Showing posts with label streaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label streaming. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Monday, December 2, 2019

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Revisiting ECW November To Remember 1995!

Forget family, turkey and cranberry sauce — who needs all of that crap when we’ve got good old EC-Dub around to fill our Thanksgiving plates with all kinds of delightfully un-P.C. mayhem?

Friday, November 1, 2019

CD Review — "Jesus Is King" By Kanye West (2019)

Not only is it the best album of the year, it’s quite possibly the most based thing a mainstream musician has done in decades.

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

2019 Alliance of American Football Power Rankings (Week Five)

A comprehensive recap of the inaugural (and let’s face it, probably only) AAF season — an especially needed service, considering the league is too ghetto to post box scores on its own website.


Sunday, July 8, 2018

Ten Reasons 'Hamburger: The Motion Picture' is AWESOME!

...in which we sing the praises of one of the greatest teenage sleazeball sex-comedies of the 1980s!


By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

 As a B-movie connoisseur, you never really come up empty. Even if an exploitation flick is downright atrocious, at least it's usually downright atrocious in a way that's different from your usual Hollywood mainstream dreck. As bad as stuff like Wacko and Goin' Bananas are, I'd much rather sit through them than 95 percent of the billion-dollar-budget offerings hitting the cineplexes this summer. And while most of the fare you wade through is just plain unremarkable - The Pope Must Die, Carnosaur, Million Dollar Mystery, the list goes on and on - every now and then you find a real diamond in the rough. 

 Sometimes, it's a movie starring Wil Wheaton and Sheriff Lobo as poor white trash farmers in Tennessee slowly turning into irradiated comet zombies that barf peach cobbler all over the dinner table, and sometimes, it's a musical about Pakistani terrorists on a mission to assassinate an absurdly evil pastiche of Salman Rushdie. And today, I present to you, dear readers, one of the absolute greatest "bad movies" in the history of cinema: the one ... the only ... Hamburger: The Motion Picture. 

 Not since Fight For Your Life was I as blown away by the sheer start to finish AWESOMENESS of a long-forgotten, VHS-era exploitation movie. This isn't just a superb, no-budget '80s teen sex comedy, it might just be the BEST no-budget '80s teen sex comedy of 'em all, and considering that includes all-time masterpieces (of shit) like Goin' All The Way, Joysticks and Loose Screws ... not to mention the immortal Porky's Revenge ... that's DEFINITELY saying something. 

 The movie ain't hard at all to find on the YouTubes, but before you bask in its cinematic glory for yourself, here's a quick countdown of my ten favorite things about this 1986 masterpiece (and trust me, narrowing it down to just ten things was a chore in and of itself.)

#01
The Music!
Pretty much every song in the movie is a pitch-perfect pastiche of 1980s consumer culture. The movie even begins with footage of REAL fat and ugly people who probably voted for Reagan eating unhealthy food cued up to a song called “Hamburgers for America,” which sounds just like it could’ve been lifted from an actual McDonald’s commercial circa 1985 (and sung by the same person who performed the theme song for America's Funniest Home Videos, really.) There’s a couple of other corporate anthem soundalikes in the movie, too, including the self-explanatory “Busterburger Jingle” and the gloriously grandiloquent “Busterburgerlujah,” which is actually reprised at the very end of the movie as a pseudo-Prince track. Even the tracks without lyrics are pretty catchy … in particular, the song that plays during the burger assembly training montage. Come on, don’t tell me that stuff doesn’t sound like it just BELONGS in a Marble Madness game.

#02
The Nudity!


This movie wastes no time at all before springing the breastolas on us — in fact, they show us our first pair of golly-whoppers just thee minutes and 21 seconds into the flick. I'm not entirely sure just how many tits are featured in this flick, but I wouldn't be surprised if the official count is north of 50, considering practically every actress in the movie flashes her boobs at least once in the movie. By the way, my favorite set belongs to the Banana Republic sandinista who forces our sex machine satyromaniac lead character to fuck her at machine gun point or else she'll say he raped her — naturally, he escapes by pretending to be a homosexual.
#03
The Old Lady and the Pickle!

It doesn’t take long (just nine minutes in!) for this movie to hit you with its first legit LOL moment. It arrives when an old woman pulls up to a drive-thru and tries to order some “bull chips with bull cheese,” only for the order-taker to get a little ornery with her. Ultimately, this results in the elderly driver quipping "fuck off pickle, I don't like talking to machines!" which is something that totally catches you off guard. Naturally, the unseen employee behind the pickle gives her a verbal haymaker right back, and since this is a 1980s comedy, of course the old woman has a heart attack and dies right then and there in her vehicle.

#04
The Eternal Burger!

There's a lot of weird stuff going on in this movie — we've got fat dudes eating human testicles, a scene where Buster Burger University students deliver pickle babies and even a subplot about a dude being brainwashed into think he's a chicken. But really, it's not the really over-the-top stuff (like the talking blowup dolls or the people being hot-boxed in iron maidens shaped like cucumbers) that makes this movie so aesthetically captivating, it's the really basic stuff like the inclusion of The Eternal Burger ... which, just as the name implies, is nothing more than a memorial hamburger all of the students at Buster Burger U view as a symbol of excellence. Not gonna' lie, folks ... if this prop ever winds up on eBay, I'm probably going to spend way more money than anyone ever should to procure it.

#05
DICK BUTKUS as General Drootin!

Dick Butkus will always (and rightfully) be remembered as one of the greatest linebackers in NFL history, but he'll probably never get the respect he truly deserves as a B-movie actor. This dude stole every scene he was in in stuff like Mother, Jugs and Speed and Superdome, and here is NO denying that his performance of the sadistic General Drootin in Hamburger: The Motion Picture is the role he was BORN to play. I mean, practically every line that comes out of this dude's mouth is pure gold, ranging from the scene where he tells a Latina "you look like you're from Guac-a-mole," to the part where he tells a black dude "clam it dark, breath, you hear me faggot?" to the sequences where he utters such verbal diamonds as "ketchup crotch" and "come on you pickle prick." And hoo boy, just wait until he hijacks the drive-thru speaker and starts giving that black motorcycle cop the old what-for: if you aren't in absolute awe by the time he says "we don't serve Astroturf toilet plungers here" or "you're talking to the manager, Peter Cheese," you will by the time he calls him Kunta Kinte and orders him to go pick up his check at the welfare office.
#06
Magneto Jones!


I've already declared Magneto Jones one of the 28 greatest fictitious black people of all time, and his greatness deserves extolling one more here. Essentially a pastiche of Prince, he's a musician who gets KIDNAPPED by Buster Burger and forced through the program because, as Dick Butkus' character so eloquently puts it, "you're here because of the Supreme Court sniffing around our franchises claiming there hasn't been a single BLACK Buster Burger owner in 25 years." Naturally, he tries to break free several times throughout the movie, usually referencing his need to attend a concert while making his clean break — and usually, while saying lines like "I've got a show to go to and all my hos are gonna' be there!" and "do you know how many bitches are gonna' be there?" when asked why it's so important for him to make it to said show. Eerily portending today's ultra leftist, white guilt-driven academic hotbeds, Jones receives a "lifetime achievement award" as soon as he graduates from the university ... and, of course, wraps up the movie by singing a funky redux of the company's corporate anthem before the end titles roll.
#07
The Burger Beds!


