Don’t Get Your Hopes Up – I’m Too Tired To Write Right Now

Happy Monday!

I’M TIRED!

I didn’t get much sleep this weekend and the times I was up I was either driving or drinking and thankfully not both. And I randomly decided to over extend myself in a game of two hand touch football on Saturday.

FRIDAY – I went to Atlantic City and watched the Bellator cagefighting at Boardwalk Hall. The more I watch cagefighting/mixed martial arts/UFC and so on, it doesn’t become less surreal it becomes way more surreal. The more I watch the more wild it is to me. In the main event of the show, Zach Makovsky who was the Bellator bantamweight champion (135 pounds) lost his belt by a submission in the second round to Eduard Dantas. As I was watching the fight, I couldn’t get it out of my head the overall idea of what is happening. Dantas is in his early 20’s and has the typical poor childhood one would expect from a kid who was born and raised in Rio, Brazil and turned into fighter at a young age. Dantas is in a cagefight in South Jersey fighting to win a fight that will change his life DRAMATICALLY. His life up until this point has already been changed quite dramatically, but winning a belt and being labeled as one of the top fighters for a televised company that is a step below the UFC would be a DRAMATIC shift in his entire existence. I’m literally about to watch the pinnacle achievement of this man’s young life – and he will only be able to describe this experience as surreal and I’m sitting there thinking about that. On the other side, Zach Makovsky is a local who started his career fighting in local shows around New Jersey. He’s an American wrestler who has traveled the world either fighting in a cage or wrestling on a mat and has won international grappling tournaments and plenty of fights. He’s the champion and fighting in what is definitely considered a hometown fight for him. He’s an established tough guy. Not just tough for this area, but he’s been shipped around the world and has won in San Antonio, Tokyo, Cracow and so on and he has shown that there’s a bad dude in Jersey who trains in Philadelphia and if you’re 135 pounds then Makovsky will probably put a whooping on you. For Makovsky, this fight was about keeping that rep and extending its lore.

In the end, Dantas won.

Also, on the card, was a match-up between a Brazilian and a Cuban. Now, in the pre-fight promo packages, they try to hit you with some emotional stuff to make you care more about the fight than just two bantamweights fighting for a shot to be the next guy who gets to fight Makovsky/Dantas. The 5’4″ Cuban and former Olympic Judo bronze medalist spent 3 years in a Florida prison where he said he fought with other inmates constantly. Meanwhile, the Brazilian was married at 14 and had his first kid at 15 or 16.

So what’s worse – prison for 3 years or being married since you were 14 and a father a year or so later?

SATURDAY – My friend’s younger brother’s bachelor party. I went to college with the older brother and have been friends with him since Freshman year and was a groomsmen at his wedding. The younger brother, I’ve gotten to know quite well because of my friendship with his older brother. Both great guys from a great family. Honestly, if there wasn’t something sketchy about polygamy to most of us out there then I would highly suggest to women to try and become sister wives for these men. Anyway, once the bachelor party core group were assembled at the house, we started throwing around a football as men do – you’ve seen it happen in those Wrangler commercials and honestly they’re not far off from the truth sometimes. There were 8 of us, so next we know we’re playing a 4-on-4 hillbilly two hand touch game of football – no shoes, no socks.

The younger men were the victors that day. Myself, the older brother, Brew Dawgz, and the father of the brothers were one team and we lost. The winners were the bachelor and three of his groomsmen who are 3 years younger than me and I was the youngest of my team. It was a good time and was perfectly ended by one of the groomsmen catching a touchdown pass which he dove for and smacked his head into a young sapling tree.

From there, dinner at a steakhouse. I ate myself sick (not literally, but just stuffed) and drank a nice amount. I ordered and ate a steak, mashed potatoes, two scotches, a beer, and a coffee. The father of the soon to be groom ordered two seafood towers for the table for an appetizer unbeknownst to the rest of us. One tower was to be shared for one half of the table, and one for the other. On the half of the table I was at, only two of us ate seafood. There were 5 of us and as soon as the tower hit the table, my mouth started to water – jumbo shrimp, oysters, tuna tartar, a lump of crab cocktail meat, two lobster tails, and a set of lobster claws. At that same moment, three of the guys I was sitting with announced they don’t eat seafood, so myself and the guy who caught the touchdown pass with the fresh head wound took on the task of finishing this tower by ourselves. We almost accomplished it. We ate all the lobster, the crab, the tartar, most of the shrimp, and most of the oysters. Finally the other 5 noticed it was just two of us eating this and forced us to give up the rest of our shrimp and oysters.

After the meal, we ended up drinking a bottle of Fireball cinnamon whiskey and a case of beers while listening to music by a firepit until 4 am. I tried to go to sleep not long after that, but my body was not ready and I didn’t actually succumb to sleep until about 7am. I was woke up a little before 11am that everyone was leaving and I had to too.

SUNDAY – I drove home. I laid face down on my couch for a hour. I laid face down on my bed for 2 more hours. I took a shower, got dressed, and went out to dinner for my mom’s birthday and my parents anniversary.

Climbing into bed last night, I was sore all over, and my body was so tired it couldn’t feel comfortable enough to sleep. I did get some sleep, but I really can’t wait until tonight to get some more sleep to try and even myself out.

Anyway… I had a great weekend. I ate way too much and drank a bunch.

What did you do?