I refuse to watch the actual video because I don’t feel like seeing arrogance and ignorance on display. I don’t mind seeing either separately, but put it together, and I’d rather do something else.

But what this episode really speaks to Floyd Mayweather’s is social ignorance. Floyd Mayweather feels that he’s been attacked and now he attacks back, in the way he knows best.

One of the great things about Mayweather is his natural ability to instigate. Just look at his work in HBO’s inaugural 24/7 series with Oscar De La Hoya. That fight was going to be successful without Mayweather’s work, but he probably took that fight from successful, to out of this world successful. It’s still the single most purchased PPV event of all time.

Mayweather’s arrogance seems natural. He has the record and championships to back it up. But when he crossed racial boundaries in an ignorant way, something seemed off. There’s no need to condemn Manny Pacquiao in order to make himself look better. The fact that people are in both fighters’ corners is what makes this fight compelling. If Manny Pacquiao is at his greatest, and Floyd Mayweather is at his greatest, this fight will make both men more money than if the public feels less compelled to see them.

Thus, I don’t get Mayweather’s rant. Maybe that’s the true Mayweather. Maybe that was Mayweather on a bad day. But where is the filter? Where’s his manager to tell him not to get on a social media platform with no rules and show his bare ass out to the public?

There’s being racist and then there’s being ignorantly racist. As we all know, Manny Pacquiao is Filipino. But because Mayweather doesn’t understand the difference between Filipino, Japanese, or Chinese people, he hits him with the all Asian stereotype. I’m surprised he didn’t call him Oriental.

Once I stomp the midget, I’ll make that mother f—– make me a sushi roll and cook me some rice.

It’s really sad that a man who has lived all his years in America, boxed for the United States in the Olympics, and made money fighting fighters of all races is so socially ignorant.

Lastly, I think this social media angle hasn’t been reported on enough. Some athletes who understand marketing and branding have been absolutely brilliant in using Twitter, Facebook, UStream, and whatever else is out there to reach their fanbase. The goal is to share information and hope that their fanbase tells others about them, thus increasing their reach. Among them are Chad Ochocinco, Shaq O’Neal, and even athletes who are lower on the celebrity totem pole like Phoenix Suns wing player Jared Dudley. They use these new tools to their advantage.

A major advantage in using Twitter is the ability to share and broadcast information without having to go through the media. It comes directly from their mouth, has their spin, and is usually pro sports and pro league. But in this instance, Floyd’s video isn’t helping the cause, it’s hurting the cause. And that goes back to who in boxing is in charge of making boxing better? Who is going to smack Floyd down for hurting his own popularity and boxing’s popularity? No one.

Now, UFC 116 and 117 aren’t the norm. There was definitely some luck in how the fights played out to make those shows so special. But they didn’t feel forced like this one.

I’m not sure anyone hated this show as much as Duan did. Here’s what we thought about UFC 118:

Duan
4 Thumbs Down
Best Fight: The Resident Evil Afterlife commercial
Worst Fight: Everything else

A truly horrid show all things considered. You will be hard pressed to find two more boring fights back to back than Maynard/Florian and Maia/Miranda. I promised I would say no more on Couture/Toney, and that’s probably for the best really. The main event, while impressive on Edgar’s behalf, was a pretty dull, drama-less spectacle. Good luck trying to sell Edgar/Maynard as a main event; that one sure has barn burner written all over it.

At this point, I think Penn really needs to consider where he wants to go from here. He’s now met his match at 155. BJ Penn’s whole character has always been about being the very best. I’m sure he can still beat most guys at either lightweight or welterweight, but not either champion. I don’t know that it’s worth his while fighting on as just another guy in the division. And I don’t know that BJ Penn can be just another guy in the division. Does he add anything to his legacy by knocking off contenders? If he’s made his money this might be the time for him to get out. But with that being said, if Maynard beats Edgar the door swings back open for him.