Don't get me wrong. I love exposed female breasts and raunchy sex puns as much as the next guy, but let's face it — you can see that kind of stuff in any number of B-tier comedies from the 1980s. The thing that really separates Hamburger: The Motion Picture from the herd is its commitment to the burger-worship motif, right down to the students' bedrooms. Hell, if all the set designers included were lamps shaped like burgers and ketchup-laden cheeseburger book ends I'd still be raving about it, but the fact somebody thought of ... and then CREATED ... beds shaped like giant burgers (complete with pillows modeled after pickle slices) just makes me want to cry tears of joy.

#08
The Chinese Restaurant Scene!

I kinda' forgot just how risque these movies got back in the 1980s. Considering today's politically correct milieu, that makes scenes like the one where our leading Lothario and his best pal getting stuck under a table at a Chinese restaurant all the more amazing to watch in hindsight. First off we get a whole bunch of great puns about Asian food (including a good 'un about "some young boys" and "one hung low" being on the menu), and then, a little motor skill malfunction results in one of the characters plopping face first into the exposed bush of the Buster Burger president's wife. Naturally, instead of anyone pressing charges, our main man simply continues applying the unauthorized cunnilingus all dinner-long, with his "meal" ultimately climaxing ... violently ... at the very end of the scene. Thanks to the MeToo Movement and the rest of those liberal sticks-in-the-mud, don't expect to see whimsical tomfoolery at your multiplexes anytime soon — if ever again.
#09
"Put Those Cookies Back, Motherfucker!"


In a movie glutted with tremendous strings of dialogue, NOTHING compares to the customer service training sequence. In this scene, the head honcho of Buster Burger walks his students through the ins and outs of employee-consumer relations, complete with some oddly eloquent monologuing about what it is, exactly, that makes fast food an American institution ("People like to eat and pay," he says with the zeal of a TV evangelist. "It's more than a meal, it's fun.") Of course, he also teaches his pupils how to deal with more bothersome clients, which culminates with the Class of 1986 learning the key phrases "we reserve the right to refuse assholes like you" and the all-important "put those cookies back, motherfucker" and chanting them in unison. Now, about an hour later in Hamburger, the trainees are doing a practice run at a real restaurant, when all of a sudden, what appears to be a six-year-old girl tries to reach into the cash register adjacent desert jar ... which leads to every employee stopping dead in their tracks to repeat their well-rehearsed mantra.

#10
The Insane Ending!


The denouement of Hamburger is absolute Marx Brothers-style anarchy through and through, and it is magnificent. The soon-to-be-grads of BusterBurger U are doing their final exam of sorts as they commandeer a full-sized restaurant. Things are going OK enough, but then, the Fab 400 Club makes an unannounced appearance. By the way, the Fab 400 Club is a gang of 400-pound-plus fast-food-enthusiasts with a proclivity for gastrointestinal distress. Of course, this being the 1980s, the crew gets to drop a ton of fat jokes (complete with Magneto Jones citing the obese patrons as "fat motherfuckers" at least half a dozen times), and — naturally — they all came down with explosive diarrhea at the same time, which culminates with a Japanese businessman taking a dump getting smothered underneath a stampede of flab before the restroom itself explodes (don't ask me why ... it just happens.) And just when you think things can't get any wackier, a miffed Dick Butkus hijacks the restaurant drive-thru speaker and starts making racist jokes about a black cop, then a whole bunch of leather-clad bikers show up for no reason whatsoever and start demolishing the rest of the building, and then an armada of cops arrive and start fucking up even MORE property until the whole fast food place is a total wreck. And believe it or not, there's STILL another good 15 minutes of movie left ... but I'll leave that to you to discover on your own time, dear reader. Trust me — you will NOT be disappointed.

I really can't say enough good things about this movie. It's kinda' fitting that I'm writing this one around the Fourth of July, because I struggle to think of a genre more American than the 1980s teen-sex comedy. Simply put, Hamburger: The Motion Picture is a movie that embodies EVERYTHING great about degenerate cinema in the 1980s. It's filled to the brim with politically incorrect humor, it's got tits out the wazoo, and it just feels so comforting and reassuring. Granted, the 1980s in real life sucked a big dick, but it's hard to not be enchanted and enthralled by this laid back caricature of the Reagan-era; like a reverse Norman Rockwell painting, Hamburger depicts the kind of America we'd all prefer to live in — one where fatness is relentlessly mocked, ethnic stereotypes are encouraged and nobody's going to give you any shit for womanizing and/or committing non-penetrative acts of sexual battery.

 While it may not be as good as something like Revenge of the Nerds, I'd definitely consider Hamburger one of the upper echelon sex comedies of the era — I'd rank it slightly ahead of The First Turn-On! and just a little bit behind The Last American Virgin, personally — and it's definitely must see viewing for any and all B-movie aficionados. This is a flick that has something to offend everyone, which is generally a good measuring stick for determining whether or not a 30-year-old-plus comedy is worth going out of your way to witness. And yes, Hamburger — as low-brow as it may be — is unquestionably a funny movie, with at least four or five legitimate laugh out loud moments in it.

 Whenever you hear somebody say "they sure don't make comedies like they used to," this is exactly the kind of thing they're talking about. It might not be a classic in the traditional sense of the word, and it's far from a movie sans faults or flaws, but there's no denying Hamburger is a deliciously cheesy vestige of a bygone era well worth revisiting time and time again.

 If it's been years and years since you've last seen the flick, I assure you Father Time hasn't lessened the ephemeral awesomeness of Hamburger one bit. And if you haven't seen the film before, for whatever stupid-ass reason ... what are you waiting for, cabron?

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Double Review - "Disobedience" / "Vampire Clay"

One's a movie about Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz playing lesbians that hock loogies in each other's mouth for sexual gratification and the other's about demonically-possessed Play-Doh eating art students in rural Japan ... don't ever say we don't give you variety, folks.


By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

 I'm not the first person to say this, but a good goddamn, is going to the movies EXPENSIVE these days.

 You wonder why Hollywood revenue keeps dropping? Maybe it has something to do with the fact it takes $80 fuckin' dollars to go see a flick at the multiplex nowadays. Seriously, I took my woman to go see the newest Avengers movie and those fuckers charged us $50 dollars ... no shit, $50 U.S. dollars ... for a pair of movie tickets. And this wasn't even that big-ass, 3D, surround-sound, IMAX shit either, it was a regular two-dimensional screening on a normal-sized projector, with a tinny-ass audio system that kept making that weird scrubbing sound every two-to-three minutes. Then they had the audacity to charge us ANOTHER $20 for a large bucket of popcorn and some Snow Caps, and and additional $10 for two SMALL sodas with no refill privileges.

 Granted, I've come to expect inflation with everything in this, post-Obama's America, but good lord, how did going to the movies become THIS expensive over the course of just five years? And furthermore, just how in the hell does Hollywood expect regular Americans to be able to afford to go to the movies more than a handful a' times a year if its going to cost $80 smackers a visit?

 You see, Hollywood's just about thrown in the towel. They know the only thing people are going to spend money on is Disney-shit, superhero movies and the occasional "sociopolitically-charged" genre movie that finds a new-ish way to blame whitey for everything. You might get a little return on investment with shitty horror movies around Halloween and crappy biopics and family features around Christmas, but that's still not enough to cover their losses from the latest $80 million dollar box office turd starring Amy Schumer and Melissa McCarthy and whichever unfunny bitch El Lay has convinced itself honest, decent, hard-workin' people of the soil are willing to spend money on even though their entire shtick revolves around mocking Middle America's most cherished values and ideals.

