2009 Aeroflot Open – Mamedyarov withdraws

The Aeroflot Open, not content with being overshadowed by the Topalov/Kamsky match and Linares, has produced a major development. In Round 6, Mamedyarov with white got squashed by a Russian GM named Igor Kurnosov (2602 rated) in 21 moves. Apparently Kurnosov was leaving the board after every move. Mamedyarov got upset, withdrew from the tournament, and circulated a letter that indicated a suspicion of Kurnosov cheating with Rybka in the ‘toilet’.

in Kurnosov’s defense:
-He was searched by the arbiter, who found nothing but a lighter, cigarettes, and a pen on his person.
-There were only a handful of moves past theory; while his choices mostly matched Rybka, this is hardly exceptional for a GM to match Rybka on 5-6 moves.
-It was reported that Kurnosov was not visiting the toilet, but instead was simply retreating to a smoking area, where he was always in plain sight.

Mamedyarov has handled this quite badly, in my opinion. There are ways to deal with an opponent you suspect has cheated, and this can’t be the best way. His withdrawing has made the whole situation into a public spectacle, making himself look bad (for withdrawing with rather weak evidence of cheating), and putting a huge spotlight on Kurnosov. If Mamedyarov was mistaken, and Kurnosov wasn’t cheating, it’s a terrible thing to do to the guy. His accomplishments will be questioned and any moves he makes will be scrutinized. How can he be comfortable? In the first six rounds, Kurnosov was +4-0=2. After the cheating accusation, he’s had a 12-move draw and a 44-move loss. It certainly makes you wonder how his mindset is right now.

I think Mamedyarov has not done himself any favors for his career here. He may lose out on future invites to tournaments after this rash and potentially damaging decision.

Conspiracy theorists may want to take a look at a previous game from the tournament, Onischuk vs. Kurnosov (0-1). Kurnosov demonstrates a rather remarkable tactical vision in this game, winning with a combination that I dare say looks a little computer-like. However, I am merely a club player and thus am in no way qualified to say what a GM is or isn’t capable of. But, I am confident in saying it’s a more impressive display than his victory over Mamedyarov (which I think would never be suspicious if not for his behavior in leaving the board).

It doesn’t appear that the toilet problems are going away anytime soon. With chess engines now much stronger than humans, and a myriad of ways for players to use an engine themselves, or communicate with someone who is using one, it seems that toilet trips will always be viewed with suspicion. Cheating accusations are unquestionably bad for the game, whether they are founded in truth or not.

So why not start using clear plexiglass bathrooms, similar to the ‘box’ used in the Bilbao tournament? Players would have no way of cheating in the toilet without being spotted, and there would be increased spectator interest with the added draw of being able to watch the players relieve themselves. Yeah, I don’t know why I’m not in charge either.

2009 Daytona 500 recap

OK, so about 1/4 of the race didn’t get run due to a rain stoppage (when the forecast was that rain was inevitable). But hey, at least we got all of that 2+ hours of pre-race! We know where NASCAR’s priorities are..

I felt bad for Chris Myers having to go on and on about how great Digger is. This guy is supposed to be the face of Fox sports programming. Could you picture Bob Costas shilling for Digger like that?

Put me squarely in the camp who blame Vickers for the big wreck with his totally insane block, while he was a lap down no less. But, Vickers in his interview afterwards noted that pretty much everybody blocks in plate races and, the man does have a point. The nature of plate racing encourages blocking. NASCAR consistently does nothing about blocking and does nothing about plate races in general. Implicitly, with their lack of action, they are supporting blocking and they are supporting 20-car pileups at every Daytona and Talladega race. Don’t you think most sanctioning bodies would be mortified if there was a 20-car pileup in virtually every one of their ’safe’ plate races and drivers and fans alike discussed it as if it were an inevitability? At NASCAR it’s all good!

I was disappointed in Bill Elliott’s showing. There was a lot of talk about their prospects in this race but it turned out to be same as usual for Wood Brothers – always in the back of the pack.

For maybe the first time ever, it’s possible to feel sorry for Kyle Busch. He was far and away the class of the field. The guy is in the lead 90% of the race, faster than everyone and more importantly keeping himself in the one spot when you’re not in danger of being collected by the ‘big one’. He finally slips back a few spots for a short while and promptly gets caught up in the big one, triggered by two lapped cars. Horrible luck for Kyle.

