Diplomatic Fallout
Big weekend for combat sports, Gianni Stensness & more
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 33
The Niche Cast: Metaphorical Santa
Reading Menu
2021 City Kickboxing Tracker: Dan Hooker Mana Is Different (UFC)
Learning About Kiwi-NRL Recruitment Through Deine Mariner's Journey (NRL)
Flying Kiwis - Winston Reid And West Ham Have Consciously Uncoupled (Football)
Flying Kiwis – September 21 (Football)
The All Whites Have Been Summoned Back From The Lost Realms For Some Actual Football Games (Football)
Sean Marks Has Quietly Had Yet Another Fantastic Offseason With The Brooklyn Nets (NBA)
New Zealand Cricket Pulls Out Of Pakistan Tour As Late As Possible (Cricket)
Joseph Parker’s Next Opponent Is His Last Opponent: Prepare for Parker vs Chisora II (Boxing)
Scotty’s Word
Around the grounds…
Praise jah for sports. Let’s start with what I’ve written this morning in Dan Hooker’s UFC win and some Kiwi-NRL business. Hooker’s win over Nasrat Haqparast was massive and I’m steadily amazed by the City Kickboxing mana that has these athletes performing around the world regardless of how niggly it may be.
What I didn’t cover in the debrief yarn was the anti-NZ narrative that is now permeating around UFC media. That gets into covid political stuff as UFC media is largely USA centric and they love to jump on the wagon driven by Israel Adesanya. Adesanya is a UFC superstar and anything he says about Aotearoa is latched on to by UFC media, so when Adesanya drops a video and consistently gets over 300k Youtube views; these messages are being spread far and wide.
Hooker is far more diplomatic and keeps things mellow. What I’m curious about is Adesanya vs the upper class/smug New Zealand. It’s a bit weird how negative Adesanya is about Aotearoa, but this isn’t about Adesanya niggling against me or you as kiwis. This is about Adesanya standing up against the NZ that we don’t like, the NZ we all know exists and at the Niche Cache we give them the middle finger by just doing what we wanna do. This battle (as outlined by Hooker) is about continuing to say ‘fuck the system’ and to be honest Adesanya is far more influential than this system.
Ponder how Adesanya led the anti-racism stuff in Aotearoa, how he kinda said ‘fuck the system’ when winning the award given to him by the system. If Adesanya doesn’t want to fight in Aotearoa, that’s all good as kiwis will have Hooker, Brad Riddell, Genah Fabian, Kai-Kara France, Shane Young, Blood Diamond and Carlos Ulberg to perform in front of and inspire kiwis.
Hooker’s fight had a nugget that I saw across other sports this weekend. Rabbitohs and Panthers won their NRL finals games thanks to effort and intensity. That’s pure Wayne Bennett and I’ve been impressed by how the Panthers have backed up all their flash with extremely gritty performances - last two weeks especially. These two teams didn’t win via tactics, strategy, game plans etc. Rabbitohs and Panthers won via effort and intensity, mana from within.
Hooker and Team CKB are super prepared tactically. So are Rabbitohs and Panthers. Hooker won by being stoic throughout the niggle, showing up with the best attitude possible and executing when it mattered. All Blacks defeated Springboks through the same vibe and as I’ve documented the ‘greatest show in rugby union’ in these emails, Aotearoa’s win over the weekend tapped more into that stoic attitude, patience and perseverance.
All Blacks didn’t try to bring their flashy style to a beastly battle. Instead that matched the Boks in what they do best, stuck to the script and Quinn Tupaea wound up winning the crucial penalty for Jordie Barrett to kick. That Tupaea was comfy pouncing at a ruck as a fresh All Black epitomises this vibe, as does a loose forward trio of Ardie Savea, Akira Ioane and Ethan Blackadder.
Blackadder was the only one of that trio with a turnover won, while the All Blacks had just 3 turnovers won in the whole game including Tupaea’s. There is no typical ‘Riche McCaw’ type of loose forward in this trio used, the All Blacks instead opted to match South Africa physically. This didn’t help the All Blacks maul though as South Africa showed how to shut down a maul by timing their first hit perfectly and angling towards the sideline. Every line-out for Aotearoa was followed by a green wave hitting a maul and hitting pause on any forward progress.
