The magic of cable and satellite TV is to have literally hundreds of viable options at any time to view in all genres. I have spanish channels pumping in strange sporting events and game shows 24/7 from all corners of the Americas, along with the full array of FSN affiliates and other assorted sports channels. This leads me to a vast amount of TV watching, generally after the woman of the house has gone off to sleep. 

All is well though. My DVR fills to the brim with the sublime and the absurd. Recently being viewed:

-NAAFS Cage Fighting (Sports Time Ohio): Pro/Am MMA in 60 minute blocks. The announcing team features a stringy guy with a molester mustache (you know the kind: that half assed mustache resulting from someone never shaving during puberty) and a sqeuaky voice reminiscent of that guy who announces for indie wrestling and runs the women’s answer to ROH. I don’t remember his name. Does it even matter? Wrestling is dumb anyhow. NAAFS Cage Fighting may be sub-KOTC level stuff, but you know what? I remember having to work to watch this sport. You newbs who complain about too much of it being on sicken me.

-World Karate Championships (WCSN [now Universal Sports]/IonLife): I watched this yesterday. I need a converter box and antenna to pull it in because my satellite service doesn’t carry it, but its worth every penny. Then again, I suppose I paid nothing for that setup, so I suppose it is worth nothing. This is points fighting at its, uh, best. They wear fat Shooto-eqsue gloves and Pancrase kickpads obscured by their gis and get yelled at by a man in a suit who judges when their badly thrown punches look nice enough or when they hit someone too hard and give them a boo-boo. Also, they yell after doing stuff, because in the streetz, you make sure to yell really loud. I think I might like Lyoto more if he yelled all the time. It would add intensity to the fights.

You can catch this and perhaps even JUDO~ on the same network. Just go ask for a free coupon from the government, get the cheapest digital converter box you can find and some rabbit ears. If you don’t get digital cable, or even if you do, you might be shocked to see what you suddenly find on your airwaves. 

-The Contender (Versus): Haha, I lied. I’ll never watch The Contender. You know why TUF worked and The Contender comparatively never did? Because The Contender never conditioned people to actually watch boxing nor entice people who actually did to sit through 45 minutes of schlock for 30 seconds of grossly edited fluff. It would be like Arena League deciding that the problem with football was the football itself, and that if you removed, you know, the sport, and put in something else (like how hard some lineman playing for the Cedar Rapids indoor football team has to work to put food on the Thanksgiving dinner table), people would want to somehow watch your actual product (the footbal). Isn’t that the stupidest idea you’ve ever heard? Now let’s go a step further and initally have Joe Montana host it, only to quit, and then have the guy who played Rudy do it.

-Boxeo De Primera (TyC Sports): The best weekly spanish boxing series around. Well, it wins the award because the one on Telefutura is being cancelled, so by default it is what is left. While it often features lots of ridiculously bad Argentine prospects boxing one another, there’s also the occasional world title fight. American prospect Rayonta Whitfield will take on WBO Flyweight champ Omar Narvaez next February on their airwaves in what is the champ’s 15th defense of that belt. That’s more world title bouts in boxing than ESPN has televised in the last 5 years combined.

So what have you been caught on watching recently? I know what I’ll be up to next weekend: K-1 on free TV, baby! Who cares if the heavyweight division in K-1 is long dead? Its free and in high def. Maybe I’ll watch that boxing match. You know, that one with the two guys and they’re kinda famous or something.