January 31 2012 Last updated at 11:45 AM ET

After 62 Straight Kickboxing and MMA Wins, Stephen Thompson Makes UFC Debut

By: Mike Chiappetta

MMA Writer

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The numbers are something out of a video game or a movie or someone's imagination. In amateur kickboxing, Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson was 37-0. As a pro kickboxer, 20-0. As a professional mixed martial artist, he's 5-0 so far. That's 62 straight fights without a loss.

But it's no facade, and his record is no product of fishy matchmaking. In fact, despite his newness on the MMA scene, he's already wowed some of this sports' brightest minds. Georges St-Pierre's trainer Firas Zahabi recently called Thompson "definitely the best karate guy, the best striker I've ever seen, all around in any sport."

The welterweight brings his exceptional record to this weekend's UFC 143, where he faces fellow octagon rookie Daniel Stittgen, hoping to extend his ridiculous streak.

The remarkable run is the result of a lifetime spent in the martial arts. Ask him about the last time he lost a fight in competition and he has to scan his memory, traveling more than a decade back into the 1990s, when he was a 12-year-old on the karate tournament circuit.

"Honestly, I did hundreds and hundreds of them, and I probably lost every one of them," he said. "I maybe won one time. I would get my butt tore up. I remember that like it was yesterday. So I learned as a young kid to keep my chin up and keep training hard. I know what losing feels like and I don't want to do it again. That's what pushes me now."

His experiences as a youth didn't just supply the drive for his current success, they also provided his "Wonderboy" moniker. Given his resume, you might guess that it stems from his remarkable success as a fighter, but you would be wrong. Instead, he got pegged with the name back in elementary school, when he was known for singing and dancing, and got tagged by his sister's boyfriend as "Stevie Wonder," later altered to "Wonderboy."

Regardless of the origins, the label proved prophetic. As Thompson's record suggests, he's been a phenom on the combat sports scene for years.

Now 28 years old, Thompson aims to prove he is much more than a standup artist. He has a black belt in Japanese jiu-jitsu, trains Brazilian jiu-jitsu under his brother-in-law, eighth-degree black belt Carlos Machado, and says his wrestling is his second strongest skill behind his striking.

"I've had many fights, but this is the biggest stage I've ever fought in," he said. "The UFC is the best. They're it. I'm glad to have the privilege to come in and fight there. Nerves will play a big part, but if you're not nervous going into a fight, you shouldn't be out there."

Thompson started in the martial arts at three years old, training under his father, Ray, who owns a karate studio in Simpsonville, South Carolina. But it wasn't always a love affair. By around the age of 10 or 11, the flame had burned out. While his friends were playing baseball and football, Thompson found himself constantly stuck at the dojo.

He trained there. He ate there. He did his homework there.

"As I got to that age, doing it all the time was like work," he said. "It wasn't fun anymore. But one day, the light bulb clicked in my head, and I got it."

Thompson was around 12 at that time, working out in adult classes. By the time he was 15, he was making his amateur debut, inspired in part by his older sister Lindsay, who he often watched compete and aimed to emulate.

He did her proud, defeating an unbeaten 26-year-old en route to 37 straight victories. His biggest personal highlight came in 2005, when he captured a World Association of Kickboxing Organizations championship at a tournament held in Szeged, Hungary, becoming the first American to win a gold in the tournament since 1983.

But even as Thompson succeeded -- 46 of his 57 career wins were by KO -- he was hit by the nagging feeling that kickboxing wasn't really going anywhere. Coupled with his own personal aspirations, he knew a move to MMA was in his future.

"My goal was always to be the best fighter, and in order to do that, I was going to have to switch to MMA and use these skills that I've been working on ever since I was younger but never got to use in competition," he said.

Thompson's move was delayed by a devastating knee injury in 2007 that saw him tear the ACL, MCL and PCL in his left knee. Later on, he suffered another setback, hurting the same knee after trying to do too much, too soon.

Upon returning, Thompson began training with some of the world's best MMA minds, including St-Pierre. Years prior, GSP had been in the corner of a Thompson opponent, only to watch "Wonderboy" KO his friend. The camps stayed in contact and GSP has since called on Thompson several times to assist in his camp.