South Africa are a fun opponent. You’ll see headlines about their style and I love the challenge laid down by the Boks. They have their own style and clear plans to counter Aotearoa, not to mention that most All Blacks will know they played South Africa in getting through their recovery. All Blacks vs Springboks is different, a completely different physical battle to any other match up and Aotearoa showed that they can get down and dirty with anyone.
Aotearoa’s White Ferns were torched by England in the last game of their ODI series. The kiwis went down 1-4 in the series but looked much improved, although their ODI record still looks horrible (2-9) this year ahead of a home World Cup. The big improvement came in the bowling department as WF bowled England out in each of the first three games - before conceding 245/7 and 347/5. Full debrief coming tomorrow.
Lydia Ko returned to the LPGA Tour with a tied-25th finish in Arkansas. Ko shot -4 in the final round to climb up the leaderboard and the final round also saw Ko jack up an average driving distance of 273m - up from her season average of 258m. An improved final round didn’t see Ko wind up in a bunker, but there were solid signs in 3/3 sand saves across the first two rounds. Ko is excellent in getting out of a bunker and sinking the next shot, which is a key indicator that she is still hovering around some form.
Ko isn’t listed as an entry for the LPGA Classic in New Jersey this weekend.
Billy Stairmand finished in the 17th bracket at US Open of Surfing in California. Stairmand came up against winner Griffin Colapinto twice (first and third rounds), knocked out in the third round. There are two events on the ‘Challenger Series’ for October starting in Portugal this weekend and then in France later on - not sure if Stairmand will take part.
Last but not least we have Aotearoa’s Tall Ferns starting their Asia Cup tonight. The kiwis face South Korea and I’m intrigued by this Tall Ferns team given how basketball has exploded in Aotearoa. The Leger-Walker sisters will be in action and here’s a big yarn about Charlisse from a few months ago.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Joshua vs Usyk Fallout
Nothing quite like the sensation of waking up on a Sunday morning (after doing the chunky yards of watching Flying Kiwis football games for half the night – in fact I overlapped the undercard watching Libby Cacace’s STVV on my phone with the boxing on the laptop) to indulge in a heavyweight championship contest. And what a contest it was.
Initial rounds and Oleksandr Usyk came out all energy, keeping his feet moving as he ensured the fight stayed clear of the ropes where he might have gotten trapped. Despite (/because of) being the smaller fighter he was off the charts in the tactical battle as he dominated the first two rounds and probably won the third and possibly even fourth too. If only this blueprint was out there to study before Joseph Parker took on AJ.
But Anthony Joshua came back into it in the middle rounds as he made some necessary adjustments. Started getting a bit more aggressive and was able to land a few on Usyk in the process. Joshua was definitely a guy early in his career who deserved the tag of being a bit of a one-trick pony knockout artist. To be fair, it’s the best possible single trick to have and it took him a long way... but the question was always there: what would happen if he came up against a fella he couldn’t drop?
Joseph Parker was that fella. First man to go 12 rounds with the champ yet it ended up being a comfortable win on the cards for AJ. Basically, Joshua settled for the decision from the start. Happy to use his reach advantage to keep Parker at a distance and the refs were pretty quick to break things up in close which Kevin Barry and David Higgins took exception with afterwards. Get in, get out with the belt. Nothing more or less. That fight was kind awful as a spectacle... but it was a turning point in Joshua’s career which led to him becoming a more well-rounded fighter. He’s a better than he gets credit for. He can do all of that. The pugilism. The sweet science. He’s far from a mere knockout artist these days.
Unfortunately for him, Oleksandr Usyk can do all that even better. He adjusted to the adjustments and then absolutely battered Anthony Joshua in the last couple rounds to put the icing on the cake. If there was any thought that he may tire with how busy he was keeping himself... well, he didn’t. Usyk was brilliant. It was an incredible performance. The feints, the right hand jab, the straight left hook. Absolute top shelf boxing abilities.
Now as an exciting surprise, here’s the main man Junior Fa breaking it all down way better than I ever could…
This result ain’t the best for Joseph Parker. This’ll force a rematch between the AJ & Usyk, something that Usyk agreed to in contract negotiations. His manager said before the fight that he was delighted to include a rematch clause. In his words, Usyk felt privileged that he’d be able to beat Anthony Joshua twice. Love it. But this does set back any impending Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury contest for probably another six months... which in turn puts the whole division on hold for another half year.
