by Brad Schjoth on January 22nd, 2010
When you think of the unfortunately-named, newly-opened Patriot Center in the Cedar Creek Mall, it is inherent that you imagine flourishing gun shows and obnoxious motorcycle rallies. And, well, you probably wouldn’t be far off. But between all that madness, mixed martial arts will take over the building Saturday night in the form of Konquer the Kage 30: The Takeover. See what I did there?
Based out of Marshfield, KTK puts together some of the state’s most entertaining bouts, and at the very least the ring girls always look good. And if you generally sport a straight-billed hat, you’ll be in good company.
Sam Thao, the brother of Lah Thao, who founded Rising Son MMA right here in Wausau, will headline the show against an Illinois boy Wade Choate. As is par for the course when leading in to a Sam Thao fight, two opponents dropped off the card in the past month, and one as recent as just days ago for undisclosed reasons. Let’s be honest, it looks like they’re running scared. A sprained ankle the size of a softball? Excuses, excuses.
Chris “Swiss” Befera, known for his predictable fight endings (most end by way of guillotine choke, or the aptly-named “Swissotine”), was Thao’s original opponent. He suffered the ankle injury, and was unable to fill the duty of defending his bantamweight title. Okay, so we’ll get ourselves a replacement.
Perhaps an even more intriguing matchup revealed itself, after Janesville’s Floyd Hodges openly said Thao was “nothing special his own damn self” in an interview I conducted prior to there being any knowledge of any opening on the card.
So, Befera was out, and Hodges stepped in – for a week. Just days ago Hodges removed himself from Saturday’s main event based on unknown circumstances. The only clarification came from KTK head man Corey Christopherson, who iterated that Hodges’ reasons for pulling out were out of his control. A likely story.
A mad scramble obviously ensued, as showtime was merely hours away. Jack Bauer was on speed dial, and Kimbo Slice on the back burner as a last resort, but Wade Choate stepped up, taking the fight on extremely short notice. Choate’s last bout was against the aforementioned Hodges, and he was overwhelming unsuccessful in requiring less than a minute to be TKO’d. So, that’s where we stand. Two potential Fight of the Year candidates out the window, replaced by a solid, respectable bout.
Most of the umpteen fights on the card will be filled by Wausau and north-central Wisconsin area fighters, as Rising Son will look to dominate on their home turf. Expect madness during the Thao introduction.
For extra information check out WICombatSports.com, and this week’s edition of the City Pages. There, strangely, you’ll be able to read more – more from me.
by Brad Schjoth on August 26th, 2009
Combat USA, a mixed martial arts promotion put on by the National Combat Association, is slated to deliver an event to the Wausau area in just over two weeks.
The promotion, which features both amateur and professional fights in a hybrid round format, is coming to the Rothschild Pavilion on September 12th at 6:30pm. Established and originating out of Green Bay, Combat USA circulates the entire state of Wisconsin, providing competition to the booming sport on a local level. Tickets are relatively affordable ($20 for general admission), and it is a terrific opportunity for fans of the UFC, WEC and Strikeforce to enjoy some solid fights without spending the cash it would cost to buy a seat in a big arena. You can find out more information here, and it looks as if tickets are now on sale, with the event clearly announced to succeed their event this weekend in the Fox Valley.
It is the first time in quite a span that an MMA event has been held in the Wausau vicinity, and it only makes sense considering the substantial growth in popularity the sport has shown in the area. Up until now, Combat USA and other promotions similar to it (Konquer the Kage, King of the Cage, etc.) have traveled to larger metro areas hours from the Central Wisconsin landscape, or have taken advantage of the large amount of traffic to the Northwoods casinos. However, this scheduled stop is heavily warranted, as I can personally tell you, as a writer for Wisconsin Combat Sports and an avid mixed martial arts fan myself, Wausau, and the communities to all directions, are catching the fever of the sport, and recognizing it for what it truly strives to be.
Lah Thao, an accomplished mixed martial arts fighter, established Rising Son MMA in Wausau back in January. He was the top-ranked competitor in the state at 135-pounds until he took extended time off to start his adventure into teaching the skilled sport he loves. After an eighteen-month layoff, he returns to the cage September 19th in Tomahawk. But, back in July, Lah laid out to me the landscape of what has now become the Wausau area MMA scene, and how big the boom has become over the course of his career:
We usually have probably about 15-20 MMA guys that come regularly on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. And then we have about five or six grapplers that come regularly. Then we do a tae-kwon-do class and with that we have another 20 taekwondo students.
That statement, coupled with the craziness you’ll typically find at your favorite local establishment the Saturday night of a UFC event, it is instantly apparent the love and fandom for mixed martial arts that has come to rest in our community.
If you appreciate the heart and dedication put forth by any of the fighters that step into competition; if you enjoy the sheer physical power and prowess it takes to go one-on-one with an opponent; or if you are simply railed by the thrill of the action–support the sport and local fighters. I will see you September 12th.
by Brad Schjoth on August 13th, 2009
As a brief preface, I support Web 2.0 as a global, technological movement in bringing a new voice to actual citizens in terms of how they influence the media and how networking affects daily lifestyles.