 It's not even cool to go the movies anymore. For that matter, people don't even talk about movies themselves that much anymore. It's all about Netflix and HBO and whatever bullshit they're binge-watching that week. Kids today already see movie theaters as passe, and we're probably only 20 years — if that long — away from cinemas having about as much economic import as video stores. This is Hollywood's last, desperate cash grab before getting completely replaced by the vastly superior, subscription-based, internet-driven movie-watching model. As a matter of fact, as soon as this capeshit/Star Wars bull crap falls out of fashion, the American movie industry is kaput. Outside of sperging out with a bunch of fanboy NEETS on opening night so you can look at Rocket Raccoon's ballsack on a 30-foot screen, there's practically no social utility for the modern movie theater. Why spend $80 for one night out when you can just spend $15 a month and get a literally unlimited amount of cinematic entertainment across ALL of your multimedia devices, wherever you are in the world? 

 The writing isn't just on the wall, it's practically welded onto it with big, blinking neon letters. At no point in consumer history have Americans EVER chosen a more expensive, less mobile option over a less expensive, more mobile one. Never, ever, in history. The boombox got supplanted by the iPod, the CRT monitor got supplanted by the plasma screen tablet and the fact your city probably has 78 McDonald's and zero sit-down, family-style diners tells you everything you need to know about the American consumer's need (not want) for high-speed, low-cost delivery models. 

 Hell, at this point CHINA's communist, godless movie industry will probably start raking in more moolah than Hollywood by 2022, 2023 at the absolute latest. The common folk don't have the time, nor the patience, nor the desire to shell out $100 for two and a half hours of "entertainment" and oil-slicked popcorn no more; and the industry's awe-inspiring hubris that "event movies" like Infinity War are going to safeguard it from going the way of one-hour photo and VCR repair diplomas is just going to make its inevitable downfall all the more enjoyable to watch from afar. 

 And after emptying my wallet this last go at-it, all I can do is reiterate the nearly 30-year-old verbiage of that sage prophet, Chuck D. — burn, Hollywood burn, indeed.
...and saliva fetishism. Lots of it.

Speaking of wishful thinking, here's to hoping that Disobedience inspires an entire generation of filmgoers to consider spit-kissing a mainstream activity. Yep, thanks to director Sebastian Lelio, we might just be on the verge of saliva-swapping transforming from a niche weirdo porno perversion into a bona-fide, culturally accepted display of affection, considering the marquee moment of his new flick is when lesbo lovers Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams take turns hocking loogies in one another's mouths for sexual gratification. Sure, we've seen mainstream-ish directors trudge this territory before, like in The Neon Demon, but considering THAT movie featured spit-kissing between one living actor and a cadaver, well, let's just say Disobedience has a better chance of making ooky-mouth go legit than the oeuvre of Nicholas Winding Refn. I can see it now — lovelorn couples taking turns dripping goobers down each other's esophagi in amorous embraces at the airport. Middle schoolers getting written up for coughing phlegm into one another's mouths in-between classes. Hell, instead of the traditional wedding buss, mayhap we'll start seeing spouses slobbering sputum all over each other like porn stars now, and if it ever does, we'll probably have this movie right here to thank.

 The movie starts off with this rabbi talking about the differences between beasts and humans before dropping dead on the floor of the synagogue. Then we cut to Rachel Weisz (who looks like a middle age Lordes, know that I think about it) taking pictures of old dudes covered in tattoos. Then she goes to a bar and lets some random guy shag her in the bathroom, then she ice skates for a bit looking all disappointed in herself. So — not that you really needed me to tell you this — yes, this is indeed one of those pretentious, "arthouse"-type movies. Then she goes to a house party hosted by another rabbi and she drinks tea and smokes in the kitchen and she busts this one dude's balls by making fun of the woman he married and then Rachel McAdams shows up in a brown wig and dressed like a 19-year-old bible college student. Then Weisz goes downstairs and listens to some Jew-singing, then Addams lets Weiss spend the night at her place and she starts kvetching about whether or not she loved the old dead rabbi as much as everybody else did. Then she starts asking McAdams if she and her yarmulke-sporting husband are happy being married and they say "of course" so you KNOW they're having some major relationship difficulties going on. Then Weisz goes to her old rabbi's grave and we find out the dead dude is actually her father, which is a surprise to me because I didn't know rabbis were allowed to have sex with anything but 12-year-old boys.

 Then McAdams resumes teaching singing classes at an all-girl school while Weiss goes out and buys some apple strudel. Then McAdams goes home and takes her wig off and shows us her buttcheeks and her tit-tays for about two seconds and then she and her husband do the nasty. Then they go to dinner and talk about feminism for a bit and how women "erase their own histories" by taking their husbands' last names  and Weisz said she wants to sell her dad's old house and all the old Jews are agog and she criticizes them for forcing her into "institutional obligation" or some other shit and apparently, all this fierce independent womanhood makes McAdams a bit moist in her panties so she just sits there staring lovingly at her throughout the rest of the dinner.

 Then Weisz gets a haircut and another old Jew man yells at her for not being there when her father died. Then McAdams runs into an old friend that has like 16 kids at a grocery store and she runs into McAdams again and they decide to go back to their place and Weisz turns on the radio until she finds a station playing The Cure and then they just walk around the house for a bit talking about reading the Torah and then all of a sudden McAdams starts squeezing on Weisz's boobies and then they start kissing on the lips and McAdams starts to freak out a little and then they stop smooching and Weisz starts to leave the house but then she goes down stairs and they start making out again and yes, you probably will get a boner at this point.

 They go for a walk afterwards and Weisz starts smoking and they say they've never done anything lesbian before and then McAdams starts smoking, too, and they both confess that they have fantasies about doing it with other women. Then they go into a tunnel and make out some more but some people show up so McAdams has to vamoose. Then McAdams goes home and yanks her wig off and takes a shower and you can kinda' see her breasts through the opaque glass but not really. Then her husband barges in the bathroom and you get a shot of her yamboosas, but only from the reflection in the mirror. But hey — as far as I'm concerned, that still counts.

 Then McAdams goes back to school and she's giving a lecture to her students about blood sacrifices or something like that and McAdams' husband starts going through the protocols to become a rabbi himself. Then McAdams tells Weisz she just can't do the whole clam-digging thing and Weisz says she's leaving town then they go to a subway (the kind with trains, not hoagies) and wind up in a dark alleyway somewhere in London so they can snog some more. Then they get a hotel room and McAdams starts kissing on Weisz's boobies and goes down on her and they take turns fingering each other while museum elevator music plays and then we arrive at the moment of truth — the scene where they FINALLY start playing ooky-mouth with each other. And yeah, call me kinky, but watching Evelyn Carnahan from The Mummy turn Regina George's mouth into a saliva receptacle is pretty dadgum hot, if I may say so myself.

 Anyhoo, they get done munching each other's fish tacos and they smoke cigarettes indoor and Weisz asks McAdams if she can take her picture and then her rabbi husband comes home and tries to get frisky with her because they always do it on a Friday (apparently, it's some sort of Hebrew thing, I think) but this time around she rebuffs his advances, goes to the bathroom sink and starts blowing chunks. Then McAdams tells her husband she kissed Weisz and then he starts shaking her and shoots her a mean look and walks out the door, all stoic-looking and stuff even though you just KNOW he be mad as hell right now.

