Fighting to stay on top, or staying on top through fighting? A local company is doing all it can to ensure that all things Mixed Martial Arts are prov

Fighting to stay on top, or staying on top through fighting? A local company is doing all it can to ensure that all things Mixed Martial Arts are provided by them. (31)

Against The Fence, is a Utah company wondering just that. The company mantra is “Sport the experience, experience the sport.” Nick Yama and Brett Hooper lead a group of partners in this venture. The two split the duties of Against The Fence. Hooper performs most of the daily operations including printing and ordering inventory for their stores. Yama does the marketing and promoting of the company. (66)

The company has stores inside most Utah malls; they also sponsor and attend nearly every MMA event in Utah. They sponsor events yet they don’t sponsor any individual fighters. (29)

Nick Yama said, “We promote the sport itself, not individuals. We do this for multiple reasons, one is that in fighting if someone doesn’t like a particular fighter then they may not support that fighter’s sponsors, and we wanted to avoid this. Another reason is that we don’t want to discriminate against any fighter for any reason, we love them all.” (61)

They carry local brands, Addiction, Rockwell, and Section 8, and offer major fight brands such as Tapout, Throwdown, Extreme Couture, Warrior, Sinister and Death Clutch. (25)

So has the change in the economy devastated the local company or are they plowing along strong? (17)

Brett Hooper said “It depends on the demographic of the store, as a whole our numbers are down and it would take a really big last three weeks to save December, but areas that are big into the fight scene, such as West Valley are doing very well. MMA itself is doing as well as ever, and the Utah events are getting bigger and better also. We try to supply brands that are economically sensible also, so that we do not eliminate fans from supporting their favorite fight gear.” (89)

With MMA on the rise only time will tell if this local company can survive the economical grind and make its way to the top of the podium. (28)

Word Count-346 with Lead, 315 without.

We are the champions...

It is starting to get ridiculous the way are team dominates the league we are in. I didn't play in our championship game, but I went and watched and honestly there were at least three times that I thought we were done. The legacy was over, no more dynasty, the drive for five, one for the thumb was finito! And then the magic happened, yet again. We let a guy break free and go for a long gain, one of our guys tackled him at the 1 yard mark, something that many of us thought was a bad idea at the time, we thought that they would eventually score anyway but that they would take enough time off of the clock that we would not be able to come back. Oh us of little faith, we held them from scoring and taking an insurmountable 10 point lead, but no we held them, and only down by three all we had to do was score and stop them from scoring with like 4 minutes left. So we went down the field and on a couple of occasions we almost turn the ball over on downs yet we did not. We score with about 45 seconds to go to take our first lead of the game, we were up 4. Well then they kind of dinked and dunked their way down the field and got to within the ten yard line, with 5 seconds left. So on their last play (it felt like it lasted 10 minutes) they threw the ball back and forth across the field waiting for an opening, and then they over threw their guy and we were yet again victorious!

Flag Football???!!!????

So, I am in a flag football league that our team has dominated for the last 4 years. We are pretty good although we can be irritating. We have a  couple guys on the team that whine quite a bit and it upsets some teams that we are playing. Well this came back to haunt the heck out of me this week. The team we were playing was a team full of rather large people of polynesian descent. Well according to the laws of physics when a 6'3" 325lb freight train hits a 5'10" 210lb schlub bad things happen. So he drilled me, illegally slamming me to the ground in the process. Needless to say I got a concussion and an other injury that I don't really want to go into, lets just say no guys would want it. So really why? Why does flag football have to be so silly? These are guys that play for and with BYU and they get all butt hurt by getting slaughtered by a bunch of washed up guys by 30 points. Now my team is in the finals and I don't get to play because I got hit by a Dihatsu, Monday night. It is the joy I live with.

some thoughts...

I am sure that this is going to be the most blogged about thing in history today but here it goes anyway. I am excited about the new election of president Obama, I feel like we progressed as a nation, and it has nothing to do with wether I was a long time supporter or not it just feels like as a nation we can be proud of our decision, and that is good right?

The other thing is how sad is the California Prop. 8 fiasco? I don't like that it became a civil war of sorts, it bothers me that in a discussion about peoples love for each other so much hatred emerged. There were anti-religion adds that were disgusting, there were religions stepping in to the the political arena. The second part is something that I am not really sure how I feel about, I don't know if that is something that should have been done or if it has no business in the political ring. Anyway it is sad that so much hatred flows from the same sex marriage debate.

Church of Revolution

"As Christians We Are Sorry For Being Self-Righteous, Judgmental Bastards."

This is the mantra of Revolution Church, a religious group that was founded by Jay Bakker, son of the legendary Jim and Tina Faye Bakker. The church believes that the concept of love is being lost from the message of Christ. Podcasts and video can be seen on the web for weekly sermons given by Jay or a number of his associates.

To read the entire article or get updates and info click here.

cancer...

I follow a blog called fatcyclist at strangely enough www.fatcyclist.com if you want to check it out. It was started as a blog about an overweight guy that was trying to use cycling both mountain biking and road cycling, to trim some fat. It was hilarious and somewhat inspiring to those of us that are in similar situations. Well along the way he got really popular and at the same time his life took a major hit, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. I am not sure of exactly what type of cancer she started with but now she has bone cancer, brain cancer, and it is really crushing her body. This is something that has caused quite a bit of emotion for me. I don't know the family at all, but it is strange the way that their struggles have touched me personally. Just this weekend Susan, the fatcyclist's wife (real name Elden Nelsen) couldn't breath and they were terribly worried about what looked like possibly the end of her life. I am a member of a religion and am somewhat knowledgeable about religion yet I don't really consider myself a religious person so when this happened and the family asked for thoughts and prayers it was strange for me to actually pray for them. I pray, for my family but rarely pray for people that are somewhat strangers so it felt good when things got right and Susan was feeling better. The bottom line is that cancer sucks, it took my grandfather after messing with the family first, by causing sever mental issues after a couple years of fighting. So win Susan!!!!

Winter???

So I was pretty much sick of the cold weather, I thought for sure that it was time for some cooler days, maybe a jacket or sweater could make its way into the clothing rotation, I love jackets. Jackets and sneakers are a giant weakness for me. I could have 9 blue jackets but if one catches my eye its over I must own.

So when I saw that it was going to cool down a little bit I was "A" ok with it, but then tragedy struck. For real did we need to drop 7000 degrees over night? It went from shorts and a T-shirt to parkas and gloves in like 13 minutes. It was like I was watching the office and it was nice outside then it got over and I was in Gnome Alaska, chillin with the Palins.

To make matters worse I was helping my brother-in-law roof his house and that was suck times seven. We pretty much had to hurry and get it done before the snow came in, and for the most part we succeeded but it was close. And not only was it close but it was frickin freezin. But oh well its doon his roof doesn't leak all is well, I just wish we could have had some fall weather inbetween summer and winter that would have been stellar.