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Traveling Insanity, Conor McGregor & Wrestlemania March- The Daily Spotlight for 2/25

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello everyone and a very happy Thursday to each and every one of you.  It’s a very happy Thursday for me as I’m working just a few blocks away from where I live.  There is, to me, nothing better aside from being off altogether than working so close to home.  I get to sleep for, I kid you not, anywhere from an hour to 2 hours more when I work in Queens then when I work in Brooklyn.  Thus, I circle the day on my calendar and look forward to a day like today more than any other.  Even with heading to the city later this afternoon I can’t complain whatsoever.  Heading to the city is delightful for me as I hop on the LIRR and away I go, no I don’t care if the LIRR is relatively boushey.  Anyway, let’s get into the spotlight.

– One thing that has really zapped me throughout the week (and one of the reasons why I was in desperate need for a queens day) has been my lack of recovery from my vacation this week.  That’s right it is officially vacation season for me and this kicked off for me in a big way.  I was able to go visit some family on Valentines Day weekend (relax slappy I took the lovely lady out on Saturday and she came with me for the weekend) over in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  I then returned to work for two days in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Wednesday and then Wednesday night we took off for Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Now I’m the type of guy who hates taking off work for an illness or just to recover from a trip because my agency doesn’t offer specific sick time.  Thus, we spent Wednesday night to Monday night at 10:30 when we arrived back in New York.  My girlfriend was able to take off until Tuesday but I was up at 5AM, worked two jobs and then hit the gym until the gym closed at midnight.  At 22 years old I would have been just dandy but I was beat up and struggling through all of Wednesday.  I was running on straight coffee just to get through the day and crashed hard a little after midnight last night (I rarely hit the hey before 2).  Thus, it was really good to get a few extra z’s last night.  One great thing about going away by the way was how I was able to pick up a lot of great video content for the site that you can expect to see in the coming weeks.

– I consider myself to be a pretty big baseball fan.  Aside from football and wrestling, baseball is my favorite sport and the only other sport in which I follow the league inside and out.  That said, I am not the same about baseball that I am about football in that when baseball ends, I’m good until about a month before baseball before I feel like I need to get fully invested.  I don’t care about when pitchers and catchers report and if I watch more than 1 spring training game, it’s probably more than usual.  The 175 games that emcompass the baseball season are good enough for me.  This isn’t to say that I’m not invested, I’m a nats fan and one of the reasons I subscribe to Sirius XM is to make sure I can listen to all of the games while in the car and I purchase the mlb package so I can watch all of the Nats games (and I love a good west coast game that starts at 10:35PM our time).  That said, it just isn’t baseball for me until football is long and gone. With football now gone, however, it is in fact time to get into baseball.  I’ve been going through all of the different rosters and have to be honest, it could be a very tough year coming up for my Nats.  I’m not sold on any other team in our division but the middle of our infield is really weak defensively and while I’m happy we went out and got Ben Revere (and more to the point dropped Drew Storen and actually got a return!), I can’t believe that the Nationals did very little to improve our rotation.  While, Bronson Arroyo is a gamer and a winner, he’s in his late thirties now and coming off Tommy John surgery.  That means we’re depending on Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark and Joe Ross which scares me.  Maybe instead of trying to stick it to the New York Mets (and more or less failing) this offseason, we should have been worrying about improving our rotation.  Could be a long season, hope I’m wrong.

– I’m pretty bummed that Rafael Dos Anjos got hurt and won’t be facing Conor Mcgregor on March 5th, but honestly I feel like Nate Diaz is a great replacement.  The press conference yesterday was a lot of fun and I think that you have the two perfect guys to prepare for a fight like this on such short notice.  Conor is an absolute must see attraction whenever he fights but it will be interesting to see if Diaz and Mcgregor will be the main event now since it won’t be a title fight and Tate-Holm will be.  Even though everyone assumes this will be a sure fire win for McGregor, I wouldn’t be too shocked to see Diaz put up a really good fight.  Diaz is a gritty fighter who has a big time reach advantage on McGregor and Mcgregor is going up in weight class so much and fighting at 170 so I wouldn’t put the house on Conor in this one.

– Last piece of business to take care of.  As many of you know WrestleMania is under six weeks away.  In the past I’ve been reminiscing on different Survivor Series events and Royal Rumble events of years past.  Well in the month of March, I’m going to take things to the next level and bring you a WrestleMania a day.   I’ll break down a different WrestleMania from my perspective as a fan.  It works out perfectly with 31 days of March and 31 Wrestlemanias.  I’ll break them down each event from my experiences (the biggest moments, the best matches) as a fan and then I’ll parallel each WrestleMania with what I remember most from each year of being a fan of WWE.  I’ll include everything from pictures to videos, if I have them, to everything in between.  I want to really intertwine this idea with the youtube channel and get that off the ground as well.  This will all lead you right up ro WrestleMania weekend in which I will be on hand live to get you the most comprehensive coverage that someone who attends the event with his girlfriend, for her birthday, can possibly give you.  It’s bound to be a lot of fun and I’m excited for it.

