Thought I would mention an excellent documentary that was on the National Geographic channel this weekend about Hannibal of Carthage, the scourge of Rome. If you were ever to make a list of the top bad-asses in all of recorded history Hannibal would surely be on the top five*. Keep in mind, that since Carthage was utterly destroyed by Rome, the only accounts we have of Hannibal are from the Roman historians! The documentary does a good job of illustrating Hannibals motives and hardships, including his crossing the Alps. It also has a detailed account of his tremendous victory at Cannae, where he not only outwitted and defeated a much larger Roman army, but he led from the front!

Definitely check it out, (they’ll probably replay it about fifty times in the next week) Hannibal vs Rome

*I haven’t really ranked them before, but Ghengis Khan would probably be #1 in my estimation.

Although altogether Calvin and Hobbes was my favorite….

BTW, just who exactly is MTO? The lovely and talented Julie Kedzi has been appearing on our website sporting her OTM gear for a little while now. (She appears randomly in the right hand column of the articles pages). You can check out her website at Julie’s Website

I’m fairly certain if the Hooknshoot Evolution show on November 19th is anything like the previous shows, it will be one of the most entertaining cards of the year. The ladies really leave everything they have on the mat.

Pride was an alright show last night. The big match ups didn’t quite live up to the expectations of the previous shows, but then again the last two shows with the tournaments have been absolutely outstanding. My favorite fight had to be Murilo “Ninja” Rua vs Murad Chunkaev, non stop action and exchanges with a brutal finish. I hope we haven’t seen the last of Murad Chunkaev I was extremely impressed and remember he weighed in at 185 to Ninja’s 205. Canada, who’s house I was watching at, favored the Quinton Jackson vs Hirotaka Yokoi match. I was happy to see Jackson on the winning path again.

I came back home to watch The Ultimate Fighter and the match between Luke Cummo and Sam Morgan was probably the best of the entire season so far. Which really isn’t saying much. I like seeing Luke Cummo, who was picked dead last, as being in the finals, but I’m not sure if anyone on the show has a shot against Joe Stevenson, but you know the Serra-Longley crew will certainly have been preparing him well for the finale.

Sorry for the lack of Blog updates for a little bit. I actually have a lot to say, but this month has been absolutely BRUTAL. Here it is the 24th already and I’ve been to FIVE (5) shows this month, plus a funeral of a good friend.

It’s 6:19 AM right now and I just dropped Rafael Lovato Jr. off at the airport. He’s had a tremendous month as well.

Give me a few hours to regroup and I’ll have lots more to say, I promise…

What are you doing Wed night?

If you’re in LA you HAVE to come to the Budo challenge. The line up, the set up, the venue, oh my!

Fans can reserve their personal invitation by calling (800) 976-BUDO. There is absolutely no cost but it is a first come, first serve and space is limited!

The Budo Challenge will take place on Wednesday, October 19th in Los Angeles, California at the Grand Olympic Auditorium. Event starts at 5:00 PM

Big wins for the paragon boys, who each fighting up a weight class found victory in their respective 4 man divisions this weekend in Japan.

Jeff choked out Umemura in the first round and defeated Baret Yoshida in the next round.
The Grill defeated Watanabe (probably the #1 black belt in Japan) and Tsuruya.

As a special treat Jeff and Bill went at in the finals to determine an overall champion, and you know when these two boys roll it’s no joke! Jeff Glover won this match, but congratulations to both!

Now go have some fun and explore Japan!

So last night just before the end practice Cameron hands me five white capsules out of a supplement bottle (couldn’t see the label) and says I should take these as it would really increase my recovery time. I ask him what’s in it and he says Glutamine and rattles off a couple of other things I couldn’t hear.

Note #1 on Cameron. The guy is like Rainman when it comes to supplements. Knows all the latest news, all the details, correct dosages, what you take what for, etc. The only thing I take on a semiregular basis is a multivitamin.

I finish rolling and before I leave the Academy, I remember the pills and swallow all of them. I come home, eat a bit of dinner, watch a little TV, and then go to bed. As I’m laying there in bed my stomach begins making these awful gurgling sounds and it’s loud. Loud enough to wake up girlfriend who’s sleeping next to me. Gurgling doesn’t even begin to do justice to what was happening, my innards sounded like a washing machine. Then all of the sudden I was sprinting to the bathroom where I seriously thought I was going to crap all of my insides out.