Alan
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar
Worst Fight: Mario Miranda vs. Demian Maia

Main event was really enjoyable even if it was totally one-sided. I nodded off during Kenny/Maynard so I missed most of what was arguably the worst thing on the show, thankfully.

Don
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz
Worst Fight: Mario Miranda vs. Demian Maia

This was the first live UFC card I’ve watched since Cro Cop got his head kicked in by Gonzaga, but the build-up had me curious. So I went to the local pub to check the show out.

Nate Diaz (winner via submission) vs. Marcus Davis
Since I don’t watch Ultimate Fighter, I didn’t know what kind of emotional weight Diaz was carrying. But he came out in this fight showing how cocky he could be, and ended up giving Davis some nice pink shorts. Fight of the night for me, and a great opener. And the question of if/when the blood is washed off the mat was answered as well. After the fight, Davis looked like Mask from that Cher movie. And yes, it was classy of Diaz to check on Davis after the fight.

Gray Maynard (winner via decision) vs. Kenny Florian
I saw a lot of folks picking Florian as he was the better fighter, so of course I had to go for the underdog. But question — does Florian ALWAYS look worried? He’s got the puppy dog eyes in the pre-fight video, and right before the fight. By the way, I’d pick Adrian Brody to play him in the movie. Florian got a nice pop from the crowd in the pub. But then… wait… were both guys waiting for a bell? A full minute went by and there was only one touch, and that was at the 55 second mark. Geez, Flo has a great reach. Surprised he didn’t use it to his advantage this fight. However, Maynard controlled the ground, and I gave it to him via 30-27.

Demian Maia (winner via decision) vs. Mario Miranda
Gotta say, Miranda has a great kick. Sounded like a gunshot going off. First round was odd, as Maia had Miranda down on the mat, and it looked like Miranda was either taking a nap to conserve energy or had fainted. However, by the time the second round got underway I was contemplating taking a nap or fainting. It took a lot of effort to stay awake for this fight. In fact, I just wrote “Boring”. I was looking for either 3-Minute Warning or The Nexus to run in and beat down both guys. By the way, the ring mics really pick up the glove shots well. Whenever Maia was getting his shots in, it sounded like a wrestler when he stomped his foot while punching. By the third round I was cheering on the clock. Maia did have a great reversal in the third, but it was too little too late. I gave this one 30-27 for Maia… bad mix of styles.

Randy Couture (winner via submission) vs. James Toney
Big pop for Couture in the bar… casual fans abound. Gotta say, nice flip-flops, Randy. Although he’s really looking his age. And the sun still rises in the morning. Guy next to me said Randy was going to wear Toney down, and take him out in the second or third. I said he would probably choke him out, or Toney would get in a lucky shot. Guy said Randy would start the fight with a quick take-down. He was right. A few seconds later and it was over… not too surprising. Some cheers in the pub for the “James Phoney” sign.

Resident Evil trailer — big thumbs up!

Frankie Edgar (champ, winner via decision) vs. BJ Penn
BJ Penn is one scary looking little dude. He’s the little guy who, in a fight, is going to do something awesome. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen tonight. Very loud mixed reactions for him from the pub. No reaction at all for Edgar. To get my score out of the way early, Edgar wins this one 50-45. I was begging for Penn to try and throw some punches. When he did, he actually connected. By the third rolled around there was a sense of desperation from Penn as he tried but couldn’t hook anything. Edgar just dominated this one, which made for a pretty boring main event. Little to no drama.

Overall, not a great show, but it being the first big UFC show I saw live, it’s one I’ll remember and wouldn’t mind watching again. It had a little bit of everything.

Cactus Jim
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz
Worst Fight: Gray Maynard vs. Kenny Florian if you can look past the boxing vs. MMA debacle

This card was better on paper than the fights bore out. There were a couple mediocre fights and a couple stinkers. This seems to be a developing trend in the UFC. Maynard didn’t create any excitement for me in his upcoming title match. I think it will be a tough sell for UFC and will get even tougher if he is able to beat Edgar again. Had I actually bought this fight instead of watching with friends I would have felt like I didn’t get my money’s worth of entertainment. There is nothing here for anyone to go out of their way for in my opinion.

