Samer Kadi joins the Man Cave to review UFC 153 in a podcast that lasts way too long, but the ending is totally worth it. We’ll look back on this past weekend’s main card, spending 50 minutes on Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar, which lasted less than five minutes. Then we spend another 50 minutes on the rest of the main card, which was pretty fantastic start to finish before quickly talking about the prelim fights. Finally, we end with me doing karaoke. So feel free to skip right to that.

Man Cave Podcast – Episode 113

Jody Bergman joins the Man Cave to talk all things Taylor Swift. We’ll take a look at her new album Red, talk about how she’s grown as an artist but maintained her fan base, and touch on her personal life as well. Plus we’ll veer off on 100 other pop culture topics including talk about awesome people like Anna Kendrick and Emilia Clarke and terrible people like One Direction and Kristen Stewart. This might be my favorite podcast ever given my guest and subject matter, so check it out.

Man Cave Podcast – Episode 115

Samer Kadi joins the Man Cave to preview UFC on Fuel TV 6 aka a card that no one is watching. Legit. No one is watching this card live because it airs at 9 am on the east coast and everyone will be hungover and sleeping. We’ll tell you why Cung Le has no chance against Rich Franklin, run down the rest of the mediocre card, and then end with a preview of next week’s podcast featuring Samer’s love for Georges St. Pierre.

Man Cave Podcast – Episode 119

My thoughts on the potential musical feud between Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.

At the 2009 Grammy’s Taylor Swift graciously allowed Miley Cyrus on stage with her to perform Fifteen. The song is not a duet and, let’s be honest, Miley isn’t exactly a Grammy worthy artist. Being friends with Taylor has its perks though.

Being enemies has its perks as well. You get to hear your name and actions on the radio. A lot.

Miley could finally make her way back to radio now that she’s enemies with Taylor. But, unlike most Swift targets, it’s possible that Miley responds and we launch the pop version of Nas vs. Jay-Z. Most people on the receiving end of Swift’s vitriol are male companions who have broken her heart. It’s tough for a male to fire back as he can be seen as an asshole who is verbally abusing a young girl. It doesn’t matter if Swift started it, it’s still a man attacking a woman, and that’s frowned upon unless you’re a Chris Brown fan.

No matter how many jokes are made about her haircut, Miley Cyrus is not a man. She’s a female with a chip on her shoulder, who wants to be taken serious in the industry, so why not go after Taylor, whose reputation as a “sweet and wholesome” good girl takes a hit every other week when she’s seen with a new boy toy.

That’s actually how this feud started. Miley, upset that she’s always called a “whore” and a “slut” because of certain actions and what she wears, took a shot at Taylor, who is seen as innocent despite dating a new guy every two weeks. In a way, Miley has a point. She’s the one with a fiancé that she’s been with for years while Taylor’s best relationship is with her guitar and pen. That said, Miley is obviously very sexual and open with her words and actions while Taylor can’t keep a man because she doesn’t put out. I’m not here to debate which qualifies as being a slut; dressing like a stripper but being engaged or dating around but not having sex though.

Prior to her break up with One Direction’s Harry Styles, Taylor wasn’t happy with Miley and how much she parties. After the break up, Miley posted a picture of her cuddling with a Styles cardboard cutout, which means his cardboard cutout probably got closer to Miley than he actually got to Swift. That photo probably didn’t help their relationship.

Miley doesn’t have the same song writing ability as Swift, not even close actually, but she’s had radio hits before, seems to be pretty bitchy if needed, and, most importantly, has the popularity to compete with Swift. Even if not everyone likes Ms. Cyrus, chances are they know who she is. That’s half the battle when it comes to radio beef. You know why Nas and Jay-Z are still around and neither man was crushed during their rap war? They were both popular and respected in the industry. You know why Eminem has ruined the careers of Canibus, Benzino, and others? Eminem got radio play and the others stayed underground. Miley isn’t an underground figure. Is she as popular as Swift when it comes to the radio? No. But she knows how to make headlines in the mass media. Her music will get out there, and if her music takes shots at Swift, something no celebrity has dared to do, it’ll definitely be played.

Would this make Miley harder to trust if she went after one of her former best friends? Possibly, but friends grow apart, especially young friends who are famous. If Mean Girls has taught me anything, it’s that girls can be bitchy and turn on each other in a second. Plus, Taylor was the one who wanted to end the relationship due to Miley’s partying. Miley has to look out for herself and her career. If Taylor doesn’t want to be friends with her, she needs to do her own thing and move on.

