u/Beneficial_Air4714

Caol Uno made his pro debut 30 years ago in 1996, his first UFC fight was at UFC 30 against Jens Pulver for the vacant “Bantamweight title” (155lbs used to be Bantamweight in the UFC). He famously fought against BJ Penn for the vacant Lightweight belt, but that fight ended in a draw, so without a champion for the division the UFC shut Lightweight down for a few years. He’s now 51 years old and last competed 3 months ago on July 13th at Shooto, and lost by decision, but to be fair he did win a fight last December. He has a record of 35-24-5.

Honestly I think he looks pretty great for a 51 year old that has 64 pro fights and has been competing for 30 years.

Not only was the fight itself incredible, as most Takeru fights are, but the story around it just makes it all the more sweeter.

Takeru is 34 years old, knowingly entering his retirement fight in a rematch against a man that KO’ed him in 80 seconds during their first fight. Although Takeru had lots of championship success throughout his career, since joining ONE he had gone 2-2, including a title loss to Superlek and the KO loss to Rodtang, and majority of people were counting him out of this rematch. He goes in there, has an absolute war, seemingly cracks Rodtang’s iron chin by dropping him 4 seperate times and giving him his first stoppage loss in over a decade, and captures the interim Flyweight belt to add to his collection.

Some of the only other perfect retirements I can think of is when GSP fought for the first time in 4 years and beat Bisping to become a 2 weight UFC champion, or when Khabib retired after beating Gaethje, but I still don’t those come close to this.

In his latest YouTube video, Kai Asakura said he wants to fight once more this year. He did fracture his thumb, so he won’t be able to full on train until October, which likely rules out returning in November, but he did say he wanted to fight on UFC 334 at MSG. If he fights again in December, should he get a ranked opponent?

John Gooden on the commentary desk was saying that he would love for the UFC to go back to Japan, and Robert Whittaker even said that fighting on a Japan card would be a dream come true, It feels like the perfect time for it.

They could matchup Kyoji Horiguchi and Tatsuro Taira against each other in an all Japan main event to determine who stays in the top 5 at Flyweight, and Whittaker could fight Jiri who's well known in Japan. Kai Asakura and Rei Tsuruya are both on 2 fight win streaks and looking to get into the rankings, plus if the card takes place early next year, they could put the
4 Road To UFC finals matches to open the card, which includes two Japanese fighters. Could get other fighters who are well known in Japan like Tofiq Musayev and Ramazan Temirov too, there's 5 former RIZIN champions on the UFC roster currently that could stack a card in Japan if the UFC wants to.

Plus, these international crowds recently have been elevating the events, two cards in China this year that have gone crazy, Serbia lighting flares in the crowd, Baku went nuts for Fiziev, and the upcoming Paris card is almost certainly going to deliver. Japanese crowds are always good, never any booing, actually appreciating the sport that they’re watching, and hyping the big moments when they happen.

The Road To UFC season 5 semifinals are happening in a few hours, and it feels like there’s barely anyone talking about it. I’ve always thought that RTU was really cool, a multiple weight class tournament featuring fighters from all over Asia, Australia, and New Zealand to determine the next guys from those regions to get into the UFC, but it gets almost no promotion. No interviews or weigh ins of the fighters are posted to the UFC’s YouTube channel, and you can’t even watch RTU on Paramount Plus compared to DWCS. Makes no sense to me, especially because majority of the RTU fights are very exciting since they are mostly in the lighter weight classes.

I’ve never watched a medical Kdrama before, but I do know that both of these shows are quite highly regarded. There’s 3 seasons of Dr Romantic and 2 seasons of Hospital Playlist with a spin-off Resident Playbook. I’m wondering which I should watch first, also I’m wondering, which shows does romance better, and which does the actual medical stuff better?

He’s a former kickboxer that’s making his UFC debut on the upcoming Shanghai card. Light heavyweight, 6ft5, 3-1 in MMA, 18-3 in kickboxing, former K-1 champion and tournament winner. I feel like kickboxers transitioning to MMA can be a mixed bag, guys like Adesanya and Pereira become all time greats, whilst guys like Cedric Doumbe and Gokhan Saki don’t really make a splash. Light heavyweight is such a thin division right now though that I can see him doing well do some degree.

