A few people have asked me what happened to my ULTIMATE FIGHTER recaps, but that was a one off thing. I missed the first episode of the new season, and was waiting to catch up to comment at all, but it took me until this weekend to finish going through the first seven episodes, and the effect was a bit underwhelming. This season’s fighters just aren’t outstanding, and lack compelling characters aside from Christian nutjob Dan with his “bathroom breaks” to preen in front of the mirror. (This year’s bathroom cam is a highly disquieting development.) Joey the deserter was just a big wimpy mooncalf, and even a sports psychologist knew he couldn’t handle the house, so his career was thankfully brief. Last season’s house full of banty rooster misfits was far more entertaining — maybe a melodrama and camera-time seeking freak like Gabe Ruediger and his high colonics isn’t such a bad idea.

{spoilers below]

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UGO asks Neil Gaiman, Ozzy Osbourne, Clive Barker, Brian Posehn, Tiger Woods and many others what may be the burning question of our times: Who would in in a fight: a minotaur armed with a trident or a centaur armed with a crossbow?. We’re betting on the centaur because they have TWO eyes.

We all know that there are plenty of comics-reading athletes, from noted Superman fan Shaquille O’Neal to dozens and dozens of pro wrestlers. But, if we had to pick the scariest comic book fan of them all, it could easily be UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva.

The Brazilian Silva, who scored a lopsided TKO win over Rich Franklin last night at UFC 77 in Cincinnati, is a long-time Spider-Man fan and derived his nickname, “The Spider,” from everyone’s favorite wall-crawler.

He told this to the Daily Star last week:

I love comic books and I have every Spider-Man comic book series since 1984. I listed him as my hero as he is the only superhero that had bills to pay.

“You can mention Batman but he was rich while Superman was from another planet. But Spider-Man had to make ends pay here on earth!

Posted by Mark Coale

ERBzine, the official outlet for news of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ creations, reports that a Pixar delegation including VP Jim Morris, director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) and writer Mark Andrews visited the ERB Inc. offices and met with Danton Burroughs, Sandra Galfas and Jim Sullos.

All six members at the meeting expressed a deep commitment to the project, acknowledging that they had been inspired by Burroughs’ creations from a very early age. This is evidenced in the excitement held for the John Carter property and the plans for a film trilogy faithful to the Burroughs books. Projected release date is sometime before 2012.

Danton Burroughs presented the creative team with a wealth of resources, including art samples and books by ERB scholars such as Irwin Porges and John F. Roy. They noted that their major resource to date had been the thousands of official ERB, Inc. Webpages and Webzines.

Movie site /Film reports that Pixar is actually planning a TRILOGY of John Carter films. Developing.

Unrelated but still cool, Rafael Kayanan recently posted some of his concept art for the aborted Paramount version of John Carter. More goodies in link.

No Gorns needed in this ARENA.

It’s been talked about for a few months, including last weekend at the Baltimore Comic-Con, and now it’s here.

DC Comics’ THE ARENA website is now up and running. From what we understand, both from the website and hearing it described by Dan Didio, alternate versions of your favorite DC heroes/heroines will do battle in some kind of UFC slobberknocker, with the winner becoming part of some bad guy’s super army of evil (or something like that). And you, gentle reader, can vote as to which version you want to see beat down or tap out the others.

Right now, the website features four contests from which to choose: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Some of the versions are new and some are from a couple of DC’s better-known Elseworlds projects (SUPERMAN: RED SON, BATMAN: RED RAIN, JSA: THE LIBERTY FILES).

No word on the website on how many characters will eventually be chosen or how long the voting will last. The first issue of THE ARENA is scheduled for December 5th.

posted by Mark Coale

We’re not too old for this shit, but we’re too old to kill ourselves for this shit.

Even though THE BEAT and her helper monkey have been talking about Chris Benoit’s brain, that’s not the wrestling talk we have for you today.

As everyone knows, there are a multitude of similarities between the two popular culture whipping boys: brightly-colored outfits, supersized muscles, and so on.