 There's some more Jew-singing (I'm sure there's a technical name for it, but I'm too lazy to look it up) and McAdams' husband just stands there looking like he swallowed a turd the whole time so he goes home and pours himself a stiff drink and by the time he, his wife and Weisz have dinner he's already three sheets to the wind and you kept expecting him to freak out, but he never does and Weisz hops in a cab and gets the heck out of (proverbial) Dodge. Then McAdams socks a toboggan over her head, hops on a bus, goes to a pharmacy, buys a whole bunch of drugs and starts praying up against her closet (get it?) like it was the Wailing Wall. Then Weisz and McAdams' husband (I think they might be siblings, you'll have to double-check Wikipedia on your own time) check out the dead rabbi's cleaned out house and he tells her he wish his wife never met her and then McAdams tells her she's pregnant and gives a speech about fearing her child will grow up in an oppressive Jewish millieu that will deprive her (of course she assumes her child is going to be female) of personal liberty and that she's leaving him and her husband, because he's the world's biggest cuck, just walks out the door like it ain't no thang. Then everybody goes to the formal wake or whatever the Jew-equivalent of a Christian wake is and they all try to avoid making eye contact and Weisz asks McAdams to come to New York with her and McAdams' husband is announced as the new rabbi and he tries to give a speech but his nerves are so jangled he can't read his notes and then he starts going on a rant about what "choice" and "freedom" really means and I think it's supposed to parallel what the dead rabbi was saying about men and women and beasts at the very beginning of the movie and of course the whole diatribe is a big "fuck you" to his wife and then he looks her dead in the eyes and screams "YOU ARE FREE!"  Then all three of them have a group hug outside and McAdams' husband tells Weisz "shalom" and he's not even mad she had an affair with his wife no more and she gets in a cab and McAdams chases after her to give her one last smooch and tells her she will make a great mother and Weisz starts crying and she visits her daddy's grave so she can take a picture of it and yep, that's how the movie ends.

We've got one dead body. Four breasts. Two exposed female buttocks. Multiple lesbian liplocks. Gratuitous Torah reading. Gratuitous kvetching. And the thing more or less responsible for this movie existing in the first place ... some serious spit-swapping fu (expect mono cases to spike coast-to-coast once this thing starts making the rounds on HBO.)

 Starring Rachel Weisz as the free-spirited photog that likes to smoke indoors and take pictures of everything; Rachel McAdams as the wig-wearing closeted lesbo that feels iffy about the Jewish patriarchy; Alessandro Nivola as the cucked rabbi who's totally cool with his wife getting her tuna taco licked by another woman; and Nicholas Woodeson as the rabbi who says a bunch of stuff about man and beasts at the beginning of the move then promptly keels over.

 Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (yep, another Catholic screenplay writer, obviously) and Sebastian Lelio, who also directed all this shit.

 Call me crazy, but I kind of enjoyed it. It's not a great movie by any stretch, but the acting is pretty good and there's a lot of good atmosphere building up to the grand finale where the rabbi-in-training finally confronts his philandering spouse about all of that snatch-diving she's been doing on the down-low ... although the ending, obviously, is the text-book definition of anticlimactic. I give it a decent two and a half tofu dogs out of four. Jimbo says check it out, but wait until it starts playing on Showtime so you can whack your weasel to it.
Actually, that's one of the better special effects in the movie.

Speaking of shameless, disgusting things, that brings us to our second feature of the week, the new Japaheeno horror-comedy Vampire Clay, which might just be the first zombie movie ever made about the standards being too darned high in Tokyo's art academies.

 The movie starts off with this middle-aged hag unearthing a bag of modeling clay in her backyard, and since this is a horror movie, of course it ain't no regular kind of modeling clay ... but we'll get back to that in just a minute. First, we've got to meet all the students at this one countryside art college, which I'm pretty sure is the Japanese equivalent of going to DeVry. Then the new girl in school unties the bag of mystery clay  and starts making facsimiles of starfruit with it and then she thinks she sees it breathing when she spritzes it with water and then their teacher comes in and tells them to not be so goddamned conventional with their designs, which considering they are Japanese, after all, is kinda' like trying to teach a fish to ride a unicycle.

 So the students (like Suspiria, they're all predominantly female) get kind of subversively catty with each other and then the clay grows penis-like tendrils and starts stealing their razor blades. Then one of the girls pokes herself on a discarded razor and bleeds all over a ceramic ashtray in the making and this old one dude shows up and just stares at the bike rack and he sees somebody dug a hole in the backyard and he has flashbacks of a giant hot dog monster eating everybody and then he starts running to the hills like a madman. Then the clay escapes at night and starts lurching around the place looking like a sentient dog turd and eating all the school's pet gerbils. 

 Then the students kvetch about not being good enough to get into a real art school and their teacher has flashbacks to her husband cheating on her and then — conveniently enough — an earthquake strikes. Then they bicker and argue over the role of "individuality" in modern art some more and then this one girl sneaks into the art room after hours and one of the clay sculptures comes alive and starts eating her hand. Then it barfs out the gerbil it ate later and it sprouts tendrils and jumps in her mouth and she has to poke the possessed clay head with a fork but when she goes to text for help her OWN fingers turn into taffy and next thing you know her hands are melding together into a big old wad of intestinal bubble gum and then one of her arms falls off and then the other arm turns into a Play-Doh whale and eats her entire upper torso.

 Then the girl everybody thought got ate by Play-Doh shows up out of the woods and she razor blades another student while she's grabbing a smoke so she can eat her blood, then her face falls off and she starts shoving her big cancer-squid clay hands inside her gizzards. Then she shows up a couple of minutes later looking all normal and stuff, but right before she can attack her teacher with a box cutter the only male student there accidentally bumps it out of her hands. Then she does something truly evil — she eats one of her fellow students' rice lunches without their permission. Then she grabs a butcher knife and cuts his face with it then a set of Kermit the Frog lips pop out of her head and start eating him. Then he's possessed with Play-Doh fever and he's running around waving a butcher knife around like Michael Myers and he ends up hacking off his own hand and then more clay tendrils start chasing after another girl, then he replaces his arm with a triangular ruler and the girl shoves it through his left cheek and then he starts trying to headbutt her like Bam Bam Bigelow and that's when the teacher shows up to shove a lunchbox through his face and knock his head clean off his shoulders. Then the crazy old man from the beginning of the mouth shows up with a portable heater and dries his ass up before stomping him into a million billion pieces.

 Then we get the back story on the titular vampire clay. Apparently some autistic sculptor sold his soul to the devil so he could meet the requirements of a big restaurant order or something like that. But apparently he lived on top a toxic waste dump so he had super cancer, so he decided to start making sculptures with his own blood and the restaurant guy Jews him out of his royalties so they get into a kung fu fight and the sculptor keels over and I think his soul entered the sculpture's body or something. Oh, and that restaurant guy is the crazy old man, because apparently, even shitty Japanese movies nowadays need some sort of midway-point plot twist.

 Then the surviving two girls, their teacher and the old dude start rounding up all the stray pieces of clay they can find, then one of the zombies shows up with a Mr. Potato Head doll growing out of the left side of her face and she throws a scalpel at them so the old dude has no choice but to blowtorch her. Then there's an earthquake and a bag of dried clay gets ripped open and the old dude breathes in the dust and he gives him autistic sculptor zombie flu, too and he starts coughing up blood and a giant frog-retard sculpture starts growing out of his chest and turns into a herky-jerky stop-motion midget that's ready to eat everybody left in the cast.  Which means you know EXACTLY what to expect in the grand finale:  two girls, one claymation monster, one VERY unreliable homemade blowtorch and a whole hell of a lot of things getting stabbed over and over again ... only for the final 15 minutes of the movie to consist of the sole surviving art student consoling her teacher for not getting into the good arts academy when she was younger and them burying the zombie clay in one of them suicide forests Japan's all famous for.

 And yes, there is a sequel hook, of course — so next year, be on the lookout for the follow-up, Vampire Mixed Media.  

