Month: September 2021

In maybe his best performance since winning UFC gold, Robbie Lawler (29-15) earned a TKO victory over Nick Diaz (26-10) Saturday night at UFC 266 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The bout was a rematch 17 years in the making, where Diaz earned a second-round KO over Lawler.

Lawler opened the first round clearly with a plan to overwhelm Diaz, who was making his return to the Octagon for the first time in six years. Diaz weathered the early storm and caught his rhythm with shot after shot in what equated to stand-and-throw bout. For every great combo Lawler put together — attacking Diaz’s legs, body, and head — Diaz peppered Lawler with jabs, hooks, and uppercuts.

To open the second, Lawler appeared to hurt Diaz momentarily with a nice liver kick, but again, he worked his way around the cage and bought himself enough recovery time. Diaz tried to walk Lawler down, but the former welterweight champion stood his ground and continued to walk Diaz back instead. Lawler finished the second with a few more big shots to the body, moving to the head and forcing Diaz to yet again retreat around the cage.

In the third, Lawler opened up with big body shots and landed a huge right hook that sent Diaz to his knee. When the referee encouraged him to get back to his feet, he remained on his back to give Lawler the TKO victory.

Saturday night marked Diaz’s first fight in the UFC since drawing Anderson Silva in 2015. Lawler has now won two fights since being dismantled in August 2019 by Colby Covington.

We’re slowly creeping up on a year since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, and the twice-impeached now-ex president is still finding ways to lose. The latest is a months-long advocating for a haphazard recall election in Arizona that actually saw him lost votes.

Unsurprisingly, especially given his track record on judging reality, Trump has a different take on a recall that showed him get fewer votes and Joe Biden get even more than before. At a rally in Georgia on Saturday night, Trump claimed the audit done by Trump-friendly Cyber Ninjas actually showed he won the election he continues to have lost.

“We won at the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn’t believe,” Trump said, a blatant lie by every measure of the words. “They had headlines that Biden wins in Arizona, when they know it’s not true. He didn’t win in Arizona. He lost in Arizona based on the forensic audit.”

That’s entirely untrue, though: the result of the audit in Maricopa County showed that Trump actually had 261 fewer votes in the election and Biden had 99 more than first counted. Not only did the audit not magically find thousands of votes for Trump, it in theory gave Biden an even wider margin of victory in Arizona.

None of that matters, however, as Trump’s rally where he campaigns for… something is largely an airing of grievances in front of an equally delusional but very supportive captive audience. Later on, Trump claimed that he never conceded the election, which he also did.

In another wild bit of rambling, Trump admitted that he called Georgia governor Brian Kemp and demanded he call a “special election” against Biden in the weeks after the state went his way in November.

At another point during the rambling rally, Trump says the government should be “looking at” sending Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to prison, presumably in response to Trump being banned from the platform he created.

It’s all a pretty wild trip into what Trump and his most devoted followers feel is actually happening in America. But it doesn’t change reality: Trump lost, and somehow he keeps finding new ways to confirm that and say otherwise anyway.

Kyrie Irving is reportedly among the NBA players who have yet to receive a vaccine against COVID-19, per a report that came out earlier this week. Irving plays in New York City, and while the NBA is not mandating the vaccine for players, it is requiring players to recognize their local vaccine mandates. New York is one such city that has a mandate, and as a result, remaining unvaccinated would mean Irving can’t enter the Nets’ arena or practice facility for games or team activities.

Irving has not directly confirmed or denied whether or not he has received a vaccine, but according to his aunt, Irving might look for a “moral-based” exemption.

“He is going to try to figure that out as it comes, because it’s not religious-based, it’s moral-based,” Tyki Irving told Matt Sullivan of Rolling Stone. “You may have to sit on the sideline, you might not have to be in the arena during this. If it’s that freaking important to get a vaccine that, hell, it’s still not preventing the Covid, then I’d rather them working it out that way than to say, ‘Hey, if you don’t get the vaccine, then you can’t be a part of the franchise that you f*ckin’ helped build.’”

Of course, it is incorrect that the vaccine is not preventing COVID — a study in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet called breakthrough cases “extremely rare” — but that seems like it does not matter in this case. Sullivan’s reporting shows that conspiracy theories regarding the vaccine have started to make their ways into NBA locker rooms, and Irving, to one extent or another, appears empathetic.

Irving, who serves as a vice president on the executive committee of the players’ union, recently started following and liking Instagram posts from a conspiracy theorist who claims that “secret societies” are implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for “a plan of Satan.” This Moderna microchip misinformation campaign has spread across multiple NBA locker rooms and group chats, according to several of the dozen-plus current players, Hall-of-Famers, league executives, arena workers and virologists interviewed for this story over the past week.

It must be stressed that there has been no answer from Irving, and that there is no guarantee that comments from someone close to him indicate exactly what he is thinking. This is, however, a departure from comments given by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the subject, as the Hall of Fame inductee believes the NBA should have a zero tolerance policy for passing up the vaccine.

