On this week’s episode of FX’s Lights Out, a muck-raking sports reporter catches wind that the show’s protagonist — former boxing champ Patrick “Lights” Leary — is supporting his career comeback with some MMA bouts on the side. That reporter must also be a big fan of our site, because he titles his story “LIGHTS LEARY CAGE POTATO?” Yep, there it is on page one of the Bergen Star sports section, held up by the show’s requisite slimy boxing promoter, Barry Word.
I have to say, it’s a proud moment to have the name of this website pronounced with such disdain by Reg E. Cathey, an actor who I’ve long been a fan of, thanks to his work on The Wire and Pootie Tang. (That being said, we’re still going to sue FX for royalties. Fair is fair.) After the jump: A TV-shot video of the scene in question.
(Is that Toney’s heart on his sleeve or his swollen tongue?)
I’m not a fan of 90% of MMA clothing. Somehow seeing fat accountants and skinny computer programmers wearing t-shirts covered in skulls, chains and dragons at sports bars on fight nights jaded me I guess. Tapout has become the new Vuarnet or No Fear.
I own a handful of promotions’ shirts as well as a few less gaudy brands, but most of them I was given or won in contests.
What gets me is that there are fans who will wear just about anything if it says MMA on it, regardless of how terrible the clothing is.
I was beginning to think that all of the back-patting he was getting from his entourage and training partners was starting to make James Toney a bit delusional in thinking he was an actual MMA fighter, but after seeing this video, I have to admit I was wrong. Toney isn’t just a bit delusional. He’s completely delusional if he really believes that he has more than a puncher’s chance against former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Randy Couture at UFC 118.
All of the half-hearted sledgehammer smacks and tire flips in the world won’t make up for the fact that he has only been training MMA for six months (though he claims he’s been training for nine) and Couture has been competing in the sport for thirteen years.
Regardless of how much Toney may be fooling himself, I enjoy trying to dissect his unintelligible ramblings and convert them into text — a task which I rank slightly higher on the difficulty scale than solving a sudoku puzzle. I’ve done so many of these transcriptions that I can listen to Toney talk and understand exactly what he is saying. I’m actually considering sending the UFC my resume in the hopes that I can be Lights Out’s Ed Soares and I can translate for him in his pre and post-fight interviews.
The more interviews I see with James Toney, the more I’m beginning to think the guy really believes that six months of sprawl training is going to give him the tools to walk through Randy Couture and subsequently earn him a shot at Brock Lesnar, whom he feels he will knock out with a lazy jab while adjusting his shorts.
Juanito Ibarra is a helluva drug. Ariel Helwani deserves a medal for getting through an entire interview with the International Boxing Association and North American Boxing Organization heavyweight champion without a single, "C’mon James. You don’t really believe that, do you?"
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