A Good Fight

This week was capped off on Saturday with a very important event for one of my favorite sports. This event was UFC 104. Every month for the sport of mixed martial arts the UFC (ultimate fighting championship) holds a pay per view event in which some of its top fighters battle. These events usually include one title fight which this one did have. Of course I had to see this so I decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and watch the pay per view for free on their big screen TVs.
At UFC 104 the main event and title fight was Mauricio Shogun Rua fighting against light heavyweight champion Lyoto the Dragon Machida. This fight is absolutely huge for the sport because both these fighters are very difficult opponents and it was very hard to decide which fighter would win.
Actually time out I am going to watch some Monday night football. Okay the Redskins still suck.
Machida is one of the greatest UFC fighters right now. He is so technically strong and one of the best strikers in the sport. Machida uses his powerful karate and jiu-jitsu in his fights and it has lead him to the belt. Machida is one of the best strikers but he has an awkward style. What is different about Machida is he is not a forward striker he usually waits and takes advantage of the other fighter’s aggressiveness by using strong counter strikes.
Machida went into this fight undefeated and the newly crowned light heavyweight champion of the world. Machida just came off a devastating win over former champion Rashad Evans. In this fight Machida proved he was a fantastic striker and handed Rashad his first loss by way of knockout.
Machida’s opponent for this bout was Mauricio Shogun Rua. Shogun is another extremely stout fighter and is known for his aggressive and ruthless striking. Shogun has built his repertoire fighting in Pride which is a now defunct mixed martial arts league based in Japan. Shogun was very successful in Pride and he was the 2005 Pride grand prix champion. Although Shogun had managed to be very impressive in Pride his success had yet to transfer to the UFC. In the UFC there are some rule differences and that is usually what explains Shogun’s inability to transfer smoothly into the UFC.
Shogun had just come off a very impressive win over Chuck the Iceman Lidell who is a legend of the sport. In this fight Shogun showed the Shogun that everyone was expecting when he entered the UFC. He was electrifying and aggressive and won dominantly by TKO.
When these two fighters met Saturday night in the octagon everyone knew it was going to be a crazy fight and they were not wrong. The fight started off kind of slow but Shogun started to become more and more explosive with each strike. Shogun began to focus on striking Machida with leg kicks on the left side ribs. Shogun dominated the first round and Machida began to show bruising on his side.
As the fight went on Shogun continued to be the Shogun everyone expected and continued to work Machida’s ribs. Of course Machida did not give up and he began attacking and countering as well. Machida focused on hitting Shogun on the head every time Shogun went in for a strike and Machida also tried to use his powerful clinch to catch Shogun with hard knee strikes to the body.
This fight went on like this for the remainding rounds. It was absolutely crazy and so hard to decide who had won but it had seemed that Shogun was victorious and thus the new champion. The fight went to decision in which three judges decided the victor. In a championship fight the fight is 5 rounds which are 5 minutes each so it was impressive that it went the distance.
Of course the decision was split but shockingly the judges decided that Machida won. Fans at the Staple Center went crazy and booed and threw things at the ring. This was a very poor decision and everyone was appalled. Even Dana White, the president of the UFC, went up to Shogun and said “you won that fight.” People in Buffalo Wild Wings where going crazy and cursing some were even chanting “Shogun!” as if he could hear them.
This was very disappointing because I had really though Shogun would have won that fight. He is probably one of my favorite fighters and I expected him to win so seeing him lose was disappointing especially because he could have become the champion. I am pretty sure because of the controversial decision Dana White will more than likely schedule a rematch between these two incredible fighters.
The other fights on this card where also pretty good but clearly could not compare to the main event. The other impressive fight on the card was that between Ben Rothwell and Cain Velasquez. Cain Velasquez was undefeated coming into this fight and was thought to be a possible contender for Brock Lesnar in the heavyweight division. Velasquez dominated the fight and was quick to take Rothwell down. This was very advantageous to Velasquez because he has a very powerful ground and pound game and he sure used it. Velasquez would take a dominate position on Rothwell such as half guard and he would just pound his head in. eventually in the second round the referee had to stop the fight and thus Velasquez won by TKO. This sets up a great opportunity for a great fighter. Because Velasquez won this fight he could now be next in line for Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar is the current champion but he is really not that skilled of a fighter. He just uses his size advantage to take advantage of smaller fighters and dominate them physicaly. Brock Lesnar is actually a really bad face for the sport and he is giving the UFC a bad name. Brock is overly confident and disrespectful to other fighters which are not the real nature of the sport. So hopefully Velasquez who is very prideful can take his belt and get Lesnar out of the spot light.