Parker’s got his rematch with Derek Chisora in December and then he might have to fight him again afterwards, the way it’s going. Parker’s a couple contender vs contender wins away from getting another title shot anyway but others aren’t and this might cause guys like Dillian Whyte to be a bit hesitant in what risks they take before AJ vs TF is over with. If it happens. All this is subject to change on a whim with all the competing parties at play.
That’s how Joseph Parker may or may not be affected by that result... but the guy who should be taking closest notice is David Nyika. Oleksandr Usyk has been slept upon in the heavyweight division because he hasn’t hardly been in the heavyweight division. After a long amateur career, which included winning gold at the 2012 London Olympics, he went pro as a cruiserweight and, after nine solid wins in his home nation of Ukraine, he won the WBO cruiserweight title against Krystztof Glowacki in Poland in September 2016.
Within five subsequent fights he’d unified the weight division. All four title belts in his possession. Following in the footsteps of Evander Holyfield... except Holyfield did it when there were only three belts. Usyk was the fourth male boxer overall to hold WBA, WBC, IBF & WBO titles all at once and he successfully defended them all against Tony Bellew later that same year.
Then, continuing to follow in Evander Holyfield’s footsteps, he vacated them. That’s what he had to do in order to move up to the heavyweight division. Thus he did. Wins over Chazz Witherspoon and Derek Chisora later and then chuck in what he did on the weekend, now here we are. Oleksandr Usyk has three of the major four heavyweight titles. Win the rematch and then beat Fury/Wilder and he’ll have unified two separate divisions. I cannot even tell you, that would be unheard of.
And David Nyika will have kept an interested eye on the whole journey as he prepares to go full-time professional following his Olympic bronze medal. Nyika already has one pro fight on his record and it was as a cruiserweight, his farcical first round KO of Jesse Maio on the undercard of Parker vs Fa. He’s clearly gonna be competing as a cruiserweight in the short term.
Nyika has the tools to be a heavyweight but he’s not one who’ll rush things. First things first, gotta establish himself as a cruiser where he can hone his skills against guys of a similar size and then if that goes good then he can pack on some muscle in a few years and test himself against the bigger boys. Usyk just laid down a lesson for everyone in how to win against a taller, stronger, rangier opponent. That should be nothing but motivation for David Nyika.
Flying Kiwis Weekend Highlights
And then if you wanna see the flipside of all that, check out these highlights from Arna-Bjørnar’s 3-1 win over Klepp in the Norwegian Toppserien and ponder how exactly Emma Rolston didn’t score a single goal, let along three or four of them. When you complete the full set of hitting the post, the crossbar, the goalkeeper, and the sidenetting all with separate attempts in the same game then maybe a few sneaky banishing rituals may be in order to sort out that luck…
Heaps more where all that came from in Flying Kiwis tomorrow. Plus there’s a breakdown of the All Whites squad in the works too. The main talking point is Gianni Stensness reverting back to Australian eligibility which is a damn shame but also, like, he spent one year total in Aotearoa which was when he was playing for the Wellington Phoenix (and mostly for the reserves). His dad is a kiwi but other than that all his footy (and all his living) had come via the Aussie ranks.
It was an opportunistic thing to get him in the first place and he was a part of two really wonderful tournament teams: the 2019 U20 World Cup side and the 2021 Olympic team. Scored a banger against Norway in the former, was one of the team’s absolute best players in the latter. For those reasons alone he oughta be remembered fondly as a kiwi youth international even if those Socceroos jokers have tapped him on the shoulder, whispered in his ear, and lured him away. A damn shame, as I say. But also kinda fair enough. We’ll always have Tokyo.
But if you’re not someone who let’s things slide so easily (remember that suffering doesn’t hold on to you, you hold on to suffering) then here’s a clip of him getting hit in the nuts from the other day…
And anyway while everyone’s talking about Gianni Stensness, we oughta be talking about Winston Reid. A free agent right now and not fit enough to partake in footballing activities on the tour… yet he’s still joining the squad in Bahrain in a non-playing capacity. That right there falls in the category of High Mana.