Middlesbrough, Teesside, one of the last steel-making towns in the UK or in fact one of the last places in the UK where they still make anything, is probably the right place to go and see, as I did last week, Warrior, the recently-released, much-hyped MMA Rocky remake set in… Read More »Why ‘Warrior’ Isn’t That Kind of Girl
Mark Simpson attends an epic UFC event and finds himself turned on to the charms of ‘gay porn for straight men’. (Originally appeared in Out magazine, June 2008) Imagine the Space Shuttle taking off with a really fat customized exhaust pipe. Or Visigoths sacking Ancient Rome with kicking bass tubes… Read More »Fight Club: How Gay is MMA?
By Mark Simpson (Guardian, 20 October, 2008) ‘What other culture could have produced someone like Ernest Hemingway,’ waspish bisexual American exile Gore Vidal once asked of America’s favourite so-butch-he’s-camp writer, ‘and not seen the joke?’. The answer, was, of course, that only a culture that couldn’t see the joke could… Read More »Little Britain Touches Up Uncle Sam
When it comes to mainstream or traditional sports the US is, compared to Europe, South America and Australia, somewhat resistant to Sporno – rather coy about strutting its stuff. Nonetheless, the US is home to specialist, completely non-coy S&M Sporno. Say hello to Ultimate Fighting/Mixed Martial Arts, a new –… Read More »Ultimate Fighting Championship