I had never watched anything with Seo In-guk before this year, but by chance I’ve now seen him in 3 different shows. He’s one of the panelists on the dating show Better Late Than Single, which I actually find him to be the best at giving advice and commentary. The two acting projects I’ve seen from him were both released this year, Boyfriend On Demand, and See You At Work Tomorrow! I enjoy him in both shows, but I’ve found that he’s kinda playing the same character in both shows, stoic and cold at first, but actually caring when he opens up. What are peoples general opinion of him as an actor? I obviously haven’t seen him in anything else yet, so I’m curious if he plays the same kind of character every time.

Something I’ve noticed recently is that most Korean fighters keep their hands so low, almost by their waist. In the UFC, the most clear examples are Joosang Yoo and Seok-hyeon Ko, but I’ve noticed so many of them in the regional promotions in Korea do it too like ZFN, Black Combat, and Road FC. Doo-ho Choi is one of the only Korean guys that keeps a solid high guard, and it probably saved him in his last where he was keeping peppered throughout the first round.

He’s a former kickboxer with a 75-7-1 record and was a two time Glory Welterweight champion, he then transitioned to MMA in late 2021 and went 6-1. He joined the PFL/Bellator and went 2-1 with them, with his only loss being from a shard of glass getting stuck in his foot somehow and the fight got waved off. His last fight was a win in May 2024, and he hasn’t competed in anything since, he’s currently 33 years old so he’s probably only got a couple years of his prime left.

I had never heard of i-dle until earlier this year when I stumbled across Mono, and I like it quite a bit considering Kpop is not my usual style of music. I listened to Crow and Gimme Dat Love as they came out too, and whilst I’m not fully sold on Crow, and Gimme Dat Love sounds a little empty in the chorus, I still liked them. After listening to the album though, Morning and Love Is Pain are right up my alley, I genuinely love those songs, so I guess which i-dle album should I listen to next if those two songs are my favourite?

I’ve always felt that The Wolverine went kind of underrated amongst all the Fox X-Men movies. Granted, it’s not the best movie of the bunch, but it felt like it wasn’t good enough to be talked about like X2, First Class, Days Of Future Past, and Logan, but also not bad enough to be joked about like Last Stand, Origins, and Dark Phoenix.

The entire opening scene is incredible, and I love the setting of Logan in Japan and the entire crisis of him dealing with the PTSD of what happened in the X-Men movies. Not to mention him having to face his mortality, and potentially accept his life coming to an end. Mariko as a love interest is much more appealing to me than the Jean stuff that’s always pushed on us, and I love his friendship with Yukio. Yashida as a villain is actually quite interesting, an old man trying to take Logan’s healing ability for himself, even if the final Silver Samurai battle was a bit underwhelming. Plus, who doesn’t love to see Wolverine face off against a bunch of ninjas? Also, that train sequence is second only to the train fight from Spiderman 2.

Something In The Rain might be the most egregious case of this I’ve seen, they’re together for most of the series, breakup in episode 15, then a time jump happens and they spent majority of the last episode apart. Not fully reuniting until the final scene of the show.

When The Phone Rings is another bad case of this. All the main conflict is wrapped up in the penultimate episode, but then the ML just disappears for most of the finale? Just really frustrating.

It just feels a little insulting, watching shows where the ML and FL spend the entire thing building a connection, just for them to be mostly apart in the final episode, and then we get nothing past that.

For whatever reason, Netflix has been recommending me a multiple Japanese dramas about cheating. I’m not really interested in fully watching a show about infidelity, but I have skimmed through some of them, and for the most part I find them to just be infuriating. I wonder though, have you found any show where the cheating is mostly justified?

I watched Dear Sa Chan, and whilst the overall show isn’t very good, and the ending is really creepy, I actually find myself intrigued by the FL and her husband. She starts cheating because she believes her husband has no love or for her, he rarely shows affection like hugs and kisses, doesn’t open up to her, and seemingly didn’t care when she rented a whole apartment for herself to live in whilst he’s away on a business trip. He set up a camera and mic in the apartment and watches her cheat on him, and realises that he should have been more open with her, and starts doing so when he returns. The husband explains that in previous relationships, if he was ever affectionate to his partners, they would call him suffocating and dump him, so he became cold during his relationship with his wife, leading to her finding comfort from someone else for her loneliness.

I despise cheating in shows, but I actually find the dynamic between the FL and her husband to be interesting, even though I feel like they didn’t have enough screen time together. I wouldn’t mind seeing a show with that kind of plot between ML and FL.