The California State Athletic Commission is in the midst of setting up new rules and standards for mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions. While we are all for anything that will help push MMA into the mainstream, we hope they don’t water it down too much. I mean c’mon… we already have pro rasslin.

Part of these standards include standardizing gloves and we’ve decided to drop a few suggestions for the CSAC that we feel would minimize injury and increase viewership. We’ve also taken the liberty of creating some photoshop mockups of these high-performance gloves in action.

C-H-U-C-K-E-Y

Sapp SMASH!!!!

Y? Because we like you!

We even found some gloves for our True Northern Neighbors!

You know how the Chinese practice playing ping pong on the sand? Some forward-thinking Germans at MMA Berlin have pioneered a side-mount escape training excercise.

We’re going to have to try that this week.

It’s not a bad scan, she has really bad skin.

Stumbled upon this beauty on the google image search. Everyone remember Cynthia Rothrock? She was the hottest martial arts babe in the 80′s and partway into the 90′s. I dunno what happened… maybe the collective kung-fu movie watching world woke up one morning and did the proverbial roll-over. Were we all drunk?? There was a *GASP* all in unison that day as we scrambled to put our pants back on and hide the tissues. I for one feel utterly bamboozled by this woman.

Admittedly, as a prebubescent boy I found her intriguing. Wow.. she has big tits AND she could spin kick me to death. Mind you it wasn’t that she was hot. She was kinda average. It was arousing and petrifying at the same time. But now that I am older and no longer spending the majority of my time fighting acne, I can look at the photo above, and feel genuine nausea.

Here’s how the biography on her official website opens:

Cynthia Rothrock is one of the greatest martial arts/action film stars in the world

BTW, her site is way hot edgy astonishingly hideous. But let’s not get distracted by that. Return now to the above quote. If by “greatest”, you mean appearing in and producing as many god-awful films as possible in the span of two decades, then maybe. I mean really… that is a bold statement. What makes a person a great film star is how they influence the culture or the field of expertise. Did her efforts improve the martial arts? Did her efforts change our cultural understanding of anything?! I would argue not… except maybe confirming that bulging musculature on women is genuinely unattractive. Even her tits are rippling… oh wait, that’s just the silicone bag wrinkling. Want more? Hiyaaaaa!!

Granted, the martial arts are largely a male-dominated sport, and some hand-clapping is in order here. Although it’s arguable that she’s really a woman. That’s for another post, though. Cynthia has, according to that same bio, been inducted into several completely useless Halls of Fame. But it seems to me that the best way to undo all the acclaim and respect you may gain as a competitive martial artist is to make bad martial arts movies.

The Hong Kong productions that she appeared in were actually decent. But every film done by Americans during that time… for lack of a better term… sucked ass. Takes a lot of balls [tee hee!] to dare to unleash this kind of crap upon the world.

Here’s an excerpt from Undefeatable. The comments on Amazon.com made us laugh hysterically.

I’ve never seen acting so bad in a commercial flick. Monkeys could have done a better job given the right amount of bananas.

Any of you people watch Crash? Just watched it this afternoon. It deals with race issues in Los Angeles, among other things. While watching, I got to thinking about Jiu-Jitsu (weird) and how diverse the members of our academy are—and not just our academy either… pretty much every one I’ve been to. I guess I just hadn’t really thought of it before.

Matt Dillon being set up for a choke.

“You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”

Crash

I suppose it’s not just BJJ practitioners who are so diverse. Most martial arts are imports from overseas, so those who participate will need to come with a predisposition to being open-minded and accepting of foreign concepts and philosophies.

Now that being said. Why is it so popular with people from other cultures? Because ass kicking is a universal language.

Part of the racism problem in the U.S. is that there are pockets. Pockets of Asians, pockets of white people, pockets of black people, pockets of latinos. In certain places like Los Angeles, there is no interaction even in commuting. People can’t get along if they never see each other. Pretty simple to me.

Show up in a BJJ academy or dojo anywhere in the world, and it’s not likely that you will experience much racial discrimination. Why? The color of your belt is much more imminent of a threat than the color of your skin. You all have equal ground otherwise. Interesting that you have to go to a place that teaches violence to feel acceptance.

So think about this for a second. This is just like the Crash theory. The guys at my gym are different races, but we get along because we mix it up on a regular basis. And we’re trying to break each others arms. [Cue It's a Small World]

OK so that’s all. Just wanted to share that thought. Do your part, peacelover. Armbar, choke, and heel-hook your way to a better tomorrow. Thank you.

I suppose if you break it down, all we’re doing is hugging each other. On a sidenote, when I was on the prowl for a domain name for this blog, “manhugging.com” was already taken.