FANBYTE SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Jan 29, 2021. 6 minute read
The Double-Edged Sword of “Women’s Empowerment”
Every week in her Good Form column, Natalie Weiner explores the ways in which the sports world’s structural inequalities and injustices illuminate those outside it — and the ways in which they’re inextricably connected. You can read previous columns here “A girlboss is feminism but make it capitalism,” as comedian…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Jan 22, 2021. 4 minute read
Trump May Be Gone But The Sports World’s Systemic Problems Are Still Here
Every week in her Good Form column, Natalie Weiner explores the ways in which the sports world’s structural inequalities and injustices illuminate those outside it — and the ways in which they’re inextricably connected. You can read previous columns here. “Exciting” may not be the best word to describe how…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Jan 15, 2021. 8 minute read
The UFC is Back This Week, A Few Thoughts On That
There are things happening again. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “How are things happening again? They literally just happened. Why do they keep happening, the things? Don’t they ever just not happen for, like, five minutes? This is exhausting.” And yes, I agree. I, too, would love a break…
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Natalie Weiner Jan 15, 2021. 4 minute read
The Cost of College Basketball in a Pandemic
“I don’t think we should be playing right now. That’s my opinion on it,” first year Duke head women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson said back in December, a few weeks before her team — at the behest of its players — cancelled the rest of its season due to concerns…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Jan 14, 2021. 2 minute read
MMA Fighters as RuPaul’s Drag Race Contestants: A Very Serious Study
RuPaul’s Drag Race is back and the UFC is about to be back and I think you all know what that means. Actually, you probably don’t, because in a normal situation this wouldn’t mean anything. Then again, as you may have noticed, nothing about the world at large or more…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Jan 8, 2021. 3 minute read
Kelly Loeffler’s WNBA Ownership Stake Undermines Everything The League Says It’s About
This year, the WNBA said all the right things. As the 2020 bubble season was being organized (an effort that preserved the league’s PR momentum through the COVID-19 pandemic but put workers’ lives at risk), Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd on video. In response, the WNBA’s players — who often…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Jan 8, 2021. 1 minute read
Cobra Kai Season 3’s Johnny Lawrence: A Review
Cobra Kai is back, and if you are fun and cool, you should watch it because everyone who is fun and cool will like it. I mean, there’s intrigue, there’s romance, there’s hardcore karate-ing between teenagers who somehow know how to use nunchucks, there’s Dee Snider. What’s not to like?…
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MICROREVIEWS
Fernanda Prates Dec 29, 2020. 13 minute read
MMA things I’d like to see happen in 2021 but, like, no pressure
Remember when 2020 was arriving and we were all like “Hey, let’s make plans and create expectations like we do every year because why wouldn’t we?” via GIPHY In any case, you don’t really need to me tell you about how much this year sucked, do you? Not when you…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Dec 18, 2020. 9 minute read
Totally Normal, Not Weird At All UFC Guide to Thompson vs. Neal
*clears throat* I just want you for my own More than you could ever know Make my wish come true All I want for Christmas is some reprieve from the crushing weight of existence and maybe a vaccine so I can finally go to an overcrowded confined area and have…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Dec 17, 2020. 3 minute read
This is What Happens When You Keep Playing
They kept playing. It’s eerie how Keyontae Johnson’s story mirrors the way the sports world as a whole has responded to COVID-19. They watched the absolute worst happen — in Johnson’s case, right in front of their eyes, as he spontaneously collapsed on Florida State University’s basketball court after throwing…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Dec 11, 2020. 4 minute read
Facts On UFC 256 Fighters So You Can Sound Smart Without Really Trying
Being a legitimately smart person with actual knowledge and useful information on a thing is cool, but you know what’s even cooler? Kind of knowing some random stuff about a thing and sounding smart anyway. That’s right. At a time when reality is subjective and there isn’t a basic scientific…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Dec 11, 2020. 4 minute read
What Sports Have Taught Me
The first time I wrote about sports, I was terrified. If 16-year-old me — who reflexively, defensively believed that not liking sports was a sign of superior intellect, or something — knew 24-year-old me would be taking a red-eye bus to Virginia Beach to cover a Seahawks player’s charity basketball…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Dec 4, 2020. 3 minute read
How To Celebrate History Without Erasing It
There is something to watching a person do what’s never been done. It feels like an objective, impartial good, an impossibility vanquished by humankind on our trajectory up and up and up. We, all of us, couldn’t do it before; now at least one of us can, and it seems…
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SPORTS
Danielle Riendeau Dec 1, 2020. 1 minute read
Call of FUJI BJJ Gi: A Review
When I first saw this gi in my inbox —as a fan of most Fuji brand gi and no-gi apparel—I snort-laughed. Fuji makes really good gear for grappling sports (the sport that I do, think wrestling, judo and ground fighting), and they’ve certainly made some jokey products before (like their…
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MICROREVIEWS
Fernanda Prates Nov 28, 2020. 10 minute read
Mirko Cro Cop’s Documentary: A Magical And Slightly Confusing Journey
Being on the internet isn’t always great. It is on the internet, after all, that we get complete strangers telling us that we actually don’t know anything about the things that we know about. The internet is where Steven Crowder lives. It is on the internet that you get to…
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SPORTS
Natalie Weiner Nov 25, 2020. 4 minute read
College Basketball Is A Tragic Example Of COVID-19 Mismanagement
For a while, there were no sports. It was sad, but logical — in the face of mass death and extreme uncertainty, playing sports simply couldn’t be a priority. Then, suddenly, there were all the sports, played with precautions of varying rigidity and thus, varying degrees of effectiveness. Athletes and…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Nov 20, 2020. 5 minute read
Valentina Shevchenko And Some Thoughts On Greatness
There is being good at fighting. There is being great at fighting. And then, about nine levels above that, in that fine line between being a human and an indestructible piece of machinery sent from the future to save (or destroy) mankind, there is what Valentina Shevchenko is at fighting.…
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SPORTS
Danielle Riendeau Nov 20, 2020. 3 minute read
Women’s Rodeo, Van Damme’s Best MMA Fighters, and More
Fanbyte does sports coverage now! If you didn’t know that already, I’m here to enthusiastically tell you that we very much cover sports. Fanbyte has two incredible reporters: Fernanda Prates — who covers MMA from a no-bullshit, feminist lens; and Natalie Weiner, who covers the world of athletics and its…
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TRENDING
Natalie Weiner Nov 20, 2020. 3 minute read
Even In Rodeo, Including Women Is A Marketing Opportunity
Rodeo happens fast — like 1.89 seconds fast, in the case of 20-year-old Kansan Beau Peterson, who roped a calf in that span to get to the finals of the inaugural Women’s Rodeo World Championship last week. All the contests happen in a matter of seconds, with winners and losers…
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SPORTS
Fernanda Prates Nov 19, 2020. 12 minute read
Van Damme’s Leading Men as MMA Fighters: Part Two
Yesterday, we began our quest through Jean-Claude Van Damme’s incredible filmography, to see how his badass characters would make it in the modern MMA game. Today, we’ll continue and finish that journey. The Quest (Christopher Dubois) If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to take conscience-altering drugs but…
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SPORTS