GnastyGnuts [he/him]

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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: August 3rd, 2020

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  • Combat sports in general feel like they’re in a strange place. Like, boxing and MMA seem simultaneously bigger and more popular than they’ve been in a while (which I attribute to the various high-profile celebrity boxing matches as well as hard times generally creating interest in fighting), but the general quality is just the drizzling shits right now.

    I’m way more of an MMA viewer than a boxing viewer, but it seems like various combat sports “promotions” don’t actually do a lot of promoting of their fights and fighters. I’ve thought this for a while now, but it’s so pronounced at this point. UFC’s Dana White clearly doesn’t give a fuck anymore, most fighters have been expected to get themselves out there with self-promotion for years now. I don’t understand why they aren’t pushing the hell out of people like Aspinall and Pantoja and especially Topuria.

    As far as the future trajectory, I think it’s only going to get worse, especially in heavier weight classes where they have to compete with stick-and-ball sports for talent (the only way they could compete is by paying way more, and fuck no they won’t do that).

    Most of the joy I derive from combat sports right now is going back and watching old stuff, learning about fighters I wasn’t around for, etc.











  • I’ve seen a few people say that closing the Straight of Hormuz would possibly be a bigger issue for China than it would be for the US, or at least that it would be strongly against China’s economic interests for that to happen. My question then: isn’t it especially important for China to keep their ally in power and prevent pro-US regime change so that the US-western block couldn’t deliberately close the Straight to harm them in economic warfare?

    If I understand correctly from what I’ve read throughout this thread, Iran hasn’t shown proper urgency in asking China for weapons (in comparison with Pakistan’s relationship with China, for example), but I’m surprised China hasn’t urged them more? Perhaps they have privately and Iran’s leadership was doofy enough to actively refuse them (I could certainly buy it at this point), but it seems like China would benefit from chatting them up again after all this and talking them into being smart before they end up in western hands.