B.J. Penn

In B.J. Penn’s latest video blog he answers some fan mail and discusses his ongoing case against Georges St. Pierre that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has basically decided to hear, but do absolutely nothing in response to.  Penn seems to be blaming the NSAC’s Keith Kizer, saying he “can’t be trusted” and insisting that he has “no interest in fighting in Nevada or Las Vegas ever again.”

Just to clarify, that’s the UFC’s home base that he’s talking about – the city where the majority of their events are held.  And here the UFC lightweight champ says he doesn’t want to fight there ever again because the commission is made up of a bunch of shady ne'er-do-wells.  This could be a problem.

Everybody wants to video blog these days.  From Dana White to the hipster grifter, people all over the world have awakened to the power of pointing a camera at their own face while they do/say things.  But dammit, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.  What you see B.J. Penn doing up there is the wrong way.  Why?  Because he's just standing in front of the camera with the ocean as his background, talking for a minute and a half.  Again we hear about Marv Marinovich's revolutionary training methods, and again we see none of it. 

Here's the question you have to ask yourself when you video blog: am I doing anything here that could not be done in a really long voicemail message?  If the answer is no, it's time to rethink your approach.  If the answer is yes, but only because you go on for way too long, then you are Mark Pavelich.  You'll see what I mean after the jump.

B.J. Penn shows us how he’s preparing to whip Kenny Florian’s text message-denying ass this summer – in some dude’s garage.  Okay, it doesn’t look all that impressive, but you should know that Marv Marinovich is the father of former USC quarterback and NFL washout Todd Marinovich, who just happened to be profiled in Esquire magazine last month (see, we read stuff).  In the article Marv is portrayed as a revolutionary in the field of sports training and also as a complete nutjob who tried to make his son into a football cyborg and wound up at least partially helping to make him into a drug addict.  Now he’s got his hands on B.J. Penn.  Look out, world.

I was watching this clip from "UFC 2009: Undisputed" and getting excited about how realistic the gameplay footage looks (except for Edith’s breasts, which, let’s be honest, don’t move anywhere near that much), and then Nate Diaz submitted B.J. Penn in the first round and the illusion was shattered.  

Okay, so it’s just a game.  And just like I’ll never steal any cars in real life (though I might ‘borrow’ it just to make a beer run), Nate Diaz will never take B.J. Penn’s back and choke him out with his feet crossed in front of him within two minutes.  It’s a fun little fiction, though.

If you look closely during the gameplay clip, you probably noticed two things: 1) Nick Diaz is not mean-mugging it up in his brother’s corner, and this is a real shame, and 2) there are no shortage of advertisements plastered all over the Octagon.  TapouT, MMA Warehouse, Harley-Davidson, Xyience, etc.  All the UFC’s closest friends get some play in “Undisputed,” and as the guys from MMA Payout have noted, this is worth a little something.  They cite an AdWeek report that estimates in-game advertising will be a $2 billion-a-year business by 2010.  

Since the UFC is making fighters sign over the rights to their video game images in perpetuity or else face the wrath, that’s money that will be going straight into the UFC coffers.  They won’t even have to offer the fighters a split of it when they make a new game in 2011 that brings in even more ad revenue and features Junie Browning going up in weight to knock Georges St. Pierre out cold in thirty seconds.

(Welcome to the world, Jameson twins.  You're screwed.)

Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jameson have put the unfathomable power of their two super-brains to work and come up with names for their newborn twins: Jesse and Journey Jett. 

You know, considering who their parents are, I’d say these kids got off pretty easy.  Although it is a bit of a screw-job to give one kid a normal name and then name the other after a band that won’t even be ironically cool anymore by the time they’re in junior high.  But hey, as long as they’re both carrying around the illustrious Jameson surname neither one of them is going to be lacking in emotional baggage.

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