A new piece by Matt Sullivan of Rolling Stone takes a deep dive into some of the issues that the NBA is having getting its final 10 percent or so of players vaccinated against COVID-19. While there are a whole heck of a lot of individuals who do not come out looking good, one person who takes a hardline stance based in the science behind the vaccine is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In the eyes of the Hall of Fame center, the NBA should be proactive in how it handles those who will not get vaccinated. As Abdul-Jabbar argues, “there is no room for players” who opt to pass on the vaccine.

“The NBA should insist that all players and staff are vaccinated or remove them from the team,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and the fans simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research. What I find especially disingenuous about the vaccine deniers is their arrogance at disbelieving immunology and other medical experts. Yet, if their child was sick or they themselves needed emergency medical treatment, how quickly would they do exactly what those same experts told them to do?”

Abdul-Jabbar went on to say that while he is not demanding these athletes act as “spokespersons for the government,” he believes there is a moral obligation that comes with having a platform that can save lives, and opting to not use it is “contributing to these deaths” that occur due to the ongoing pandemic.

“They are failing to live up to the responsibilities that come with celebrity. Athletes are under no obligation to be spokespersons for the government, but this is a matter of public health,” the Hall-of-Famer writes Rolling Stone in an e-mail. Abdul-Jabbar is especially disappointed in athletes of color: “By not encouraging their people to get the vaccine, they’re contributing to these deaths. I’m also concerned about how this perpetuates the stereotype of dumb jocks who are unable to look at verified scientific evidence and reach a rational conclusion.”

Abdul-Jabbar has, for the entirety of his basketball career, spoken with a level of forwardness and moral clarity that is oftentimes unmatched. That, once again, is the case here.

The Netflix live action edition of Cowboy Bebop has certainly looked the part so far, more or less. While Jurassic Park star Daniella Pineda has already fired back at critics of her look as Faye Valentine, for the most part fans of the legendary animated series have responded well to casting and the actual humans playing the parts.

So much of the show’s look and feel is iconic, including the original “Tank!” title sequence that features one of the more memorable scores in animation.

And now it’s clear just how serious Netflix is about hitting the same tone and look of the original. On Saturday, the streaming platform debuted the title credits for its live-action Cowboy Bebop that are essentially a shot-for-shot remake of the animated title sequence beloved by fans.

The music alone is a strong wave of nostalgia for fans of the original, which led to mostly relief from some eager to see how the show turns out. And while the live action title sequence is bound to disappoint some of the show’s biggest and most critical fans, it seems like the attention to detail is certainly here from Netflix. If you really need it, IGN put together a side-by-side comparison of the two so you can see just how close they are for yourself.

Those involved in the show, however, certainly think they’re on the right track. As Pineda said on Instagram on Saturday, “we came correct.”

The Ohio State Buckeyes fell behind early against the Akron Zips on Saturday night in Columbus, but then, things went more or less how you’d expect. Ohio State, despite playing without starting quarterback C.J. Stroud, started pouring it on, taking a 38-7 lead into a locker room at the half against their foes from the MAC.

There was, however, one pretty big way in which this game was unusual. According to reports from the stadium, senior Buckeyes linebacker K’Vaughn Pope appeared to end his tenure with the program in the middle of the game.

Apparently, Pope was unhappy with a decision made by Ohio State’s coaching staff, which led to him getting into it with people on the sideline and, eventually, being escorted to the locker room.

Perhaps this was simply a player wanting to cool off after a fracas on the sideline, but apparently, Pope went to the locker room, grabbed his phone, and started tweeting. In one post, he wished the rest of his teammates luck, and in a tweet that has since been deleted, he had a pretty stern message for his school.

Pope was a four-star recruit in the class of 2018, and had recored 19 tackles during his career as a Buckeye.

We already know when we’ll see the second season of The Witcher at this point, as the Netflix series based on a video game and book series officially returns in December. The official trailer arrived at WitcherCon earlier in the year, too, and fans of the series know a lot is on the horizon in Season 2.

The latest trailer came Saturday, served up as a “road” to Season 2 that features a quick recap of the first season’s events as well as some considerable training montage moments for Ciri. But Netflix also gave fans another taste on Saturday as part of its Tudum event — you know, the sound the app makes when you first log in — with a slew of announcements and another sneak peek of what we’ll see from Geralt and Ciri in a few months.

The clip is extremely brief, but shows Geralt waking a sleeping Ciri to tell her to prepare for trouble. She seems startled to say the least, as Geralt drinks in preparation for attackers while the young girl leaves him for whatever fight is ahead. The rest of the clip is mostly silent, with Geralt creeping slowly around a castle prepared for a fight.

While we didn’t learn much from it, the clip is certainly a tease of some big action. Another scene shared on Saturday offered a look at some of the big tensions that Geralt will have to navigate in Season 2 as he tries to protect Ciri from danger, as is his oath.

