Friday, June 22, 2007

Skip Hall is completely amazing.

Okay, you've got Randy Couture winning the UFC Heavyweight Championship at 43. And Dennis Siggins fighting and winning at 47.

And then you have active mixed martial artist Skip Hall.

61 years old.

That's right.

Sixty-freakin-one.

Just awesome.

He may only have a 2-4 record [and the two guys he beat have a combined 1-4 record] but he's 61 years old. And putting it on the line and trying to be his best. That just rocks.

WhyFight:
"Nearly every day I meet someone and, even people who have known me for awhile will ask me, "Why are you still fighting?" My wife put it a different way when she asked me, "Skip, do you do what you do because of who you are or who you want to be?" So I'm writing this to try and answer WHY - not only for you but also for me.

Everyone does something for one reason or another. I just happen to have picked fighting, but like everybody that does other things; I do what I do for a reason, too.

...It’s not just fighting for me, its facing a challenge. It’s re-facing the death of my Son, Lonnie, its closing my eyes and sleeping when the faces and contorted bodies I see are people dead from my hand or my friends killed in Vietnam. It’s facing the last time I lost a fight and even facing everyone when I’m lucky enough to win. The challenge in all of this is handling me. I don’t get to pick the challenges just like I don’t get to pick what my opponent tries to do to me. But, I have to be up to whatever that is. That’s life and that’s what I find in fighting. It’s not all academic or philosophical decisions; it is pain and suffering with an occasional unbelievable feeling of elation. I might not be rich, or famous or even smart but I am a sincere honest person who is only what you see. Just like in life, I don’t always win or even make the right decisions, but I always think I’m doing that with whatever I actually do..."

5 comments:

  1. Hey Anonymous, with your anonymous comment made anonymously - and without any info to support your claim... I don't know nothin' 'bout that, so I'll file it under random nonsense I've read on the internet. Cheers!

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  2. http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=1823209&page=1&pc=525

    You're welcome

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  3. And be sure to read the entire thread.

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  4. Welcome back Anonymous. Your recommendation that I wade through a 10 page thread at the Underground [man, I haven't been there in years - that new formatting is quirky] is, well, adorable. Because there's nothing more worth my time than me doing the work to support your claims on a 4 year old post on my blog...

    OTOH, just checking out the first page or two of that thread shows fairly clearly that he's falsified his military record, which puts him in the dirtbag category. Too bad. A dude fighting MMA at 61 still is inspiring, just not this guy.

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