Issue 152
March 2017
According to Meryl Streep:
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which,” she announced at the Golden Globes, swiping her finger right to left for added sass, “are not the arts.”
Cue the sound of Hollywood seal-clapping as MMA advocates everywhere offer their version of Vince Vaughn’s thousand-yard stare, which sits somewhere between shock, disappointment and violent intent, sparked by the realization that the actors and actresses we pay to watch, the privileged masters of make-believe, are poking fun at us.
But here’s the worst part. Even if we accept the fact MMA polarizes and is not one of the arts – we get that, Meryl – to run it down and use it as a punch line in a speech about the Hollywood elite’s hatred of Donald Trump is to make a mockery of hard-working people around the world who devote their lives to a combat sport and practise it on a daily basis; people who come from nothing; people who have to fight; people whose bravery won’t lead to industry awards.
What’s more, just as an Adam Sandler film doesn’t define the acting profession, nor does Here Comes the Boom or Warrior come close to explaining the MMA’s intricacies and appeal.
It’s more than that, more than the dumbed-down version Hollywood projects in pursuit of box office bucks.
Give it a chance and you’ll discover it’s actually real, this mixed martial arts stuff, and that it features some of the most exhilarating, awe-inspiring and, yes, artful moments you’re ever likely to see in sport.
For your consideration, here are a few moments beautiful enough in their own rugged way to rouse emotion from even the tautest of faces in Hollywood.
WRITER AND DIRECTOR
Watch and learn, Hollywood. This is how you promote and entertain.
Conor McGregor, the charismatic two-weight champion from Crumlin, Ireland, has talked and fought his way to the top of a multi-billion dollar industry, apparently runs every town he visits and has Hollywood A-listers begging for tickets to his fights.
Forget Scorsese and your Kubrick, Conor McGregor might be the greatest director of them all.
POETRY IN MOTION
Lyoto Machida, in his prime, was unquestionably an artist. He painted landscapes in the cage, all gentle brush strokes and watercolors.
But his works were destructive, as Randy Couture, the Hall-of-Famer nailed by Machida’s Karate Kid-inspired head kick in 2011, can attest. A dip of the hips, a fake with the left leg and a split-second later Machida had planted a front-kick on ‘The Natural’s face.
Couture, one of the old guard, had never seen anything like it. Neither had we.
ARTISIANAL ARMBAR
Dustin Hazelett doesn’t look like your typical artist, much less one who might find frequent work in Hollywood, but there can be no disputing the beauty of the uchi mata ankle pick to arm-bar sequence he used to tap out Josh Burkman in 2008.
Almost too abstract to describe, like a David Lynch film, it needs to be seen to be believed.
OUTSTANDING SPECIAL EFFECTS
As Benson Henderson retreats, a mop of black hair obscuring his vision, Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis decides there’s no better time to run up the mesh fence of the cage, cock a right head-kick mid-flight and then have the temerity to actually time it so that it connects on his opponent in one seamless motion.
You can keep your crouching tigers and hidden dragons, Hollywood. We’ve seen the real thing. No wire work required.
VIOLENCE VIRTUOSITY
It has been described as the MMA take on The Matrix, and there’s probably no better way of summarizing the way Anderson Silva used otherworldly composure, poise and elusiveness to steal Forrest Griffin’s confidence, ambition and then his soul in less than a round.
Never has the art of making a man miss punches looked so damn awesome. And, equally, never has a man appeared so awestruck while he was repeatedly punched in the face.
ROLL OF A LIFETIME
Masakazu Imanari, the Freddy Krueger of knee-locks, has played the part of haunting opponents with the threat of taking home their limbs since the year 2000.
His opponents’ attempts at striking were so often met with a shrug of his shoulders, before rolling onto their legs from halfway across the ring and ripping their knee apart instead. The look of terror and anguish on their faces as they became tangled in his web of pain said it all.
GRIPPING GRAPPLING
Chan Sung Jung, the self-styled ‘Korean Zombie’, takes Leonard Garcia’s back, wraps him up, locks down his left leg and right arm and, with seconds of the round remaining, proceeds to twist the hell out of him until he taps.
Unconventional, improvisational and wonderfully creative, the Zombie’s twister was as shocking as anything Hollywood has produced since Haley Joel Osment said he sees dead people.
COWBOY CHOREOGRAPHY
“Oh, but he’s just punching him in the face and body,” Streep might scoff. Wrong. Just for a moment, appreciate the precision and the technique in the Cerrone’s work on poor Rick Story in 2016.
cerronSlow it down if need be and watch as ‘Cowboy’ reacts to a lazy left cross by pouncing with a jab to the nose, a right to the body, a left hook to the chin and a right kick to the forehead, all of which land, all of which combine to resemble some sort of choreographed dance move when viewed at normal speed.
Story thinks he’s surrounded. Seconds later, the fight is over.
MASTER OF HIS CRAFT
Though a recent addition to the sport’s canon of artistry, there can be no doubting the way Cody Garbrandt – once a heavy-handed slugger – turned the tables on Dominick Cruz to deserves its place on this wall.
He bamboozled him with a bit of bravado, a bit of boxing, a bit of boogie-woogie and a ton of brain power for a five-round performance so brilliant it should be studied by aspiring martial artists the way aspiring filmmakers study the works of Kurosawa or Bergman.
It was that smooth, that faultless, that good.
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