I am a bit disappointed.  The last two UFC events I have watched have featured two extremely hyped fights both of which failed to deliver.  McGregor vs Poirier and Bones Jones vs DC.  It kinda reminded me of old boxing PPV's, where you drop 50$ and the under-card sucked and the main fight is over in 30 seconds.  At least Conor won his fight after talking smack the whole lead up.  He fights again at UFC Fight Night on 1/18 against Dennis Siver and per usual has been talking a good game.  Daniel Cormier talked smack, Jon Jones talked smack, but only Jones showed up.  Sure DC ruffled Jones feathers outside and inside the cage, but that's all he did.  He couldn't get a takedown until it was too late, he allowed Jones to take him off his game and then (seemingly) gassed out.  He has promise still if he can overcome the mental aspect of this loss.  Remember he is 35 and has suffered big disappointments before...will he have enough to make it back to the top?

Had a solid weekend/beginning of the year of lifting and training.  Saturday morning, before the weather turned to shit, I hit the gym up for some strength and conditioning.  The gym wasn't too packed with the New Years crowd and I was able to get in and out.  Sunday, I did my normal Gi class which, lately on Sundays, has been pretty crowded.  There were around 13 people, mostly Blues, but also 2 White Belts and also Gary and Brian.  Brian has been promoting people during the past month, couple guys got Blue Belts, one Purple belt, a Brown belt and a ton of stripes were handed out.  Yesterday, a few stripes were handed out and somehow I managed to pick one up.  It was cool for sure, but I hate being in front of people so I was a bit uncomfortable.  To me, the stripe means I AM making progress, but it also says that I have ALOT of work to do still.  

Later in the day Sunday, A few of us went down to our sister school BlackHole Jiu-Jitsu in FIshkill for some No-Gi training.  I'm pretty sure I've trained No-Gi maybe 2x in the past 6 months, but it was still a blast.  Met a few nice guys and girls who forced me to think back to my No-Gi days and to try to adapt my Gi game to No-Gi.  Lol, during my first couple roles more often then not, I found myself looking for a collar or sleeve to grip :)  Regardless, it was definitely fun and I am looking forward to heading back down there for another session.