sirshannon.com » MMA

Time Warner Drops HDNet, sirshannon Drops His HD Tier

sirshannon — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:20:31 +0000

When I signed up for cable in my current home, I ordered an HD tier (not sure which one) by requesting “the one that includes HDNet”. I just received a letter from Time Warner yesterday stating that, as of tomorrow, I will no longer have HDNet because they will no longer offer it. I’m a big Mark Cuban fan and a huge MMA fan so HDNet was probably my favorite HD Channel Time Warner offered (other than Showtime). I mean, as much as I need to see American Chopper or that damn car auction show every time I turn on my TV, I can probably live with watching both of those shows in SD. HDNet and HDNet Movies both had great HD content that made the HD tier worth having. Discovery HD used to, but then it became HDTheater and might as well be called “HD American Chopper and Friends”.
>Here is a link to more info about Time Warner Cable dropping HDNet

UFC 65 – Bad Intentions – My Predictions

sirshannon — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 01:56:21 +0000

[UPDATE: Results at the bottom]

Nick Diaz Vs. Gleison Tibau : Nick is on his way out of the UFC, and Tibau is on his way in. I would like to see Nick win again, he has let me down continuously over the last year, but I don’t have any reason to think that he will win. If he loses, this is a “see, you need to come back when you’re ready” fight for Diaz and a “look, he beat Nick Diaz” fight for Tibau. If Diaz wins, he’ll get to walk away from the UFC saying “you guys just fucked up.” I can’t count on Nick to win these days and I don’t think the UFC wants to let him leave on a win, so I am guessing Tibau will win somehow.

I will skip the rest of the undercard because I am not qualified to comment on them.

Joe Stevenson Vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima : Joe Stevenson just doesn’t impress me. I think people like him, though, and I know nothing of his opponent, so I’ll go with Joe winning by decision after a boring fight.

Alessio Sakara Vs. Drew McFedries : I’ll go with Sakara on this one, simply because he has a better record. I’ve seen him fight once but that isn’t enough to base an opinion on.

Brandon Vera Vs. Frank Mir : Frank Mir needs to win this fight to prove he isn’t finished. Brandon Vera needs to win to prove he deserves some real competition. After Frank’s last fight, I have to go with Brandon Vera. Probably by KO/TKO.

Tim Sylvia Vs. Jeff Monson : Monson by 1st round submission. Nuff said.

Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre : Matt Hughes by submission, Rear Naked Choke around 1:45 into Round 2.

I’ll be back tomorrow to compare the results with my predictions.

[UPDATED with results 2006-11-19]

Nick Diaz Vs. Gleison Tibau : Diaz won halfway through the second round due to Referee Stoppage, or so I heard, but they didn’t show the fight, even though there was plenty of time to show a few undercard fights thanks to 3 very short fights starting off the main card. The entire PPV event was under 3 hours so I feel a bit ripped off and assume they didn’t want to show Diaz winning the match because he is leaving for the IFL.

Joe Stevenson Vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima : I was correct about Joe winning but wrong about when and how. It was an extremely short fight, ending with a guillotine a little over 2 minutes into the fight.

Alessio Sakara Vs. Drew McFedries : This was a 4-minute slugfest, either of these guys could have been knocked out at any time. I guessed Sakara would win but I guessed wrong.

Brandon Vera Vs. Frank Mir : Mir looked a lot better than his last fight but didn’t fight much better. Or maybe Brandon Vera is really that good… we’ll see. Vera won this by TKO 69 seconds into the fight.

Tim Sylvia Vs. Jeff Monson : Damn. Sylvia did his homework and impressed the hell out of me last night. He completely shut Monson down, avoiding every take down attempt and controlling the entire fight. The final round was as boring as the final round of Sylvia/Arlovski III and the fight ended with the same results. Sylvia seemed to think Brandon Vera will be next in line to challenge him.

Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre : GSP won this fight twice. Once at the end of round 1 (Hughes was saved by the bell) and again 1:25 into the second round. GSP avoided every takedown attempt Matt threw at him and Matt took a beating standing up. Usually Matt takes it to the ground when he gets punched a few times, GSP prevented that and Matt couldn’t hang. GSP earned the belt, dominating the only fighter to beat him in the UFC. I look forward to seeing him hand Diego Sanchez his first loss ASAP.

My score (correct/incorrect, going by win/loss only, not when/how): 2 right, 4 wrong. Doh.

UFC 62: Best UFC PPV Ever?

sirshannon — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 17:52:31 +0000

I just wrote a fucking masterpiece of a post here reviewing UFC 62 and then my browser crashed AFTER I finished but before I clicked “publish”.