"It does give you a lot of confidence going into fights," he said. "When you're up there and going toe-to-toe with the world's best -- and I know I still have a long way to get to where he is when it comes to wrestling and jiu-jitsu -- but it definitely gives me a mental advantage going into fights."

In his octagon debut, he faces Stittgen (7-1), another UFC newcomer who has earned five of his wins by submission. Thompson said that he expects his opponents to want no part of his standup and look to take the fight to the mat at the first available opportunity. But he trusts his wrestling to keep him upright, saying that it's always been a point of emphasis in training as a way to keep himself in an advantageous position.

And more than that, he trust his fight instincts. Thompson's record doesn't just suggest he is a winner, it proves it beyond any doubt. The streak may be in jeopardy every time he fights, but like most winners, "Wonderboy" doesn't spend much time thinking about what he has already done. Every fight is a new experience, providing a new lesson.

"People always ask me what will happen if I lose, and I never really thought about it until they asked me," he said. "If I do lose, it will just give me a stronger drive to train harder. I know guys are out here to rip my head off and trip me up. But coming from my background almost gives me an advantage because I know guys are going to want to take me down. Everyone out there can look for an exciting fight, and it's going to be another knockout."

Read More: UFC MMA Fighting Exclusive Daniel+Stittgen, Stephen+Thompson, UFC+143

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There's no quick fix for severe depression.

Although antidepressants like Prozac have been around since the 1970s, they usually take weeks to make a difference. And for up to 40 percent of patients, they simply don't work.

O disco “Um Futuro Inteiro” do Bonifrate é muito bom: letras tristes em músicas “alegres” (tirando uma ou duas, como a depressiva “Cantiga da fumaça“).

Todas as letras tem uma “camada quântica” que me deixa curioso pela resenha de algum físico-emo-nerd que atente para emoções…

Sobre isso, colhi algumas referências interpretativas para a primeira música, “Esse trem não improvisa“.

A obsolescência programada sempre faz sentido enquanto você pensa em como manter o crescimento da indústria e a criação de empregos a curto prazo”, diz Cosima. “O problema é a longo prazo. Estamos usando nossos recursos naturais e criando montanhas de lixo. A obsolescência programada funcionou bem no passado, mas estamos começando a ver as consequências. É um sistema que não pode ser usado para sempre.

And then I pass the front door, and all these nurses are standing out front, and they’re all crying. They’re watching us, and they’re crying. And I didn’t know why they were crying. I was like, Why are they crying? I didn’t get what they were seeing. I didn’t know. Because I was just in it; I was living it. I knew my wife who had suffered, she was a prostitute, she was a freakin’ heroin addict, she was beaten by pimps — this was her past — and then she ends up with AIDS, and she’s dying, and all she wants is a goddamn ride on my motorcycle.

So the next thing you know we’re on I-95, because women, it’s never enough for them. We’re on I-95, and she unhooks the pole, and she’s holding the morphine bag over her head with her gown that’s flying up in the air so you could see her entire naked, bony body with the morphine bag whipping in the wind, and we’re passing by these guys in their Lamborghinis, and I’m looking at them like, What the hell kind of life are you living? Look at me, I’m on top of the world here.

British-born David Ogilvy was one of the original, and greatest, "ad men." In 1948, he started what would eventually be known as Ogilvy & Mather, the Manhattan-based advertising agency that has since been responsible for some of the world's most iconic ad campaigns, and in 1963 he even wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man, the best-selling book that is still to this day considered essential reading for all who enter the industry. Time magazine called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry" in the early-'60s; his name, and that of his agency, have been mentioned more than once in Mad Men for good reason.

The newly approved €20m (£17m) housing project is to be built next to the Swiss village of Wiedlisbach near Bern and will provide sheltered accommodation and care for 150 elderly dementia patients in 23 purpose-built 1950s-style houses. The homes will be deliberately designed to recreate the atmosphere of times past.

