Post video debriefing!

First off, shoutout to Patreon member Emily Nightmarecoat for taking my hastily photoshopped Andrew Ryan from Bioshock picture and turning it into this dope ass artwork! I shall attempt to use it in all official communiques going forward. Awesome work Emily! 😆

Down to business. And I have to start again by saying thank you to each and every one of you. There was a ton of new patrons after the announcement of this video, and, as you all probably saw, the original video was demonetized after a week, and if I'm being honest, I'm almost certain this reupload will get the same treatment in a week or two. The issue as far as I can see is that what seemed like a sneaky copyright workaround, my Windows 95 Valentina desktop backgrounds,  may not have been as good a workaround as I thought. It was good enough to get around YouTubes detection methods, but I guess this video must've manually been flagged by either someone in the UFC, or they got alerted by a bot or something, god only knows. Either way one of the Windows 95 segments was what triggered the copyright strike, and even though i tried to remove it, it wasn't good enough. So i just reuploaded with some slight edits (and the new Mark Coleman segment), and kinda hoped for the best. But I used that Windows 95 workaround way too much to try and re-edit every one of those scenes. So if (when) this new upload gets flagged, I'll just have to suck it up I guess.

But that's why I just gotta say thanks to all of you, as the money from Youtube is so flaky and unreliable when its at the mercy of UFC copyright, that to have the support from all of you means i can at least not worry too much that I'm spending several hundred hours on a video for nothing but likes and comments. Wether you've been here since the early days or you just joined for the Lineal video, in the spirit of Paddy's day, Sláinte to all of you!

I haven't really had a lot of time to comment on all the things happening in the world of combat sports, but it's certainly been an interesting few weeks..

Ngannou vs AJ was, honestly, heartbreaking. I'm genuinely not a huge boxing head, so really I didn't know a whole heap about Joshua going into the fight, but Christ I wasn't expecting him to make it look that easy. I think the worst part of it, for me, was seeing boxing pundits and voices in that world talking about Ngannou almost in the same way we talk about Jake Paul. I saw takes from people like Carl Froch, ecstatic that Ngannou had lost so he can go back to MMA now and leave the world of Boxing alone. And its just kinda soul destroying that the MMA world sends one of the best heavyweights of all time to Boxing, and as soon as he loses boxing fans are like, fuck that guy, he sucks. Meanwhile no boxers are willing to set foot in the world of MMA, mostly because why the fuck would they take that kind of a pay cut, and also they likely saw what happened to James Toney back when he fought Randy. And Jake Paul is adding insult to injury by making MMA fighters look like chumps, by beating up exclusively on the oldest, most broken down MMA fighters. I just kinda wish this whole era of crossover fights would die out already.  

Speaking of bullshit fights..

What in the lineal fuck is this carnival ass nonsense? I genuinely have no words for this. Jake is trying to cement his legacy by beating a man old enough to have great grandchildren. Do i think Tyson has a chance? Honestly.... yes. He's the best boxer that Paul has faced yet, no question. He still looks good hitting pads, and seems like he still has power. But fuuuuuck me the man is almost 60. I would ask has Jake Paul no shame, but we already knew the answer to that. The man would sell his mother to Somali Pirates if they promised to fucking follow him on instagram. But this is next level. Maybe we could fucking literally dig up Muhammad Ali for Paul's next opponent. All i can offer is the most forlorn of hopes that somehow, Tyson knocks his receding hairline back a little further. 

Speaking as a bald guy, that's the worst injury I can think of.

UFC 299 was a damn enjoyable card. Hyped for Dustin, though I would genuinely like to see a rematch with a fully healthy BSD. That spot on BSD's head looked like Mount Vesuvius during the embedded episodes. O'Malley continues to be a fighter I feel like i should hate, but honestly I don't. He might look like a tit, but he genuinely seems like a pretty decent guy. I was glad he got the win at 299, but I do feel like as good as Vera is, he didn't deserve that title shot. And even my famously terrible picks got it right in this instance, I had picked O'Malley to win as he had fought and (controversially in the case  of Yan) beaten a higher caliber of fighter than Chito had since their first fight. 

I'm looking forward to 300, but, i mean, that main even tho. Jesus. And putting Bo Nickal on the main card ahead of fighters like Jiri or Garbrandt?? That's just.. I mean maybe its some galaxy brain thinking that a plebian like me cant grasp, but eh, I think its just more likely that the UFC couldn't arrange a better main event at the last minute, and Bo Nickal has an even more embarrassing photo of Dana doing Cardio Kickboxing or something. Maybe he's naked cardio boxing with a dragon dildo in his arse. Dragon dildos are a thing don't ask me how I know.  But either way, Bo Nickal vs an Uber driver is your UFC 300 main card opener. Celebrate good times come on.

As for the next video, work hasn't started yet. I'll probably take another week, maybe two tops, to just enjoy the downtime and then get back to work. I'm diving straight back into the second lineal video as It would be a massive dick/clit tease to do a history of the lineal title video that only covered THREE GOD DAMN FIGHTS on the timeline and then go do something else!

In news that could potentially be either FUCKING XBOX HUGE or literally nothing at all and there is no in between, I have been authorized to divulge that my "people" are meeting with Amazon this week to try and sell my idea for a streaming series on the history of MMA to prime video. It's the longest of shots, but its ben an idea I've been working on for over a year in the background now, and its shit or get off the pot time. If it did sell, it would potentially mean I'd have to put regular videos on hold for a few months while I do nothing but write this series, but, the financial security it would offer means that when its done, I could work full time on YouTube. And also it would mean i could legit cram a whole bunch of fucking Dennis Siver/McGregor eating a whopper/Just Bleed Guy/Schaub memes into a fucking Amazon production hahahaha. That's the dream my friends! But yeah its a seriously long shot, but we'll see how it goes I guess. I'm not getting my hopes up, put it that way.

ANYWAY! I should probably sign off for now. But again, thank you guys, and thank you to everyone who offered artwork & music for use in the videos, or offers of assistance in any way to grow the channel. I got a bunch of messages from you offering amazing stuff like that and I genuinely don't know what I've done to deserve such fantastic supporters, but thank you all. I don't have editors and I don't have writers or producers, I am proud to say every video is done 100% by me alone, aside from when i harass my wife to read awful MMA books for me, but I am more than happy to work with any of you if I can help get your artwork/music/whatever out there for people to see. 

And with that, I'll catch you all soon. If there's interest in a proper Tekken night, please hop on the discord server and make your voice heard! I'd love to have a game night with as many of you as possible. And I'll catch you all when i eventually have news about the next video getting underway!

Take care and just bleed, 

Nap