I’m not writing it again, just going to answer my own question: YES.

(I hate computers)

UFC 63: Hughes to Face Penn

sirshannon — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:34:27 +0000

B. J. Penn gets his wish and will fight Matt Hughes again, even though Penn lost his fight again George St. Pierre. GSP was to fight Hughes but had to bow out due to a pulled groin [insert masturbation joke here] so (figuratively and literally) big-headed, loud-mouthed Penn gets to lose the second of his 2 fight return to the UFC.

Hopefully he’ll drop weight classes afterwards and stop trying to eat at the grown-ups’ table.

UFC Did Not Jump The Shark

sirshannon — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:29:59 +0000

In my 2006 predictions, I went off a little on UFC because the last Pay-Per-View event left us teetering on the edge of lame. We (me, my roomy Lee at Benchnews, a Jewelery Blog, and a few others who always watch UFC pay-per-view events here or elsewhere) pretty much decided that UFC 57 was either going to be great or was going to be the last UFC event we bought. By then end of round 1 of the first televised fight, we were pleased.

UFC 57 stepped to the plate and entertained us. The fights did not end as we may have expected (in the case of Diaz v. Riggs) or as we had hoped (in the case of Couture v. Liddell, for me, at leatst) but the fights were good.

Herb once again let a fight go too long, endangering a fighter and making our room-full of spectators yell “what the hell! stop it, man! what are you doing?!!?” He did this in the Franklin v. Quarry fight, but we thought the “worst fight in the world” preceding that match influenced him. Maybe not… Maybe Herb is a little too cautious. Maybe we were wrong. Or maybe he is letting some fights go too long.

One of the undercard fights in UFC 57, Whitehead v. Jardine, wasn’t shown to us paying viewers, for some unknown reason. After reading this explanation of Mike Whitehead’s lame defeat in his only fight during The Ultimate Fighter Season 2, I was looking forward to seeing him put up or shut up. Instead, we saw neither. The fight ended in a decision (against Whitehead) so I’m sure it wasn’t a great fight, but if the card says their fighting, I expect to see it when I pay for it. Damn it. Regardless of how good the rest of the fights were, if you advertise it, and it happens, you show it. Or at least bother to make up an excuse for why you didn’t.

Are you listening, Dana?

Good.

Now keep up the good work.

sirshannon’s 2006 Predictions

sirshannon — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:59:25 +0000

in the year 2006 AD, sirshannon predicts that

Katie Holmes will not get married
Drew Barrymore will
Keira Knightly will continue to refrain from professing her undying love for sirshannon
J-Lo will get either pregnant or seperated. Not both.
UFC will either either shape up FAST (ie. by the end of the next PPV event), or UFC fans will forever consider UFC 56 to be the night UFC jumped the shark:
- Rich Franklin Vs. Nate Quarry – they threw Nate under the bus on this one, and then didn’t stop the bus because the fight before was the worst. fight. ever. AND, when Rich mentioned the previous fight after his victory, the cameras cut away, ready to cut him off if he said something bad (something true like “I thought you would stop the fight when I stopped hitting Nate and looked at you, asking you to stop this silly thing”)
- Matt Hughes Vs. Joe Riggs – There are people who deserve a fight against Matt Hughes. Joe isn’t one of them.
- Georges St. Pierre Vs. Sean Sherk – I don’t blame the UFC for St. Pierre’s over-dramatic WWF-ish “on my knees, begging for a title shot” routine, but in the context of the whole night, it is just another straw on the shark’s back.
- Kevin Jordan Vs. Gabriel Gonzaga – Worst. Fight. Ever. If you didn’t see the event live, you’ll never see this fight because there is no way in hell they’ll ever show it again.
- Shamrock acting like he was in the WWF and pretending to be pisses at Tito and Dana White holding him back with 1 extended arm? Fucking bullshit, retarded, WWF crap. If this continues, UFC is doomed to be a hugely popular sport for jr high children and UFC fans will have to make do with PRIDE and K-1.
Scrubs will not be renewed for Fall 2006.
Windows Vista will be released late, in November.
Someone will open a small club where 200 people can go see a shitty loud punk band from out of state, somewhere in Charlotte near uptown.
Or I will have to murderize someone.
George Bush will be impeached by the same honest, democracy-loving, non-partisan, law-abiding patriots who impeached Clinton.
Bill O’Reilly will endorse a Democrat, because it will help his ratings (you don’t actually think he believes any of the crap he says on teevee, do you?)
Carolina Panthers will lose the Super Bowl again.
Jack Osbourne will do a nude photo spread.
I will not.

I’m sure I had some great and enlightening prediction I wanted to put here. I must have forgotten it.