The best part of the day was Kenseth getting choked up in victory lane. It’s pretty rare to see any emotion from him but he was overwhelmed winning the 500. That was good to see, as he’s a deserving winner.

Chess overload

It’s chess overload this week. I don’t remember this ever happening before, where three huge events are all starting up at the same time.

Feb. 17-27: Topalov vs. Kamsky candidates match
Topalov is the clear favorite, having regained the world #1 rating, and showing fantastic results lately. Kamsky is trailing Topalov by a good 80 points and has not really distinguished himself as a serious world championship contender since his 2007 World Cup victory. However, he has a reputation as a very strong match player. Also, this is merely an 8-game match, and the match can turn on just one win, so Kamsky is a live dog here..
Feb. 16-27: Aeroflot Open
Aeroflot is generally the strongest open tournament of the year. The winner gets an automatic invite into 2009 Dortmund supertournament.
Feb. 18-Mar. 8: Linares
Linares is arguably the most respected and prestigious of the annual ’supertournaments’. This year’s field includes the World Champion Viswanathan Anand, along with Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Aronian, Radjabov, Grischuk, Yue, and Dominguez-Perez.

 

I don’t know if it’s a good thing that all these events are compressed together. With everything going on at once, it will be hard to give all these games their due attention. Also, there are so many dry spells during the year where there are no major events, I think I’d like to see things spread out some! But, what can you do? It will be a fun couple of weeks!

Grammar epidemic sweeping the Internet

Most cases of bad grammar and bad spelling don’t really bother me, but for some reason there are certain things that get under my skin. There’s one that seems to get more prominent every day. I’m not sure where it came from but I’m seeing it all over the place. I saw one of the worst examples today:

RELAX AND ENJOY YOURSELVE’S, MY FRIEND’S

WHY?? WHY would you think that every plural takes an apostrophe + s? How is this happening? The apostrophe is.. such a simple thing, no?

How NASCAR is killing their own sport

Now that the season is starting up, NASCAR is on the mind, so I’m going to air my grievances.  I’ve been watching NASCAR since the mid-80s and I feel like the sport is getting farther and farther away from the one I originally fell in love with.  A number of disturbing changes have taken effect, mostly under the Brian France regime, since the sport has gone more “corporate”.  While getting the sport on network TV was undoubtedly a good thing, I feel the sport is in trouble if various trends continue.  The common thread with most of what I’m going to outline is the sacrificing of the integrity of the sport, and thus its long-term health, in return for short-term money gains.  You’ll see nothing groundbreaking here; I’m sure all of it has been discussed before.  This is just my perspective on everything.

 

 

Restrictor Plates
The use of restrictor plates at Daytona and Talledega was a panic decision made after Bobby Allison’s became completely airborne and flew into the fence at Talledega in 1987.  20 years later and apparently NASCAR still hasn’t figured out a better way , despite the fact that restrictor plates arguably make the races even more dangerous, and turn four of the season’s most popular events into parades rather than races.   The cars now have roof flaps which prevents cars from randomly going airborne.  Maybe the cars are too fast to run full-out at Talladega/Daytona, but there has to be a better way to slow the cars down.   A cynic might take the point of view that NASCAR likes the fact that cars are so bunched up that there are 8,700 lead changes in a race, and 37th place is 1.4 seconds behind the leader, so they choose to ignore how dangerous it is to have the cars running in such close quarters.   Me, I don’t like the danger, and I don’t like the affect it has on the race.  These races are more exercises in drafting than they are anything else.  The fastest guy doesn’t necessarily win.  It’s more about whoever had the right drafting circumstances at the right time.  I won’t deny that there’s some skill in it, but it barely qualifies as ‘racing’.

It seems that incidents like Carl Edwards in 2008 making a joke out of the race by intentionally running in the back of the field doesn’t get NASCAR’s attention.   20-car pileups every year don’t get their attention.  What will it take?  I’d like to see another legitimate Daytona 500 in my lifetime.

