Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Summer of Sports '21: A Swaggy Weekend at the Fights

BY DC CUEVA                        
■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

As a result of the unprecedented shutdown of all sporting activity last year, this 2021 Summer of Sports has seen plenty take place: Giannis Antetokounmpo taking his place as the NBA' new king by way of an epic Finals MVP performance, the Lightning denting the Stanley Cup in their celebrations of back-to-back NHL titles around Champa Bay, England getting stung again in penalties while Lionel Messi tasted his first major trophy for country with Argentina, and golf's new generation taking over in Jon Rahm and Colin Morikawa winning the U.S. and British Opens after Phil Mickelson's PGA Championship win. But the world's eyes are now on Tokyo as The Games of the XXXII Olympiad have taken over our attention a year later than scheduled due to the pandemic.

Two years ago, Giannis opened more than a few eyebrows in another aspect of our entertainment landscape: reality television. When asked by the media of what his plans were in getting set to lead a team of NBA All-Stars against LeBron James, the Greek Freak gave a namedrop to three MTV shows in the genre: Are You The One?, Ex On The Beach and The Challenge. And when he reported back to training camp before what would become a successful campaign to the NBA title, a face mask he wore bore the symbol of 7-time champion Johnny Bananas who won the season of the ladder that was the only game in town when much of Season 35 of the fifth major pro sport was the only sports event on primetime television in a COVID-stricken America.

The Challenge more than filled the void for both the MVP and athletic-hungry sports fans alike, who joined with reality viewers and those who've been with the show from day 1 for Total Madness. A person who competed with Bananas in that $1 million final a year ago this month was Bayleigh Dayton, who forms one-half of Big Brother showmance Swayleigh with husband Chris "Swaggy C" Williams, who she met on BB20 in 2018. Chris himself is a basketball fanatic who, along with Bay, met Lakers boss Jeannie Buss when Dwayne Wade & LeBron James played one more time on the court. And earlier this month, Swaggy got to pay it forward to the one member of his family he's known all his life as they experienced one of the summer's biggest sports events: the climax of a UFC trilogy in Sin City.

Of any particular fighter in the past decade of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, no name stands out more than that of Conor McGregor. After playing youth football in a suburb of Dublin, at age 12 he took to the ring at a local boxing club as a way for to guard himself from bullies... and after flirting with being a plumber he met fellow future UFC fighter Tom Egan, where together they began training to join a sport that had been just begun to make noise.
   In 2007, an 18-year-old Conor made his debut in an MMA cage with a first round TKO in an amateur bout, and afterwards he turned professional & joined Ireland's biggest MMA promotion Cage Warriors. As a lightweight he won his first two fights, then when he went down to featherweight he went 2-2 in his next four two fights but was persuaded to stay in the cage... and McGregor would ultimately reel off eight straight wins and holding both the featherweight and lightweight title belts. His success came to the attention of UFC head Dana White, where on a visit to Dublin to receive an honor from Trinity College, he met with him and offered him a UFC contract... and the rest is history.
   Conor has amassed an immense resume since joining the promotion and becoming its most marketable superstar, with five of the six highest-grossing UFC pay-per-view events featuring the man they call "Notorious." That includes his 13-second knockout of Jose Aldo for the featherweight title, followed by becoming the first in UFC history to simultaneously hold belts in two weight classes when he TKO'd Eddie Alvarez when it made its long-awaited debut at Madison Square Garden. And in 2017, he took to the boxing ring for the first time when he was TKO'd himself by Floyd Mayweather... and in every instance the Irish fans from back home have been heard loud and clear from the cheap seats.

Along the way, McGregor has met a few matches: Khabib Nurmagomedov with that infamous bus fight beneath MSG, two fights with Nate Diaz, and a trilogy with Louisiana's Dustin Poirier. In 2009, the ladder began his pro MMA career on the regional circuit, then a year later joined World Extreme Cagefighting notching a 1-1 record. Once the UFC absorbed WEC, Poirier's debut in Dana White's world saw him fill in for an injured Jose Aldo and won that to notch an 18-5 record going into 2021, with one no contest when Alvarez landed an illegal move in the first of their two fights.
   Poirier first met McGregor in a co-main at UFC 178 in September 2014, which doubled as the Irishman's PPV debut, and Conor took care of matters with a flurry of punches that brought their first battle to an end in 106 seconds. But it wouldn't be until seven years later that Dustin earned a second shot at Notorious: the pandemic back home in America saw the UFC hold twelve events in the bubble environment of Abu Dhabi's Fight Island. And it was in its finale in the Middle East that the Louisianan earned his rematch, and it was the total opposite: Poirier came out victorious with a TKO of his own in the 2nd round -- also with punches that knocked out McGregor, the first time he had been KO'd.
   It wouldn't be 'till long -- six months to be exact -- before a second rematch turned this rivalry between the UFC's biggest superstar and the one they call the "Diamond" into a trilogy at UFC 264, but nobody expected this saga's presumptive finale to play out the way it did. From the referee's opening command, McGregor and his legs went on the attack before Poirier responded with several elbows. But at the end of round 1, replays showed that the Irishman's ankle appeared to have been rolled over, and the tibia on his leg had been broken. That was more than enough for the fight doctor to say enough's enough, and Poirier was handed the TKO win & joined three others who have won twenty UFC fights.