GG
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz
Worst Fight: Mario Miranda vs. Demian Maia

I know that hindsight is 20/20, but after UFC 118 was done, I was scratching my head at the booking. Knowing that there would be more boxing fans who aren’t big MMA fans watching than ever, Dana White and Joe Silva chose to stack the card with wrestlers and boring jiu-jitsu fighters? I understand that Mario Miranda was a late replacement, but he was definitely an odd choice if what you wanted was an exciting fight with Demian Maia. Other than the first fight between Marcus Davis and Nate Diaz, nothing else was even compelling. Gray Maynard lived up to his rep in not finishing fights, and Kenny Florian lived up to his by coming up short in a big fight. Randy Couture easily defeated James Toney so there was zero suspense there, and in the main event, we saw a repeat of UFC 112, with Frankie Edgar using wrestling, and some decent boxing to control BJ Penn. I’m still scratching my head.

If the player is not accessible in your region **Click Here**

But when he said it again at the post fight press conference after the show ended (and Florian lost when he couldn’t pull the trigger), I wondered if it was meant as a message or statement that he wanted Florian to hear since he had to know that people would start asking Florian about it. I tried to ask Florian through his Twitter, but never expected a response and didn’t get one.

The next day, he did tweet out a response to everyone, though it didn’t have to do with Dana’s claims. He said:

Thanks for the support everyone. Before I knew it, the fight was over. Wasn’t my night. Congrats to Maynard on a well fought match.

Then yesterday, he tweeted out another message which didn’t reference the choking claims, but mentioned him letting his hometown down.

Lucky to have fans like u guys. I trained hard but need to train harder. Making plans now so I can take my game to where it needs to be. I really appreciate the support. Feel like I let a city down tho. I know what I need to fix & won’t stop till it’s fixed properly. Thank u.

Florian did talk about the claims to Dan Duggan from the Boston Herald. He said in reference to White’s claims:

I don’t think that really makes any sense. For me, it’s someone who is just looking at the big picture and not looking at the actual fight game. It’s someone who isn’t actually that familiar with the full technique of the game. I didn’t crumble. I was outwrestled. Gray fought a smarter fight. That was it.

He also went on to say that he doesn’t think Dana looks at the fight as technically as he should all the time.

Maybe the most interesting part of this is that Florian is also an analyst on ESPN’s MMA Live. Host of the show Jon Anik replied to a question about White’s choking claims on his Twitter account and said that White’s words were, “Too harsh & inaccurate.”

If ESPN thinks of the show as a true MMA news show, Florian will be asked about the comments and allowed to answer them. Where it gets tricky is that if he’s truthful, he’ll be refuting the words of the guy who promotes him. It’s definitely an odd situation.

It should also only take them about 25 months to get to the 1000th episode.

6:03PM – Bret is back! Wait, I thought the General Manager never wanted Bret on WWE TV again?

6:06PM – Hart says that he and the Undertaker were the only two guys who were on the first Raw and who are still with the company. Kane’s music plays and he walks out. Talk about a bait and switch.

6:09PM – Kane brings up Shawn MIchaels and how Bret must’ve loved watching the Undertaker retire him. Jeez, the writers must hate us tonight. Isn’t is supposed to be a celebration?

6:12PM – Kane attacks Bret, the Hart Dynasty come in, and the Undertaker appears and sends Kane walking away. My iPod Touch notification sounds, I mean, the GM e-mails Michael Cole and says that Bret Hart will face Taker. Sigh.

6:13PM – They only thing I remember about the very first raw is Bobby Heenan trying to get inside the building.