The scheme's promoters said there will be no closed doors and residents will be free to move about. To reinforce an atmosphere of normality, the carers will dress as gardeners, hairdressers and shop assistants. The only catch is that Wiedlisbach's inhabitants will not be allowed to leave the village.

An 89-year-old woman who was glad she stayed in her marriage even though her young husband’s behavior was adversely affected by his military service said, “Too many young people now are giving up too early, too soon.

Been tracking the contents of people’s bags, pockets and car boots for a while now, to understand how people equip themselves for what lies out there.

A useful method to get a sense of activities and priorities when people transition between their home space and what lies outside – the participant is asked to bring their ‘most often carried bag’ and lay the objects they carry on a flat surface, talking through the purpose and last-use of each item. Things to look out for – where the bag is kept in the home and what is clustered around it, what is packed/repacked on arrival/departure, and the use of different bags for different activities.

Women tend to be far more sophisticated bag carriers than men, in part because they utilise pockets less and because the social pressures to carry more appearance related objects (make-up, mirror, tissues) plus other items such as sanitary products is usually greater. But this sophistication sometimes comes at a cost – handbags carriers (and to a lesser extent other carriers of daily-use bags) are confronted with the handbag paradox that states: it is nearly always easier to add additional items to the bag than to sort through items to be removed, with the net result being that people walk around with significantly more stuff than they need. The moment when the bag carrier appreciates that the bag is over packed is often when they are in a hurry to step out the door (with no time to unpack) or when they are out and about (with nowhere to place and retrieve) what is taken out. It is common for the carrier of an over-filled bag to switch priorities on returning home – deprioritizing the ‘empty bag’ task with something else – such as the ‘empty bladder’ or ‘make tea’ task, until again they are confronted with an overfilled bag. The handbag paradox also applies to other everyday bags, hard drives and car boots (trunks). In private-car ownership cultures e.g. the United States, the car (not just the car boot) becomes the overfilled container.

Bag mapping is a useful exercise to become acquainted with the norms of a society – what we do or don’t decide to carry being a reflection of our selves and the environment in which we live and work.

See also: Scott Mainwaring’s paper on Living for the Global City – Mobile Kits, Urban Interface and Ubicomp and Mobile Essentials: Field Study and Concepting by myself and a number of ex-colleagues at Nokia.

Maybe when you were in love with things, what you were really in love with was not the things themselves but rather something inside them that you could never quite get at, which was why you loved them with such annihilating desperation, as if throwing yourself over and over against a locked door.

The day I became an atheist was the day I realized I had been a believer.

Up until then I had numbered myself among the “secular ethicists.” Plato’s “Euthyphro” had convinced me, as it had so many other philosophers, that religion is not needed for morality. Socrates puts the point characteristically in the form of a question: “Do the gods love something because it is pious, or is something pious because the gods love it?” To believe the latter would be to allow that any act whatever might turn out to be the “pious” or right thing to do, provided only that one of the gods (of Olympus), or the God of “Genesis” and “Job” in one of His moods, “loved” or willed it. Yet if God commanded that we kill our innocent child in cold blood, would we not resist the rightness of this act?

DANIEL GALERA

O escritor Daniel Galera, que anunciou um novo livro com título provisório de “Barba Ensopada de Sangue” para o segundo semestre de 2012, concedeu uma entrevista diferente para o Porta na Cara. Galera fala sobre videogames, natação, corrida, Livros do Mal e David Foster Wallace. Acompanhe.

 

Na revista Monet assinava a coluna “Jogatina” onde escrevia sobre videogames. E para a revista Serrote fez um ensaio sobre o jogo “Prince of Persia”. Assim como a literatura, os videogames tiveram uma forte influência sobre você?

Os videogames tiveram uma influência tão forte quanto os livros, os filmes e a música na minha formação cultural. Não os vejo somente como distração. Jogos têm histórias, personagens, enredos e aspectos estéticos que podem ser muito sofisticados. Mesmo quando não apresentam uma narrativa clássica distinguível, propiciam um outro tipo de experiência narrativa ou de alegoria. “Tetris” não tem enredo, mas a mecânica do jogo é narrativa num certo sentido. Tentei falar disso numa cena do meu romance “Mãos de Cavalo” onde três adolescentes que estão sentindo sua amizade acabar dedicam uma tarde inteira a criar uma pista de corrida impossível de ser completada num jogo de computador chamado “Stunts”. Escrevo ocasionalmente sobre jogos porque são importantes pra mim e quero entendê-los. Além disso, a imprensa em geral me parece tragicamente despreparada para escrever sobre videogames como cultura, de uma forma que ultrapasse o mero serviço ao consumidor.

