By George Shunick

There must be something about early July that gets Americans riled up at the British. This year it’s former Marine (not Army, as I mistakenly implied last time) Brian Stann who is ready to do battle with vile, pasty British person Michael Bisping. Ok, so if you want to get technical about it, Bisping kind of called out Stann first. Whatever. The point is that Stann is the latest in a long line of Americans who have stood against this insufferable British menace.

Now, I try not to devolve into hyperbole, but I think it’s safe to say that since his humiliating loss to Dan Henderson, Michael Bisping has had one thing on his mind – the destruction of America itself. Though presumably suffering through the devastating aftereffects of the H-Bomb, Bisping bided his time with a detour through a few Brazilians, where he met with mixed success. When he was ready, he returned to the rebellious colonies, determined to finish the war his forefathers had started centuries ago.

His first strike against Dan Miller went largely unnoticed; there was no reason to suspect Bisping would dare take any further action against America. Bisping then took on Japan’s Yoshiro Akiyama, which seemed to cement this theory – but is it a coincidence that Japan, Akiyama’s home country, is under the protection of American troops? I think not. Bisping became more brazen after this conquest, challenging Army veteran and Tim Kennedy training partner Jorge Rivera. Rivera admirably attempted to subvert the devious Brit’s diabolical scheme using psychological warfare, but it backfired in brutal fashion. Bisping was befuddled by Rivera’s tactics to the extent that he forgot the rule against kneeing the head of a downed opponent, leading to Rivera’s demise. Bisping also forgot common decency and sportsmanship, a staple of British culture from all accounts, and proceeded to spit at Rivera’s corner in the heated aftermath of the fight. Or he was never aware of them to begin with. Either way, his anti-American agenda was made clear.

("Ladies, do you mind? Gonzaga-Carwin is about to start.")

There’s simply nothing better in the world than screaming at a row of flat-screen TVs in a sports bar during UFC events, surrounded by a pack of howling MMA fans, buzzed off of dollar-drafts of Bud Light. (Honestly, we defy you to find something better than that. The love of a child? Ha.) So in our continuing efforts to serve you, CagePotato is setting out to determine America’s 25 best bars/pubs/lounges/other-places-that-serve-booze to watch MMA. And we need your help to come up with some nominees. So what makes for a great MMA bar? Well…

— The bar in question always shows UFC and other important MMA events, with the sound actually turned on.
— The fights are shown on multiple screens, so you don’t always have to be pointed in one direction.
— You are never charged a ridiculous cover to come in during pay-per-view events.
— The place draws a fun, enthusiastic crowd, high on attractive women and low on douchebags
— It’s a solid place to hang out even when fights aren’t going on. The drink list is deep, and the place either contains a diverse jukebox or a DJ whose shit is on point.

If the place you go to watch MMA meets most of these criteria, we want to hear about it. Go to this forum thread and tell us the bar’s name, the town it’s in, its website if it has one, and a little bit about why MMA fans should go there. If you play your cards right, we might just organize a CagePotato meetup there one of these days — and your first dollar-draft will be on us. Thanks guys!

(My inner child, consumed with rage.)

One of the things I like to do in my spare time is read the internet and get mad. I honestly love it, to the point where it’s a shockingly poor use of my time. But I can’t deny that there’s a pleasure in indulging in the viewpoints of others that drive me absolutely insane, sometimes more so than reading opinions that I already agree with. I stumbled on to a gem yesterday by Jamie Samuelsen of the Detroit Free Press, who managed to say almost nothing that I agreed with in a relatively short article about why MMA “won’t catch on to the mainstream.”

Here’s one of my favorite lines of reasoning from Samuelsen, who explains that while people tell him MMA is increasing in popularity, he doesn’t see it happening:

I don’t see the roots of the MMA. I don’t see it inherently in our culture. It’s a fascination, but it’s certainly not a participation sport. “Yeah, I do a little cage-fighting in my spare time. Let’s go see how the big boys do it.” I went to a UFC event at the Joe in 1996 when the sport was really picking up steam and was supposed to be the next big thing. Twelve years later, the sport has certainly grown. But has it grown to the extent that it was supposed to have. Yes it’s bigger, but I don’t think it’s that much bigger.

I bring this up not to bash Samuelsen’s viewpoint, but because it’s a fairly new criticism of MMA. We’re used to the human cockfighting angle, but this — this claim that it’s not rooted in our culture and not “a participation sport” — is something different, and something worth responding to.