Vintage TV Footage - Entry # 5

This guy on YouTube uploaded this KRGV teaser. He has an interesting "About Me" that caught my eye:

Analog TV-DX seen by me from Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and Orlando FL, and from the Outer Banks of NC (2 separate vacation weeks), from about 1988-1995. Also some top-notch TV-DX seen by a fellow TV-Dxer in St. Petersburg FL (who almost never reported loggings to clubs and bulletins) in roughly the same time frame. I am pretty much a hermit these days, so I am not revealing my name, nor do I desire contact. (Old WTFDA members will probably be able to figure it out based on the DX locations and time frame.) You will also find here slideshows of vintage 70's and 80's TV-DX still photos, and a few audio-only TV-DX clips. 

If you are scratching your head and saying "WTF" about these videos: "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, no explanation will suffice." Dates and distances for these loggings are lost to the ages. The clips are the result of lo-res rips of a 2nd-generation VHS dub, so I apologize for any quality issues.

I always love reading about peculiar hobbies people have. My hobby of searching for Valley stories and trying to watch every major MMA event in history might sound insane to some.

The reason why I'm posting this isn't just because of it's a vintage clip of Valley news. It's because of the coincidental nature of it. I wrote about it in my Vintage TV Footage - Entry # 2 post. For those too lazy to click on that link, basically the coincidence lies in Peter Torgerson reading a news item about someone from the Valley winning the lottery, something he would end up doing himself. Many years after this video clip, he would go on to win a $37 million Texas lottery jackpot (that he ended up splitting in half with a pal).

Thoughts on UWF I

Roger Huerta and War Machine at UWF I

Last night at the Pharr Events Center, the new South Texas based MMA promotion made its debut. I was in attendance last night and made the following observations on the event as it unfolded:

• Both my friend Leo from Bang-Biscuit and I observed that those ring girls had to be strippers. Apparently Phil Baroni was really into them on the commentary.  
• The first two fights of the night, which involved Alfredo Castro vs Adan De La Garza and Victor Hernandez vs Christopher Brooks were pretty dull and lame fights. That's not the fault of the promotion, sometimes guys just don't match up as well as they thought. But it was not the type of way you would want to start off an evening of fights. 
• Finally, Arsenal BJJ's Carlos Diego Ferreira came in to put on an awesome performance against Greg Jackson MMA's Clinton Roberts. If you dig the grappling arts, this fight was for you. Diego got multiple dominant positions and submission attempts. In the second frame, he finally tossed Roberts to the mat and took the back to sink in the rear naked choke. The highlight of the evening so far. 
• One of the improvements that UWF I had over STFC is that it has a much superior cage, it looks much more professional and it is bigger as well. One can also see through the cage much easier. However, there were some negative aspects to their production. The play by play man and color commentator did not have monitors with them, and they were calling the action from a stick microphone as oppose to a headset. From what I heard, there were times during the GFL broadcast where Baroni couldn't see what was happening from his vantage point. Poor Baroni, I hope they made the ring girls give him lap dances. Also, having the cage announcer mention the promoters name and asking everyone to thank him right before the main event was incredibly tacky and cheap.
• Scott Cleve vs Derek Campos was the fourth fight, and it was also a bit lackluster. Cleve won via decision. 
• D.J. Fuentes vs Nick Gonzalez was the fifth fight, and luckily for the paying customer, they delivered. Nick won the first round by landing more significant strikes, which included heavy shots to the body and some shots to the head that rocked Fuentes. The second round started with Fuentes coming close to finishing the fight, as he hurt Nick against the cage and caused a lot of damage to Nick's face. But Nick is not a quitter, he kept firing back, and still landed hard body shots and leg kicks. The final frame  included an exciting exchange of strikes and takedowns, until the ringside physician stopped the fight due to the damage on Gonzalez's face, thus awarding the fight to D.J. Fuentes. 
• The sixth fight was former UFC world middleweight champion Dave Menne vs Eric Davilla. I was at a Huerta-Menne seminar in Edinburg on July 2010. Menne was training with a lot of local fighters, and was tapping them out with ease. It was basically him being too clever on the ground and finding the right openings to catch an arm or a leg. It was slick stuff. So it was not surprising to see him easily tap out Eric Davila with a guillotine choke in less than two minutes. Also, it was endearing seeing Baroni telling Menne that he was rooting for him to win when he interviewed him afterwards. But then, Menne got on the mic calling out Oscar Enriquez for only paying him 1/4 on what they had agreed on, asking for the originally agreed payment or else he had a list of demands. I've heard of promoters fucking over talent a lot of times, so I hope Menne gets his money. As they say on the streets of Pharr, "no mames, dale su dinero!".
• So it was finally main event time, and while I had a lot of thoughts going on in my head while watching it, it was a fun exciting fight at the very least. Huerta was trying a lot of kicks, but War Machine was able to take Roger Huerta down rather easily. The fight went back and forth, with both guys having the advantage at several points throughout the fight. I'm wondering how good Huerta's conditioning actually was since he looked tired at the end of the first round. Even in fights that Huerta has lost to in the last four years, I don't think he looked as tired as he did last night. The finish happened in the third round when War Machine transitioned from a kimura to an armbar, which Huerta escaped. But in that scramble, he broke his rib. So even though Huerta had secured side control after escaping the armbar, War Machine was able to come back and get the mount. He started pounding on Huerta until the referee stopped the fight. It took Huerta a long time to get back up. It was in UWF's best interest that Huerta would win this fight but now that he lost in such a way, I wonder how successful their future will be.

Border Perspective II

I was lucky enough to be asked to be a guest on the Border Perspective podcast again. I want to thank them again for having me over. Here is the link of my appearance.

Border Perspective

A Brief History of McAllen (Part 2)

These are the Explore McAllen videos that cover McAllen from the 1960s to today. Some more neat factual information mixed in with quality images of the development of McAllen. They have a peculiar claim where they say that The Plaza Mall would later become "the most productive shopping mall in the United States". I'm not really sure what that means or if there is any legitimate evidence to back that claim up. If there is, I would like to see it. Enjoy the videos, thanks Explore McAllen again.