Você escreveu o perfil da modelo Alessandra Ambrosio para a revista Rolling Stones usando artifícios da ficção. Por que optou por esse método?   Ficou satisfeito com o resultado?

O perfil tem só um toque ficcional. Fiz essa opção porque tive um prazo curto e apenas uma oportunidade rápida de entrevistar a Alessandra durante a sessão de fotos da revista, coisa de duas horas, enquanto ela trabalhava. Encontrei o gancho do texto quando ela disse muito seriamente que pretendia ir à lua nessa espaçonave civil que estão criando. Me dei conta de como o mundo era literalmente pequeno para ela, por causa da carreira. Fiquei satisfeito, mas dias depois da publicação da revista saiu na imprensa que ela estava grávida. Ela me falou da intenção de ter filhos no futuro. Até hoje não sei se ela ocultou isso de mim ou se ainda não sabia. Teria rendido um texto bem mais interessante.

Já para revista Piauí, escreveu “No Mar de Copacabana não tem Leviatã”, sobre a Travessia dos Fortes. Costuma participar regularmente de eventos esportivos como esse ou só acabou indo por causa da matéria? Ainda sobre natação, escreveria um livro sobre o assunto?

Durante alguns anos fui participante regular de travessias marítimas. Nado desde os catorze e sou apaixonado pelo esporte. Eu pretendia participar da prova de qualquer maneira e sabia que o Mario Sérgio, editor da revista, também nadava, então sugeri a pauta e uni o útil ao agradável. Eu adoraria escrever um livro sobre o assunto, mas para isso teria que entrar mais a fundo na coisa, treinar para participar de alguma prova mítica ou algo assim. Esses tempos descobri um livro maravilhoso. Era uma espécie de guia de turismo para pessoas que gostam de nadar na natureza, ao ar livre. Tipo “Os cem melhores lugares para nadar ao ar livre nos Estados Unidos”. Lagos, praias, rios, ilhas, mares. Fiquei pensando como seria fantástico viajar pelo Brasil para escrever um livro desses. De todo modo, o romance que estou escrevendo agora explora um pouco o meu gosto por nadar no mar.

Haruki Murakami escreveu o livro “Do que falo quando falo de corrida” e diz que correr e escrever não são atividades muito diferentes.  Já Joyce Carol Oates afirma que não há nada melhor para estimular a imaginação do que o ato de correr.  Qual sua opinião a respeito do assunto?

Concordo com eles no sentido de que toda atividade física que requer uma certa concentração e induz a estados meditativos favorece o trabalho criativo. É muito comum eu ter ideias boas ou resolver impasses de algum trabalho em progresso enquanto estou correndo ou nadando. E não vejo a mente como um sistema separado do corpo. A mente é o resultado da interação do organismo com o mundo. A atividade física pode exercer um efeito poderoso sobre o processo de criação.

“Velho Branco” é seu projeto de música experimental.  Fale um pouco sobre ele.

O que tu chama de projeto de música experimental não passa, na realidade, de um conjunto de seis ou sete faixas instrumentais que gravei e mixei em casa em 2003 com equipamento muito rudimentar. Mas eu gosto muito desse material e tenho ambição de retomar a experiência mais a sério qualquer dia. A ideia é explorar texturas do folk lo-fi. A maior referência é uma banda que adoro, The Microphones. Também já pensei em ir pro meio do mato gravar um álbum de black metal acústico com distorção pós-processada em dupla com meu amigo Daniel Pellizzari. Difícil acontecer, mas a gente gosta muito de falar dessa ideia.