IG @SwaggyCTV
To coincide with the full 100% reopening of Sin City following a tough 2020, UFC 264 saw a change of venue for its biggest fights in the company's hometown. Since the pandemic began, its Vegas-based fights were held behind closed doors with no fans at its Apex practice facility far away from the Strip. But for International Fight Week, the UFC returned full-force to T-Mobile Arena and a sold-out capacity crowd of 20,062 -- and that included a certain former reality star turned politician. Two others who also were among the throng were Swaggy and someone not named Bayleigh.
   While the brother competed on Total Madness around a full-time job being immersed in the stock market post-Big Brother, someone who grew up with Chris in Connecticut is his brother Darrin. Unlike his sibling, the one his brother refers to him as "DJ" immerses his athletic love affair not in hoops, but in the sport of MMA. In an Instagram post @TheLifeOfDarrin, he started falling in love with mixed martial arts when Anthony Pettis and Benson Henderson touched gloves for the first time in 2010, also in Dustin's original WEC stomping grounds.
   As Darrin was approaching his birthday in early June, Swaggy knew that his brother was as much a UFC superfan as a few other Challenge OG's, and he thought of nothing else for the perfect present than getting a ticket to the biggest-grossing live UFC card since Conor & the promotion's Broadway debut. As the IGTV video below shows, it took more than a big effort to make this dream weekend a reality -- the latest chapter in their life story that's seen them learn how to hustle from a young age.



When he opened that box of birthday presents in the downtown L.A. Swayleigh apartment across from the Staples Center, Darrin found not only those cherished tickets to the Poirier/McGregor fight, but also a pair of Crocs footwear and a set of video games, a PS2 and a Nintendo GameCube. Swaggy even got to spend a decent amount of pocket change to buy a customized Cameo birthday message from head honcho Dana White. And a month later, the brothers were taking a picture backstage at the UFC 254 weigh-in in the most powerful man in mixed martial arts... the icebreaker to an amazing weekend.
   One of those two fellow UFC fans in Challenge Nation, Derrick Kosinski, commented in the comments sections, "That’s bad f____ ass! Lmk if ya’ll wanna get stomped in 2K by me and my lil dude!! Much love! Enjoy the damn fight! 🤘"  And the wifey added, "So happy I got to be a part of this !!! 🔥 This was such a feel good video . I was there and I’m still in awe."




Whenever anyone is invited by Dana to be being special guests of his at any UFC PPV, they no doubt receive the 5-star treatment... and in the case of Chris and Darrin, they got to do more than just attend that day-before weigh-in and the big card on Saturday night. In fact, the brothers were spotted in the background when the combatants faced off with each other after they tipped the scales. But while they enjoyed a front-row seat in front of the Octagon and the unfortunate ending after one round, that wasn't just what they did on their fight night.
   Since sporting events cannot obviously be scripted, something that those who produce these events on television do before an event goes live are camera rehearsals: those on the technical staff prepare their cameras hours or a day before an event to make sure that they're in tip-top shape to capture everything that takes place. One aspect that takes place behind the scenes at fights are the famous walks from the dressing room to the ring (or in this case, the MMA cage)... and the siblings were invited by the UFC's production team to play the roles of Conor and Dustin as they walked into the Octagon and then face off with each other for the sake of readying those in the production truck for fight night.




For the one who had a weekend like this in his honor, Darrin wrote to his brother in the comment section, "MY MAN!!! Only day 1 and this is already by far the best birthday gift ever!! What a crazy experience already and we’re just getting started 😈🤧💯." And below, the rest of this "Swaggy" Fight Weekend in Sin City.













- I AM DC
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1 comment:

  1. Swaggy CJuly 27, 2021 at 11:51 PM

    Amazing blog brodie! Read it from top to bottom. Salute to you for putting this together!

    ReplyDelete

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