 We've got seven dead bodies. No breasts. Six zombies. One dead gerbil. Multiple claymation rape attempts. Arms roll. Hands roll. Face slashing. Head stomping. Bloody face picking. Gratuitous slow-motion effect, for no discernible reason whatsoever. Gratuitous business partner battering. Box cutter fu. Fork fu. Plastic ruler fu. Blowtorch fu. And the thing more or less responsible for this movie existing in the first place ... some heavy duty ceramics fu.

 Starring Ena Fujita as the final girl ... or, at least, the final girl who isn't in the clutches of menopause; Asuka Kurosawa as the art school teacher who has to protect her students from zombies using plastic compasses; Kanji Tsuda as the unscrupulous restaurateur who still feels guilty about turning his business partner into a  piece of sentient sculpting clay 20 years later; and Kanji Tsuda as the creator of the titular vampire clay, who probably won't become the next big horror genre icon, no matter how bad the makers of the movie tried.

 Written and directed by first time feature film director and special effects maestro Soichi Umezawa, who has to be given a little bit of credit for trying to merge The Thing with Heathers for about 45 yen and almost being halfway successful at it, to boot.

 It might be a little too wacky for hardcore horror fans and a little too gross for the normies, and while it's far from being a brilliant, subversive, Gozu or Visitor Q type arthouse J-horror flick, it's still pretty enjoyable for what it is. I give it an OK two and a half tofu dogs out of four. Jimbo says check it out, but only if you've got way too much time to kill one rainy afternoon.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

The Rocktagon Recap of UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2!

Can't check out tonight's latest and greatest MMA PPV, for whatever stupid ass reason? No problem, homey ... our industry-leading round-by-round coverage will keep you abreast of the action all night long.


By: Jimbo X

Yeah, it's been a while since we've covered a UFC show, ain't it? Well, that's primarily because the UFC hasn't exactly given us any PPVs worth going out of our ways to witness since January, but thankfully, that drought appears to be over with UFC 225.

Tonight's spectacular from Chicago is no doubt a stacked card. In fact, it's so stacked that Rashad Evans, Sergio Pettis, Clay Guida and Joseph Benavidez are having to fight on Fight Pass instead of normal TV. Which, yeah, I guess could also be an indictment of how far their respective stocks as professional fighters has diminished over the last couple of years, but whatever. 

All you need to know, really, is that tonight's show has a little bit of everything. Up and coming heavyweights looking to knock each other silly. A who's who list of women fighters duking it out in an obsolete struggle to keep MMA's female division relevant post-Ronda Rousey. Two of the best lightweight fighters on the planet going toe-to-toe for a substitute championship crown. A fan favorite former pro wrestler trying to redeem himself after getting his ass destroyed in his debut fight. And, of course, our main event attraction — a rematch of one of 2017's most underrated fights, which thanks to Yoel Romero's inconsistent dieting, is now a non-championship affair. But then again, it's not like we really expect our favorite Cuban to do much of anything that makes sense, which is why he's clearly our favorite hard-line Christian ex-Commie in MMA.

Naturally, not everybody has the ability to screen these kinds of shows, though. Some of you might be too poor to afford the $59.99 asking price for the PPV, while others may have computers too slow and shitty to effectively stream the card, legal or otherwise. And, of course, knowing my audience, I'm sure at least half of you have either had your licenses suspended or been banned from the local sports bar for trying to give the waitresses the old magic thumb, so watching this thing at a nearby watering hole is beyond the question. Therefore, as a vital community service, I'm offering you kids my FREE AND COMPLIMENTARY round-by-round coverage of UFC 225 all night long, beginning TONIGHT at 8 p.m. EST. So go on ahead and bookmark this shit and hit the refresh button early and often — this thing is going to get updated early and often, and trust me, you don't want to miss a single second of the tomfoolery. And hey! Why don't you do you and yourself a favor by telling some of your fighting fan friends about what we're doing tonight? Surely, they will appreciate your considerable nature, and mayhap even suck your dick for being so helpful.

FOX SPORTS 1 PRELIM BOUTS

Alright, we are coming to you LIVE from some arena in Chicago. I think it's the one the Bulls play in, but I'm not 100 percent sure. Our announcers are Jon Anik, Joe Rogan and Jimmy Smith. Yep, the guy who used to be in Bellator. Goddamn, now THAT is a trade war.

Heavyweight Bout
Rashad Coulter (8-3-0-0) vs. Chris de la Rocha (4-2-0-0)

Yep, we be living in a world where Rashad Coulter is curtain jerking a live TV show and Rashad Evans is reduced to fighting for free on Facebook. Man, ain't that a kick in the pants. Anyhoo Coulter is 8-3 as a pro, but he's lost his last two fights badly by KO. His opponent (no relation to the dude from Rage Against the Machine, by the way), is also coming off back-to-back TKO losses, so you know what that means — if these two mamma jammas ain't headhunting like bush people and looking for a five-star knockout, we'll ALL be sorely disappointed.
[POST-SCRIPT: OK, so I didn't see this one live as it happened. But apparently it was a pretty solid heavyweight brawl that ended with de la Rocha winning via second round ground and pound. Maybe worth going out of your way to watch.]

Featherweight Bout
Ricardo Lamas (18-6-0-0) vs. Mirsad Bektic (12-1-0-0)

Old Ricardo has had an up-and-down career since joining the UFC in 2011. Over a span of 13 fights, he's gone 9-4, having most recently gotten his lights turned out by Josh Emmett via TKO last December. Meanwhile, opponent Mirsad Bektic is 12-1 in pro fights, with his only loss coming in the form of a third round K.O. loss to Darren Elkins in what is probably the best fight of all of of 2017. Considering their respective pedigrees, this one ought to be a good one, folks. Like I said though … "ought to."
[POST-SCRIPT: Yeah, I didn't watch this one either, but Bektic won it by unanimous decision in what I hear was a pretty ho-hum bout. Probably worth skipping.]

Women's Strawweight Bout
Claudia Gadelha (15-3-0-0) vs. Carla Esparza (13-4-0-0)

I don't know if it'll make her feel any better, but Gadelha only seems to get beat down by people named Joanna Jedrzejczyk or Jessica Andrade. Of course, Carla Esparza ain't neither one of them, so I reckon that should make Gadelha feel slightly better about her chances these evening. Not that Esparza is an off-night herself; she's got a pretty decent two-fight win streak going on, complete with decisions wins over Maryna Moroz and Cynthia Calvillo. Just, uh, pretend like you know who those people are, though.
[POST-SCRIPT: Of course, I missed this one, but even if I was watching the show live I probably would've tuned out, anyway. Regardless, it was a close bout, the Internet told me, with Gadelha winning by split decision. For hardcore MMA fans/proponents of women's equality only.]

Heavyweight Bout
Alistair Overeem (43-16-0-1) vs. Curtis Blaydes (9-1-0-1)

Yeah, this show is so stacked The Reem didn't even make it to the main PPV card. Anyhoo, the last time we saw Alistair he was getting his head knocked somewhere towards Neptune by Francis Ngannou, so naturally, he'll be looking to get the taste of that bitter defeat out of his mouth tonight against Chicago-based fighter Curtis Blaydes, who, much to my chagrin, isn't related to SHONDO Blades from that one LARPING reality TV game show on ABC from a few years back. Anyhoo, Blaydes (whose nickname, unfortunately, isn't "Bey") is on a three fight tear, and a win tonight over Overeem wouldn't just be the biggest of his career … it might be a big enough upset to propel him to a potential title eliminator fight. So, in other words? Yes, the UFC Heavyweight Division actually is THAT bad nowadays ...
[POST-SCRIPT: The first two rounds were utter dog shit, but you NEED to see the third and final round, when Blaydes elbows Overeem into mincemeat. Like, that nigga makes blood pop out of his skull like a plasma-filled pinata, and it is glorious.]
Go ahead, kids. Come up with your own smartass caption for this one. (Do note Jackson's tattoo of The Brain from Pinky and the Brain, though.)

