DC ExtraTime: MTV Reality Takes Over Jake Paul's Triller Fight Night

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

    ESTIMATED READING TIME: 21 Mins.

Imagine... one year ago at this time in our world, we were all without the presence of sports in both this country but all around the world. Good thing all of you out there who visit this website -- and those who wanted something to take place on your TV screens -- had MTV's The Challenge to keep you company on the competition front. But a year later, things are back to normalcy when it comes to the human drama of athletic competition: NBA and NHL playoff positioning, baseball just starting, and the All-Stars spinoff on Paramount+.

When American competitive sports returned on that Mother's Day weekend last year, Champs vs. Stars competitor Michelle Waterson was part of a UFC card in Florida that gave us something to take our minds off of the pandemic. And last Saturday night, the attention of those who love a good fight were on several venues: ESPN aired a full night of UFC action as Robert Whittaker decisioned Kelvin Gastelum in the night's marquee bout, while on FOX Tony Harrison and Bryant Perrella drew their main event in a Premier Boxing Champions card.

But the nightcap to a Saturday Night Fight Night tripleheader came in a totally different and unusual setting for a sport that, once upon a time, was on the same footing as baseball as a major sport and where bouts featuring the biggest names were as anticipated as the Super Bowl or World Series. And the bout that was much more anticipated than either of its established counterparts brought into focus the poster boy of the YouTube generation and one of the most dominant competitors in his sport. And among the fight crowd at home and in person in Atlanta, a girl who is the former's ex and a three-time Challenge champ who rubbed shoulders with the ladder in the leadup to the fight that broke the Internet.

DC ExtraTime: Idris in the Ring

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

For fans of the sweet science, 2020 in boxing has largely been devoid of the big-name competitive fights featuring those in their prime that they've come to expect. But in a sport that HBO's Larry Merchant refers to as "the theatre of the unexpected," there have been a couple notable headlines this year from the weird file: the emergence of the Paul brothers - Logan and Jake as legit boxers in addition to being YouTube's most notorious siblings, and the big fight between legends Mike Tyson and Roy Jones.

To salvage whatever was left of this lost year, this pre-Christmas weekend has some weekend for boxing fans: last night saw Kazakhstan's Gennady "GGG" Golovkin score a TKO win over Poland's Kamil Szeremeta to retain his IBF middleweight belt, and his 36th victory by knockout. And tonight, the man who beat him two years ago in a rematch of their disputed drawn first fight, Mexico's Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, will takes to the ring to face Britain's Callum Smith in defense of his two 168 lbs. titles.

Those in Challenge Nation who have been following this franchise over the past two decades know that Darrell Taylor was an amateur boxer prior to going onto Road Rules Campus Crawl and then winning his first Challenges. And another fighter who has made his way from the ring into the fifth major pro sport is one who comes from the current epicenter of the heavyweight division: Idris Virgo was part of last year's War of the Worlds 2 rookie class two years after he was a latecomer on the 2018 season of Love Island UK, and made it to the halfway point in what became a weekly British elimination festival until the very end.

When we profiled Idris in the WOTW2 edition of our Who Are These Newbies? series in fall 2019, some notable tidbits about the man from Birmingham in the West Midlands of England included choosing over eventual Winter Ex On The Beach single Georgia Steel for his first date after arriving midway through the season, winning a challenge while wearing a fireman's outfit, and a Twitter user sharing some of his cringy pick-up lines. But outside of reality TV, Idris is a boxer having begun fighting professionally just months before going the Love Island casa. He won his first three bouts, drew the fourth just before going onto The Challenge, and after our post went to press on fight #5 he beat a journeyman club fighter with 100+ losses, followed by another unanimous decision.

In Britain, the pandemic forced matches in the Premier League and other action across the English football pyramid to being played behind closed doors without fans in the grounds. But like its UFC counterparts, boxing was one of the first sports to pick back up following the sports shutdown, and once he was able to compete again Virgo signed with independent promoter Hennessey Sports - who helped launch the career of world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. And since the promoter has a deal with ViacomCBS sibling Channel 5, it has meant that his bouts are shown free-to-air in all of the UK instead of on pay-per-view or a streaming platform along the lines of DAZN.