Tag: America

Elon Musk says he would fight Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on Elon Musk says he would fight Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin

Elon Musk has thrown the gauntlet down at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin to physical blows earlier this year.

speaking to the full-send podcast, Musk said in the hypothetical scenario posed to him that he “wouldn’t say no” if the North Korean leader wanted to fight him.

In March, Musk went viral for a tweet in which he challenged the Russian President to fight.

“I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat,” he wrote.

“Stakes are Ukraine.”

When asked who Musk’s biggest “enemy” was at the moment, the billionaire mentioned his challenge to the Kremlin.

“I am not sure if they are going to send him, but I did challenge him on Twitter,” he said.

So how exactly would Elon Musk battle against the Russian leader known for his military martial arts background?

Easy. Musk says it’s a little known technique called “the walrus”.

“Listen, (the fight will) be a pay-per-view,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO envisioned.

“It’ll be an interesting question because (Putin’s) good at martial arts and he’s pretty buff. You’ve seen those pictures of him on a horse.

“He has won like Judo championships… so he is pretty good, but I think I am 30 per cent bigger than him.”

Musk said his “weight advantage” would help him overthrow Putin with his ultimate MMA move.

“I’m going to use a move called ‘the walrus’, where I just lie on you. You can’t get away.”

While Musk is known for making controversial commentary that even he worries “could really backfire” on him, the billionaire has focused part of his Starlink efforts to aid Ukrainians.

As Ukraine enters its fifth month during the Russian invasion, Musk has deployed thousands of Starlink satellites to aid the Ukrainian defensive effort.

Musk activated the broadband service in Ukraine, after a Kyiv official urged the tech titan to provide his embattled country with stations.

“Starlink service is now active in Ukraine,” Musk tweeted, adding “more terminals [are] enroute.”

The Satellites have been a vital resource allowing Ukrainians to maintain access to the internet with encrypted data as Russia seeks to target Ukrainian power grids in attempts to disrupt information sharing.

Read related topics:Elon Musk

Sports

UFC news 2022: Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira, UFC 281, Dana White, November, title fight

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on UFC news 2022: Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira, UFC 281, Dana White, November, title fight

Israel Adesanya will have the chance to re-write some personal history when he defends his UFC middleweight title against Brazilian Alex Pereira on November 13 (AEST).

World champion Adesanya announced on Sports Center that he’ll fight old rival Pereira in a title fight at UFC 281 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The highly anticipated grudge match pits the two old foes against each other for the first time in mixed martial arts, after fighting twice before in kickboxing.

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Adesanya was visibly shocked by the judges’ decision after his first fight with Pereira, with the Brazilian winning by unanimous decision.

The pair had their rematch less than a year later in March 2017, with a left hand knocking the Nigerian-born fight out during the third round.

While he hasn’t felt the need to chase revenge after losing both fights, Adesanya vowed to “slam this b****” ahead of their meeting at the famous New York venue later this year.

“Have I ever shied away from a fight? I’ve always picked the guy no one wants to fight,” Adesanya said on Sports Center.

“The guy that everyone runs away from, I run towards. So I run towards the fire and this is no different.

“After he beat me in Brazil, I never had any plans of trying to get revenge or anything like that because I don’t hold onto things.

“I’m telling you, the universe has presented this to me and it’s right there. It’s the perfect alley-oop and I’m going to slam this b****”.

Adesanya held onto his middleweight crown with a unanimous decision win over American Jared Cannonier at UFC 276 last month.

The victory extended the 33-year-old’s unbeaten run to three fights, after losing to Polish fighter Jan Blachowicz by unanimous decision in the UFC light heavyweight title fight last year.

As for his opponent, Pereira is undefeated from three fights so far in the UFC whilst he’s undefeated in his last six MMA fights.

The Brazilian is coming off a first-round knockout of the highly rated Sean Strickland.

Originally published as ‘Slam this b****’: Israel Adesanya’s message to old rival ahead of UFC grudge match

Entertainment

Moment Brad Pitt almost lost first movie role

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on Moment Brad Pitt almost lost first movie role

The director of an obscure Serbian film has shared the moment she “discovered” award-winning actor Brad Pitt as a young adult looking for his silver-screen debut, and how she was almost turned off giving him his start.

Before the fame of blockbuster productions like Ocean’s Eleven and Mr & Mrs Smitha pimply but “electrifying” 21-year-old Pitt responded to a casting call from the agency of Lauren Lloyd, former executive vice-president of Hollywood Pictures and Trust Sony pictures.

Lloyd described her first meeting with the young wannabe who would become a megastar back in the ’80s to Aussie podcast What is Was Like.

“So this kid walks in and I think he had done maybe one or two episodes in a soap opera… and I was like, who’s this kid? But it was like God walking in” Lloyd told the podcast.