Obviously I didn’t however, and I know this because I’ve probably gone to the bathroom 20 more times in the last 24 hours. I managed to expel with such volume and velocity that my girlfriend made my scrub out the toilet when she got home.

Note #2 on Cameron. I’ve said this many times before. The two scariest things Cameron can say to you is 1) “I have an idea” or 2) “Let me try something”.

I came into class today and asked Cameron, what in the hell did you give me? He laughed and said “you actually took those? Those were intestinal cleaners! I use them when cutting weight!”

Note #3 on Cameron. He once thought he caught worms from the cat, and asked me in all seriousness if it was okay to take the same medication the cat was taking.

Now knowing all of this, who is dumber, the pranker or the prankee?

Of course, you might be asking yourself why is Cameron interested in cutting weight right now? You’ll have your answer this weekend.

So I’m thinking of sponsoring a contest for the silliest outfit worn to a grappling event.

The subject came up this weekend when “Big Bird” (of course I can’t remember his real name) came unto the mat wearing one boxing glove. It was silly and we all had a laugh, but he pulled it off rather quickly before the match began. (I got it on video, but it will take a few days/weeks to get to processing it).

Big Bird was cornered by Ulysses “Useless” Gomez, who has worn some attention grabbing outfits himself, my personal favorite being the pink Mighty Mouse shorts with a faded Britney Spears t-shirt. Useless has threatened to wear a tutu to his next match, but with Useless, you just never can tell.

Other favorites include one of the Lally brothers (I think it was Todd, but I have a hard time telling him and TrevorLally) wearing a jockstrap OVER his bicycle shorts at Grappler’s Quest Las Vegas, or Dennis Hallman wearing a jock over his Sprawl Short a year later at the same event.

I’ve also got to mention the guy who wears his Luche Libre (Mexican Wrestling) match to the tournaments.

My all time favorite was the guy who wore a Gucci Leisure suit with Butterfly collars into the GQ West. Styling, profiling, and proceeded to get choked out with own lapel seconds into the match. Gotta hand it to him, the was the funniest thing I had seen on the mat in ages.

You might think I would take this opportunity to rag on white belts who cover, COVER their gis in various patches of all kinds of companies they are not sponsored by, but f@#$! that, I sell patches and I think they make you look cool. Rock on guys and gals!

I have to mention my own silly outfit, that you see me wearing in 101 Submissions Chapter 2. I am of course talking about the Hot Blood fight shorts and the Cyclone rash guard that are several sizes too small. I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this however, as I was just coming back from Brazil and had done a lot of shopping, mostly at that Cyclone store where there was a very cute girl working there. Instead of simply asking her out I thought I’d impress her by showing up once a day and buying something from the store Stalker style. (sigh) You’ve done it before, don’t lie. Funny sidenote to the story, Gabe “Godzilla” Ruediger, who had been down to Brazil at the same time with me showed up to the tournament wearing the EXACT SAME OUTFIT. Couldn’t you just die? We actually wound up splitting the division however….

Okay, I’ve told this story a few times over the last week and figured I might as well post here about it. This video has actually been up on OTM for quite some time, but we kind of just put it up quietly. This is from the third Bud Cup back in January of this year (despite the fact is labeled 2004). It’s also not quite the afterparty, because this all happened on a Saturday night of a two day tournament.

Bud Cup 2005 Afterparty

This video starts off with Mike Easton dancing, and soon Scotty, Joe Hurst and Mike Fowler join in on the fun. I can’t really go into details of what happened that night, but Scotty (who’s seen just been around the world and seen just about everything in this sport) declared it was one of the best times he’s ever had in his life and he declared Joe Hurst to be “superhuman”. (Again, given the partying skills of Scotty, you’ll realize this is quite a compliment). Easton and Fowler must have had an incredible time as well, because they weren’t even able to compete the next day. (This was a two day event!)

Joe Hurst for his part was the first person at the tournament the next day, and we were quite amazed he could even be standing, much less directing the tournament as well as he did.

And what about your friendly neighborhood Gumby? Was back in the hotel, sick as a dog, and this was well before the festivities started. Earlier that day, I went down to the free hotel breakfast and the only thing left to drink was a gallon of milk that had probably been sitting out there, unrefridgerated for lord knows how long. I probably had at least three full glasses and as a result my stomach was starting to get very queasy while filming the tournament itself. By the time this video was being shot I was huddled up in the hotel alternating between wishing for a quick death and praying to the toilet.