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The Spotlight On UFC 193

Tom Lynch Sports, The Spotlight On Today's Sports , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well I just got back from a nice time over at Dave & Busters where we viewed UFC 193 and let me tell you I’m still in shock after that finish.  I’m not going to claim to be a UFC enthusiast.  As a matter of fact, I’m not even going to talk about any of the other fights on the card here tonight.  It’s not that I don’t like UFC, I actually became a pretty big fan when I started watching the shows for Brock Lesnar when he starting fighting for them in February 2008.  But I’ll be honest, many of the personalities in UFC just didn’t catch my attention after Brock left in 2011.  I liked GSP but he really toned down his schedule, I liked Rashad Evans but then he got hurt.  Then in late 2012, Dana White announced that Ronda Rousey had signed with the promotion and was going to be the promotion’s first ever women’s champion, as the Bantamweight champion, and I was immediately intrigued.

It had been a long time coming for UFC and I was surprised it took that long for UFC to embrace female fighters.  I also noticed that my girlfriend was also intrigued as she asked to join me when I went to see UFC 157 with my friends, the event that had the first ever women’s fight in UFC history(Rousey vs.Carmouche).  Her interest in the entire sport really grew and I noticed that a lot more females I spoke to suddenly became fans of UFC, all thanks to Ronda. I also found myself pretty engulfed, again in UFC thanks to this new movement.  Fighters like Conor McGregor, Daniel Cromier and Hofstra’s own Chris Weidman became favorites of mine but nothing compared to Ronda Rousey.  My girlfriend and I made sure that no matter what we were doing, we went out of our way to catch every one of Ronda’s fights.  In particular, there was a time that we were both away on a snowboarding trip in the poconos and we traveled 30 miles in the snow to the one Buffalo Wild Wings in town showing Ronda’s fight.

Tonight was no different tonight as despite her working a 12 hour shift, I picked my girlfriend up from work at 8pm and we gathered a few friends and went to Dave and Busters to see the fight.  I’ll tell you that I was pretty nervous going into this one because of the fact that Ronda was going up against an undefeated fighter but, to be fair, she did the same with Bethe Correia and knocked her out in under a minute.  Holly Holm was much different though, she came in with a clear gameplan and right away you knew this fight wasn’t going to be one minute, or even one round.  Of course, I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted a second round knockout for Holm.  This was easily the most shocked I’ve been since Brock Lesnar beat Rany Couture or maybe when Chris Weidman knocked out Anderson Silva.  Holm deserves all of the credit in the world for not allowing herself to become intimidated by the aura that is Ronda Rousey and pulling off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history.

As for Ronda Rousey, you really got to wonder where she goes from here.  She is obviously a very driven individual and I know that she isn’t going to take this loss lightly.  I also believe that she has one more fight left on her contract and a rematch with Holm would make perfect sense.  That being said, Ronda is getting ready to star as the lead role in the new Roadhouse movie and it seems like she has plenty of offers in Hollywood.  I also know that Ronda is a huge WWE fan and has stated that she’ll be back at some point, which she won’t be able to do (at least in a match capacity) while under contract with UFC. So while tonight’s loss was heartbreaking, the fact remains that Ronda is currently sitting in a hospital bed for observation following her fight and has to have some thought if she’d like to continue risking all of these other opportunities, or her health, by continuing to fight.

So in the end, yes this loss was heartbreaking but it’s very hard for a fighter to go undefeated no matter how dominant you are (give the devil his due, what Floyd Mayweather has done is unprecedented).  While it was a shame to see someone who has revolutionized the entire UFC by spearheading the Women’s fighting movement go down in defeat, the loss doesn’t tarnish her legacy at all. Ronda really made history, as evidenced by UFC headlining and co-headling with two womens fights tonight.  In many ways, you can also make a strong case that Ronda is indirectly responsible for the Divas Revolution you currently see in WWE.

As for UFC, they should be commended for changing with the times and featuring women more prominently on the top of their cards.  It’ll be interesting to see if this continues without Ronda Rousey but I hope it does as their is obvious interest as evidenced by the 56,000+ that were in attendance tonight.  I can confirm that UFC will return to Austrailia on March 20th, this time running Brisbane.  If you would like more UFC 193 coverage might I suggest you check out f4wonline.com or the fight network as they both do a great job.  I’d also like to suggest you give @RobinBlackMMA a follow as he did a great breakdown of the Ronda-Holm fight.