Could Miley be risking career suicide though? Yes. But at this point, what career does she have left? Besides taking provocative photos on twitter and doing a guest spot on Two and a Half Men, what is she doing? When was the last Miley Cyrus movie or CD and how many people saw that movie or bought that CD? Ever since Hannah Montana ended, Miley has become pretty irrelevant. Going after one of the biggest stars in the world is a great way to become relevant again. If she fails, and her career never recovers, who cares? Dad still has Achey Breaky Heart money rolling in and her future husband, Liam Hemsworth, is bringing in Hunger Games money on top of that. Plus, worst comes to worst, Miley is friends with the Kardashians and we all know that Kris Jenner can turn even the most talentless slut into a money making machine.

Swift and Cyrus have a lot of mutual friends, including, but not limited to, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Katy Perry. Should a real rivalry start between the two pop singers, it’ll be interesting to see who is on Team Taylor and who is on Team Miley. My guess is that Gomez and Lovato, who have been rumored to have problems for their own with Miley in the past, will be on Team Taylor while Perry, who has seemingly betrayed Swift’s trust by doing a song with Kanye West and is now dating former Swift flame John Mayer, will represent Team Miley. There are plenty of famous friends up for grabs though and who ends up on which side could sway this rivalry.

Swift can’t get away with her lyrics forever. Sooner or later, someone is going to step up and challenge her. But, as mentioned, that someone can’t be a male. At least a male who hopes to continue with his career in Hollywood. It needs to be a female who knows how she thinks. Miley has been around Taylor enough that, if Taylor isn’t as sweet and wholesome as she comes across in public, Miley would know.

Pop music needs this beef to happen. There are so many crappy songs on the radio that diss tracks between one of the highest selling artists in the industry and one of the more controversial figures in recent memory can bring pop to a whole new level. Look at what the feud between 2Pac and Biggie did for them and rap music. They’re both legends in the game and you can’t tell me that their beef didn’t have anything to do with that. They elevated each other to a new level. Taylor Swift is already at the top of the game, Miley Cyrus has a chance to push her, and herself to a whole other level that we haven’t seen in pop culture since The Beatles.

A new feature where I touch on topics in sports/pop culture that I feel like writing about, but don’t feel are full column worthy.

Topics for this week: LeBron James and the dunk contest, Taylor Swift taking on Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, and Kanye West ranting about everything.

LeBron James and the Dunk Contest: For some reason this is a story even though All-Star weekend just passed and we’re all going to forget about this story until January of next year. People are trying to paint LeBron as a villain because he won’t do the dunk contest, but he’s not exactly obligated to participate. Now, LeBron has brought some of this upon himself because he announced on live TV a few years ago that he would be in the dunk contest and he’s also tweeted about throwing his name in the contest. But just because he’s doing pre-game dunks doesn’t mean he needs to be in the dunk contest if he doesn’t want to. Let the guy have some pre-game fun without trying to analyze things and turn it into a story. I know people want LeBron to try and save All-Star weekend, but these players don’t owe it to the league to save the weekend. How about the league gets creative and tries out some new competitions that the players actually want to participate in. All-Star players look at that weekend as their chance to have fun without any stress of an actual game. On Saturday night, they want to sit in their front row seat with their whacky outfits and ham it up with other players and celebrities. Have you seen the way LeBron acts? He’s like a big kid. Have you seen how much LeBron is scrutinized? Before winning a title last year, everyone nitpicked every little thing he did wrong. If he loses in the dunk contest, which I don’t think he would, but you never know, people will rip him. Why should he open himself up to that criticism over something so meaningless as the dunk contest? It’s no secret that LeBron is a pretty sensitive guy. Don’t believe me? Look at how he reacted when Jordan said he would take Kobe over him because Kobe has more rings. I don’t think LeBron likes being judged in an open manner. And it doesn’t get any more open than five judges holding up a number after you dunk a basketball.

It makes no sense for LeBron to possibly welcome even more scrutiny just because some talking heads are upset that he won’t fix something that he didn’t break.

Everyone looks back at guys like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, and other stars doing the dunk contest, but let’s not forget that these guys entered and won within their first three or four seasons in the league. They were relatively established names, but at the time they were in the dunk contest, they weren’t the best player in the game. You want to bring excitement back to the dunk contest? Have established players in their first few years in the league be in it. Why not have a dunk contest with Anthony Davis, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Paul George, DeMar DeRozan, Kyrie Irving, etc…? Those guys are young and established players who could use the dunk contest to propel themselves to another level. Everyone loved the dunk contest when Dwight Howard and Blake Griffin were in it, because Howard and Griffin were young but established guys. The NBA doesn’t need LeBron, Durant, Carmelo, etc… in the dunk contest. They just need guys who people have actually heard of.

