Conor mcgregor

Saturday

Damian Reilly

Is Sean Strickland the redneck hero America needs right now?

Is charismatic UFC middleweight contender Sean Strickland the last American hero? This weekend he fights terrifying undefeated Chechen killing machine Khamzat Chimaev for the UFC world championship. If he wins, immediately he will rival Conor McGregor as the sport’s most famous face. Given Strickland’s proclivity for at every opportunity saying the most politically incorrect thing imaginable – he has taken lately to calling Chimaev a "goat fucker" – there are many for whom this will be an outrage, presumably not least Paramount, who recently paid $7.7 billion for the rights to broadcast UFC events. All sport is political to a greater or lesser extent In his own mind, Strickland is a throwback to a time before liberals monkeyed with prevailing Western cultural values.

sean Strickland

Tuesday

Cockburn

Cockburn at the Trump inauguration

A very Special Relationship On Friday night, Cockburn began at the British Embassy for send-off drinks with outgoing ambassador Karen Pierce. Several foreign correspondents were present, along with the Washington Post’s John Hudson, Robert Costa and Fin Gomez of CBS. They all tucked into sparkling wine and beer and fish and chips hors d’oeuvres.Britain was also on the agenda for Cockburn’s next event, the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack Celebration thrown by the Gunster Group, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore on the roof of the Hay-Adams. Upon hearing an accent, Natalie Winters of the War Room podcast asked of one British guest, “so, groomer or groomée?”Cockburn watched the esteemed Dr. Sebastian Gorka exiting in a long military-style trenchcoat.

Friday

Rich Cromwell

Road House is a triumph of awful filmmaking

There is a magical nexus between awful and amazing on which some movies land. Sometimes it is a self-aware reach toward the awful that creates the magic, other times it is the filmmaker’s obliviousness that creates a Bob Ross happy accident that delights viewers and creates a cult classic. Amazon’s Road House is not such a movie. The 2024 film, loosely based on 1989’s Road House, mostly adheres to the Wikipedia plot summary of the Patrick Swayze classic, if you forgive them for forgetting to make the plot discernible. Jake Gyllenhaal is a former UFC fighter, rather than a professional bouncer, in this iteration. He is recruited to become a bouncer for a club experiencing a wave of violence, as was the case in the original. He is a badass, as Swayze was.

jake gyllenhaal road house

Tuesday

Damian Reilly

What Putin and Trump understand about UFC

Did you watch the Conor McGregor fight at the weekend? It wasn’t for the faint hearted. McGregor took a stupendous beating from a man, Khabib Nurmagomedov, whose hairline seems to start at his eyebrows. I’d got out of bed at 4am to watch and quickly rather wished I hadn’t. There was nothing balletic or mesmerising about the megaviolence, the way there often is with a McGregor fight. Instead, it was like watching a particularly brutal and skilful bludgeoning outside a pub. Khabib spent a good portion of the contest squatting over his prone opponent and thumping him very hard in the face. As I say, not an easy watch in the small hours, although there was an excellent riot at the end.

conor mcgregor khabib nurmagomedov ufc