Today, we shine a line on one of our favorite wrestling companies, CHIKARA PRO, and their love of comics. You may have seen them references on MTV recently, talking about wrestling and video games (CHIKARA has a Nintendo-loving garppler on their crew called Player Uno).

CHIKARA’S DVD releases have, for the last couple years, been homages to famous comic book covers. You undoubtedly recognize the originals that inspired these discs.

More after the break
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When he isn’t writing comics or radio plays, Terrance Griep Jr. is also known as midwest wrestling villain Spiderbaby, surely one of the more unusual side jobs among comics. Griep writes to let us know that this weekend he had a lot of activities:

1. Finished a manuscript.

2. Finished an article.

3. Became the NLW Midwest Heavyweight Champion.

4. Tried Fast Fixin’ Chicken Dipping Sticks for the first time and found that I really like them.

Congrats to the new champ!

IGN.com has a story about the upcoming THOR movie, which just had STARDUST’S Matthew Vaughn sign on as director. But who will play the Norse God?

The story says that Marvel is interested in getting WWE star (and Vince McMahon son-in-law) Triple H (Paul Levesque) to play the part. You may remember that a few years ago, Triple H was in BLADE: TRINITY and was a candidate to play everyone’s favorite barbarian in the not-yet-made KING CONAN.

Movies starring wrestlers have not fared well in recent times. WWE created their own film division to feature some of the stars (John Cena, Steve Austin), but not of the films have been successful. The Rock has been a couple Hollywood hits, but in a supporting role.

How would the “King of Kings” do as “The God of Thunder?” Well, he’s got long hair, lots of muscles and already carries around a hammer. It sounds like he’s already on his way.

You be the judge.

Posted by Mark Coaleusa alaska federal union creditaccredited degreesfederal credit amoco unionuniversities online accreditedallsouth federal credit union0 credit cardhome accredited lendersinterest credit card 0 Map

Since our shocking discovery, we’ve been checking the spam filter regularly and finding several legitimate message therein. Disturbing. Alarming.

Also, if our spam mail is to be believed, the average American male has a great deal of anxiety about the size and efficacy of his todger. Disturbing. Alarming.

Interestingly, we were talking with Jeff Smith yesterday, and the topic of Citizen Steel came up, er, was raised…uh…ANYWAY, we were talking about Citizen Steel, and Jeff said “I put a pretty good package on Captain Marvel actually. I didn’t think he should have a Barbie doll sexless crotch. He’s Captain Marvel, for God’s sake.”

Also, does anyone know where to get some d*scount s*ftware? Or a discount R*lex?

VS

WHO WOULD WIN?

[Via Boing Boing, via Lileks]

Rafael Kayanan has bowed in with his comments on Saturday’s Ultimate Dighter live finale, which was all fights all the time. You will find his commentary under the cut, as well as a few notes from The Beat.

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I’m off to the Licensing show today so limited posting.

BUT BEFORE I GO, I wanted to address the controversy over my TUF coverage over the past few months. I’m not sorry I did it, and would do it again, but it was very time consuming, and I do think my efforts in the future should be directed towards the main focus of this blog, namely, “nerd news you can use.” I really enjoyed Rafael Kayanan’s very knowledgeable commentary, however, he need to do that regularly somewhere.

Why did I do it? Well I have been an MMA fan for a while, and I have always liked the fighting, whether it was boxing or a HK martial arts flick, and this is a compelling real world application of that. Like many people, I naturally segued into it when the WWE began to lose me. Not that the UFC is an “exhibition” like pro wrestling. These fighters are real athletes who must train to get to world level, and I respect that. Also, I love pro wrestling, but the injuries and death are beginning to get me down. Believe it or not, for a “real bloodsport” MMA is a lot safer than wrestling. There are injuries and broken bones here and there, but nothing like the wholesale physical destruction wrestlers deliberately subject themselves to. I was greatly saddened by the death of Sherri Martel just the other day. She was only 49, and the cause of death is not known but any way you slice it, that’s way too soon. Beat pal Shane Helms is at home for a year with a broken neck, and he’s just lucky to be walking. (Get well soon, Sugar Shane!) It’s all sad. I know MMA has its problems, too just like any sport, but the competitors aren’t quite as fucked up…yet. (Yes I heard about Gracie. I’m reserving judgement.)

