Warning: Graphic Video: Cage-fighting Violence

Although I haven't resided there in years, this writer grew-up in the northern-end of a rowdy little east-coast Canadian town located in the province of Nova Scotia.

Having not enough residents to make it a town during the early days, it is rumored that the locals then stole names from tombstones in order to incorporate the tiny village into becoming an actual town.

With a population of less than a thousand souls—mostly Scottish immigrants, with Celtic surnames such as Mackenzie, Stewart, and Cameron, Lockeport, NS, was then and still is nothing more than a proverbial map-dot.

Today, that same town I grew up in is still miniscule in size, but could perhaps best be described as a quaint-little-beach-village with a senior's rest-home and beach-front cottage rentals—other than that however, nothing of any importance ever happens there.

Back in the turbulent 60s and 70s things were different, and not so quiet.

Try mixing together loud music and liquor, in any order, and the result is sometimes a recipe for extreme violence.

Most-times it all began with hearty food, cheap liquor, and of-course foot-stomping music—beach or house parties were a daily occurrence back then.

Personally, needless to say, I grew up in a world filled with alcoholism and violence.

Although today it's mostly vicarious, at age 50, I still choose to remain in that same 'ol dysfunctional and chaotic world.

There's no liquor involved—nor is the below posted video that of a rowdy house party. Yet, no-matter how you slice it, the modern-day blood-sport known as mixed martial arts, or as I like to call it "cagefighting" is a sport which is both primitive and extremely violent.

I'm one of it's biggest fans.

Stay tuned.

~

Written by @cagestokerblog
~
"A bell rings. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
that summons thee to heaven or to hell" ~ William Shakespeare
~

UFC-158: Georges St. Pierre ~ " Top of the Food Chain"

Besides the obvious mixed-martial-arts hero, Georges St-Pierre, the country of Canada—for being as geographically large as it is, doesn't have a long list of fighters knocking down the door to UFC stardom.

And now, with that short-list being suddenly even more shortened with the retirement of Ontario's 155'er Mark Hominick, we may have to wait and see if recent newcomer, and Albertan, Mike Ricci, is able to step-up to the plate after his recent loss this past weekend and fill-in the UFC lightweight void.

Another personnel favorite at 155 is the toe-to-toe warrior, and another Ontarian, Sam Stout.

Stout is a showstopper, win or lose, and a real bang-for-bang stand-up specialist, but he remains at mid-level, and was recently defeated by Nova Scotian, and hometown Halagonian, John Makdessi.

Unfortunately, neither 'Hands of Stone" nor Hominick have looked quite the same since losing—for Stout, his brother-in-law and for Hominick, a best friend and head-trainer—Shawn Tompkins.

Tompkins shockingly, at age 37, saddened the fight-community by succumbing to heart-failure back on August 14, 2011.

Nova Scotian, TJ Grant, who's normally a 170-pounder, now a lightweight, is beginning to tear his way upward. Yet, while on a three-fight winning streak, Grant still remains at mid-level.

Additionally, Grant's new-found winning ways could merely be a by-product of moving down to 155-pounds thus taking advantage of a very-slight but ever-present-size-difference over some of the division's physically smaller men.

We won't know the real answer to that theory until Grant is truly tested by someone in the top five of his division. Nate Diaz, or Gray Maynard perhaps.

British Columbia's Rory MacDonald certainly looks the part of a future champ; but he has not one but two roadblocks in his way.

The first one being the fact that he trains in the same gym, and competes in the same weight-class as his friend and mentor, the above-mentioned St-Pierre.

That current liability wouldn't be bad thing in any other sport. But in the fight game it's every man for himself.

"GSP" just happens to have, since 2007, a death grip on the championship belt and I cannot foresee anyone relieving him of it—unless however he somehow runs headfirst into what I like to call " Johny Hendricks's sneaky-left hand " as Jon Fitch and Martin Kampmann recently did.

As it stands, both St. Pierre and MacDonald are trying their damnedest to ignore the constant barrage of questions from the fickle-mma-media on the above subject, but as we hardcore fans all know, ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room is not going to make it go away.