 PPV BOUTS

Well, so much for covering the prelims, huh? Sorry about that, kids ... I had to take the wife out for a walk and Arby's, and apparently, that takes two hours these days.

Welterweight Bout
CM Punk (0-1) vs. Mike Jackson (0-1)

Well, we all know what happened the LAST time Phil Brooks tried his hand at this whole "Ultimate Fighting" business. With an 0-2 combined amateur/professional record (including a RNC loss against THAT Mickey Gall in less than a minute in the de facto eliminator to face Punk in his FIRST UFC outing), Mike Jackson gets another crack at tasting victory this evening, as does his WWE-import rival, who's probably headed back to the indies if he loses tonight's bout.

"You're about to see a more experienced CM Punk," Phil sees in the pre-fight hype promo. Well, shit, that kind of goes without saying, don't it? Also, he says he wants to win the fight for the "whole city of Chicago," so way to put the pressure on your own shoulders, Phil.

 Mike Jackson comes out to the hip-hop music. He's a former Golden Gloves champion, so that doesn't bode well for CM Punk at all. Oh and Pat Militech is in his corner, if you care. Punk, of course, comes out "Cult of Personality." He looks WAY skinnier than last time. "The loser of this fight becomes a meme," Jimmy Smith says. Holy shit, that is the greatest line I think I've ever heard an MMA commentator say, by a country mile.

 Huh. I wonder how I failed to mention Mike Jackson's prominent "Black Power" tattoo on his right titty? Anyway, he's soundly booed while CM Punk gets a mostly positive reaction, but nothing deafening or anything like that.

 Loud "CM Punk" chants to begin. Wow, that's surreal. Mike with a hard right. CM Punk has the slowest spins I've ever seen. Punk with a clinch against the cage. Jackson reverses it. We have separation and they're standing in the center of the cage again. Jackson lands a couple of shots, and CM Punk goes for another clinch. Punk with knees to the body. Punk shoots for a takedown but he can't stick it. Separation again. Another Punk takedown is stuffed. He looks winded as fuck right now. Punk is bleeding heavily from his nose. PUNK LANDS THE TAKEDOWN. He's in side control. Jackson is back up and he lands some good shots to the liver as the round expires. Holy shit ... Punk may have actually won that round.

 Round two. The "CM Punk" chants flare up again. Punk shoots for another takedown, and Jackson stands strong. Separation, and CM Punk now has a dried blood Hitler mustache. Jackson staggers Punk with a hard right. Punk looking for a standing guillotine. Jackson is in the full guard. Jackson looking for hammer fists from the top. Punk's face never bled like this in the WWE, that's for sure. Now Jackson is pounding Punk without even looking at him, just for the LULZ. Punk trying to work something from the closed guard. Thirty seconds left in the round. Punk tries to tie up Jackson's hands. Yep, that's a definite 10-8 round for Jackson, maybe even a 10-7.

 Round three. Punk is already breathing heavy. His face looks like somebody rented it for a cutting board for a couple of months. Punk shoots for a takedown, he stumbles and Jackson rocks him. The ref stands them up. Punk goes for the shittiest jumping knee you've ever seen in your life. Punk with a clinch against the cage, and Rogan says he thinks somebody paid Jackson to let the fight make it three rounds. Punk goes for a desperation knee bar, but he can't land it. "There's a lot of time when 'heart' just means a longer beating," Smith says. Man, this motherfucker is just a quote machine tonight. Jackson literally punches Punk's ass from the north-south position. Twenty seconds left. Punk just kind of slobbers on Jackson's navel as the round concludes, to a chorus of boos from the audience.

 It's 30-26 across the board for Mike "The Truth" Jackson. He literally takes a selfie while his hand is raised for the decision. He said he was cool during the fight, but not as cool as he could've been because they wouldn't let him smoke weed. And then he says something about Allah, I think. And LOL, CM Punk doesn't get a post-fight interview.

Heavyweight Bout
Andrei Arlovski (27-15-0-1) vs. Tai Tuivasa (7-0-0-0)

No, Tuivasa isn't the backup quarterback for Alabama, nor one of the first openly homosexual players in NFL history. Rather, he's an undefeated Australian fighter that's won ALL of his previous fights by first round knockout or TKO. And Andrei Arlovski, for better or worse, is still Andrei Arlovski — albeit, an Andrei Arlovski on a two-fight winning streak, which doesn't exactly overshadow the fact he lost his last FIVE fights in the Octagon before that.

 Tai comes out to the Celine Dion song from Titanic. Like, he's belting the shit out and trying to get the crowd to sing along to it, too. "He hates to train and loves to eat," Anik says. Arlovski comes out waving the flag of the Chicago police department, which, much to my surprise, isn't an emblem depicting five cops beating the shit out of an unarmed teenage negro.

 Huh, Arlovski is actually fighting out of Chicago these days. Didn't know that. This is the Pitbull's 44th pro fight. The Twin Towers were still standing when he made his UFC debut, believe it or not. Tai falls on his big fat belly and Arlovski lands a hard land kick. Tai is so fat he literally has a second butthole growing under his belly button. Arlovski with another hard leg kick. Tai falls atop Arlovski, and oh shit, he's in the full mount. Huh ... Arlovski paints his toenails. Well, that's gross. Tai not doing a whole lot from the top. Tai is bleeding like a stuck pig and he DROPS Arlovski with a straight jab. He lets Arlovski up for more punishment. Arlovski with a knee in the clinch against the cage. Tai with a good combo after the separation. Tai lands a head kick and falls flat on his big fat ass. They circle each for a few seconds as the bell sounds.

 Round two. Arlovski with leg kicks early. He misses by about three ZIP codes on a high kick. Tai connects on a one-two combo. Arlovski fires back with some hard rights. Tai with a clinch against the cage. Arlovski with a high kick and Tai lands some good jabs. Tai with a good flurry and Andrei ties him up against the cage. Arlovski says Tai poked him in the eye, so that's a timeout. The video replay doesn't show much scratching, and the fisticuffs doth resume. Both men rock each other in back-to-back blows. Arlovski goes for the world's slowest spinning back fist, Tai pops him a few times and that's all she wrote for the second.

 Round three. Tai with some leg kicks to begin. Both men look a little hesitant to throw now. Arlovski rattles off a nice combo. Tai's nose is a bloody faucet. Arlovski whiffs on a head kick. Tai tries to close the gap and he lands a solid left hook. Tai with some VERY hard shots against the cage. About a minute left. Arlovski lands a barrage of punches. And there's that shitty spinning back fist again. Tai is sucking wind something wicked. Nobody does shit in the final ten seconds of the bout, and there's the horn.

 Let's hear from the judges, why don't we? It's 29-28 across the board for Tai. Well, that's a controversial decision, to say the least. "Andrei, you put a fuckin' fight on, brotha," he says in the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. Then he says he's going to go home and drink beer out of a shoe, and Joe lets us know how fucking nasty that is. Then Tai goes into the crowd and LITERALLY drinks beer out of some random fan's tennis shoe, and yeah, that is EVERY bit as gross looking as it sounds.
...when something makes the dude who hosted Fear Factor want to barf, you KNOW you're dealing with some nasty shit.