A editora Livros do Mal (criada em parceria com escritor Daniel Pellizzari e o ilustrador Guilherme Pilla) completou em 2011 dez anos.  Olhando para trás, o que achou da experiência em ter sua própria editora?  Quais foram os prós e os contras?

Não teve contras. A gente queria fazer isso pra se divertir, pelo prazer de mexer com a edição de livros e para introduzir o nosso trabalho e o de outros novos autores no mercado. E foi o que aconteceu. Ainda tenho saudade de botar a mão na massa pra fazer capa, diagramar, escolher papel. O único problema é que a editora começou a dar certo e surgiram questões econômicas, burocráticas e logísticas que nos obrigaram a escolher entre uma vida de editor/empresário e uma vida de escritor/tradutor. Mas foi ótimo enquanto durou e acho que cumpriu bem seu papel.

 Junto com Daniel Pellizzari, você traduziu “Trainspotting” e “Pornô” de Irvine Welsh. A parceria se repetiu com a tradução da obra de não-ficção de David Foster Wallace. Os livros “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” e “Consider The Lobster” foram traduzidos na integra ou foi feita uma seleção dos melhores ensaios? Qual a importância da tradução desses textos no Brasil?

O livro que eu e o Pellizzari estamos traduzindo é uma antologia dos ensaios mais engraçados e acessíveis escritos pelo David Foster Wallace. Os textos são pinçados das duas antologias americanas e também de revistas e da internet. Tive a ideia da antologia quando soube que o “Breves entrevistas com homens hediondos” tinha vendido muito mal no Brasil. O objetivo é apresentar a obra do autor a um público maior que depois poderá encarar seus outros livros e ensaios. Falei direto com a agente do Wallace e ela me disse que tinham feito algo semelhante na Alemanha, com sucesso. Montei o projeto e apresentei à Companhia das Letras, que se interessou. A antologia vai sair em 2012 e ano passado tivemos a feliz notícia de que a editora também adquiriu direitos dos romances “Infinte Jest” e “The Pale King”, que deverão ser traduzidos pelo grande Caetano Galindo. Meu desejo é que isso faça muitos leitores felizes. David Foster Wallace é um dos grandes escritores das últimas décadas, um autor crucial da literatura moderna. Sua abordagem das questões do consumismo, entretenimento, identidade e autoconsciência na vida moderna é genial. É uma ficção que impõe desafios de forma e linguagem, mas que é brutalmente recompensadora.

Tags: daniel galera escritor entrevista 6 DFW Livros do Mal videogames

prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.

I’m not saying that we are all criminals for participating in file sharing. It is my hope that content distributors will start to realize why people pirate. That it isn’t just because it is free. It’s also goddamned convenient. They need to accept that times have changed. We don’t want to buy their DVDs. We don’t want overpriced cable bundles with 40 channels we will never watch. Photoshop should not cost 700 goddamn dollars. We want safe, reliable content available for download instantly and priced within reason. By not providing this, distributors are almost begging people to steal their shit.

Frogman

(Source: shadowy-antiquarian, via loveyourchaos)

I’m not saying that we are all criminals for participating in file sharing. It is my hope that content distributors will start to realize why people pirate. That it isn’t just because it is free. It’s also goddamned convenient. They need to accept that times have changed. We don’t want to buy their DVDs. We don’t want overpriced cable bundles with 40 channels we will never watch. Photoshop should not cost 700 goddamn dollars. We want safe, reliable content available for download instantly and priced within reason. By not providing this, distributors are almost begging people to steal their shit.

Frogman

(Source: shadowy-antiquarian, via loveyourchaos)

Her

You thought of her;
So pale and small,
With unkempt hair 
And husky drawl

Her hollow eyes,
Her acid tongue,
Her shallow breaths
From blackened lung.

We stayed that way for a long while, until satisfaction and good sense separated us. It was when she got up from the table that I discovered, perplexed, the fate of my poem. It was printed on the woman’s back.

