How To Always Win a Fight

Don't get beat up this holiday season...

...me bringing in the groceries.

JUST JOKES!

Louis Vuitton interprets Muhammad Ali

The Olympics are cool.

Here is one of my favourite images from an Olympic games. Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a 'black power salute'. Smith later claimed it was a 'human rights salute'. A brave action at the time. Both athletes were ostracized upon returning to the States.

The Olympics in London are coming to a close. Although the medal table highlights the gap between the rich and poor nations there is much good which comes out of the Olympics. It is a sporting event that breaks down barriers and for two weeks every four years we are all humans united peacefully. The story of Sarah Attar is a perfect example of the good that can come from the Olympics.

Bring on Rio '16!

Fuck I love Jamaicans.

Those were the days

Eric Kelly.

GoPro - New York City

I used to think Ryan Sheckler was a bit of a batty. But if you saw a reality TV programme of me as a 14 year old you would probably say the same thing.

Top 10 Dunks of the NBA 2011-2012 Season.

Inspirational shit.

Remember Diamond Dallas Page? yup, the wrestler. Well now he's into yoga.

...and here you go

Pound for pound.

One of the things that was ingrained in me as a young child growing up by the adults in my life was that you never hit a girl (this is why so many Barbies around the world get their heads ripped off instead). You just don't do it. Period. I think this is true with most boys. So why the fuck do we allow celebrities to maintain their demi-god status when they hit their women?


Floyd Mayweather Jr. An amazing boxer and a pleasure to watch in the ring. A cunt of human being in my opinion. Mayweather was supposed to turn himself in back in January to serve a 90 day jail sentence for domestic violence. However the judge pushed the date back to June 1st so that he could fight on May 5th (it wasn't even Pacquiao...fail). Three things. Firstly, if a regular guy with a domestic violence rap sheet like Mayweather's was convicted on the same charge would he be given a date to just hand myself in? Secondly what sort of message does this send, pushing back a jail sentence so that a guy who has assaulted his lady friend can fight? Isn't that ironic? Don't cha think? Lastly, he made a lot of money off the Cotto fight...when his ass should've been locked up. MONEY TEAM!


Don't get me wrong I am not saying that boxing or MMA or any sort of fighting sport encourages violence. I am a boxing fan myself. We all know Mayweather is an extremely talented fighter. With this talent comes responsibility...ie DON'T FUCKING HIT WOMEN. Shit, if you're a professional boxer you shouldn't be hitting anyone except in training or a match.


Mayweather isn't the only high profile woman basher in the last few years. We all know the story of Chris Brown beating up Rihanna blah blah. I for one thought and hoped this would mean the end of his career. Nope. Still a teen idol. Which is scary. Speaking of teen idols, how irresponsible of Justin Bieber to associate himself with Mayweather at the Cotto fight by carry a belt to the ring. I have seen first hand how young teen girls (mostly) adore these guys. In the country I live in (New Zealand) we have somewhat of a domestic violence problem...are we telling our young women that that abusive relationships are OK by letting them idolise these pricks? It worries me. As soon as the world realised that Ike had for years been beating Tina he lost a lot of credibility. Are we moving backwards?


The media is hugely to Blame for this. I know people who were outraged at Chris Brown's actions. If you're into following celebrities, you couldn't ignore it as it flashed up on the E! channel every 5 minutes. Homeboy laid low for a while...Rihanna started seeing other guys and he slowly crept back onto the scene and the media forgot about him. Tiger Woods got a similar treatment from the media for being naughty, lost many sponsors and lost a lot of public support. In fact the media don't mind reminding us every now and again why he has only won one tournament since it happened. I'm not condoning Tiger's behaviour nor saying the media should have gone easier on him. Let's be honest though, how much media coverage have you seen on Mayweather's domestic assualts? I was talking to a group of amateur boxers the other day before the Cotta fight and half of them weren't even sure why he was going to jail, nor did they care, they just wanted to see him fight.


The big news today is Obama publicly endorsed gay marriage, a sign of progress, yes. Let's be consistent with this progress. Of course in our Western society where our morals are still largely based on Christianity we are taught that forgiveness is important. I'm fine with that. Redeem yourself first son. Look at Mike Tyson for example. That mother fucker did some bad shit in his time. I have come to respect him in the last few years, as it looks as though he is making a huge effort to be a humble and gentle and caring person. Albeit in a kind of weird way...