All that news also came alongside some revelations about other Witcher spinoff shows. Not only was The Witcher already given a third season by Netflix, that news came with a behind-the-scenes video that the streaming service dropped on Saturday of The Witcher: Blood Origin.

It’s a lot of small morsels of Witcher content on a day where Netflix went all-out with announcements, but we’re still a few months away from figuring out exactly what’s waiting for Geralt in those darkened hallways when Season 2 drops on December 17.

A picture City Girls rapper JT posted earlier this month led to fans believe that she was pregnant but she strongly pushed back on that assumption on Saturday. The rumors started when some of her supporters matched a bracelet she wore in the picture to one that pregnant women wear to combat morning sickness.

As a result, many jumped to the conclusion that JT and her boyfriend Lil Uzi Vert have a baby on the way, with some building excitement toward a potential “Lil Lil Uzi.” Furthermore, Lil Uzi recently posted a picture of JT with her belly covered with a heart-eyes emoji. Despite all of this, JT adamantly denies that she’s pregnant.

“It’s getting weird!!!!” JT wrote in a comment on Instagram. “I told [Uzi] put an emoji there because my pants were dirty but I still liked the video I shouldn’t even have to constantly tell a bunch of strangers I’m not hiding shit!!!! I’m not pregnant now leave me the hell alone!”

She also spoke about the rumors in a pair of now-deleted tweets.

“B*tch can’t even use emojis no more!” JT wrote in the first tweet. “I let y’all rock cause on some serious sh*t if I was pregnant what y’all gone do? Nothing! As a women half y’all h*es need to go educate y’all self nausea not only caused by pregnancy! & the way I control my nausea shouldn’t be y’all business.”

In the second tweet, she continued, “Females & n****s who don’t have a p*ssy really lost they marbles I was like okay once they see no stomach they’ll stop but now y’all just getting weirder! & weirder! y’all blogs & y’all b*tches LEAVE ME ALONE.”

You can view the posts from JT above.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Britney Spears’ new fiancee Sam Asghari has been an advocate for her freedom for a very long time. Asghari, who has dated the singer for four years, has also defended her on numerous occasions and the latest example of it came recently when he criticized past documentaries that focused on Britney Spears’ conservatorship battle.

“Apparently my opinion has increased in value over [the] last few days,” he wrote on his Instagram Story, referencing a past comment he made about Netflix’s upcoming film, Britney Vs. Spears. “Past docs left bad aftertaste. I’m hopeful this one will be respectful.”

He added, “I don’t blame CNN, BBC or Netflix (which got me thru lockdowns) for airing them because as an actor I tell other peoples stories too. I question producers who made them ‘just to shed light’ without input or approval from subject. Any credit for light being she should go to #freebritney.”

Just two days ago, Asghari shared his concerns with Netflix’s Britney Vs. Spears, specifically in regards to where the film’s profits would go.

“I hope the profit from these docs go towards fighting [against] injustice #freebritney,” he wrote under Netflix’s Instagram post promoting the upcoming documentary. Lady Gaga’s manager, Bobby Campbell, also chimed in with comments of his own, thoughts that Asghari agreed with as he endorsed it with a 100 emoji.

“There needs to be transparency about how or whether the filmmakers are profiting from this doc, or if they are donating their fees to Britney’s legal defense, or to legal defense funds to aide those who do not have the financial resources to fight against undue conservatorships,” Campbell wrote in part. “Even if it is in support of freeing Britney, this appears that it could be exploitative.”

You can view a screenshot of his message in the photo above.

Oleksandr Usyk maintained his unblemished professional record on Saturday en route to winning the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight titles. Usyk entered Saturday’s bout against Anthony Joshua as a heavy underdog, but by the time the judges announced their decisions following 12 rounds of action, the Ukranian found himself the winner by unanimous decision.

Usyk — who was previously recognized as the world champion at the cruiserweight division by WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring — handed Joshua his first defeat on British soil in front of the crowd at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The judges scored the fight 117-112, 116-112, and 115-113 in favor of the new champion.

While the cards showed a one-sided fight, Usyk nonetheless tried to send the fans home with a knockout in the bout’s final moments.

On the whole, Usyk landed 148 punches to Joshua’s 123, something that was mixed with being far more accurate — the Ukranian landed 28 percent of all punches he threw, while the Englishman landed 19 percent. That was particularly the case with power punches, as Usyk landed 96-of-220 (44 percent) and Joshua landed 71-of-214 (33 percent). Usyk entered the evening a +220 underdog, while Joshua was viewed as a -270 favorite.

Now, the eyes of the boxing world turn to Las Vegas, where Tyson Fury will put his WBC and The Ring heavyweight titles on the line in his third fight against Deontay Wilder. Fury was slated to take on Joshua in a pair of bouts to unify the world heavyweight titles, but those plans were postponed when an arbiter determined Fury was contractually obligated to fight Wilder once again.