Tech

Interview with a Ketamine Chemist

Or to Be More Precise, an Arylcyclohexylamine Chemist

By Hamilton Morris

In less than 24 hours, Megaupload has gone from the world's largest broadcaster of pirated material to the most interesting criminal case in US digital law. Megaupload's seizure came just a few hours after the news broke that its CEO was Swizz fucking Beatz, leaving the world's head spinning as it struggles to figure out how the guy who left his lady for Alicia Keys and produced this DMX song was at the head of a piracy ring.

Almost immediately after Megaupload was shut down, Anonymous responded by crashing the websites of the FBI, MPAA, RIAA and Universal Music Group. A lot of people in "the media" have been talking about the case today, but no one seems to have taken the time to read through the leaked 72-page US government document regarding the indictment. What with Megaupload down, we had nothing better to do so we read the whole thing cover to cover. Here are the juicy details:

- The indictment points to "popular linking" sites that help drive traffic to Megaupload. They name Ninjavideo, but Icefilms is never mentioned. How old is this thing?

- Elite employees at Megaupload had access to an unadulterated search engine of Megaupload's contents. That is fucking awesome.

- Once Google realized what Megaupload was up to, they pulled all of their Adsense ads. Megaupload responded by developing their own advertising network called Megaclick.

- The DMCA compliant tool Megaupload had installed to help major US institutions pull copyrighted files from Mega servers was, of course, flawed. If a user uploaded something like, say, The Hangover, Megaupload would search its servers for a matching file. It would delete the link submitted despite knowing about tens or hundreds or even thousands of other links to the same file. Basically it was a super clever fuck you to the copyright holder.

- The US government is clinging to evidence that Megaupload's owner, Kim Dotcom, shared the song "Nah" by 50 Cent featuring Mobb Deep in 2006. Seriously. This is one of their major claims. "On or about December 3, 2006, KIM DOTCOM distributed a Megaupload.com link to a music file entitled “05-50_cent_feat._mobb_deep-nah-c4.mp3." He is also accused of having a really fucking stupid name.

- Kim is a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand. He is also a citizen of Finland and Germany.

- According to the US government, Kim made $42 million off of Megaupload in 2010.

- Megaupload has servers in Virginia, DC, California, and Toronto.

- $110 million has flowed through Mega's Paypal account since 2006.

- Megaupload sought to download and re-upload all of YouTube's content onto its own site, Megavideo, to mask the pirated content that lurked beneath its front page.

- "Mega Conspiracy has paid more than $65 million to hosting providers around the world for computer leasing, hosting, bandwidth… Mega Conspiracy affirmatively chose to financially reward specific uploaders of infringing copies of copyrighted content."

- Private emails between Megaupload employees make it very clear that they were were running an illegal operation but didn't really care. In one exchange, an employee wrote, “We have a funny business... modern days pirates :)” to which another responded, “We’re not pirates, we’re just providing shipping services to pirates :)”

- Thanks to their rewards program for loyal uploaders, they paid out 55k to a user who had 5,845 files of Vietnamese content, at least 10 DVD rips, some porn, and (what looked like) an Italian TV series.

- Megaupload was paying Carpathia, their Virginia-based hosting company, between $700,000 and $1 million per month from a bank account in Hong Kong.

- Cogent Communications, an Atlanta-based ISP, was making a steady $1 million per month from May 2009 until February 2011.

- Megaupload spent $2.4 million on yacht rentals in June 2011 alone.

- The US government is after $175 million in assets, including 59 different bank accounts. Many of them Chinese. Two are from Citibank.

- The US is looking for at least 14 Benzes, a Predator statue, two 108 inch TVs, a Seadoo, a 1957 Cadillac, a Maserati, and a Mini Cooper.

-Kim owned a Rolls Royce Phantom with a license plate that read "GOD." Some of the tags on his other cars included: GUILTY, STONED, GOOD, CEO, MAFIA, and HACKER.

Ultimately, what we can learn from this whole Megupload fiasco is that, yes, Mega was completely aware they were running a criminal operation. They made a gigantic amount of money and it will certainly go down as one of the most insane digital operations ever. Unfortunately, its timing around the SOPA controversy will probably function as a severe detriment to the freedom of the internet, but only time will tell. For now we can only marvel at the legacy of a man who built a multi-million dollar fortune off of DVD rips.