 

Points System
Here is a rare example of NASCAR NOT being overly reactive.   The points system in  place right is a relic from old times where NASCAR needed to encourage participation in all the races.  Put simply, it rewards finishing the race, more so than it rewards high finishes.  A much better points system would be an F1-style, but with more places paid due to the larger field.  Give points to the top 20, 24, something like that.  And the guys finishing near the bottom of the points should be getting a pittance compared to the top 5 guys.  When a driver wins a race in F1, it has BIG implications in the points!  Always!  Not so in NASCAR.  Let’s fix it.

It’s not so terrible that the best driver doesn’t win the championship _most_ of the time, (but how about this: does anybody think Bowyer was the third best performer in 2007?) but the system as it is still causes some problems and simply doesn’t encourage hard racing.  Also, the huge emphasis on finishing spawns other problems.  Cars that get wrecked will often get patched up by the crew and get sent out to limp around the inside of the track at 80 MPH with a carcass of a car spewing debris all over the track.  This is rather dangerous for the remaining drivers on the track, besides just being a nuisance and causing unncessary caution flags.   It also is rather insulting to limp around the track clearly with no intention of actually racing, and in no way really demonstrating any more deservedness of points than the guy who got in the same wreck and is sitting in the garage.

This points system also, when used in conjunction with the ‘top 35 rule’, creates the vicious circle where a guy on the bubble of the top 35 missing one race gets knocked way back in the points and will likely continue to miss many more races.   Missing a race should not have such devastating consequences; at least, you shouldn’t lose huge ground to some guy who finished 4 laps down in 26th place.

 

Passing
You hear these phrases on NASCAR broadcasts all the time.  “big picture”.  “track position is everything”.  “clean air/dirty air”.   These are spoken with reverent tones by the commentators as if they represent the finer points of NASCAR strategy.  In reality, they all mean the same thing – you ain’t seein’ any passing today.  At the end of the race, drivers are usually a little more blunt about the situation – “it’s so hard to pass out there”.  I’ve heard this phrase uttered at almost every track at one time or another, and I don’t remember hearing it at all in the 80s.   Part of the problem is the new “cookie cutter” single-groove tracks that are taking over the circuit, but that’s not the whole of it.   The aerodynamics of these cars are just not right.   I don’t want to hear about dirty air all day.  If a guy is faster than the guy in front of him, he should be able to pass him evetually.

 

Caution Flags.. wtf?
All too many times in the last 5-10 years, the seasoned NASCAR fan has had to watch with a suspicious eye as NASCAR throws a caution for ‘debris’ on the track that nobody can seem to find.  Usually the timing is such that it benefits one of NASCAR’s pet drivers who needs a caution to make repairs, or to tighten up a race where the field is so strung out that nothing is happening.  It seems to happen several times a year.   It’s a pro wrestling kind of vibe.  The reality of sports is that the game is sometimes a blowout.  You have just learn to live with it if you’re running a legitimate sport, and not an exhibition.

And while  on the subject, when there’s a ‘debris’ caution  where just one little scrap of metal needs to be picked up, why do the cars have to needlessly stay under caution for 4-5+ laps?  These races are already absurdly long; they don’t need to be made even longer with overwrought caution periods.

 

Lucky DOG
Remember how exciting it was when a driver with a good car got caught a lap down and had to desperately fight the leaders to stay ahead and get his lap back?  Well, NASCAR decided we don’t need to have any excitement like that.   Now, you just have to be the highest placed car out of the bunch that is a lap down.   So, if you screw up and go a lap down, it doesn’t really  matter now, as long as it’s early enough in the race.  This is a horrible rule.   There was nobody calling for it.  The only conceivable reason for its existence is that NASCAR wants to see their star drivers winning more races, so they give them ‘mulligans’ during the race.  And apparently, it’s not even enough to give out lucky dogs to drivers that are one lap down.  If no cars are exactly one lap down, then the next highest driver that is 2+ laps down gets a free lap.  Kyle Busch once went five laps down at Watkins Glen, got 5 lucky dogs and ended up finishing 9th.  That is a JOKE.

 

Qualifying – top 35
How do you needlessly handicap new Sprint Cup teams and make qualifying into a joke of an event?  Just implement a “Top 35″ rule of course.   Once again this rule was an incredible overreaction by NASCAR when they didn’t like the fact that a couple guys that they wanted in all the races weren’t making all the races.   They were around 30ish in the point, so… top 35 rule!   The funny thing is that the rule has had the opposite effect, as brand new teams/drivers, along with veteran drivers switching to new teams, have been absolutely brutalized by the top 35 rule, most notably Michael Waltrip in 2007 whose debut season driving for his own team was absolutely ruined. He missed several races.  The situations this rule causes is far worse than anything that was happening before it.

