Issue 091
August 2012
When he’s not banging skulls, undefeated Strikeforce welterweight Tyron Woodley has a penchant for picking up the sticks and unleashing his fury behind the drum kit on Rock Band. Who knew?
Tyron you’ve got quite a few family members so we imagine the scramble for instruments on Rock Band is pretty frantic at your place?
“It can be (laughs) but I can play them all. The microphone is the easiest, I mean, anyone can play it on expert difficultly. The drums are probably what I do best, I can play those on expert and I can play some songs on the guitar on expert as well.”
So drums are your weapon of choice it sounds like?
“Yeah they’re the most fun, but if I can’t get a rhythm then I’ll play it on practice mode slower till I lock it down. It’s great hand-eye coordination, I mean I’m not saying that I train playing rock band or anything...”
So you don’t wear a sauna suit and use the drums to cut weight?
“(Laughs) No, not yet, but that doesn’t sound like that’s a bad idea.”
Is it mainly rhythm action games like Guitar Hero that you prefer then?
“I play a lot of different games with my son and they put me on EA Sports MMA and I played that and even online a bit. But I just couldn’t get down with seeing Nick Diaz stand above me and beat me up. It was a little too realistic (laughs), but online that game was out for a few days and there were people with like 200 fights already.”
That’s the problem with online gaming, there’s always someone with more time on their hands than you.
“Definitely!”
How did you originally start playing video games? Where did it all begin?
“I never really played through elementary school, middle school, high school or college but then you get a little free time as a professional mixed martial artist so I wanted to try and change things up a little so I started playing Guitar Hero. One of the kids I coached in college gave me his old Guitar Hero for my son and I started playing it and it was a lot of fun. Next thing you know it’s 11am and I’m supposed to be at work for 9am, and I’m playing Guitar Hero. I kinda got addicted to it I guess. I ended up getting Rock Band for my birthday then that was all she wrote.”
So it seems like your video gaming is, for the most part, fairly recreational then just to chill out after a hard days training?
“Yeah, I mean, I had to put myself on punishment a few times because I was getting obsessed. I kept telling myself that I’d play one more song and then one more song and then two hours later I’d be half way through a tour! I try and play a bit of Need for Speed sometimes as well, and I’ll also smash the guys I train with on Fight Night Champion.”
LAUZON'S BEST BITS
UFC lightweight contender Joe Lauzon shares the latest from his life in video games...
Lauzon on cheats...in games, not inside the octagon
“The internet changed everything about gaming, but those older games were full of cheats and glitches and they became urban myths. Me and my brother actually found out that if you held certain buttons down on the second controller sometimes on Megaman 2 you could jump super high or through bullets. We used to put the couch on that thing. Good job they were well made.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Video game history of MMA
In 1993 the brainchild of Art Davie and Rorion Gracie, the UFC, was unleashed on the unsuspecting world but, as anarchic as that first show was, it was nothing compared to what was originally conceptualized.
Davie and Gracie had indeed planned for the Octagon to be surrounded by a moat filled with alligators – but thankfully this never came to pass.
The sport we know and love may have turned out more like a cross between the Running Man and Mecca Vale Tudo but video games, as they always seem to, had already catered to this particular demographic. Data East made one-on-one combat more dangerous with their 1991 offering, Mutant Fighter.
Mutant Fighter offered eight traveling warriors the chance to fight for fame and fortune in a tournament format with the winner being declared king. The arenas ranged from standard ring enclosures to lava-filled zones and also a highly improbable encounter in a spiked chamber on ice.
A tournament of warriors – all masters of various disciplines – meeting to see who would reign supreme in an enclosed fighting arena you say? Now, where have I heard that before?
Fighter may look like the smallest but that Golem is fixing to get the Keith Hackney treatment.
You’d better hope that a verbal submission counts.
When ref Marc Goddard warned about no spiking I doubt this is what he had in mind.
Hercules taking advantage of the somewhat slack drug testing policy at the Mutant Fighter Athletic Commission.
SEPARATED AT BIRTH
WONDERBOY AND MATT GABEL
Matt Gabel’s recent loss to Victor Cheng can be attributed to many factors, but had he ridden in on a skateboard and pelted his man with axes like doppelganger Wonderboy it may have been a different story. The blonde bombshell’s training includes jumping over rocks, throwing axes and rescuing a green-haired princess; all while retaining the most important power, to move you.