There is nothing more evident of how positive this recent shift and trend is than what we saw in Iran just months ago, when Twitter was overwhelmed with news directly from the ground of people speaking to the craziness that was their recent elections. All of this while CNN and others who are trusted to bring the most important topics and events into your home on a round-the-clock basis, sat idle broadcasting reruns with their loafers up on the desk. I am pleased to look back on that event and say that I support this new wave of information dissent, because that was a revolutionary time for millions of people, and they found a voice through a means that would have been unavailable to them just a few years ago.
That said, with the positives there always comes a number of malicious negatives. And unfortunately, the negatives are always much easier to point out and notice. There is a glaring negative that many of you who will read this piece are familiar with, and maybe even frequent on a daily basis. This festering community of barbarians is known as the Wausau Daily Herald article commentators (for lack of a succinct term). This is the cancerous tumor that glows white on the X-ray, when everything around it looks so healthy and peaceful. The rhetoric tossed around in this back-alley street that calls itself a community is so suffocating, it almost makes me rethink my stance on free speech and favor a fascist regime where only I and my confidants control the media.
But I digress, because by presenting this I am contributing to citizen journalism, the exact thing I have and will continue to grumble at in this piece. Then again, what you would typically find in that WDH article comment section isn’t journalism at all, so I suppose that doesn’t really fit within my definition, and therefore it is free game and it shouldn’t be hypocritical at all for me to slam it. Journalism has rules, it has values, and it has an integrity that is so blatantly vacant from the landscape of my victim. There really is no actual term to describe the kind of language, the kind of argument, and the kind of slanderous jabber that takes place at this particular online forum. So, in order to paint you the picture of what you can expect to find within the WDH article comment section, and what I can only assume through this evidence is an accurate depiction of the outright majority of Wausau citizens with Internet access, I will lay out a few biographical portrayals.
Comment one will undoubtedly be placed by a man who owns fourteen guns. He, for some reason, is upset the President of our country is not the preferred color he had hoped for, and is resorting to any sort of hate speech he can muster up now that his brain is working at its peak efficiency thanks to five hefty cups of Folgers or an early-morning Keystone Light. He will try his best to prove to you that the President was not born in the United States, but will do so through Glenn Beck quotes and a Photoshopped digital birth certificate image he found on the Drudge Report or on some tucked away blog that only he knows about, but conveniently holds all the rebuttals to your feeble arguments. He does not like the term “racist” when describing himself, but he likes the suffix enough to attach it to any ideology he heard once that he knows he is supposed to hate, and then make sure he calls you, his opposition, that term on an incessant basis. He doesn’t believe he falls into any stereotype, but he embodies exactly that through his online image, and whether that is a true representation of him in reality, he has no one but himself to blame for that.
The second comment streams down from a Mac user, who believes that Donna Seidel will be the savior of all humanity; and that whether or not he truly enjoys the taste of smoked ham is irrelevant, because he makes the conscious effort to stay as far from it as possible. He dresses only in the finest swag available, ordered from Urban Outfitters. This, however, does not use up as large of a percentage of his salary as you might think, because he drives a Prius, and has his own organic garden that he tends to each evening in his backyard. He would like his government to make all his decisions for him, not just the smart ones that they can intelligently and economically piece together, but every single one of them. And he doesn’t mind paying for their help in making those decisions, because he has the extra cash from driving his Prius. He also frequents the Daily Herald forums slightly more often than commentator number one, because he only reads it online, as to save the earth’s natural resources. He doesn’t believe he falls into any stereotype, but he embodies exactly that through his online image, and whether that is a true representation of him in reality, he has no one but himself to blame for that.
I wanted to change the format slightly for commentator number three, so I asked him to send in an autobiographical passage about himself. The thing is, he sent it in all lower-case letters, spelling “hilarious” with two L’s, and choosing to use “cuz” over the other oh-so lengthy alternative conjunction. Alas, I had to omit it.
The fourth commentator is the bright speck, the glimmer of hope in all of this madness. This is the person who makes me optimistic toward what this technological age can bring to the world, and how it can shape lifestyles. He is articulate, and may fall anywhere within the political spectrum. He may have any range of ideas or thoughts on a given topic, but he spells a large majority of his words correctly, while maintaining to try his best and use proper grammar. He is not the best at vocalizing or translating his thoughts into words, but what can be gathered from his prose is that he genuinely cares about the subject matter, respects the other commentators despite their disrespectful nature, and is generally well-informed on the topic at hand. If he’s not, he doesn’t pretend to be. He makes his points forcefully but with regard to the feelings and opposing views of others. He, sadly, also falls into a stereotype that may or may not be a true representation of him in reality, but, unlike the others, it is not himself who he has to blame for that, as he did not create the unfair stereotype.
In a society where 140 characters is really all you need, and Commentators 1, 2 and 3 bury what Commentator 4 has to say so incredibly deep that Commentator 4 is undiscovered and inaudible, that is where the failings of the Web 2.0/new media revolution come in. The Twitter craze has had the opposite effect of its intention, where we have now found ourselves going back in time to era of cave men. With a limited number of letters, people assume that is okay to exchange articulate analysis and insightful arguments for grunts, incoherent mini phrases of nothingness, and sentences without vowels. That realization is what has me scared.