Ad Analysis

This ad tells a mythical and legendary tale of an Irish whiskey brewer named John Jameson. The ad shows Jameson on a ship during a great storm. Suddenly one of his barrels of whiskey rolls of the boat into the ocean. Jameson decides he must save his whiskey and dives into the ocean after it. As he swims after the whiskey he encounters a giant octopus that presumably eats him. The next scene shows a great funeral and the narrator says “The next day there was a great funeral, all of Ireland was in attendance, including John Jameson.”
This ad is trying to appeal to young adults and drinkers. Its main goal is to sell its Irish whisky so it wants to try to capture the attention of young people who like to party and drink but more specifically people who are old enough to drink legally. The main way that this ad tries to get the attention of its audience is to appeal to their emotions or pathos.
This ad is a pathos argument because it attempts to be funny and get the audience’s attention by getting to them with humor. Many young people would think the story told about John Jameson would be fairly comical and they could laugh at the exaggeration displayed by the epic story. I think this ad works effectively in this aspect because humor is the emotion that appeals most to young people. Young people want to have a good time and be funny and not deal with serious issues so John Jameson’s story makes the audience laugh and therefore will most likely sell the product.
Although this ad focuses mainly on its pathos claim it also uses other factors to try to argue its case. One other thing John Jameson uses is ethos. This ad does not establish ethos in the sense that the character is knowledgeable and actually states facts or statistics but the character seems to get his ethos from his story. The story is very interesting and could be viewed as an epic so many people would think that “hey John Jameson was awesome so maybe I should get some of his whiskey.” Also, the story shows that clearly his whisky was worth risking his life over and worth battling a giant octopus so it must be good.
This ad also tries to make itself seem trustworthy. The ad does this by establishing its ethos and using the traditional Irish culture to indirectly establish its trustworthiness. By showing that the Irish endorse this product and it is a part of its culture the ad shows that the traditional Irish culture trusts this product to be a good one. If the Irish culture, which is known to be a drinking culture, trusts this product then it must be a good and reliable product for everyone.
Although the ad makes all these claims it never actually raises the statement that John Jameson whisky is the best or even good. This ad makes the impression that its product is elite and worth buying but it never once actually straight forward tells the audience that it is. The ad mostly focuses on the story of John Jameson whiskey and lets that establish its ethos and authority. I think that not saying that its product is the best actually helps the ad in achieving its goals. If the ad where to say that it where the best it might tarnish the subtleness that the product tries to emulate or it might make the ad seem to redundant and exaggerated. The ad already plays on telling an epic over exaggerated story so to add something to say how great the product is would be redundant to the theme of the story.
This ad’s argument also relies on culture to help its case. The John Jameson ad keys in on people of Irish culture. The ad does this by displaying the commercial as a sort of Irish folk tale or legend. People who are very into Irish culture or identify with being Irish would enjoy this because they feel like it makes them even more Irish to use this product. Also, the idea of the whiskey being traditional and a part of Irish culture helps its ethos. The ethos is improved because everyone knows that the Irish is a huge drinking culture so for a whiskey to have survived the ages and still be popular amongst the Irish means that it must be amazing.
Another culture this ad uses to appeal to its audience is that of the young modern culture. The commercial sets itself up like an epic movie that young people would be interested in watching. It makes the commercial have action and plot twists that keep you intrigued and that most young people would find funny. This is effective in making the ad more appealing because although commercials are short some get boring. This ad keeps the audience intrigued and makes them laugh every time they see it.
Ultimately, this ad is very successful in appeal to its audience because it establishes ethos and pathos and uses other things such as culture and trustworthiness to convey its message. All the things this ad does to carry its argument make sense and are effective yet subtle. At first glance you may not see how it uses the Irish tradition and history to help its cause but it uses it very strongly and effectively. All these key ideas make this add effective without making it present facts or information to persuade its audience. Instead this ad relies solely on ideas and culture to help it establish its points. Although now most audiences want pure facts and want logos or logic to sway their opinions this ad does it effectively without using logos. This is a breath of fresh air because sometimes people just want to see a funny ad that is not so serious and filled with facts and I believe that this ad delivers just that.

