At @tapology, you can now check out the bout pages following events to see the weight % gain for events where the info is made available. Eye opening stats. For example, did you know Michael Chiesa is larger than Carlos Condit?
This narrative is the most annoying thing going in sports journalism right now.
I'm a lifelong New Englander and Patriots fan.
EVERY Patriots fan I know was rooting for Brady yesterday.
Did Chicago fans hate Jordan on the Wizards?
All time dumb take.
All of the top-voted comments on The Athletic are saying the same thing.
New England still unabashedly loves Tom Brady and always will.
Yes. It sucks that he left. Very few blame him. And close to zero despise him for it. If anything, more backlash has come Bill's way.
Are we to believe Brady's legacy is going to be as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer?
He's a Patriot. He proved his GOATness even more by winning at a high level on his retirement tour in Tampa, but the dude is going to be retired and inducted as a New England Patriot.
Hardly a hot take, but Charles Oliveira's body work (particularly those pinpoint knees in the clinch,) was the key to his title defense last night.
Rewatching the fight, Poirier inflicted more damage in R1, but at about the 1:20 mark, he's already starting to wilt under the body assault. He takes three long looks up at the clock directly following a knee to the solar plexus.
Poirier won R1, but Oliveira put damage in the bank. Take away Poirier's vaunted conditioning, and you start to sap his notorious and somewhat intangible heart and resolve.
Oliveira took the back and sunk the choke, but the fight was won with that body work.
Today, two more casual/normie/non book readers told me they were entertained by Wheel of Time episode 1 but couldn't believe how "cheap" it looked considering what they'd heard in the lead-up to the series.
Production needs a LOT of work heading into Season 2.
Perhaps more interesting, similar to me, neither could quite put their finger on what it was that bothered them about the visuals, but I suspect it has less to do with objectively poor effects work and more to do with very poor compositing and lighting work.
The individual production elements of Wheel of Time are quite good. Costuming, CGI, digital backgrounds and real sets. I think the issue is in how those four aspects are being combined.
One of the things that has always made Jose Aldo lethal on the feet is his ability to keep opponents directly in front of him at all times. I used to refer to it as the “turret” stance. See his first fight with Frankie Edgar as an example.
The only strikers who seem to give him trouble are those who are able to out poke him from range or just bulldoze through the turret. Even at his age and cage time, it’s a daunting task. You have no choice but to wade into the fire against Aldo.
Rob Font doesn’t have the range of Max Holloway nor the marauding nature of Petr Yan. He does, however, have elite speed and timing, and throws straights, which matches up well with Aldo.
This one should be good. Font cannot get caught circling or he’s done.
I've been pretty critical of a series that I'm still giving a 7/10 through four episodes and I think @DanielBGreene's comment in this review about "daytime LARPing" drives home what's bothering me.
Objectively-speaking, I think the effects have been decent and the costuming great ... but everything looks artificial to me. The world and costumes do not look lived-in. That didn't look like a camp in Ep 4. It looked like a manicured renaissance fair.
And the fight in the woods between the Warders and Logan's forces reminded me of high-quality fan films, which is to say, low-budget TV.
Sure, I can look beyond aesthetics to some degree, but epic fantasy thrives on aesthetics. They inform the world and encourage immersion.
WOT is the rare EF series I have not read, but I echo a lot of these sentiments.
1. Cast is quite good, with Mat and Lan my standouts. 2. Pacing is WAY too fast. Noticeable even for a casual. 3. Visuals are disappointing. The world feels shiny and manicured, like The Hobbit.
Just as viewers can immediately tell the difference between a real human face and a CGI face (uncanny valley,) I also think set dressing and costuming needs to be more subtle.
In this, it seems like everything has been set up for a play, even if a very attractive play.
When I feel like I'm looking at a set, and not just some dingy tavern like The Prancing Pony in Fellowship of the Ring, it immediately breaks immersion on a subconscious level, and I feel the presence of a camera and line-readers.