There is no governance on what goes on at the Wausau Daily Herald website, and it is inexcusable. It is an abuse of the system, and the lack of response on the Herald’s part is simply because they don’t want to lose that community. But what good is it anyway? What are they and the rest of the Wausau area really gaining? No one from outside the argument could possibly declare that 90-percent of the conversation taking place there is any sort of advancement in society, or is even relevant in the first place. The quantity versus quality battle is being easily won by the former, and that is not at all in line with the principles that “new media” employs or strives for. It is crazy, and the paper should be ashamed … almost as much as Commentators 1, 2 and 3.
by Brad Schjoth on June 23rd, 2009
You would be hard-pressed to find a soul within the Wausau community who would prefer to see the area more clutter-filled, more polluted and more irresponsible when it comes to pressing environmental issues. Those folks simply do not exist, and if they did, their hand would certainly not be in the air. But while the whole of the community, and the globe for that matter, can easily concede that we ought to strive to take better care of our planet, making that happen is exponentially more difficult than it would seem it should be.
Attempting to turn that mindset into a forward-progressing reality within the Wausau area is the Commission for a Greener Tomorrow. Established during the summer of 2007, the organization assumes leadership in the effort for sustainability through conservation, ecological awareness and higher-level thinking toward our relationship with the environment. Immediately upon dropping those typical catchall phrases, it could be easy to dismiss the group as an insignificant body that merely wants what we all desire—a sparkling, clean planet. However, those “green” initiatives become much more realized when the impact hits home within the Greater Wausau community itself, and when the influence of the committee is clearly noticeable.
Most recently, the commission has been working cooperatively with the Wausau public transportation system in a push to create a bus line that would travel through the Rib Mountain commercial area as it already does in both Wausau and Weston. Creating the Business Improvement District that would provide the funding for the line doesn’t come cheap, however, as an estimate of $85,000 would need to be added to taxes in order to effectively run it—and that’s a low-end figure due to constantly increasing costs. While the numerous benefits to the service can be easily understood, the commission is collecting the opinion of Rib Mountain business owners and residents to gauge support. Fifty surveys were distributed, and as of June 22nd, three had already been completed and submitted to the group.
Over the June 19-21 weekend, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association once again put on their well-received, annual energy fair at the ReNew the Earth Institute in Custer. The Commission for a Greener Tomorrow bussed 15 people to the fair free of charge, which was an increase from eight folks who took the trip last year. Reception and reaction was heavily positive from the attendees, and the organization hopes to garner volunteers and sponsor another bus to travel to next year’s fair as well.
Numerous other projects are in development and exist only in their early stages, as the commission not only tries to gain recognition within the Wausau community, but to also collect support and backing. From reusable grocery produce bags in conjunction with the local farmer’s market, to a large woodworking clinic and art project directed at Wausau elementary students, the group’s aspirations vary, but they consistently support the goal of a sustainable Central Wisconsin. More specifically, the committee is proposing legislation that would declare Wausau an “eco-municipality”—a concept that is already in practice throughout several parts of the state. According to 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, as of November 2007, “12 local communities [have] formally adopted ‘eco-municipality’ resolutions.” The concept is an official pledge to put forth policies that increase the sustainability of the general community through cooperation with the citizens themselves.
The organization has struggled to find considerable support up to this point. With their humble number of recurring members and volunteers working directly with them toward their cause, their intentions are still positive and certainly in the best interest of the Wausau area. Continued work at piecing together resolutions and spreading knowledge about the importance of sustainability are the ultimate goals of the folks at Greener Tomorrow. Hopefully as public recognition and understanding of the group increases, so will the likelihood of success in their ambitions and, in turn, a better Wausau.
by Brad Schjoth on June 18th, 2009
The column I intend to present here is one that is observationally critical and one that displays an opinion about the community that is Wausau, Wisconsin, but to do both in a way that is not overly pessimistic toward what I feel can be a great city. As a 19-year-old headed into my second year of college, whose interests include film, live music, broadcast journalism and an engaging nightlife, Wausau doesn’t necessarily lend too readily to that sort of lifestyle. Does it bug me? Very much so. But while I struggle to fill my summer schedule with a plentiful palette of entertainment, and feel the angst that so easily comes with being young and living in a city that shuts itself down at 10pm, what also becomes very apparent is what Wausau citizens often take for granted. The school system that unfailingly finds itself among the nation’s best year after year, and a junior college that is a stepping stone to the well-respected universities around Wisconsin. A downtown area, which at times may wrestle with financial hardship, that still has a nostalgic facade of decades past, and holds within it the beautiful 400 Block and Grand Theatre. And face it, when the snow falls, there aren’t too many superior places to be.
What I can bring to a column is a scatterbrained, mishmash of feelings—ones that are almost bittersweet. While I sometimes look at the comforts and opportunities being a citizen of the Wausau area has provided me with over the course of growing up, I many times feel as if I’m trapped within this isolated bubble, surrounded by farm fields and geographically dropped in the middle of a state whose only roads leading out into the real world are all dead ends.