Here’s how I see it:   If you absolutely must have your ‘boys’ locked into every race, then go all the way with it.  Decide who all your teams are at the beginning of the season, and that’s it.  That’s your field for every race.  If you want to continue it old school, and let anybody who shows up on any given week try and make the race, don’t half-ass it.  Give them a fair shot at qualifying!   If somebody doesn’t make it because they’re too slow, well that’s what qualifying is all about, isn’t it?

 

Sponsorships – official X of nascar
In a sport so heavily relies on corporate sponsorships to enable their teams to field cars, why would you alienate so many potential sponsors by naming ‘the official phone/home improvement warehouse/tools/dishwasher/shoe polish/etc. etc of NASCAR’?   Well, OK, I know the answer, but again, have some concern for the well-being of your sport before selling out to anyone and everyone.

 

Too many races
36 races!!   Why!!??  And that’s not even including the Shootout and the All-Star Race.  This is the most interminable season in all of sports.  These poor drivers and teams, 38+ weeks out of the year must participate in the race, multiple practices, qualifying, car preparations, along with media/promotional obligations.  In other words, they’re never home.  Was 30 races not cutting it?  Really, you could argue even 30 was excessive.

So OK, I’m not one of the drivers, and I watch NASCAR, so why should I complain about seeing more races?   Well, for one, when you have a race almost every week of the year, the races seem less special.  Daytona, the Brickard, the 600, I can get amped up for.   But the endless cookie-cutter races on the Kansases/Californias/Chicagos of the world, I could do without some of them.  I like a race when it feels like a big event.   Watching 36 races is a real test of your NASCAR fandom; I don’t care who you are.

But what really sucks is fan favorites like Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett, and Mark Martin retiring (or going to part-time schedules) too soon because they are run ragged by the grind.  Some of these guys were still driving at a very high level.  Martin clearly gave up prime opportunities for a championship when he went to part-time.  Elliott, if not for a flat tire at Homestead, would’ve won his final two races as a full-time driver.  Rusty was still one of the best on the track when he quit as well.

 

Chase
I don’t like “The Chase” much, but hey, at least it was an honest, well-thought-out attempt at implementing a playoff system for NASCAR, right?  Well, sort of.   More than anything, it was a panic decision by NASCAR in reaction to drivers locking up the championship before the final race, and Matt Kenseth doing so in 2003 was the final straw.  So basically, NASCAR didn’t like potentially sagging ratings for the final 2 or 3 races, so they decided to implement a points system that makes the first 26 races rather silly.  Hmm.

An essay on the Chase and its faults probably needs to be its own blog entry.   Suffice to say for now, the idea of playoffs just doesn’t really fit with this sport.  As far I can tell, it hasn’t really generated higher TV ratings or attendance.   It’s my feeling, from what I’ve read over the years in numerous online NASCAR discussion forums, that more fans dislike it than the fans that like it.  I could be wrong on that.

 

Adding drivers to chase, shootout, etc
Is there anybody who didn’t audibly groan when NASCAR expanded the chase from 10 to 12 drivers the year after Earnhardt and Stewart didn’t make the Chase in consecutive years?  Totally transparent.  Keep making moves like this and we start to shift from legitmate sport to pro wrestling.

Taking 12 drivers doesn’t really producce an impressive selection of drivers, when you consider that only 20 or so teams could really be considered competitive.  NASCAR Is lucky that a guy like Bowyer didn’t win the championship in ‘07 to expose this silliness of taking 12 drivers. (sorry to keep picking on you Clint, it’s just that the Chase has been VERY kind to you)

NASCAR was back up to their old tricks this year, expanding the Shootout field to _28_ drivers, so they could find a way to get Stewart in.  How’s that for an elite field?  28 drivers!  Every single Dodge full-time driver was in the race.