Must Win Championship.

Virginia Tech moved into the top five this weekend. This is extremely exciting because it just gets us one step closer to the National Championship which we could very well play in this year. After defeated Duke in a game that was to close for comfort we jumped Boise State in the rankings to move up to number five. In this game Virginia Tech’s offense was explosive and Tyrod Taylor showed why he is an all star by racking up 300 plus passing yards. This game was absolutely ridiculous and showed how powerful an offense we have. This was very important because after all the wins many critics still questioned if our offense could produce enough to make us a serious contender. This week we showed that we could do that with or without a strong running game.
Duke, who was not supposed to play this well, showed why their quarter back was an all ACC member. He played almost as well as Tyrod by putting up extremely similar stats. Because of Dukes play and ability to score so easily on us I must question our defense. Our defense is usually one of the strongest aspects of our team and carries us when we cant produce offensively. Our defense needs to play a lot better than they have previously if we are to be successful enough to be considered for a national championship.
Bud Foster, our defensive coordinator, should be able to handle the team and make sure they bounce back after a disappointing game. The defense played down to Duke because they under estimated their skills. As a team we cannot afford to do this if we intend to be successful and win every game. We can’t let our performance and rankings get to our heads and make us think we are untouchable. This has happened to many teams when they think too big of themselves. This is especially key considering how many top ten teams have fallen this year because they played down to teams. Bud Foster has always been in control of this defense so I’m sure they won’t have any problems bouncing back to their winning ways.
Also, this upcoming weekend the Florida Gators play the LSU Tigers. This is a great game and very important to Tech fans. Either way the game goes Virginia Tech will move up in ranking. LSU has been very close in many games this year and they will be playing the number one team in the nation. Florida may be without their starting quarter back though. Tim Tebow suffered a concussion last week and he is attempting to recovering from this crucial injury. If the Gators do not win this game however the Hokies will still move forward. Also, we do not have to worry about the victors of this game staying ahead of us because three of the four teams ahead of us are in the SEC. This means that two of them will presumably play in the SEC championship game and the third would then not be the SEC champion so they would not play in the National Championship. Alabama however seems untouchable and if they where the team in the number one slot I do not know if the voters would chose us to play against them considering we already lost to them this season. This is very disappointed because I belive from the start of the season until now we are a much improved team.
Once again though we still need the Texas Longhorns to lose and fall behind us in the rankings. Texas still hasn’t been tested so they could still lose a game. Later in the year they play the Oklahoma Sooners who just lost to the Miami Hurricanes who we dominated last week. This is very important for our Championship hopes because now that Oklahoma has two loses even if they defeat the Longhorns they will not jump us in rankings.
Next week we play Boston College who in past years has been growing into a serious rival. Boston College has not been as good this year and I’m sure this will be an easy win but we do not need to play down like we did against Duke. Hopefuly we are back in line and our offense plays just as well as it has been in the past few weeks and we completely and utterly dominate the Eagles for our homecoming game.

Metallica Why?

This week while looking for things to do I decided to look concerts in the area. I saw many concerts at James Madison and other local colleges but not much at Virginia Tech. I then saw that Metallica, the band that sings Virginia Techs theme song Enter Sandman, was playing a show at rival university Virginia. This completely blew my mind. Why in the world would Metallica play a show at UVA but not at one of the colleges that embraces them so much?
Some may say that the city of Blacksburg has a lot less people and that Metallica would not want to come here because of that reason. I find this to be very illogical because Virginia Tech is the largest college in Virginia and I am sure every student would show up to see Enter Sandman blasted through Lane Stadium by the band itself. The stadium would all jump up and down and go absolutely crazy just like at every single sporting event. Lane stadium would sell out and Metallica would have 66,000 plus screaming fans at their concert.
Also, the stupid Virginia students could never appreciate Metallica on the level that Virginia Tech does. Virginia Tech considers Metallica and that song to be a huge part of our culture so I think it’s just wrong that they aren’t playing here. It seems like the only logical place for Metallica to play.