That’s going to do it for after a history making night at UFC193 and the end of an era as it’s nearly 3AM here on the east coast.  Tomorrow is a Football sunday so I will be back bright and early, coffee cup in hand with my football picks and a lot more fun stuff right here on thedailyspotlight.com

The Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts- Wrestling Observer Live 

Tom Lynch The Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello everyone and welcome to the this weeks edition of The Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts where we look at different wrestling podcasts you may have never heard of , you may be overlooking or maybe an episode of a wrestling podcast you should go out of your way to listen to. This week on the docket I’m going to talk to you about Wrestling Observer Live. Hosted by F4Wonline.com’s Bryan Alvarez & Mike Sempervive, Wrestling Observer Live airs Sunday thru Friday across the sports byline USA networks as well on Sirius Satellite Radio. Without any further ado lets get into some of the highlights of the show.

Highlights

1) Daily Wrestling Radio- As a lifelong wrestling fan I’ve always dreamed of a time where I could head home after a long day of work and turn on the radio to hear some wrestling radio. Well one of things I love about WOL is that it airs Monday thru Friday at 3PM EST. The show is also easy to find replays of either on F4WOnline.com or by finding a replay schedule on sports byline USA’s website. I personally love to listen to WOL on the way home from work as its a great source to find out all of the up to the minute news in a concise fashion.   Being that it’s only an hour each day, It’s the perfect way to get my fill of all of the wrestling and MMA news of the day quickly. Also don’t forget about the Sunday show, which airs at 6PM EST for two hours each week. The 2 hours on Sunday allow for the show to really go in any direction and it’s often my favorite show of the week. In particular, these two hour shows often end up making for a great pre show to the pay per view on Sundays when there’s one. For an example, just last night they did their own commentary to the Meta Powers/Ascension pre show tag match prior to the payback show.

2) The Hosts- Bryan & MIke are both incredibly knowledgable in both wrestling and MMA. Bryan Alarez in particular not only has been covering the world of pro wrestling for over 20 years but used to wrestle in his own right. This, to me sets him apart from other wrestling journalists because he can offer that in ring perspective, and that’s meant as more praise for Bryan than a knock on anyone else. That said, while the guys will offer there opinion in an entertaining fashion, you know that the insight you hear on Wrestling Observer Live can be trusted.

3) The Guests–  One of the real highlights of Wrestling Observer Live is that you never know who’s going to show up for a guest appearance on the show.  Anyone from Chris Jericho to Rey Mysterio to Ethan Carter III has been on WOL recently and this really makes the show can’t miss.  Guests are usually on the show on Tuesdays and Thursdays and what’s cool is that if you subscribe to f4wonline.com then you can usually catch a longer interview with Bryan and the guests, though the free interviews on Observer Live are also great listens.  What’s great about the guests is that they are usually timely so that when a guest is on they’re also their to promote something that may otherwise go unnoticed by the wrestling fan.  For example, last week JTG was on to promote his book “Damn Why Did I Write This Book?”  which I knew nothing about prior to Observer Live but picked it up after his appearance and found it quite enjoyable.  Other appearances included Court Bauer & Wale prior to Walemania as a part of Wrestlemania week as well as Jay Briscoe prior to a Ring of Honor pay per view.

Closing Thoughts

I think Wrestling Observer Live is definitely worth going out of your way to listen to.  While the hosts may be critical, I feel that they come off fair as opposed to many in the wrestling media that are often negative for the sake of being negative.  I also feel that the guys do a great job in mixing in some mixed martial arts chatter, but not enough to overwhelm the wrestling fan listening.  If anything Wrestling Observer Live and the coverage that they do on MMA makes me more of a fan of UFC and keeps me up to date on important issues going in the sport. That said, on shows where a big wrestling show is coming up, you will rarely hear any MMA talk on the show and vice versa on the shows prior to a big UFC show so it’s a good mix.  In closing one other really cool thing about WOL is that because it’s also a radio show, fans are given the opportunity to call in towards the end of the show provided that they stay on topic. The phone lines remain open a good amount longer on the Sunday shows where really nothing is off limits.   Thus, go out and listen to wrestling observer live which you can find streaming live here  http://sportsbyline.com/wrestling-observer-live/ or you can subscribe to the wrestling observer website at f4wonline.com.  If you check out the show I would love to hear some of your feedback and if you have any other suggestions for future editions of the spotlight on wrestling podcasts feel free to leave those as well as I’m always looking for more content.

If you didn’t get a chance you can check out my spotlight on wrestling podcasts from last week which focused on the Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast and you can view that right here https://thedailyspotlight.com/2015/05/09/the-spotlight-on-wrestling-podcasts-the-lapsed-fan/.  Thanks for all of your support, now go listen to some podcasts!