 

Green white checker
OK, this would be way down near the bottom of the list of problems if I tried to actually rank them, but I still have a beef with the green/white/checker rule.  It’s more contrived, forced excitement from NASCAR instead of something real.  When a race ends under caution, fans are not deprived of a green flag finish.   If the caution came out on lap 197, then there, your green flag finish was on lap 197.   But the real problem with this is that tacking extra laps on to the end of the race messes with fuel mileage.   If a driver is trying to stretch out a tank of fuel and suddenly has to run several extra laps because of a green/white/checker, that’s not fair.

 

I could go on with more maladies: the common template concept, along with the COT, the shaky inconsistency in regards to administering penalties (admittely many sports have a problem with this), the influence of ISC, but this is too long already and too depressing!

World of Warcraft – WOTLK killed the endgame!

Leveling up my characters (mage and warrior) in WOTLK was a great experience. The zones were beautiful, Blizzard really outdid themselves with some of their best looking zones ever. (Borean Tundra the only one I wasn’t crazy about). Quests were improved even more so. The newfound variety and just flat-out fun in the quests was tremendous. There were still plenty of group quests, which I like, and as I was playing right when the expansion launched, it was never at all hard to find a group for any quest. The leveling wraps up with Storm Peaks and Icecrown, probably the two best zones ever in WoW, both in terms of design and quests.

I did every 5-man at least once while leveling and this was a huge area of improvement over the boring 5-mans of Burning Crusade. Burning Crusade 5-mans had decent bosses but the dungeons were lazily designed, looked dull, and were mostly just straight corridors. Wrath 5-mans all have fresh, beautiful scenery, and more imaginative and unique designs and architecture. Very nicely done.

OK, it did kind of suck that the level 70-79 gear is incredibly gimp and I think I only upgraded 2 or 3 pieces of gear before level 80.

But of course, with WoW being a game with rather quick leveling, the meat of the game has to be the endgame, right? Sadly, this was not how Blizzard saw things for this expansion. I get to level 80, everyone generally still wearing level 70 epics mixed with level 80 blues and.. most people aren’t even bothering to do HoL/UP/Strat on regular. PuGs are cutting through heroics like a hot knife through butter. Heck, PuGs are cutting through RAIDS like a hot knife through butter. And that’s basically where we’re at. None of the PvE encounters are all that challenging. I’m hard pressed to come up with any moments in WOTLK which presented a formidable challenge. A couple of heroic bosses were kind of tough I guess. Malygos is a fun encounter, but still, why was Ensidia able to beat Malygos while still wearing level 70 gear? That seems like botched tuning to me. But really, it’s not just one botched tuning, it’s a problem everywhere. Mobs are underpowered or players are overpowered across the board. That’s why I have little confidence that Ulduar will be any better. It has to be a deliberate design decision. Blizzard has decided their players don’t want to meet any resistance.

A funny side effect of this is that PuG heroic groups are more stringent than ever when it comes to gear requirements. Why does this happen when the content is so easy? Well, it’s because the concern is no longer whether a group will complete a heroic, but how quickly they will do it! PuGs only want top-geared folks so they can rip through the entire heroic in 20 minutes.

When there’s little challenge in the raids, a lot of other things in the endgame lose their meaning. Run raids to get those last few epics you need? OK, but it’s hardly needed when all the content is doable with mediocre gear. Farm rep to get those last enchants? Farm dailies to get gold to buy those consumables? Forgive me if my motivation is lacking.

I don’t care much for how stats and gear has been made ‘generic’. What’s the purpose? So Blizzard doesn’t have to itemize? OK, people can get geared up faster in general. That’s nice, I guess. What’s the rush? When the end result is everyone wearing the same gear, that’s boring to me and I don’t think that’s worth it.

I feel like Blizzard is taking the game away from us. What’s the reason behind all of it? Does Blizzard want less crying on the forums? They’ll probably accomplish that, but to do this, they’re giving up much of what makes the game good. I’m already on the sidelines after about 2 months of playing the expansion. I don’t think I’m alone in my mindset, but it will take awhile to see how the numbers bear out..

UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn II – live commentary

 

Nate Diaz vs. Clay Guida

I didn’t care much for the judging in this fight. Guida wins a split decision but for what? OK, it’s impressive that you stymied Nate Diaz on the ground, but less so when you had the dominant position every time on the ground and yet administered no offense yourself. In the stand up, Diaz clearly got the best of him in Rounds 1 and 3. You never know what will happen when the Diaz’s are involved after a fight but Nate was a good sport about the decision. Clay bores us all by saying thanks to everyone he’s ever met in his life. Joe Rogan has to cut him short. Did he just win an Oscar? No , just an undercard lay-and-pray split decision victory. Shut up Clay..