Beyond getting guys that people can identify, the NBA needs to do away with the silly “you get two minutes to attempt the dunk as many times as you want” rule and the even sillier “you may have missed eight times but you still get a 35 while the guy who did his dunk gets a 40″ judging. You should have two attempts to do your dunk, and if you miss on both attempts, you get a zero. You shouldn’t be rewarded for missing eight times in two minutes. If you miss eight times in two minutes during a game, you don’t get two points for effort, you get benched and yelled at for taking too many damn shots.

The dunk contest can be fixed. It’s not going to take a million dollars from “Magic” Johnson and it’s not going to take LeBron. It’s just going to take a little creative thinking.

Taylor Swift vs. Tina Fey & Amy Poehler: Taylor Swift is finally firing back at the people who have attacked her and the media for their constant mentions of her dating life. While I love Swift finally standing up for herself and nixing a lot of rumors, I prefer her when she just ignored everything, kept living her life, and wrote great songs about it. A lot of people have taken shots at Swift and her dating life, and for the most part she’s been good about ignoring those shots. But she finally went after two people in particular. Unfortunately for her, they were the wrong two people. Everyone loves Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Seriously. I don’t know a single person who hates these two. I love Tina and Amy, my parents love Tina and Amy, my former teachers love Tina and Amy, the whole damn world loves Tina and Amy.

Taylor has usually been good at who she’s gone after. First of all, they’ve all been men, and no man is going to respond to her in fear of coming off like an asshole. Second, she’s always done it via song, and not only can she compose a great song, but all her songs get a ton of radio play. Now, whether directly or indirectly, she’s called out Tina and Amy, and not in song form. Hell, even if she did call them out in a song, Tina and Amy are so brilliant that they would parody the song and people would love them even more. Just take Poehler’s response when Taylor mentioned that, “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Poehler said, “I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff.” BRILLIANT! This is why people love Tina and Amy.

The media has built up Taylor, which means they’ve just been waiting to tear her down. Until now, she hasn’t allowed them to tear her down. She’s kept her head down and continued to move forward in spite of the rumors and jokes. But she finally slipped. Had she just talked about rumors being untrue and the media being unfair, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But she was directly asked about Fey and Poehler and she directly answered.

This is my plea to Taylor Swift; just apologize. Say you didn’t mean it, do a guest spot on Parks and Recreation. Appear with them at an awards show. Put together a harlem shake video with them. Write a song praising them and their comedy genius. I don’t care what you do, but don’t go to war with Tina and Amy. Because for the first time in your career, it’s a war you won’t win.

Kanye West Ranting: It’s no secret that Kanye West has always been an asshole. But at least he was an extremely talented asshole. Then he started writing corny and disorganized rhymes. The production was still great, but the lyrics didn’t hold up. Then he started dating Kim Kardashian, and the production fell off a bit. Now he’s about to have a kid with a woman who is technically still married. So Kanye has pretty much given up on rap and has decided to just rant about whatever is on his mind. People already view Kanye as a lunatic, he’s just giving the people what they want. Whether or not he’s doing it on purpose is up to you to decide. Personally, I just think Kanye loves attention, and the best way to get attention is to be an asshole and start some type of controversy.

He skipped the Grammys to be with Kim, he posed as Jesus in front of the statue in Brazil, he said he didn’t like the Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake track “Suit and Tie,” and now he’s pissed about where he’s ranked on some arbitrary “Hottest MCs in the Game” list.

It’s funny that Kanye doesn’t want to be on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, because at this point he’s becoming an attention whore with limited talent. Don’t get me wrong, he still has more talent in his pinky than any Kardashian has in their whole body (except Kim’s vagina), but he’s coming off extremely bitter with his comments. It’s like he can’t believe that he’s not the greatest thing happening right now, so he has to make himself the center of attention. Except now it’s no longer “Kanye being Kanye” it’s “Boy this Kanye act is growing stale.”

Now if Kanye puts out another album where he doesn’t completely mail it in (and yes, I’m talking about Cruel Summer) then we’ll go back to “Kanye being Kanye.” But for right now, I think we’re all just sick of him. Ever since he became obsessed with Kim Kardashian, started dating her, and now impregnated her, he’s completely gone off the deep end. You’d think he’d be happier. He has the woman of his dreams and he’s about to become a father. Instead he’s even angrier and more desperate and insecure than before. It’s actually quite sad.

A live review of Taylor Swift‘s show during The Red Tour.

On September 13 I attended my first Taylor Swift concert in Raleigh, NC. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to see Taylor in concert since, not only do I have a celebrity crush on her, but I also really enjoy her music. The show ended up being everything I expected and then some.

Casey James was the opening act. I’d never heard of him but he was on American Idol but didn’t win. He’s on tour with Taylor Swift and who knows what the winner of his season is doing. So I’d say that he’s doing pretty well for himself. He played a small four song set but I enjoyed it and have since checked out his album.

