it is deeply annoying to enjoy MMA as a combat sport while 95% of the fandom and the participants are the worst chuds imaginable

This is stupid for more reasons than I can get into, but the UFC is a fight promotion and does not employ fighters or trainers. This isn’t like contracting the Dodgers to teach you how to play baseball, it’s like contracting the Dodgers’ front office to do so.

I’ll give this a watch today. Thank you.

Rahm's brother Ari is the CEO of the company that owns WWE and UFC. Make of this what you will...

Just called UFC homophobic wrestling.

The worst part of Bonta caving on the Paramount merger is that it's a big flashing signal to every other company that there is no antitrust enforcement in America and you can bully your way into getting whatever you want. It's a monumentally bad decision.

Dispiriting, but probably right.

Left-wing media is divorced from anything combat sports related. This is likely due to there being little political and even cultural overlap between who occupies those worlds. This is extremely unfortunate because legislation or biz practices lefty media typically would cover go untouched.

i love polls that are like "BREAKING: 64% of country now aware of most painfully obvious liar and crook in national history"

UPDATE: Ed Sheeran’s backup band and openers quit his tour.

Of all the late stage Trump theories, wants the world to die with him seems increasingly credible.

Man, I can’t believe a prominent member of the MMA community used their celebrity to publicly endorse MAGA politics. How unusual.

MMA had a brief moment where it could highlight unique human interest stories or serve as emergent, almost punk rock cultural phenomena. Now it’s a vector for right-wing politics and home to low IQ dipshits desperately seeking Darwin Awards.

Fantastic thumbnail work from @lukethomas.bsky.social.

For sure. They want everyone to pretend forced, overtly right-wing things are just normally how things are.

It's obvious, of course, but what I think was really happening was that a right-leaning audience wasn't really aware of how overtly political and right-leaning the product had become. There's still denial on this front. Being told their product was political in a problematic way caused a reaction.

When I first started making the argument MMA was a vector for right-wing politics (esp. in Western Hemisphere), I got fierce blowback at the suggestion. Now it's conventional wisdom repeated in the Financial Times.