At this point the live crowd has witnessed six straight fights going to decision and I’m wondering if that will effect their excitement level later on. (Granted, many of the people don’t arrive until the start of the PPV card)

Winner: Clay Guida by split decision

 

Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun Kim

I liked the first two rounds. Some nice grappling by both guys going on. Kim clearly wins the first round, Karo clearly wins the second. Third round, NOTHING happens, and it’s basically a coin toss as to who to give Round 3 to, and decide the fight… Karo wins the split decision. Really disappointing Rounds 2 + 3 by Kim, given his reputation, and his great showing in the first round. Karo had his mouthpiece falling out of his mouth the whole fight and almost lost a point for it, which would’ve made the difference in the fight obviously.

That makes SEVEN OUT OF SEVEN straight decisions for the live crowd!! When a fight actually gets a finish they will go crazy.

Winner: Karo Parisyan by split decision

 

Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones

Best moment of the night so far as Jones lands a WICKED spinning elbow that knocks Bonnar out momentarily. Jones gives him a little too much time before pouncing on top of him, and Bonnar is able to recover. Goldberg calls it a spinning backfist (sigh). Jones hits an incredible suplex on Bonnar in the second round!!! Holy shit. I love this guy; sick talent and such a unique style; nothing like the generic guys that UFC typically churns out. Alas, the third round is a dud yet again, and we go to the scorecards again in what should be a unanimous decision for Jones.. and it is

Winner: Jon Jones by inanimous decision

 

Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva

Amazing. What odds could I have gotten on LYOTO having the first finish of the night?? We saw two men with identical 13-0 records matched up but clearly Lyoto was in a totally different class than Thiago Silva. He completely dominated the round and then finished the fight with a nasty leg sweep takedown followed by one punch on the ground right before the buzzer that knocked Silva out.

Lyoto with a nice interview afterwards that gets the fans hyped up. I guarantee Dana White breathed a sigh of relief after this result. If this fight went the distance, it would’ve been a real close call whether they’d have enough broadcast time for a 5-round main event to finish.

Winner: Lyoto Machida by KO Round 1

 

MAIN EVENT: Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn

St. Pierre grinds the Prodigy down for 4 rounds, scoring takedowns, ground and pounding, etc. for a dominant victory. After 2 rounds, B.J. had taken enough punishment that he just didn’t have much energy and from that point GSP was able to pass his guard at will. I don’t fault his conditioning, he was just beat up. GSP looked awesome but was clearly the much bigger guy and the weight advantage in my opinion made all the difference. I think both St. Pierre and Penn are incredibly talented and are pretty even in terms of skill, and in a situation like that, the bigger guy will prevail, and St. Pierre was the bigger guy. I don’t think any less of B.J. Penn after this loss. He was fighting up, and could probably beat a lot of guys at that weight, but not a super-elite fighter like GSP. I still consider both guys to be top 5 pound-for-pound.

Winner: Georges St. Pierre by TKO (corner stoppage) Round 4

 

Recap / overall thoughts: It was a ok show that didn’t live up to the hype. On paper, it looked fantastic but Diaz/Guida was a big letdown, while Parisyan/Kim and Bonnar/Jones had their moments but kind of fizzled out with unsatisfying finishes. The main event was a nice exhibition of GSP’s skills but he usually doesn’t win flashy and this was no exception. The highlight of the night was Lyoto Machida’s crushing win over Thiago Silva. Offensively, he looked explosive, and defensively he once again was amazing. He was basically untouched. I’ve got him as a solid favorite to beat Rashad Evans.

 

Addendum: I’m watching the MMA Live recap show and they are interviewing Karo Parisyan, who makes a classic mistake. His opponent, Dong Hyun Kim’s previously undefeated record was brought up and Karo dismisses it, says that Kim was only fighting tomato cans! Maybe true, but, Karo- you just beat the guy. Why tear him down like that? Wouldn’t you rather be the guy who just beat a tough, undefeated fighter? If he only build up his record by beating up on cans, then why should we be impressed that you beat him?