Ed Sheeran was up next and after seeing his performance, I will fully admit to having a man crush on the ginger from England. I didn’t expect much from Sheeran. I’ve heard “The A-Team” on the radio and like it, but never listened to his full album. When he came to the stage alone, with no band, I expected him to just sit on a stool, play acoustic, and just sing. Instead he got up there with no stool, a guitar, a loop pedal, and proceeded to absolutely blow my mind. His energy was off the charts, he was interacting with the crowd, and he didn’t play a bunch of slow songs. He did a couple of rap songs, some of which are on his album, and did an awesome cover of “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears. If you were like me and you think that Ed Sheeran is nothing but a good song writer who plays slow acoustic songs, I encourage you to check out his album but it’s absolutely amazing and has something for everyone. Sheeran is now one of my favorite artists and can do no wrong in my eyes. He’s one of the most talented artists out there right now and I’m glad that I got to see him live to learn more about him.

Finally, the main event of the evening arrived. Taylor Swift appeared behind a screen, the crowd went crazy, she started to sing, the crowd got louder, the screen dropped, and I went deaf from all the screaming. She opened with “State of Grace” which was fitting since that’s the lead track off the Red album and the track I have to listen to before diving into the rest of the album.

For the next two hours, Taylor Swift had 14,000 people in the palm of her hand and put on an absolute show. She mostly performed songs from Red, but she did a couple of other hits as well. There were a number of wardrobe changes, a lot of moving stage pieces, plenty of dancing, videos to set up songs, and crowd interaction.

Taylor gets some flack for not being 100% genuine all the time and it did seem like she pandered to the audience at times; mentioning how great we are, how beautiful we are, how loud we were, how she put Raleigh at the end of the tour because we have a history of being loud, etc…. But when she spoke to us, it felt real and authentic. The emotion she conveyed, whether it was with facial expressions or voice inflection, it all felt real. Even if it wasn’t, she deserves a lot of credit for making it sound that way when you know she said the same things 100 times during this tour.

I give Taylor and her team a lot of credit for putting this show together. They kept things moving at a perfect rate. Yes, there were breaks for the wardrobe changes and what not, but the audience was never lost during those breaks. Instead, it was like a nice vocal rest for the crowd before we all started to scream our heads off when she started singing again. It all flowed together nicely and was very well done.

As an admittedly huge Taylor Swift fan, obviously it was going to take a lot for me to not enjoy the show. But how do I know that this was a great concert? My girlfriend Jess had a good time. She’s a huge John Mayer fan, and while I don’t have a problem with his music, I’m not a big fan of the guy due to his past relationship with Taylor. She even brought ear plugs to this concert and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had ear buds as well so she could listen to “Bigger Than My Body” on a loop.

But during the concert she was standing up, dancing, and singing more lyrics than I thought she knew. She even commented after that she was pleasantly surprised by just how much of a performance it was and that’s what got her into things. I don’t know if she just expected Taylor to stand around and sing, but she had a good time and might even be willing to go to the next one with me.

So even if you’re not a fan of Taylor Swift and don’t know many songs, you won’t be disappointed if you get dragged to one of her concerts because she puts on a hell of a show. And if you are a Taylor Swift, well you already know that you’re going to have the best time, like, ever.

Samer Kadi joins the Man Cave to preview UFC 165. Sort of. We’ll spend plenty of time talking about Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson, but instead of going in depth with the rest of the event, we’ll talk about my birthday weekend and great movie trilogies. We eventually talk about the rest of the card, we just give it the same attention the UFC has.

Man Cave Podcast – UFC 165 Preview

This week Deshaun Sheppard and I discuss the upcoming American Music Awards and why we probably won’t be watching, Chris Brown’s anger problems, Miley Cyrus bleaching her eyebrows, the new “Bound 2″ video by Kanye West, the Carolina Panthers recent wins streak, and more. Plus, “Who is Chuki creeping on?” the “WTF of the week”, looking back, and what we’re looking forward to.

The Bachelor Pad – Episode 10

Samer Kadi joins the Man Cave to preview the greatest free fight card of all-time. We’ll look at the clash of the titans between Antonio Silva and Mark Hunt, the fall of “Shogun” Rua, HD FS MB PB needing a win, and the rest of the card. Plus a little singing and stand-up comedy in the middle of things.

Man Cave Podcast – UFC Fight Night 33 Preview

In this edition of the Bachelor Pad, Deshaun Sheppard and I list our Top 10 Women based on looks, personality, career, potential, history, etc… While some names on the list might not surprise you, there are a few that will, especially when it comes to Deshaun.

The Bachelor Pad – The BP Top 10