Oh it is hard to get started today let me tell you. I crawled out from my sleeping cave a few hours ago with the memory of cold pizza in the fridge. My cup of tea has not left my hands or under half empty since its first creation. Painful is it to write these words knowing that my trusted companion feels just as lazy as I do. At least she makes a good foot warmer. I’m exhausted after my free day. My body feels like it just went three 5 minute rounds with a Kimbo Slice.
I guess the weekend started for me on Friday. I was winding down my time at work when normally it would have been just starting. One of the floor guys walked by and asked me if I was going to come by this weekend. “What for?” I pondered. Then looking up at the screen we have in the hallway I noticed a commercial for Elite XC Saturday Night Fights. “Yeah we’re going to put it up on the big screen here. Last time it ran way over but was really good.” I had heard of this Mixed Martial Arts stuff in the past. It’s kind of like wrestling except real and I have no clue about the back story with each of the fights because it’s not a soap opera. Call it human cockfighting or the next great sport, MMA carries a following of millions of fans and athletes from around the world. “So what time is that on again?” I had to ask…
Arriving at home later that evening I found myself in a situation that I rarely see: A Friday Night at Home with My Girlfriend. See in the year plus that I have dated Pam we have enjoyed the best and worst of working opposite schedules. The good is that when you do decide to watch programs together the DVR is your best friend. The bad of course is that you have sometimes separate television preferences. She enjoys interior design and home building shows where I am more barbaric and juvenile with my viewing. Like most couples we have found a good mix of scripted comedy and maybe not as well scripted dramas keep us busy. Normally our time together is scheduled loosely for Sunday afternoons but if an unexpected date opens up on the calendar then it must be taken. So catching up on two weeks of Swingtown with a pizza in hand we sampled the latest home brew. Though the recipe needs a little work an enjoyable evening at home was born. Somewhere around my smart recording skills catching up to live television I started to notice some commercial spots for this Elite XC deal. They were building on some apparent drama from the last showing where a thumb went into the eye of a guy stopping a title fight. I was happy to see that human cockfighting cared about eyes but knew something like this would never fly with just Pam alone. This was going to take some real work on my part including the calling in of some back-up. It was time for a male bonding night! The early steps in my plan were simple. In theory a male bonding night happens when men are allowed time away from the female for good behavior to be around other men in a safe yet loud manor. Though we males may interact during daylight, I believe that something special happens when our interaction is allowed within one of our own caves after the sun has set. Men need this time to sit with others like us and discuss the true thoughts in our mind without fear of not being attentive to our mates. This is also the time when we choose to show off our other toys to the other boys allowing for healthy playtime. I think the first time I ever had a true night like this was my 15th birthday. It was a Friday and I doubt if I even saw the other family members before school due to our schedules. I got a few random happy birthday wishes from classmates who maybe caught the information from a calendar kept in the front of the classroom with all types of dates on it. Kind of like the company newsletter now serves us working folks. What made that day cool though is that after school I spend the afternoon with a couple of the neighbor kids, David and Alan. What was normally though an early evening goodbye turned into pizza and video games till midnight.
Since then I have had several great nights of fun with my male peers. The game systems have grown up over time and faces may have changed but the idea was always the same. We were out to do something that was cool so we could kill time between our responsibilities and that set us apart from the women in our lives. It used to be years ago that any excuse to sit around a television with beer and wings counted as a party. I can only think how stupid I must have looked trying to impress some random female with my knowledge of a sport yet like many men I did just that for years. My sport though was always hand to hand combat. I read somewhere that the sport a man chooses represents how he would like to see himself. I never wanted to be part of a team even if I was the star. I would rather just not have sand kicked in my face in the beach though. What my male bonding night though needed was another male. In the past there was never a shortage of these types around. Single guys tend to have a list of other single men just as long if not longer than the list of single women they have tried with. We like to keep the competition close and run with the pack as often as possible. As time has moved on for me though the list has taken several hits. The two biggest recently have been my move to St Pete and meeting Pam. I would say within driving distance my number is about five. I know…this is so not Derrick! To have fewer than thirty people available to come over any night of the week is just not me. Sorry, most of us guys have grown up and don’t keep a plethora of buddies around. Getting the right one out of the five though was the trick. I needed someone that could talk for the two hours but wouldn’t interrupt the action or worse refuse to enjoy it. After a bit of phone tag I settled on a time with Kyle for pick up. It worked well because I was going to need supplies. I also convinced Pam that she needed to get out of the apartment for a bit for bit of female centering. “Hey while you are out can you pick me up a pack of boxers?”
The trip down to grab Kyle was a simple one into the old neighborhood. I stopped by the old grocery store for beer and other random food items. While there I ran into this dude I knew only in face from the local bar. We will call him Token. “Haven’t seen you across the street in a while” Token pondered. I updated him on my move and promised to stop by first free night I had. I then swung by to my friend’s place showing off the good and bad of my car. He decided that rather than sit outside with a window that doesn’t roll down he would come into our third stop. Seems that I had a little treat for myself ordered and the girls at Winghouse were gracious enough to provide. I rushed them back home so that we were all settled on the couch by 9PM for our entertainment. During the ride Kyle and I caught up from his time in Boston on our relationships. Mostly his which seems to be the one with more drama. Good thing I can listen and watch TV at the same time. Women just a tip, if you think your man isn’t listening to you because the television is on, you’re wrong. We can do two things at once we just don’t want you to know it.
