Chapter 311

I woke up around 10 and put on the UFC. I started watching right as Michael Chandler was walking to the ring, and soon he and Justin Gaethje had their anticipated lightweight number 1 contender clash. Like every goddamn fight in which either of these two maniacs take part (especially Gaethje), it was a candidate for fight of the century, and they battered each other for three rounds, dishing out punishment that would kill 90% of us. Every time one guy looked to be on the verge of unconsciousness, he’d swing back and gain momentum, before almost getting decapitated again.

In contrast, the feathwerweight tilt between Shane Burgos and Billy Quarantillo almost seemed boring, though it was action-packed and highly technical and high stakes. Then Frankie Edgar got knocked out by a punt to the face from Chito Vera, as if his head was a soccer ball.

The card culminated with highly anticipated title rematches, first for the 115-pound championship, pitting former champ Zhang Weili against Rose Namajunas, who took her belt a few months ago with a head kick KO. I was rooting for Zhang, not only because she’s Chinese and she’s a great martial artist and a good person, but I also have to say Thug Rose is one of the few MMA fighters I dislike, I think she’s creepy and racist and not that it’s really her fault, but she makes all sorts of simps come out of their caves. She’s a terrific fighter though, and after five rounds of high-level action, she edged a close but deserved split decision victory, retaining her title. I made the mistake of looking at the comment section on the livestream during Zhang Weili’s post-fight interview and immediately regreted it, now I have racist cancer. Why are people such cunts?!

Colby Covington and Kamaru Usman were next, and their welterweight title fight was out-of-this-world violent and the skill displayed by both of them was incredible. Usman retained by a quite wide margin, but Covington was always in the fight. The two men had one of the most heated rivalry in the sport, and “broke kayfabe” at the end, shaking hands and Covington was heard saying “I was selling the fight for you, you know it’s all respect” and the Nigerian champ replied “I got you”. I knew his antagonistic, Trump-hat-wearing, bombastic, insult-laden demeanor was mostly a gimmick, but I didn’t expect him to unveil it in front of the cameras like that. Still, the fight spoke for itself, and I wouldn’t mind seeing those guys fight every year.

Then I went to the gym, and did my chest and shoulders workout. The sky was greying ominously, a storm was brewing. Just as I was about to walk in the building, an empty flower pot flew past me and almost clocked me in the head, carried by a strong gust of wind. On the way back, it was raining, and I took a hot bath upon returning home.

Most modern commercial hip-hop bores me to tears but it seems insanely popular, I must be getting old. I do like underground lyrical hip-hop though, and I put on a playlist of Grind Mode Cyphers, a collective of wordsmiths mostly from the East Coast. Then I wrote this diary, and also wrote something for my French travel blog. I talked about this summer’s road trip, but in fewer details than on here. I feel like my French prose is getting a bit clunky, writing in English most of the time has made it suffer in comparison.

I bought some e-books, and annoyingly, some of them came with DRM protection, so I spent way more time that I would have liked browsing nerdy how-to guides and shady websites to find a way to upload the damn things on my Kindle. I wanna read some goddamn books, not play hacker. Eventually I succeeded and started reading Apocalypse Bébé by Virginie Despentes. It came out about a decade ago and won a literary prize of some sort, I had ordered it in paperback from France to China but it never got to its destination.