Tuesday, November 3 2:25 pm PT: Roy Jones tried straddling weight classes and it virtually ruined him; Jake Shields isn’t paying that much attention. The welterweight that defeated middleweight Robbie Lawler last June told MMAJunkie Radio Monday that he feels capable of contending for belts at both 170 and 185 pounds.
“I've bulked up,” Shields said. “I'm still not a true 185-pounder. But I've bulked up. During training I weigh 191 or 192 and it kind of sticks. I don't want to go much higher...The main reason I went up was because of the lack of good opponents for me.”
The analogy is a little shaky: Jones tried his hands at heavyweight, adding considerable mass, whereas Shields appears to be just cutting less and climbing into the cage as a smaller middleweight. But it does to speak to the lack of focus precipitated by Strikeforce’s welterweight division: Shields appears bored at his natural weight.
Shields didn’t have much of answer for the idea that training partner and friend Nick Diaz has the same attitude: take fights at whatever weight they come in at. One seems equally likely of sabotaging the other’s career arc at random. If you’re a fan with OCD, these can’t be two of your favorite fighters at the moment.
Tuesday, November 3 11:00 am PT: I’m growing bored with HBO’s “24/7” series -- it’s about boxing, which I find numbing -- and it’s been done over and over again: there are a finite amount of ways to film a fighter training and coping with family duties. But the channel had some morbid luck when it went to the Philippines recently to film Manny Pacquiao’s preparation for Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14: typhoons had razed much of the surrounding area, creating an obstacle of deep water for inhabitants.
Pacquiao has offered financial and moral assistance in the country; Filipino athletes stateside are doing much of the same work. Brandon Vera, Mark Munoz, and others have assisted Their Fight is Our Fight, a charitable entity devoted to helping victims of the torrential weather. Vera hosted a workshop last weekend in Los Angeles and told the Asian Journal that “he had to do something…I know it’s hard in the Philippines right now. There are people who lost a lot -- their homes, cars, aunties and uncles. I just want to tell them to keep their heads up and keep moving forward."
Vera meets Randy Couture in a little over a week; there’s more information on the charity’s website.
Tuesday, November 3 12:13 am PT: In the spirit of the great film studios announcing closure on “Gone with the Wind” or “The Godfather,” the WWE has announced production is complete on “Knucklehead,”
a film starring Paul “Big Show” Wright. This would normally be cause for alarm in any context, but MMA fans might feel especially unnerved by the idea that Wright portrays Walter Krunk, a church orphan who finds himself in a New Orleans mixed martial arts tournament.
“The kitchen fire Walter caused will close down the church’s orphanage in a week unless he comes up with $50,000,” reads the synopsis. “Upon overhearing Walter’s predicament, Eddie convinces the no-nonsense head nun, Sister Francesca that Walter can win the $100,000 grand prize at the tournament to pay off the church’s debts.” (Never mind who Eddie is. This is as detailed a summary as I’m willing to offer.)
“Knucklehead” is an intentional comedy, which means the WWE’s surprising embrace of MMA could feature some groin shots to the sport’s growing influence. Since I doubt any of Dorothy Parker’s descendants had a hand in the script, I don’t anticipate they’ll be all that cutting.
The film is scheduled for a Target bargain-bin release sometime in 2010. In the interim, I sincerely hope there’s a plastic shortage. The first order of business would be, naturally, to melt all copies of “The Marine.”
On Jake Shields:
“Are we pretending to hate each other? Nah. We poke fun at each other, but whatever. We don't really hate each other. I mean, if you want me to, I can hate him in an instant. The easiest emotion for me to come to is anger. I don't know why. It's always been that way. My dad is the same way. He could be sitting on the couch and just snap into an instant rage out of nowhere, and I can do the same thing. To me, it's not that big a deal to hate anybody. But I don't hate the guy; I'm just going to beat him up.”
More on Shields:
“On top of not being able to beat me in a fight, he can't beat me in a damn wordplay either. He talks like a mannequin. The time that we got him on ‘Bully Beatdown’ to say something, he couldn't say anything and he had a script. Some people are made for TV or radio, and I am and I've honed these skills over years of doing it. It's ridiculous. If you want viewership to drop in the toilet, he can host the show.”
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