“So I said ‘sit down and talk to me’, and he had kinda bad skin… but he seemed very calm for being one so young and non-experienced.”

At 21 years old, Pitt had minimal acting experience and was looking to enter the film industry.

Lloyd’s talent agency had agreed to scout a male lead for a Yugoslavian-US co-production The Dark Side of the Sun.

And by the time young Pitt read the script to them, Lloyd and her work partner were “giggling with delight” at the actor they had found.

“We were like who is he? This guy is magnificent,” she said.

But despite Pitt having successfully charmed the two talent scouts, Lloyd revealed she almost didn’t cast him because of his lack of experience in film.

“I said ‘but he just does TV’ – because we were at that stage when the people in the movie business we looked down upon television… they were making the money but we were making the movies,” she said.

After her partner assured her “you’ve got a movie star!” the pair hired Pitt for his first ever movie gig working with Yugoslavian directors.

“And Brad was so excited, he was like a kid,” Lloyd added.

They call it the ‘X-Factor’

It’s the quality that distinguishes ordinary people from “stars” who become globally and critically acclaimed artists.

And that’s exactly what Lloyd saw in Pitt the day he walked in and read his first film script.

A large part of film success she conceded, was down to genes – being born with a face for camera.

“Well (Pitt) had shaggy hair and kind of bad skin but you’re still … captivated by it,” she said.

“He was almost too pretty, he had very delicate features – he’s grown into a much more manly man – but he was just quite a beautiful creature.”

But looks alone don’t drive the “X-Factor” she said, and when it came to Pitt, what made him “electrifying” was his “calm” and “holistic” presence.

“(He was) so united inside – and when I say that I mean for someone so young to be so comfortable in their body, to be intellectually there.” she said.

“So it’s a spiritual, intellectual, and physical blending… and there he was – magnificent looking.

“So when someone likes that walks into a room you see them – but you feel them. It’s almost like every cell in your body is electrified.”

Lloyd said Pitt had been “blessed” with an “incredible combination of genes” which gave him that “movie star quality” that talent agencies look for.

But pretty faces come and go, she acknowledged, and to make a long-lasting career in the Hollywood film industry, actors have to be persistent.

“When you go to Hollywood, you have to have that (self-belief) no matter what you do,” she said.

“(Because) if you don’t have that drive it’s so difficult… you’ll perish away… you have to be so driven that no matter how many times you get ‘no’, you’ll find a way.

“And he had that.”

This is an extract from the podcast What it Was Like. To hear the full story of how Brad Pitt became a star, click here.

Sports

Nick Kyrgios Washington Open, ATP results, scores, def Frances Tiafoe, Kyrgios vs Mikael Ymer, ranking

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on Nick Kyrgios Washington Open, ATP results, scores, def Frances Tiafoe, Kyrgios vs Mikael Ymer, ranking

Australia’s Nick Kyrgios and top seed Andrey Rublev each won twice on Friday (US time) to reach the semi-finals of the ATP and WTA Washington Open.

World number eight Rublev defeated 32nd-ranked Maxime Cressy 6-4, 7-6 (10/8) in one hour and 42 minutes then eliminated 99th-ranked wildcard JJ Wolf 6-2, 6-3 in 78 minutes.

“I didn’t spend much time in court,” Rublev said of his three-hour total. “That was the main key today.”

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Rain Thursday night forced double duty upon Rublev and several others but Friday storms provided everyone a timely rest break between matches.

Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios fired 35 aces on his way to beating hometown hero Frances Tiafoe 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (14/12), 6-2 and reaching the other semi-final against Sweden’s 115th- ranked Mikael Ymer.

Australia’s 63rd-ranked Kyrgios, who won the most recent of his six ATP titles at Washington in 2019, needed only 14 minutes to complete an early win over US fourth seed Reilly Opelka 7-6 (7/1), 6-2.

Kyrgios then outlasted 27th-ranked Tiafoe after two and a half hours, yelling, “I want to go to bed,” in the third set of a match that ended at 1 in the morning.

Tiafoe won the last five points of the first-set tiebreaker, the last on his sixth ace, and had four match points in the second-set tiebreaker.

But Kyrgios answered with an ace, backhand winner, forehand volley winner and service return winner and forced a third set when Tiafoe sent a forehand long.

Tiafoe, who won a third set earlier to defeat Dutch eighth seed Botic van de Zandschulp, hit a crosscourt forehand wide to hand Kyrgios a break to open the third set and missed a backhand to drop a break in the seventh before Kyrgios held to advance.

The Aussie hit 60 winners and saved five match points in all.

