NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses the finals of the Robot Combat League, the return of catch wrestling to New York, the relation of the Boston bombings and the combat sports, and the wonderful film "Beautiful Boxer".

The finals of the first season of the Robot Combat League will be telecast this Tuesday, April 23, with Crash, with Amber and Dave Shinsel at the helm, taking on Steampunk, with Ashley Nunes and Kyle Samuelson at the controls. This show, which was prerecorded, will air on Syfy in the U.S. and the Space channel in Canada. The future of this show is uncertain, and little promotion of it by the network, which owns it, is evident, so the fate of this series may depend on the reception (and ratings) the final fight receives.

Also on Tuesday, April 23, the first of three historic catch wrestling matches, recorded February 17, 2013, at the MMA World Expo in New York, will air on the Kristal Hart Show. The first match has Jorge Martinez taking on Mike Robinson. There are also interviews with the catch wrestlers aired on this show. This show is on Manhattan Neighborhood Network at 9 PM, on Time Warner Cable channel 56, RCN channel 83, and Verizon FiOS channel 34. It can also be viewed online at http://www.mnn.org.

The bombings this past week in Boston have been pinned on two brothers who were combat sports athletes, Golden Gloves boxer Tamerlan Tsarnaev and high school wrestler Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Both of them had some success in their athletic careers, although what they actually did or didn't do in these bombings, and their motives, are still open to question. Discussed are what lessons you do and do not get from the combat sports, and why these sports should neither be blamed for, or viewed as barriers to, such activity as these bombings.

Also, the discussion over the role of transsexual athletes in the combat sports has renewed interest in the story of transsexual muay Thai fighter Parinya Charoenphol, also known as Nong Toom. The wonderful film "Beautiful Boxer" was reviewed in 2005, and this article is reposted on the No Holds Barred blog.

The movie is also now available on YouTube.

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Labels: Beautiful Boxer, Boston bombings, catch wrestling, Eddie Goldman, MMA, No Holds Barred, Nong Toom, Robot Combat League, transgender, transsexual, Tsarnaev