This, That, and the Other

Local high school hoops, the MMA/UFC on CBS’ 60 Minutes, and Appalachian State headed to the title game for a second straight year.

The greensborosports.com crew was at Page on Friday night and we saw the Pirate girls remain unbeaten with a 58-46 win over the Southeast Guilford Falcons.  SEG was in front 27-20 at the half but Debbie Jones’ young Pirates came back behind Jasmine Gill and Alexis Neal and sealed the deal.

Gill might be a DI prospect and she pumped in 14 to pace the Pirates.  The Pirate boys picked up their first victory of the season with a 62-42 finish over SEG.  Brandon Harris led the Bucs in the Mac Morris Gym to the 20 point win with BH netting 14.

The Grimsley boys shocked Morehead up in Eden 74-61.  This got my attention because the Whirlies beat the Panthers without Keith Manley.  No Manley for GHS and they still beat Morehead by 13.  Morehead had just beaten Ragsdale and GHS lost to Ragsdale.  The Grimsley girls remained unbeaten destroying Morehead 70-18.  The Grimsley girls are 7-0 and the Page girls are 6-0. Marlan Smith had 17 for the Whirlie boys, while Trumae Lucas had 14 for the GHS girls.

The big battle upcoming is on Tuesday night at Grimsley when High Point Central comes into the Bob Sawyer Gym.  The HPC girls knocked Grimsley out of the playoffs last year and the HPC boys are extremely tough with Jermaine Armstrong in their backcourt.  I plan to be at that game and am looking forward to seeing Coach Kenny Carter of HPC at work.  It is worth the price of admission to watch him coach.

The Greensboro Day School and Northeast Guilford boys stayed unbeaten after Friday night victories with GDS over Ravenscroft 76-55 with Johnny Thomas laying in 27 and NEG was a winner 68-55 over Southwest with NEG’s Mezie Uzochukwu collecting 13.  GDS is 8-0 and NEG 6-0.

Congrats to the APPS.  The Appalachian State Mountaineers ran all over Youngstown State on Saturday afternoon 49-24 and will meet the University of Massachusetts on Friday night in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the Division I-AA National Football Title.  QB Armanti Edwards ran for 3 scores while RB Kevin Richardson had to settle for 2 scores on the ground.  Richardson had 145 yards on 18 carries while Edwards ran for 110 yards on 16 carries and Edwards also threw for one score.  Northeast Guilford grad David Jackson is the radio play-by-play man for the Mountaineers and his dad, former NEWS 2 weatherman Randy Jackson, is the ASU sideline reporter.  ASU VS. UMass for the title Friday night in Chattanooga, Tenn.

CBS’ 60 Minutes did a feature on MMA fighting Sunday night and they focused on the UFC and the their CEO Dana White.  The segment had one-on-one conversation with UFC competitors Pat Miletech and Renzo Gracie.  Scott Pelley did the CBS reporting for this inside update that told us Dana White and his partners purchased the UFC for 2 million dollars and it now it may be worth as much as 200 million dollars.  The UFC outdrew the World Series on a key fight night and the target audience for UFC, 18-34 year men, are watching more UFC and their MMA fighting than they are boxing and wrestling combined.

The UFC is red hot right now and it will continue to grow as long as they let them run the bouts without pre-determining the finishes.  This type of competition would not be soaring like it is today if the fights were in any way scripted.  Sometimes the fights are a bit short but there is always non-stop action.  It is real Total Non-Stop Action.

Scott Pelley of CBS interviewed Matt Hughes the UFC’s welterweight champ and Hughes is one bright and sharpe young man.  Hughes is also a very rich young man that garners in excess of ONE MILLION DOLLARS per fight.  That’s good money for getting your brains beat out, but Hughes does not lose very often.  Mr. Hughes is a glowing light in the future of UFC.

Gracie and Miletech are former regular UFC combatants that now spend most of their time training UFC fighters.  Gracie comes from Brazil and he teaches a form of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.  Gracie is from the Royce Gracie family, a clan whose fighiting by submission roots go back to the early 1900’s.

There’s good money to be made from training young up-and-coming fighters and Ken Shamrock was one of the first to take advantage of this route with his “Lion’s Den” training center out in California.  The Shamrocks, Tank Abbots, Dan Severns, and Royce Gracies of old have all given way to a new young bred of UFC fighters and don’t worry about these boys getting hurt, they are all getting RICH and the only thing hurting them is a sore butt from sitting on a wallet that is jammed packed with GW’s(George Washingtons or maybe a load of Ben Franklins too).       

One thought on “This, That, and the Other

  1. Great article on the underappreciated UFC. I am eagerly anticipating more coverage with Andy and Bruce Mitchell on the next webcast, where you can delve even deeper into the MMA world.

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