6:18PM – Dream nerd tag match – Kaval and Daniel Bryan vs. Michael McGillicuddy and Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz and Alex Riley. Ok, maybe only a dream nerd tag team.

6:22PM – Miz had to skull crush poor Kaval for the finale. Then he had to clip Bryan with his briefcase. I wonder if this was their way of trying to get people to vote for Alex Riley for tomorrow’s NXT season finale?

6:31PM – Melina pinned Layla in a tag match with Melina and Eve vs. LayCool. Eve didn’t even get in the match. Maybe they’re running low on time. LayCool challenged Melina to a title unification match. I’m guessing this is at Night Of Champions. I say they keep the Diva belt over the women’s title. Melina accepted as long as it’s a Lumberjack match. King or Cole made sure to use the term Lumberjills. Melina must’ve messed up.

6:40PM – So far, out of four of the historic packages they’ve shown, two have been from the last two years. What an utter fail. No one wants to see that stuff. We want to see Austin, Rock, Foley, and HBK. Well, it’s better than the HHH hype that I expect to be coming shortly.

6:41PM – Chris Jericho just said that he’s quitting or retiring if he doesn’t win the title at Night Of Champions. This was just after they reminded folks in the first segment that HBK is retired.

6:49PM – Cole brought up Jim Ross’ name and called the following match a possible slobberknocker – John Morrison and R-Truth vs. Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. I don’t think Cole understands what the word means.

6:51PM – Double DQ – I think the last two matches have lasted a combined four minutes.

7:01PM – Wade Barrett came in with the idea that he was going to beat up both legends and it took Taker all of about 10 seconds to beat him up and kick him out of the ring. Well, it was nice thinking you had a good shot to stand out Wade. Then it got dark and we heard the dong and instead of Bret, Kane was in the ring. We heard the dong again and Kane was gone. Then the rest of Nexus walked down to the ring sans Skip Sheffield. Taker then beat all of them up. It went dark again and Barrett had Taker on his shoulders and dumped him on the ground. Gabriel splashed him from the top rope Scorpio style, while Kane cackled.

7:15PM – Swagger and Bourne were having a match while Alberto Del Rio came down to the ring and they did a split screen. Bourne missed the shooting star and landed on his feet. Ouch. Swagger put him in the ankle lock. Del Rio was happy to beat up Rey, but it wasn’t perfect because he didn’t do it on Raw. Then he decided to go after another chihuahua and put Bourne in the arm bar. Henry RAN DOWN for the save.

7:25PM – If you had the under on 90 minutes as the time they’d show This Is Your Life Rock, you won.

7:28PM – CM Punk’s promo included the name Katie Vick. Then he said if it went over your head, YouTube it and it will drive you to drink. He might be top three in promos right now. He counted down some of Raw’s craziest moments like the WCW Invasion and John Cena throwing Edge into the lake. Interestingly, they included Austin’s beer bash on Santino rather than the original. I didn’t even remember the Santino one. He also teased Stone Cold coming in, straight with Austin’s music. After Bret/Taker, isn’t that enough bait and switching?

7:34PM – It took them 94 minutes to get Brock Lesnar on the show. It was the moment he and Show crashed the ring.

7:37PM – The Big Show came down and started doing Hulk Hogan impersonations like this was 2000 and he was the Showster.

7:43PM – I can’t believe it took them over 100 minutes to show HHH’s return from injury in 2002. Well, maybe they waited until late since he was jacked out of his mind and looked like he was on more steroids than any WWE superstar ever.

7:47PM – Edge called Sheamus, Beaker who hasn’t been seen except for in Muppet movies since the early 80s. You know what he was watching when he was 10.

8:00PM – Main event time and Chris Jericho starts off against Michael Tarver but walks out. He’s eliminated. I guess this is an elimination match. Then Edge came in and pushed down the referee and was DQ’d. It’s 5-3 now.

8:06PM – The heat was on Sheamus forever and then he just lost. It’s 5-2.

