Correction: One UFC Death

After my post earlier today, “Politico.com on the Truth About WWE and UFC,” Politico’s Ben Smith ran a P.S. note with my information. Then he added a note from another reader purporting to document deaths among the talent at UFC. I got emails with similar information.

I checked with mixed martial arts and pro wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, and we agreed that I should have acknowledged that UFC fighter Justin Levens killed his wife and himself in 2008.

Meltzer doesn’t think two other UFC’ers should count: Justin Eilers, who was shot to death by his stepfather in 2008, and Evan Tanner, who died of dehydration on a solitary desert adventure in 2009.

Irv Muchnick

Devastating Linda McMahon Attack Video by Democratic Party

“Linda McMahon Ducking the Press”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULmXSR-dBI

Politico.com on the Truth About WWE And UFC

How many epistemologists can dance on the head of a pin? That is the question raised by the post today by Ben Smith at Politico.com, “Reid campaigns with fighters,” http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1010/Reid_campaigns_with_fighters.html?showall.

Brother Ben notes that Harry Reid, the embattled Senate majority leader who is up for reelection in Nevada, is enlisting the good offices of Dana White, head of the mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship. Smith quotes an anonymous “smart colleague” as finding it “odd for Reid to be embracing [figures from] a real and amazingly violent sport” at the same time the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee “is pounding Linda McMahon for her connex to a fake violent sport.”

Well, here’s how it is.

One, neither Dana White nor his wife is running for the Senate from Nevada on the Republican side.

Two, there have been a few deaths in MMA to this point but none yet in UFC. Linda McMahon’s Democratic opponent in the Connecticut Senate race, Richard Blumenthal, has pointed out that seven pro wrestlers with WWE “connex” have keeled over for good just during the course of the campaign.

 

Irv Muchnick

I Just Got a Fundraising Pitch From Rahm Emanuel. But the Dems Won’t Get a Dime From Me Until They Produce Joe Lieberman!

How I get on these lists, only my hairdresser knows, and I’m almost bald. But into my inbox just popped an email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over the signature of Rahm Emanuel, DCCC’s former chairman, until recently chief of staff for President Obama, and soon-to-be candidate for mayor of Chicago.

“Irvin –,” Rahm writes. “I’ve been looking at the polls and I don’t see a single reason why Democrats can’t retain our strong House Majority with enough support. But time is running out.”

“Rahm –,” Irvin writes back. “I’ve been looking at the history of campaign contributions by Connecticut’s Republican candidate for the Senate, Linda McMahon, and I don’t see a single reason why you deserve the time of day from me. Through your brother, one of World Wrestling Entertainment’s agents, Linda made contributions to your Congressional campaigns. While working for President Obama, you appear to have done nothing to advance the suggestion by then-Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy pick up the committee’s 2007 investigation of abuses in the professional wrestling industry, which Linda McMahon and her husband Vince head.”

 

Irv Muchnick