Women's Featherweight Bout
Holly Holm (11-4-0-0) vs. Megan Anderson (8-2-0-0)

I am shocked that TNA or ROH hasn't tried to recruit Holly Holm for at least one or two shows by now. I mean, she *is* the woman who exposed the illusion of Ronda Rousey, ain't she? Regardless, the former boxer hasn't looked to good since beating The Rowdy One at UFC 193, having gone a pitiful 1-4 in the Octagon ever since (with her latest loss a one-sided drubbing at the manly, manly hands of Cris Cyborg last December.) Anyhoo, her opponent is an Invicta import who's on a four-fight tear, with all of her wins dating back to 2016 coming via TKO. Of course, she did chicken out of a previous bout against Cris Cyborg, so I'd say it's a 50-50 at best that she actually puckers up the ovos to throw down in this one, too.

 Well, I walked a puppy so I missed the entire first round. But then again, this is women's MMA, so honestly, how much could I have really missed here?

 Round two. Megan is officially the palest bitch I've ever seen in my life. And Holly Holm, as she long has, resembles a meth-dealing truck driver. Looks like Anderson outweighs Holm by about 20, 25 pounds. Holm shoots for a takedown, and we have ourselves an extended clinch against the cage. Holm gets a takedown and she's working from side control. Now she's elbowing Megan's wide-ass birthing hips. Holm may be going for a kimura. Now Holm is back in the full mount. She lands two big shots and locks in an arm triangle. There's about a minute left in the round. Holm gets a second or two worth of ground and pound before Megan blocks it with her lanky ass chicken legs. Holm with a series of elbows to the face carries us to the bell.

 Round three. Two big things I probably should've told you about earlier — Ronda Rousey is being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame and Demetrious Johnson will  be rematching Henry Cejudo at UFC 227 in early August. Holm literally kicks Anderson in the vagina. Like, I'm pretty sure she got penetration with at least two of her toes. Holm looking for another takedown. And she gets it. Holm is dominating that ho from the top. Christopher Reeves would've had more mobility in this fight than Anderson. They're standing again. Holm gets another takedown. That's her fourth of the fight. LOL at Joe saying there's nobody else for Amanda Nunes to fight other than Holm. Holly locks Megan up in a guillotine as the bell sounds.

 30-27 and two 30-26s to give Holm the obvious unanimous decision win. In the post-fight Joe says she's one of the best female fighters on the planet and the fans cheer her pretty hard. Is she from Chicago or something? Because it's really strange that the audience is that behind her.

 Alright, time for a video package to pimp the co-main. Right after we take a look at a bunch of drunks at some random pub in Chicago, of course.

UFC Interim Welterweight Championship Bout
Rafael dos Anjos (28-9-0-0) vs. Colby Covington (13-1-0-0)

Tyron Woodley WAS the 170-pound champ, but he vacated the title for ... well, honestly, I don't care why, to be honest. So now we've got Rafael dos Anjos (whose jaw is LITERALLY made out of titanium) going toe-to-toe with Colby Covington (who, to the best of my knowledge, has a jaw that is only made out of bones and stuff) for the interim (read:make-believe) Welterweight Championship. Regardless, dos Anjos is riding a three-fight winning streak with victories over Robbie Lawler, Neil Magny and Tarec Saffiedine, while Covington is riding a five-fight winning streak with victories over Demian Maia, Dong Hyun Kim (well, one of them, at least) and Bryan Barberena, among others. On paper, this should be a pretty interesting little match-up. Like I said, though — "on paper."

 Colby comes out first and he gets booed like a motherfucker. Meanwhile, RDA comes out to music from a random Neo Geo game, I think. BTW, Terence Crawford just beat Jeff Horn, and Tyson Fury — who I had NO IDEA was fighting today — just retired some can in the fourth round.

 Both men come out swinging early. Colby gets the takedown, but RDA is right back up. Colby smothering him against the cage and we have separation. RDA's ear has exploded and blood is drippin' everywhere. Colby looking for another takedown. Colby with a kick to the face. Colby's pressure is relentless. RDA lands a knee to the solar plexus. RDA with some elbows in the clinch. RDA keeps landing those knees. They exchange leg kicks. RDA sticks a right jab. Colby bullies RDA into the cage, but he whiffs on the spinning back fist. Colby holds onto the cageside clinch as the bell sounds.

 Round two. This fight is brought to you by Modelo Cerveza, the beer of choice for Mexican alcoholics north and south of the border. Colby goes right back to smothering RDA against the cage. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Separation, and RDA lands a kick to the shoulder. "Colby sucks" chant flares up. We have a scramble, and Colby presses RDA's back against the cage once more. RDA is outlanding Colby on body strikes, 17 to 5. RDA clips Colby with a right. They're both trading paint in the center of the cage. Colby bullies RDA into the cage yet again. Colby lands a takedown. That's his fourth landed so far in this fight. He has RDA's back with about half a minute left. Colby's got a nasty cut above his eye. They both swing wildly to end the second.

 Round three. Take a wild guess what Colby does first thing out the gate? If you said "push RDA into the cage," you sir, are correct. RDA with some knees in the clinch. Colby with some good leg kicks. Colby lands a takedown. RDA is up, but Colby holds onto his back. RDA wants a timeout after Colby kicks him in the testicles. Well, that was a blatant ball blaster. Huh ... Colby does kinda' look like John Cena a little. RDA lands a good uppercut, only to eat a knee from Colby and another flurry of punches. Time for another clinch against the cage. He has RDA's back. Colby with a kick to the ribs. Colby with another cageside clinch, and that'll do it for the third.

 Round four. RDA land his best shot of the night, a heavy right hand, right out the gate. But Colby bounces back. Colby literally lawn darts RDA into the cage mesh. Oh shit, RDA gets a takedown and now he's in the full mount. RDA working a front choke. Colby back to his feet and he escapes. RDA with another takedown. RDA almost has Colby's back. RDA with a ton of knees to the thighs. Separation and both men are swinging. RDA with another takedown, but Colby is right back up. We are DEAD EVEN on significant strikes at this point. Both men throwing wild, looping punches. Colby secures a facile single leg takedown, and that'll carry us to the bell.

 Round five. Colby desperately trying to secure the takedown. He has RDA's back. RDA goes for a jumping knee and Colby punches him right in the fucking face in mid-air. Colby throwing a ton of kicks now. RDA going for a kimura as Colby eyes yet another takedown. RDA with a kick to the ribs and Colby lands a tremendous combo. Colby looking for a takedown with about 90 seconds left. And sure enough, Colby bullies him into the cage yet again. Both men swinging for the fences in the center of the cage, and Colby appears to have gotten the better of the closing salvo.

 We go to the judges. It's 49-46 and two 48-47s for Colby. Covington cuts an AMAZING post-fight interview in which he calls Tyron Woodley a bitch, refers to RDA as a "filthy animal" and promises to put the belt on the desk of Donald Trump because he's a REAL American, damn it. Shit, that made this whole PPV worth it right there.

 Time to pimp UFC 226. Yep, that one oughta' be a good 'un, alright.

 Oh holy shit, I just saw Colby Covington's Twitter, and he literally called RDA a "soy boy." It's official — Colby is now my favorite MMA fighter.

