Midnight Mania! ‘Aquaman’ Jason Momoa sends UFC’s Mark Hunt to fight with ‘Haka’ war dance

Welcome to Midnight Mania! Tonight we’ve got Jason Momoa doing the Haka for Mark Hunt’s next fight, Sage Northcutt’s tonsils, Manuwa-Oezemir rumors, Jose Aldo being a freak athlete, knockouts, toe holds and much more.

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New Zealand Warriors

Jason Momoa is probably best known for his role in Game of Thrones as Khal Drogo. I first remember him as Ronan, the blaster-wielding space warrior from Stargate Atlantis. Most recently, he is filming as AquaMan in the upcoming DC Comics movie after the same name.

He was also present to take part in Mark Hunt’s sendoff, involving the traditional New Zealand pre-battle “Haka” dance. Here they kneel in support for Hunt, which clearly moved “Super Samoan.”

It was a meaningful sendoff for Hunt, who faces heavy hitter Derrick Lewis in his upcoming main event at UFC Fight Night 110 in Auckland, New Zealand, on June 11, 2017.

Other famous Haka in modern times:

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Insomnia

Stipe saw an opportunity to put his unique skillset to use watching that sloppy brawl I wrote about yesterday.

I didn’t know Tito did this.

This is disgusting.

The interview:

Demetrious Johnson puts his reputation behind saving something important to him

Lomachenko with the shade directed at Guillermo Rigondeaux

This would be the perfect fight to make at Light Heavyweight

USADA doing its thing ...

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Slips, Rips, and KO Clips

Yeah, this was pretty violent.

Consider me very hyped for Jose Aldo vs. Max Holloway!

First one to bring up “McGregor” or “13 seconds” in the comments gets a special prize for being a special kind of individual.

Yeah normal people can’t do things like this.

Another scintillating Brazilian headlines the prelims. Time to see what Marlon Moraes has got for us.

Great promo video!

Some international action ...

This is what we refer to as a “brawl”, kids

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Good Reads

• Kajan Johnson discusses that standup confrontation he had with the Reebok rep and the UFC, and the meeting that followed. He called the Reebok rep a “sociopathic capitalist”, which is pretty great, but the follow-up meeting doesn’t give me a lot of hope for any improvement from the UFC or Reebok.
• I featured a few of the knockouts, but here is the story behind that crazy KSW event in Poland with Satanists, eyeball-tattooed rappers, and strongmen, which apparently filled 58,000 seats.
• Schwan Humes returns with the second part of his Wonder Woman breakdown, explaining which actual MMA fighters she resembles and how her refusal to back down from anything is a weakness she shares with a particularly famous female fighter.

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Podcasts and Video

The MMA Hour

MMAmania.com’s Flyin’ Brian J. with his UFC 212 Beer Pairing:

And MMAmania.com’s Andrew Richardson breaks down Max Holloway’s combination striking ...

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Random Land

This is a bi-partisan problem, so this doesn’t count as political, but it’s fun to watch the discomfort on display here.

Wanna have some real fun? Read this survey of experts’ opinions on how soon machine intelligence will replace all human jobs. Fun, fun, fun.

Stay woke, Maniacs!

Follow me on Twitter @Vorpality

As I mentioned yesterday, I am going on a vacation to hunt coyotes from ultralight using night vision. Obviously, that rules out writing Midnight Mania. When I return with my bag limit of coyote pelts, I expect you to have left some sweet comments under the placeholder posts I’ll set up.