I have not written this just to hate on Mayweather. If he comes out of his jail sentence and sorts his shit out and doesn't hit another gf, awesome. It will be a great redemption story. Domestic violence is a problem in our society and guys like Mayweather aren't helping.

Comments welcome.

Rugby vs. the NFL.

Some good chat here.

Rugby vs. The NFL

Go the minnows

The Rugby World Cup is currently taking place here in Aotearoa (The Land of The long White/Green? Cloud) New Zealand. The one particular aspect that I was not overly enthused about was the one sided fixtures we have seen in the past. Think back to 1995 when The All Blacks popped the hopes of Japanese Cherry Blossoms 145-17. The most recent fixture between these two nations on Friday 16th 2011 also had an extremely uneven scoreline (83-7). This was always a likely result when you consider the experience and skill gap between these two teams (I will get back to this point soon). However, even though there has been some thrashings in the competition so far I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of the score lines reminiscent of a Twenty20 Cricket fixture.

In my mind there has always been 3 tiers of teams which show up to Rugby World Cup every 4 years:

The Big Dogs: No need to list them as we all know who they are. These are the only teams the bookies give any chance of winning...and quite rightly so.

2nd Tier: These are the teams that every once in a while will get a sneaky win over the Big Dogs. Argentina, Pacific Island Teams, the rest of the Six Nations Lads etc..

Minnows: The teams that are basically there to make up there numbers and actually make the W in RWC true.

I believe that even more so now than ever before the lines between the 3 groupings above is becoming more and more blurred. Maybe not so much between the top two....yet. The bottom two though, yes. Although it may not be entirely evident so far through victories...when you look at the closeness of the matches so far and how hard some of the better ranked teams have had to fight, it makes you wonder what might happen in the future to the hierarchy of Rugby.

The most obvious reason that I can see the playing fields in international rugby are slowly becoming more levelled is....PROFESSIONALISM. Yup, The P word.

When the IRB declared the game 'open' in 1995 it was without a doubt for the good of the game on an international level. I may as well use the the Pacific Islanders as a specific example. So many Samoan, Fijian and Tongan players are now plying their trade in the many professional competitions in both hemispheres. Seilala Mapusua, born in Samoa, grew up in New Zealand where he played for the Highlanders from 2000. In 2006 he heads over to Europe to continue his professional career. In 2011 he is an absolute asset to the Samoan national side due to his skill and experience. There are a number of other players with similar stories to this in every "2nd Tier" and "Minnow" side.

The IRB now needs to build on this momentum. I commented before on the gap between the All Blacks and The Brave Blossoms (they had their cherries popped enough). The Brave lads with their very experienced coach from New Zealand had played 163 rugby tests matches going into the 2011 World Cup. The All Black's captain has played almost 100. How can we expect teams such as Japan to improve by playing hardly any rugby? While watching the United States battle it out against Canada last Thursday evening, one of Rugby's more colourful commentators had a similar thought. Murray Mexted voiced that teams such as Russia and the U.S. and all of the other minnows and second tier teams, simply need more rugby! Of course as stated before they are all pretty much playing professionally now but ask anyone who has played in an international fixture how it compares to any other sort of match and they will tell you it doesn't. Simple as that.

I think the fact that Argentina will be joining the Tri Nations from 2012 is brilliant. Not only will it do so much for Argentinian ruggers it will also make this more interesting for the other 3 countries. Look what joining the 6 nations has done for Italian Rugby (I know I wasn't the only one very impressed with Italy during that game in 2009!). Whatever the top 5 teams can do to help the lower teams improve should be done. If it means here in New Zealand we have our Maori or New Zealand A sides play more fixtures then so be it. What about a Champions cup every two years in between World Cups that the Minnows battle it out for? All just ideas...I'm sure the IRB can come up with some better ones. That's what they get paid for right?

Rugby is going to appear at the Olympics in 2016 under the form of Rugby 7's. It hasn't been seen at the Olympics since USA defeated Romania for the gold medal in 1924. The Rugby World Cup is now one of the biggest sporting events in the world so why not make sure that the matches do the name 'World Cup' justice.   Let's make rugby a truly global game.

Enjoy the rest of the Cup.