UFC Middleweight Championship Bout (LOL, JK, This Bout Doesn't Mean Shit For Anybody)
Robert Whittaker (19-4-0-0) vs. Yoel Romero (13-2-0-0)

Wait a minute. Last time I checked, wasn’t GSP the Middleweight Champion? When did Whittaker wind up with the belt? Oh that's right — the UFC just *gave* it to him a month later without even having to beat anybody for it. Anyhoo, Whittaker is back from a staph infection that almost killed him and he'll be duking it out with Yoel "No For Gay Jesus" Romero, the same man he bested by unanimous decision at UFC 213 last July in what was easily one of the ten best MMA fights of 2017. Regardless, Romero is fresh off a third round knockout victory over Luke Rockhold in February and, of course, I'm just sure he'd love to avenge his defeat at the hands of Whittaker and strap UFC gold around his waist for the first time in his career (which he definitely won't be doing tonight because his stupid ass couldn't make weight.) Considering how good the first match was, there's no reason for this one to disappoint — here's to hoping these two guys don't let us down this evening.

Romero comes out to something that sounds like it was pulled from the Samba de Amiga soundtrack. BTW ... this is the SECOND time he's missed weight for a championship bout. Meanwhile, Whittaker comes out to the rapping music, which is something I only know about if it involves Bushwick Bill and Inspectah Deck.

 Romero is 14 years older than Whittaker. At 41-years-old, methinks Romero is well on his way to becoming the modern day MMA equivalent of Bernard Hopkins. Whittaker kicking the knee early. More leg kicks for Whittaker, and he's using it to set up the jab. Romero lands a big left. And another big 'un. Whittaker with more knee kicks. Whittaker isn't giving up on that jab. Romero misses by a mile on a spinning back fist. Give Romero some credit, his standing guard is outstanding. Romero wobbles Whittaker with a leg kick of his own. Romero misses on another spinning back fist as the bell sounds. "That just tore a hole in time," Rogan comments.

 Round two. Whittaker is leading Romero on strikes, 34-8. Whittaker with a big overhand shot and Romero lands a high kick. Whittaker with more kicks to the body. Romero misses on a head kick. Yoel's eye is swollen shut. It's bad enough to stop the fight, really. Yoel with a ton of desperation strikes and he slips on a takedown attempt.

 Round three. The swelling on Romero's eye has gone down a little. Whittaker misses on a huge head kick. ROMERO DROPS WHITTAKER WITH A MASSIVE UPPERCUT! He temporarily has Whittaker's back, but the defending champ is back up. Now we've got a standing fucking war going on and it is beautiful. Whittaker is bleeding profusely from the nose and connects on a spinning back fist. Romero lands a straight jab. Romero with a ton of punches and Whittaker lands a HUGE head kick. Romero has Whittaker's back. Now Whittaker is pressing Yoel against the cage. The hug it out as the bell sounds. Shit, that HAS to be the best single round of MMA action to go down so far in 2018, and it isn't even close.

 Round four. Both men get a standing ovation heading into championship rounds ... even though this isn't a championship bout, naturally. Whittaker lands a head kick. He kicks Romero again on an aborted spinning back fist. Romero's eye looks like it is starting to close again. Romero gets a timeout after Whittaker kicks him in the sack. UFC bylaws say Romero has five minutes to regain his composure, so if he's smart, he'll take every last second. Alright, timeout's over. Whittaker with a flurry of jabs. Romero connects on a straight jab. Looks like Whittaker may have broken his hand. Romero with a gut kick. Romero misses on a Superman punch, and Whittaker misses on a haymaker. Romero pops Whittaker good. He lands another big right, and that's our segue to the fifth and final stanza.

 Round five. Pretty much whoever wins this round wins the whole she-bang. Romero with a great one-two combo, but Whittaker continues to press forward. Romero misses on another spinning back fist. Whittaker connects on two snapping jabs. ROMERO DROPS WHITTAKER AGAIN! Romero with some nasty ground and pound and Whittaker is turtling up. Whittaker gets to his feet and Romero shoot-pedigrees that nigga. Romero with a leg trip and he has Whittaker's back. Romero with another leg trip but Whittaker is right back up. Less than a minute left. Romero goes for a spinning crescent kick but Whittaker kicks his leg out from under him. We have a brief exchange at the very end, and that's all she wrote, kiddos.

 Yikes, this is going to be a hard one to score. The judges see it 48-47 Romero, 48-47 Whittaker and ... 48-47 WHITTAKER.

 The fans mostly boo the decision. Whittaker said Romero looks weak, "but he hits like a croc." Rogan asks him if a rubber match is in order. Whittaker doesn't really give an answer. Meanwhile, Romero apologizes for not losing enough weight and says "God bless America, and Chicago, too." Rogan asks if he wants a third fight, and Romero says ... well, I'll be honest with you, I have no earthly clue.

 Alright, you kids get some sleep and I'll be back in first thing in the morning with some more substantial thoughts. But all in all, that was a pretty solid card, complete with the presumptive front-runner for 2018 FOTY — kinda' hard to complain about that, ain't it?
Apparently, depth perception isn't all that important when it comes to whippin' dat ass.

SO, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Yeah, there needs to be a third Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker bout and soon. This thing is slowly turning into the best, most consistently awesome rivalry in MMA, and if Yoel can ever find a way to make weight, I'm sure it'd make for quite the championship contest, to boot. I mean, shit else are you going to do — give Luke Rockhold, or even Chris Weidman, another crack at the strap instead? Colby Covington made himself a star tonight in his one-sided drubbing of dos Anjos, and considering their wildly divergent fighting styles (and identity politics), the UFC HAS to have him square off against Tyron Woodley to determine the world's best welterweight for real by the time 2018 wraps up. Along those same lines, Holly Holm vs. Amanda Nunes for the women's bantamweight strap is pretty much a foregone conclusion considering the night's turn of events, and why the hell not book Curtis Blaydes vs. Tai Tuivasa for a late summer scrap?

 THE VERDICT? This was a a really, really good show that's probably a whole lot more important in the long haul than it initially appears. Romero/Whittaker 2 is probably the runaway pick for best fight of the year thus far, but you can't discount the gravitas of the rest of the card either. You had Colby Covington making himself a star by making RDA look like a bitch and cutting the best post-bout promo of 2018 immediately afterwards, you had Holly Holm reasserting herself as one of like, three truly marketable female fighters in the company and with Tuivasa and Blaydes each notching upset wins over vets likes like Arlovski and Overeem, we may have seen a changing of the divisional torch, so to speak, before our very eyes. Factor in Rashad Evans getting destroyed in the Facebook fights and CM Punk's MMA "career" going up in smoke and you have all the makings of a quasi-historic card ... although it will almost certainly be all but forgotten about by the end of the year.

 SHOW HIGHLIGHT: Whittaker/Romero 2 was everything it needed to be and Covington's post-fight promo was downright god-tier.

 SHOW LOWLIGHT: I guess watching Holly Holm go Caged Heat on Megan Anderson for 15 pointless minutes wasn't exactly the most thrilling way to spend a Saturday evening.

 ROGAN-ISM OF THE NIGHT: "Underneath that fat, there's a lot of muscle" — Joe on the body composition of Tai Tuivasa.

 FIVE THINGS I LEARNED FROM TONIGHT'S SHOW:

 (*) Apparently, it's way harder hitting a Go 2 Sleep or Pepsi Plunge in a real fight than it is in the world of 'rasslin.

 (*) It's not officially a "shoey" unless somebody spits in your Reebok first.

 (*) Being a world champion in Invicta means about as much as having the highest grades in remedial math.

 (*) Donald Trump supporters have far better takedown skills than you'd think.

 (*) Only having 50 percent of your vision actually makes you a better fighter, just as long as you're a black Cuban dude who hates homos on the down low.

 Well, that's all I've got for you this week, kids. Crank up "Cellophane" by Knapsack and "Little Pink Stars" by Radish and I'll be seeing you cageside in just a few, folks ...

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