8:07PM – Cena easily pinned Slater and it’s 4-2.

8:10PM – Cena makes Otunga submit and then rolls to the corner for whatever reason, only to get 450 splashed by Gabriel. And he’s out. Looks like Orton gets to be Stone Cold Steve Austin tonight. Yep, Gabriel is RKO’d and out. It’s 2-1. Did I say 2-1, I meant 1-1. Orton RKO’d Tarver too. Whoops, looks like Orton won’t be Stone Cold. Barrett put Orton on his shoulders and slammed him. Match over.

That might’ve been the most overbooked show in all of Raw. Sheesh.

Gamboa 18-0 (15 KOs) is one of the most exciting guys in the sport right now. If you haven’t been following his career up to this point, I definitely recommend you catch this show.

DO YOU KNOW BATI BATI??

Mark Fischer:
- Helped the NBA expand in China. (I think someone named Yao Ming also helped out with that.)
- Thinks the sports that strived for excellence are the sports that exceeded in Asia.
- Is looking at Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

White:
- Not after boxing and not trying to attack boxing. He was nervous. Toney lasted longer than he thought he would. James Toney picked a fight and he got one.
- Toney is a boxer and that’s what he does. It’s probably his last UFC fight.
- He thought James took it seriously, but he’s not the most fit boxer in the world.

Joe Lauzon:
- He sold 600 tickets and he had a lot of people in the building rooting for him.

White:
- Thought that the Marcus Davis stoppage was late and he didn’t like it.

Randy Couture:
- The fight played out exactly like he thought. Didn’t want to try to stand up with James. Has been working on the low shot all camp and had to pull it out from his college days.

Gray Maynard:
- Frankie did a great job and he’s the champ. But he wants the belt. Frankie’s changed in the 3 years since they fought.

Nate Diaz:
- Wants a fight with a top three contender in the lightweight or welterweight division.
- Would fight Gray before Gray gets his shot because he didn’t think he did much against him.

White:
- Gray gets the next shot and they don’t want to skip him again. But Diaz looked great at 170.
- Edgar absolutely dominated BJ Penn in every facet.

Couture:
- He’ll take his next fight as it comes. He takes them one at a time.

Maynard:
- Didn’t want to chase Florian and made Florian chase him. The gameplan was to take Florian down.
- It’s up to Dana White to put together his fight with Edgar.

White:
- Edgar might not make it to the press conference because he’s having issues with the commission.

Lauzon:
- Didn’t think the fight would be so easy. Stunned him with an elbow and it was “blood in the water”.

Maynard:
- If Couture gets a black belt for submitting Randy Couture, he deserves one too.

Couture:
- He worked on the arm triangle with Lesnar.
- He would respectfully decline an offer to fight Toney in a boxing match. It’d be as one sided as it was tonight.
- He couldn’t afford to not take him seriously.

White:
- Toney was supposed to be at the press conference, but thought it took too long and left.

Couture:
- Toney told him, “Good job.” At least, he thinks that’s what he said.

White:
- Florian chokes in the big fights.

Frankie Edgar:
- He was delayed trying to pee for the piss test.

White:
- The fight between Edgar and Maynard will be just fine and they can market it.

Edgar:
- Thinks the win will get some of the media off his back.
- Felt a sense of urgency when BJ took him down, but he trusted his corner, and kept his composure.

White:
- He was static, overwhelmed, and honored at the coverage of the show.

Edgar:
- Thought he broke BJ down a bit, but BJ is dangerous. He didn’t want to let up at all.
- He wanted to win decisively so there were no questions. No one can say anything now. It went his way.
- Winning the first fight with BJ gave him the confidence to do it this second time around.
- Maynard deserves his shot and he wants to avenge his loss.

White:
- He’s not sure where BJ goes. He’ll figure it out.
- He’s not sure what happened to BJ and he’s not sure why he’s not here. Maybe he’s upset, or maybe he had to go to the hospital.