“My first video game system was the Nintendo. Me and my brother used to love playing Mario, in fact we’d literally fight over who would play first!”
What games did you enjoy most as a child?
“I really loved to play Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros., but then I also used to play Double Dragon, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and Contra. In my opinion, those are the best games overall. ”
Have you always been a gamer?
“If I’m totally honest, no, not really. I have always been more of an outside type of guy, I guess. I was always wanting to explore outdoor activities like riding bikes and going swimming, rather than sitting in all the time playing video games.”
Do you do much online gaming or do you play with friends and family in person?
“I don’t play games all that much online, but when I do I’ll play the game every day until I beat it. But like I said, I’m really more into seeing people in person and doing outdoor activities.”
Is there a certain genre of games you play most?
“I’m not sure about any specific genre but I really do like the PS3 as a system. Sony and PlayStation have most of my favorite games on that system, like Infamous and Infamous 2, as well as Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed.”
If you could be a character in any video game, who would it be and why?
“I’d definitely want to be in the Infamous game because its characters get certain powers. The thing is, you can choose to use the powers for good or you can choose to use them for evil. I’m more of the hero type so I’d use the powers to protect and fight off all the evil and bad things.”
Have you played any of the UFC video games? If so, who did you fight as?
“No, I haven’t played the UFC games a lot, only a few times with some of my friends. Unfortunately I’d usually get my butt kicked pretty bad (laughs). But the few times I have played I chose to be Georges St Pierre.”
QUICKFIRE
Sega or Nintendo? Nintendo
Sonic or Mario? Mario
Single player or multi-player? Single
Three games on a desert island? Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario World for Super Nintendo and Infamous 2
BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE VIDEO GAME HISTORY OF MMA
Slippery when wet
Grease. A substance (not the kind involving John Travolta) linked to some of MMA’s most controversial moments. Moments that might have inspired one of gaming’s titles.
Remember back in 2009 when Georges St Pierre’s cornermen were accused of rubbing Vaseline on the UFC welterweight champion’s upper body in between rounds against BJ Penn? Thereby ‘greasing’ him and making the French Canadian harder for Penn, a grappler, to keep hold of.
No official action was taken, despite a formal complaint from Penn, and there was no change to the bout’s result, a TKO corner stoppage for St Pierre. Which wasn’t the case when current UFC welterweight Yoshihiro Akiyama fought the legendary Kazushi Sakuraba in Japan in 2006. Sakuraba was so convinced his Japanese-Korean opponent had greased that he shouted to the referee while absorbing Akiyama’s ground ‘n’ pound that he was “slippery”, after being unable to get several takedown attempts, shortly prior to the fight being waved off in ‘Sexyama’s favor. Who later admitted to using moisturizer before the fight to treat his dry skin. It was made a no contest.
Perhaps the creative minds working on Super Street Fighter IV had St Pierre and Akiyama in mind when they came up with Hakan, a fighter who pours olive oil over himself before throwing down with the likes of Ryu and Blanka in the 2010 instalment of the wildly popular beat ‘em up franchise. It gives him the ability to slip across the floor to attack opponents, as well as pop his foes out of a bear hug and slide them around his body then catapult them into a wall.
Game makers Capcom will tell you he does all this because he’s a practitioner of Turkish oil wrestling – a discipline where two grapplers, doused in olive oil, attempt to get a hold of one another. That’s what they say. But we all know better. If Hakan isn’t a pointed social comment on the dangers of greasing in mixed martial arts, we don’t know what is. Mr ‘Rush’ and Mr ‘Sexyama’, you have been told.
LAUZON’S BEST BITS
Geek and UFC 155lb contender Joe Lauzon shares morsels from his life in video games
Joe Lauzon on buying two Xbox Ones and a PS4: “I preordered both an Xbox One and a PlayStation 4. In fact, I preordered two Xbox Ones because I lost a bet, so I owed one, and I got a PlayStation 4 too. I didn’t get a PlayStation 3, and there were a couple of games like God of War and The Last of Us that I really wanted to play but I couldn’t. And by the time I went to buy a PlayStation they were talking about PlayStation 4 coming so I just decided to wait.”
SEPARATED AT BIRTH
Jamie Yager/Sazh Katzroy
The afro, the beard, the long and lean physique: if you reckon you can find a better match than this one between The Ultimate Fighter alumnus Jamie Yager and Sazh Katzroy from Final Fantasy XIII you’re a damn liar. Although appearance is probably where this likeness ends. While Katzroy is known to be thoughtful and selfless, Yager earned a reputation (rightly or wrongly) on 2010’s TUF 11 for being kind of a douche. Still, though, they look alike.
