Super Squad Letter #103

100 Men vs. One Gorilla, Lionheart, My Mindset For This Camp

100 Men vs. One Gorilla

This is one of the most hilarious conversations on social media right now.

Can 100 men beat one gorilla?

I’m way ahead of the game because I thought about this years ago except my hypothetical situation was an army of ten year olds versus you.

To be perfectly honest, when I first saw the tweet I thought, “Duh, 100 guys can beat a gorilla.” The main thing is how much damage you are willing to take.

Here me out, I thought this through. The strategy is wearing the gorilla out. If there’s one thing I know about big animals is that they get tired quickly.

So the first wave of people need to be brave enough to take the damage. We need about 5 crash dummies who overestimate themselves to get this started.

They’re all gonna die for sure. Now the next 10 guys need to rush in, but they’re gonna get dangerously hurt. And with 85 people left, I think we have a good shot.

I feel like if a tribe of cavemen figured out how to kill wooly mammoths back in the day, 100 people would be fine against one gorilla.

I even saw another situation where it’s 200 people vs. one polar bear. Now the question is, who has home field advantage? Is this a fight in the ice and snow? That might be a rough time.

If it’s freezing cold, you know me, I hate the cold. But if we’re fighting in the middle of Times Square on a summer day, I feel like the polar bear is gonna have a rough time with the climate.

I think the harder fight is the gorilla. Both of them can rip you apart, but I feel like the gorilla is more mobile.

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Lionheart

This past week was Anthony Smith’s last fight and I want to talk about what he said on Ariel Helwain’s show.

First off, I’ve always had mad respect for Anthony Smith. I met him on the regional scene in Nebraska, and he’s always shown great character and grit.

To me, he’s lived up to his nickname. Sometimes I go back and listen to Bobby Green’s interview on Rampage’s podcast where Bobby tells Dillashaw how it’s whack to shit on Anthony Smith like that.

Look at how many fights the man has. He’s an OG and veteran and he keeps showing up.

So Anthony talked about how he never felt like he was worth anything without winning the title. I think a lot of fighters feel the same way while they’re in the UFC.

When you’re coming up on the regional scene, getting into the UFC is such a massive hurdle. And once you get in, after a while you forget that you overcame that hurdle.

When you’re in the UFC, you’re only compared to fighters in the UFC. And it’s all about getting to the belt.

You don’t feel like the guy because you’re not the champion. You might’ve been the man or woman in the regional circuit, but in the UFC you’re just a normal person.

This is something I definitely struggled with before. You kinda just have to remove yourself from it or you realize it when you’re in a room full of real fans or younger fighters.

I do think the narratives on social media put a lot of negative thoughts and pressure into fighters’ heads.

But when you’re around real fans or real fighters, you get to celebrate yourself like Anthony said.

Don’t get it twisted. No matter how bad or good you think some UFC fighters are, in the regional scene, they will be that person.

So a lot more fighters should celebrate themselves. Celebrate your accomplishments so far. That’s a good takeaway from Anthony’s interview.

It doesn’t mean you’re okay with what you’ve done so far. But you should still celebrate where you’re at.

Now I’m not saying I’m perfect at this. This is something I even have to remind myself of sometimes.

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My Mindset For This Camp

Now that I finally have a fight booked for May 17th, I’m trying to keep a steady mindset.

When I have these long layoffs, I notice that I’m more at peace. In the past, when my fight was coming up, I thought about my opponent way too much.

So for this fight camp, I’ve been trying to keep myself out of the fighting mindset and to minimize the event as much as possible. That way when I enter the cage on May 17th, I can feel a little more free and it’ll feel like another day at practice.

This is something I always preach. And by minimizing the occasion, I can achieve that mindset and show my best work.

I’ve had some great performances but I haven’t shown my full potential. So I’m testing it out with this fight.

It’s very hard to do, I’m not gonna lie. But I’m trying.

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Sodiq’s Pop Culture Corner

This week’s episode of The Last of Us was a softer landing after the high from the previous episode. It’s to be expected after losing such a big celebrity and character.

Now when they killed off Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, the rest of the characters still had intriguing storylines and the actors were great.

But with The Last of Us, you’re going from Joel to Ellie and it’s not really it. I hope it picks up with the next episode but it was definitely a drop off.

I’d give it a 6/10.

Outside of that, I saw a trailer for a movie called Weapons. The whole trailer was a door opening in the middle of the night and a kid Naruto running out of the house. The lady was talking to the cops on the phone and they were like yeah I think your kid just walked out 🤣

When it comes to horror, I always get scared by uncanny things. Seeing the kids running out into the middle of the night was so uncanny that it gave me goosebumps.

They just released a full trailer today and apparently Jordan Peele fired his whole management team after losing the bid for this movie.

At least that shows the movie was well warranted. From what I’ve seen so far, the trailer looks dope and it’s by the same people who made Barbarians.

Barbarians was super creepy with a good plot twist so I hope Weapons lives up to the hype.

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That ends it for this week’s Super Squad Letter!

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Peace,
Super Sodiq Yusuff