And you can bet that the UFC money hungry promoter, Dana White, will soon be pressuring them to fight each other. White seemingly thinks cagefighters should grapple their own mother for a few thousand bucks.

One thing is for certain, "Ares" is practically, metaphorically-speaking, sitting patiently on GSP's Tri-Star-Gym doorstep and waiting to exhale...as they say; and with neither man wanting to fight each other the air at the Montreal Gym must be so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The above dilemma, however, between these two Canadian warriors may soon take care of itself, as both men have tough fights against two hungry lions coming up over the Canadian horizon very soon, in March, 2013.

MacDonald is gambling that he's improved enough, since their first meeting back in June 2010, to this time send Carlos Condit to dreamland in a UFC 158 rematch.

While St. Pierre, with fingers crossed—because this match-up has been announced and cancelled more times than a George Jones concert from the early 70's—will finally get to unload the unfinished business with the man, whom I opine, is easily a top-five-pound-for-pound fighter, Nick Diaz.

Stay tuned. UFC 158: St-Pierre vs. Diaz is an upcoming mixed martial arts event to be held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on March 16, 2013 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. You can follow me if you like on Twitter at @cagestokerblog

UFC: Trainer Firas Zahabi Weighs-In on St-Pierre, Penn Vs. MacDonald

Although nothing has yet been carved in stone, the 22-year-old beast, Canadian-cagefighter Rory MacDonald, and 33-year-old Hawaiian pound-for-pound legend B.J. Penn, have now verbally agreed to meet sometime in the coming months.

MacDonald, originally from the western-province of British Columbia, is currently training here on Canada's east coast at one of the world's premier mixed-martial-arts centers, Tristar Gym, which is run by famed trainer Firas Zahabi, who's also, notably, the mentor of UFC welterweight-superstar, and Montreal native, Georges St-Pierre.

Zahabi, recently weighed-in on a few topics concerning MacDonald vs. Penn, and also reiterated some previous statements regarding MacDonald vs. St-Pierre:

"It's the UFC, I think they want to see that Penn vs. MacDonald fight. And when the UFC offers you a fight like that, I think it's because the fans want to see it. And us, we never say no to a fight the fans want to see, and I know B.J. Penn loves to give the fans what they want. In the end, I just thinks it's a matchup everyone wants to see," stated Zahabi.

 "BJ is a big name for Rory to fight," Zahabi continued, "It puts you on the map. ... It's great for Rory. No matter what happens, he'll have his name out there more than ever."

The elite fight-trainer also told MMAjunkie.com Radio that—even though both MacDonald and St-Pierre are friends and training partners, who are competing for the same prize—the UFC welterweight championship—there will absolutely-never be a conflict of interest, so to speak, where they will need to square-off and fight each other: 

"We're not going to make a problem out of it before it becomes a problem. But, if it ever comes to that point, we'll sit down and discuss who's going to shift weight or not. But there are a lot of fights before there's that bottleneck. ... I don't think we're there. I think we're a long way from there," Zahabi said.

He, Zahabi, also said that he feels personally, that it may be too soon to worry about a potential Rashad Evans and Jon Jones type scenario. But if the question of fighting each-other is ever asked of the two, from UFC President Dana White, the answer from all three people involved in the match would be a resounding No:

"Definitely the two aren't going to fight," Zahabi said. "We've agreed on that several times. We work together too often. I work with the two guys religiously, constantly over the years, so I could never condone that. You spend too much time with each other, and you're not going to be punching each other in the face."

As for the big-boss-man White? ..well, he's already thrown in his two-cents worth on the subject:

"I guarantee you if Rory looks looks at GSP's fucking-bank-account, he'll want to beat the fucking shit out of him," White said.

*As for my opinion, I like to use the example of Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes—who trained together for years and loved each other like brothers, but managed to put all that nonsense aside in order to pass the torch, so to speak, from the old to the new.

~ Follow me on Twitter @cagestokerblog