Hello everyone, I’m back once again this week with some more of my timely and very entertaining thoughts.
I had a pretty great weekend watching UFC 300 at my parents’ house on Saturday night.
My dad said that he was interested in watching the PPV, so I invited myself over and made sure that I was there early at 6:30 p.m. in order to purchase it on time.
There’s just something about fighting that really speaks to me, and I have to say whether it’s mixed martial arts or boxing (I personally don’t have a favourite between them), I’ll gladly sit down and watch combat sports for hours on end.
I think it’s the high stakes and the brutal techniques that entertain me the most.
You never know if someone’s going to get knocked out or submitted, and I’m always sitting there on the edge of my seat with my eyes glued to the television watching with nervous anticipation.
When I lived in Nanaimo, I used to attend all the local MMA shows and got to watch my friends that I trained with get to fight other regional athletes.
Back in the late 2000’s, early 2010’s, there were definitely some pretty great regional cards that were put on by companies like Battlefield and King Of The Cage, and I remember that I would always go right back into the gym the following Monday night excited to train again after watching my friends go to battle on the weekend.
If you’re wondering, I never had an MMA fight.
I primarily trained grappling because I was paranoid about taking damaging blows to the head.
Concussions can be very dangerous, and I’ve definitely had my fair share of undocumented ones over the years, but even still, whenever I think back to that time in my life, I always say that one of my biggest regrets is that I never truly went for it and entered the cage for an amateur fight.
To put it bluntly, I don’t have killer instinct in my DNA. I always trained primarily for self defence purposes, so I don’t think I’d have done too well if I had fought, but it’s still fun to think about in the back of my head as a “what if.”
Anyways, back to UFC 300, it was a great card that was well worth purchasing. My dad and I really enjoyed getting to watch it together, and the highlight of the night had to be when Max Holloway ko’d Justin Gaethje with one second left in the fifth round to win the 155 lb “BMF” title.
Holloway was winning on all of the judges’ scorecards, yet he still entered the pocket and demanded for Gaethje to meet him in the center of the octagon and throw down with wild abandon for the final 10 seconds.
Moments like that are how legends are made, and Holloway really came through and showed everyone who he truly is as a fighter after three losses to Alexander Volkanovski at 145 lbs.
And while the 205 lb title fight main event between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill was a bit of a letdown (Pereira ko’d Hill easily in the very first round), every other fight on the card really delivered the goods and was well worth watching.
Tyson Whitney is an award-winning journalist who was born and raised in Port Hardy.
His family has lived in Port Hardy for more than 40 years. He graduated with a degree in writing from Vancouver Island University in 2008. Email: editor@northislandgazette.com