Sunday, June 26, 2011

UFC 124: Georges St. Pierre vs Koscheck 2

Georges St. Pierre faced Josh Koscheck for the second time in these welterweights’ careers at the UFC 124 event which took place on December 11, 2010 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. Prior to the fight the two met as coaches of fight reality TV series TUF season 12. This fight was preceded by a lot of hyping from Josh Koscheck’s side, as he was trying to get under the skin of as always genteel and self-contained champion GSP. Georges St. Pierre is known as a fighter who takes little risks, studies his opponents’ style very carefully and is able to apply shrewd tactics to beat his competitor in their own game. During the five round bout GSP completely outclassed Koscheck, endlessly jabing the challenger with the left hand to the point where his eye got completely swallowed and sustained the fracture of orbital bone, thus once again proving that the talking done in the cage is the talking that counts.

This fight was George’s eighth consecutive win and the seventh successful defence of UFC welterweight champion title. After it he went on to defeat Jake Shields and is now set to meet Nick Diaz in UFC 137.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Eric Cantona

A slight deviation from my usual trend of drawing MMA fighters.

Eric Cantona is a Marseille born professional footballer. He played in France and England where in 1997 finished his professional career at Manchester United.
I'm not a football guy myself and despite his professional savvy and all the laurels, Cantona's name would probably only resonate a faint echo somewhere along the depths of subliminal mind, if not for his perfectly timed and placed flying side kick to a Crystal Palace supporter at Selhurst Park in January 1995. The fan Matthew Simmons was verbally insulting the Frenchman as he was walking from the stadium following the send-off. Later commenting on the incident footballer admitted feeling no remorse for his action.

"When I did the kung fu kick on the hooligan, because these kind of people don’t have to be at the game ... it’s like a dream for some, you know sometimes to kick these kind of people," he said. "So I did it for [the fans]. So they are happy. It’s a kind of freedom for them"

"No it was a mistake," Cantona told the BBC. "But that’s life. That’s me. Take it or not. I’m strong enough to come back."

After finishing his football career Cantona is making his name in a movie industry, and, also, he doesn't look back:

"I don’t care about the past,” he says. “It was a great memory but I don’t want to think about it. I want to look forward."

"I don’t know where my medals are. No shirts, nothing"

"I played for France 45 times and I had two shirts every game. That’s 90 shirts. I don’t even have one now."

"You can feel very quickly as a prisoner of your past, of the memories. I prefer to be free and think about tomorrow."