UPDATE: The Fader is now reporting Swizz Beatz was not Megaupload's CEO, and was "never involved in any meaningful way." 

@patrickmcguire

The expression on Frank Mir's face as he watched a video replay of his vicious Kimura finish against the great Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira was truly frightening.

There was no grimace or sympathetic nod that pointed to the fact that he just broken another man's appendage. If he was capable of putting himself in Nogueria's shoes, there was no sign of it.

There was no sly smile, cackle, or other tell tale sign of sadism. Cartoonish super villiany we can at least understand. We've seen Abu Gharib and other expressions of the evil in man's soul. Whatever was in Mir's heart, this was no run of the mill brutality.

Worse than a smile or a smirk, there was no expression at all. Mir and announcer Joe Rogan watched the tape roll back and his face was a blank slate. For Frank Mir, there was no emotion. His job is to hurt, to maim if necessary. There was no looking back, no second guessing. In the cage he was remorseless. For opponents, lack of affect  the most dangerous emotion of all.

A Speculative List Of Jay-Z’s 99 Problems

“If you’re having girl problems I feel bad for you son/ I got 99 problems but a b-tch ain’t one.”

This would be a stellar tsunami rushing towards us from all edges of the visible universe.

December 8 2011 Last updated at 04:29 PM ET

'Wait and Watch What I Do' with Strikeforce, Says Dana White

By Ben Fowlkes

MMA Writer

011

TORONTO -- Just when you thought Strikeforce might be going the way of the WEC, UFC president Dana White told reporters on Thursday that Zuffa's other promotion is sticking around. We just don't know in what form yet, or with which fighters.

"It's staying," White said of the organization, adding that he hoped to have more information to release on it next week, hinting that big changes might be in the works.

"Just sit and wait and watch what I do. Trust me, it's going to be just fine. Like I said last time I talked to you guys about this, I'm getting into this and I'm going to handle it. Watch and see."

Media members weren't the only ones curious about the fate of the organization, whose contract with Showtime is set to expire in February of 2012. A fan also took the opportunity during the UFC 140 pre-fight press conference to question the UFC president on what he planned to do with the Strikeforce fighters , specifically heavyweight Grand Prix finalists Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier.

"We'll see what happens," White said. "I know I keep saying this every week, but that deal should be wrapped up any day now, and then I'll make the decisions on who goes where and what's going to happen. So we should know hopefully by Monday."

The question that leaps to mind is, why maintain an organization that's been looted of most of its top draws, and which has recently struggled to move the needle at all when it comes to generating fan interest in its events on Showtime? After all, didn't Zuffa try that model already with the WEC, when it ran the organization as a separate entity on a separate channel before eventually folding the roster into the UFC?

If it didn't work then, what makes White think it will work with Strikeforce, which has already lost its heavyweight, light heavyweight, and welterweight champions to the UFC, with the remaining beltholders suggesting that they're eager to follow?

Only don't tell White that the WEC was a failure. He insisted on Thursday that the WEC "did work," even if it no longer exists.

"We had a television deal -- a great television deal with the WEC," he said. "It was very successful. The fights were awesome. There were people that loved watching the WEC fights. It absolutely worked."

And yet, it didn't work so well that Zuffa felt compelled to keep it around. If you're a Strikeforce fighter these days, that track record might not instill much confidence, but White insists that the organization won't be fading into the ether any time soon, and Strikeforce's Scott Coker said earlier this week that he was optimistic about the organization's future on Showtime.

"In the history of Strikeforce since the relationship with Showtime was developed, we put on, I think some of the best fights in the history of MMA," said Coker. "We've done our part to grow the sport, and that's going to continue. There's still a lot of great fighters on the roster. And we're going to keep building these fighters. We're going to continue putting on great fights. To me, that's not going to change. So everybody can tune into Showtime and watch in 2012, and we're going to put on some amazing, amazing fights."

Then again, as White pointed out, the WEC also put on some amazing fights. In the end, it wasn't enough to ensure its long-term survival as a separate entity under the Zuffa banner. One can't help but wonder whether Strikeforce will be able to avoid the same fate.

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