Ok so back to the night. It’s Saturday night and Kyle and I are settled in for our fight. First up will be a women’s match between Shayna Baszler and Christine Cyborg. Now normally I am all for the WWE Divas getting it on (which reminds me…special shout out to the new champ from Paper-City, P-town’s own Michelle McCool) but they are all hot and wrestling is fake. This is real including the blood already on the mat from the previous matches on Showtime earlier that night. These women come out with the same gloves, shorts and mouth guards as the men do and throw just as many if not more punches. It was a good build fight but that Cyborg…she reminds me of the Russian from Rocky 4 not only in the fact that she doesn’t speak English or seems like a robot but also in how she destroys her competition. Wow! I mean she is built better than most men. This squash match was followed by a sidelines interview with Gina Carano, the face of female MMA according to one announcer. I can see why too…
After this came a few other matches that seemed to take less time and interest. Jake Shields captures the welterweight championship in a not so impressive bout. I think this is where the Elite XC loses me. I have almost thirty years of watching Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan to guide my love of professional wrestling. Even as those names have been replaced with Triple H, Edge and John Cena, the basic ingredients building towards the fight have stayed the same. Weekly programming mixed with off-air rumors equal a build up towards what is always thought of as the fight of the year. Even the most successful boxers from Ali to Tyson came complete to the public with an image and voice that placed a threat towards opponents. Even fans of traditional team sports enjoy analysis, commentators, and athletes who are willing to scream just how much blood the spectators can expect to see. And as our ancestors in Rome asked gladiators for thousands of years before…we wanted to see blood!
Somewhere around 10PM Pam showed up at home. It was good timing because by then I had needed a break from hearing about ex-girlfriends. Now the thing that separates my girlfriend from yours is that Pam can actually hang as if she was one of the boys. Many times we get involved with people who do not share our same ideas of enjoyable activities. One partner may like going to church where the other may like going to bars. One partner may expect to have meals at home where the other only eats out. Differences can make or break a relationship depending on how they are dealt with. I would say that the difference between Pam and myself would be that she enjoys happy endings where I can handle the kind of loud and not so nice ones. Fortunate for both of us being dominant people we can attempt to make the best of the moments. Plus picking her up a bottle of Little Penguin did help my case.
Tip for the guys: Surprise her with something small, and your reward will be great in the end!
Back to the fight and it is now time for the main event. This fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith had now witness a build up of almost two hours of broadcast, a few reads on 411Mania.com, two days of commercials, and months of hype. I was ready to say that this better be a good one considering my total time and energy expended. A good five minutes later I was granted my wish. Elbows delivered by the challenger opened up a small gash on the head of Lawler that turned his face into a crimson mask. Strikes left their evidence on the chin and nose of Smith. These two warriors gave their all towards being the last man standing. The resounding cheer from both the on-air crowd and the crowd of three in my living room signaled the end of an epic bout that saw one man retain and another defeated. Then finally as if someone had been sitting in a little room ready to throw the switch to local news coverage, Elite XC Saturday Night Fights was over. “Oh yeah, show her the girl fight” I was reminded by Kyle. Apparently we needed a woman’s opinion on the coming Gina/Cyborg match. I took advantage of the DVR to go back two hours and pulled out my calendar marking October 4th. Since we were feeling that it was early though we decided to show off one of my other toys. I learned apparently though the walls are not as thick as they should be because a friendly knock signaled the end of Rock Band for this night.
The phone rings again…it is the ex! Apparently she calls each night kind of late wanting to see what he is doing. She agreed to spot him a couple of drinks if he met her at a local bar which was close to our agreed drop spot for my buddy. I walked in the side door to the local dive bar that for two years had served me brews with low light and little notice from strangers. A hello from Token along with a few of the regulars that spotted me. “Haven’t seen you in a while” one guy mentioned. “I moved up the street” was the response as I took a seat ready to play wingman for my friend. He was looking at the set of collected free drinks dropped off by his sparing partner. A definite change in attitude came over him watching her walk towards a table just far enough away from his reach but close enough to a dude twenty years older than any of us. The guy who seemed like he was kind of the dad for the table made a point to hug her only when prodded. It was like a game of mental chess between these two to see who could upset who first. I settled in for some decent blues tunes getting my mind ready for a second war that night. Instead all I got was blues and watery eyes from being in a smoked filled room.
Later as last call approached a kind of bear of a guy walked by our area. He was covered in white hair and seemed to have a brash stance to him. The slur in his voice would make you question if he really worked at the bar or just was given a tee shirt for being the top drinker one month. “Time to get out of here” bellows the brawler “and if you don’t like it you can take it up with me.” I for one am not big on upsetting the powers that be so I informed my friend that I would not be joining them for the night cap. My fight night was over and all that would be left on my plate would be the clean up the next day.
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