Anyhoo, I set myself the task of recapping TUF as a bit of a writing test to see if I could do that kind of narrative. I think I learned a little, and I know Mike Baron enjoyed it, so case closed.

[Image via here via Sherdog}

And so we bid ado to the feisty 155-pounders, a high strung, emotional bunch that nonetheless included some very talented young fighters who will surely go on to make their mark in MMA. I should also point out that while spoilers for these fights have been out there for months and months, I was able to avoid them very easily, so I enjoyed tonight’s action very much. The moral is…spoilers really do SPOIL!!!

BTW is you want to see what Gabe “Fatty” Ruediger is up to, this message board threadhas the run down. Warning, May contain drama.

EPISODE 11 starts with the post Manny/Brandon backstage action, where Manny’s cousin welterweight Karo Parisyan is suddenly going all Joe Pesci on Nate Diaz. It seemed that Karo defeated Nate’s brother Nick in a split decision, and perhaps there is some Stockton/Glendale animosity going on. Karo keeps poking Nate on the head, which comes off as PDD (pretty damn dickish.) Nate has been shown to have a very special fuse throughout the season, and to his credit, takes it pretty well but finally Karo just pushes him too far, and he quite wisely goes off to avoid Karo.
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Okay I totally fell behind on this during Book Expo and now the last two episodes are on tonight from 10-12. Oh boy. The quarterfinal fights have all been very good. This has been an interesting season of TUF. The lightweights really were a high-strung bunch and there was plenty of the crying and fussing that I like so much – and even anal penetration! – but most of the fighting has been good, too. The mismatches have been very brief, and the good match-ups have been true battles. These guys don’t hold back. In fact it may be the best TUF season for fights. And please note, we have commentary below the fold from our guest fight expert, Rafael Kayanan.

I’ll breeze by Episode 9, but it did have a great line from Jens: “When you train in hell, it ain’t that bad of a place!”

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Long ago, we linked to Herk Harvey’s Shake hands with danger!, an unforgetable ’70s safety film, that taught us about drive shafts and reading the service manual at all times. Well, just in case you couldn’t get enough of the proper way to grease an axle, Boing Boing links to a complete version and then this edited down dance version which includes all the glory of (ba-dong-a-bong-a-dong-a-dong) “Three-FInger Joe.”

We’ve been doing a bit of our own shaking hands with danger here at Stately Beat Manor. Some foes long thought vanquished are stirring in cold Tunguska. Friends we thought were standing by have had to see to their own perils in Cajamarca and Gyor. It’s a long, empty night and a lot of work to do, and there’s only one thing keeping us going: Ice Road Truckers!

Jackknifing, breakdowns and accidents are commonplace. Last year, because of the effects of global warming, the ice road was closed early, leaving hundreds of tons of supplies stuck at the dispatch station. Since the terrain in this region is virtually impenetrable, and there are so few paved roads, the only way for supplies to reach the mines is by traveling over the ice road. The entire industry depends on the weather and the courage of the ice road truckers, who go 48-hour stretches with no sleep and who constantly hear the cracking of the ice right beneath their wheels.

Yeah baby! GIANT TRUCKS FALLING THROUGH THE ICE! That’s what I’m talking about. Shake hands with danger! We’re taking it to 12! Yeeeeee haaaaaaaa.

In a Stirring Belmont, the Filly Beats the Fellas.

A quick catchup on the IFL, the MMA league co-owned by Wizard’s Gareb Shamus. Although it has been showing regularly on TV, it has had some business setbacks. Yesterday, their stock went down faster than a heavily hyped favorite in a UFC event, due in part to the announcement of a new TV deal! Wrestling expert Dave Meltzer had this to say:

IFL stock collapsed today. At the moment of this writing, it was down from its $3.30 per share close yesterday to $1.28. There was a major sell-off of 1.6 million shares of stock as some institutional investors were not allowed to sell until today, and sensing a collapse, they wanted to at least recover some money before the stock goes down farther. Another reason is the company is likely to issue new shares in an attempt of a second round of financing, which would also dilute the value of the stock. This actually should have been a good time as MyNetwork TV announced yesterday the IFL keeping its Monday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. time slot for the fall season. This was expected as in their upfront presentation weeks ago they had already told advertisers IFL was staying.

In addition, CMO Joel Ehrlich has stepped down, although he’ll remain as a consultant.

We are just too swamped to do our TUF recap this week! Luckily Rafael Kayanan has a very thorough examination of the surprising Lauzon/Cole fight. As far as we’re concerned, the most notable thing about this episode was Lobstah, fight instigator getting kicked out while in the middle of making lobstah chowdah!!! That was tragic.

“Protect yourself at all times” is an old boxing adage which fighter Cole Miller found to be a very relevant one in this week’s segment of TUF when he faced the excellent, but sometimes wild ground and pound style of Joe Lauzon.

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After last week’s double header, and Rob Emerson’s second loss, I began to wonder if BJ is not a very good coach. Emerson was keenly aware of his own emotional weakness, something which BJ seems to have done nothing to address except for yelling from the corner advice like “Explode, Emerson!” Well, if he knew how to maybe he would! An experienced fighter like Rob should have beaten Corey, but BJ didn’t help him much. I discussed this in email with Rafael Kayanan, our technical expert for this season, and he responded with this:
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[Thanks Charles Foster Kane!]

UPDATE: WE’ve added Rafael Kayanan’s commentary at the end of the post.

Tonight’s episode is no drama—all FIGHT! Maybe this will slow this season’s ratings decline. Finally we get to meet this season’s killer nerd, Joe Lauzon, a quiet internet computer-fiddling type, but Dana warns that “This kid will rip your ****in’ head off.” He’s up against Brian, who has a lot of fights on his record but hasn’t emerged as much of a personality.
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[It’s come to our attention that some Beat readers don’t like our Ultimate Fighter coverage this year. We will seriously consider moving it somewhere else in the near future but we’re kind of enjoying doing it, so please just skip it if you don’t like it.]

Yes yes this is way late so we’ll be brief, scroll down for Rafael Kayanan’s commentary:

This episode opens with wrestling coach Tony DeSouza, whose wild beard and hair and intense grappling skills make him look like some kind of savage mountain man you wouldn’t want to tussle with, getting on Noah for laughing and not taking training seriously. Training junkies get their fix with a montage of crazy ass holds and Noah finally admitting that he got beat by a better man. By now BJ is just kind of fed up with his Bad News Bears team — which was his own fault for picking people based on not liking Jens Pulver, remember?

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We’re proud to introduce a new feature to our ULTIMATE FIGHTER recaps: expert commentary from Rafael Kayanan. Rafael is a cartoonist of long standing, (check out his work on Conan #39 written by Kurt Busiek, now in stores and his art blog here.) but he is also a technical expert and fight coordinator for movies, with extensive knowledge of fighting techniques, both hand to hand and with edged weapons. He also watches TUF and we’re honored to have him offering his commentary as his schedule allows.

So…on to the fighting!
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There was apparently a display of sculpture made from Scrapple at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia yesterday, but try as we might we couldn’t find any online pictures of the momentous event. In case you’ve forgotten, scrapple is a vaguely-sausage-like substance made from simmering cornmeal, flour and spices with ground leftover pork trimmings. The trimmings include heart, liver and tongue and others bits and bobs of offal. We would very much like to see photos of sculpture made from pork tongue and cornmeal, so please, pass them our way.

Speaking of livers, we didn’t get a chance to do out TUF recap this week, but we did watch episode 3, in which Gabe got a colonic from a woman who was scarily enthusiastic about getting a “mudslide” and other members of the house paraded around in thongs with their butts hanging out wearing masks or something. They’ve gone completely William Golding in only a few DAYS! Awesome possum. Oh yes, Nate Diaz, Nick’s feisty little brother, beat Rob Emerson in a fight that an over-excited Dana thought was the second coming. Maybe we’ll have some screen caps with the next recap. We’re also attempting to recruit someone who actually knows something about fighting to augment our colonic-favoring covering.