The Washington Post’s Ella Brockway tweeted: “This Kyrgios-Tiafoe match is absolutely bonkers.

“There are few things in sports quite like The Nick Kyrgios Experience.”

Kyrgios wins hearts with gift for fan | 00:37

Ymer, who lost his only ATP final last August at Winston-Salem, beat 54th-ranked American Sebastian Korda 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 after two hours and 27 minutes.

Rublev, whose only other two-win day was at Washington in 2018, rolled through the first set against Wolf in 28 minutes, then broke to lead 2-1 and cruised from there.

Next in Rublev’s path is Japan’s 96th-ranked Yoshihito Nishioka, who outlasted British 16th seed Daniel Evans 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 7-5 after three hours and 35 minutes.

“Rather than to spend two matches like me than one match like him,” Rublev said.

Nishioka improved to 5-0 all-time against the 40th-ranked Englishman in the rain-interrupted affair to reach his first ATP semi-final since 2020 at Delray Beach. His only ATP title came at Shenzhen in 2018.

“I never gave up and that’s the way I think I won,” Nishioka said. “I just focused on making a lot of balls and to play long rallies. I knew he didn’t want to because he was getting tired.”

Rublev seeks his 12th career crown and fourth title of the season after Marseilles, Dubai and Belgrade to match Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz for the most ATP trophies this year.

Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi defeated Anna Kalinskaya 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-3 to reach a semi-final against Aussie Daria Saville, who beat Canadian qualifier Rebecca Marino 6-1, 7-5.

It’s Saville’s first semi-final since 2018 at Acapulco while Kanepi, her age and world rank at 37, seeks her fifth career WTA title but first since the 2013 Brussels Open.

World number 20 Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, won her first match over Czech Tereza Martincova 7-6 (9/7), 6-2, but her double bid was spoiled by 21-year-old Chinese lucky loser Wang Xiyu.

Wang, seeking her first WTA title, rolled over 33-year-old Azarenka 6-1, 6-3. The 95th-ranked left-hander reached her first WTA semi-final in June at Valencia.

Wang next plays 60th-ranked Liudmila Samsonova, who upset 10th-ranked reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu 7-6 (8/6), 6-1. The 19-year-old British second seed was seeking her first semi-final since her Grand Slam triumph,

Sports

Tennis 2022: Nick Kyrgios wows in ‘absolutely bonkers’ Washington Open win over Frances Tiafoe

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on Tennis 2022: Nick Kyrgios wows in ‘absolutely bonkers’ Washington Open win over Frances Tiafoe

Nick Kyrgios has survived an epic three-set clash against Frances Tiafoe to progress through to the semi-finals of the Washington Open.

After two and a half hours of high quality tennis, the Australian prevailed over the American 6-7 7-6 6-2.

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There was nothing in it in the first set, but Kyrgios didn’t do himself any favors with a double fault in the tie-break to give Tiafoe the upper hand.

The match went up a gear in the second set, culminating in an epic tie-break that Kyrgios won 14-12, as he somehow managed to save five match points.

Kyrgios and Tiafoe fired off several aces and countless lengthy rallies in an exchange that left tennis fans in awe.

The Washington Post’s Ella Brockway tweeted: “This Kyrgios-Tiafoe match is absolutely bonkers.

“There are few things in sports quite like The Nick Kyrgios Experience.”

Both players complained to the chair umpire on multiple occasions, unhappy with spectators in the crowd yelling out during points and as they were preparing to serve.

“I want to go to bed,” Kyrgios said midway through the third set.

He fired off a whopping 35 aces and 60 winners in total as he ran away with the third set, wrapping up the match at 1am local time in Washington DC

He will next face Sweden’s Mikael Ymer in the semi-finals as his quest for a second title in Washington continues.

On the women’s side of the draw, Australia’s Daria Saville continued her strong form with a 6-1 7-5 win over Rebecca Marino to book her place in a semi-final against sixth seed Kaia Kanepi.

Top seed Andrey Rublev won twice on Saturday (AEST) to reach the semi-finals of the ATP and WTA Washington Open, dispatching Americans Maxime Cressy and JJ Wolf at the US Open tuneup.

Rain forced double duty upon Rublev and several others but storms provided everyone a timely rest break between matches.

He will take on Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka in the other semi-final.

Read related topics:Nick Kyrgios

Tags America, chair umpire, epic three set, epic tie break, Europe, final match, match points, matthew sullivan, multiple occasions, North America, Northern America, Northern Europe, quality tennis, Rebecca Marino, Sweden, The Washington Post Company, Tour Tournaments, United States of America, Washington

Sports

Tennis 2022: Nick Kyrgios wows in ‘absolutely bonkers’ Washington Open win over Frances Tiafoe

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 6, 2022
No Comments on Tennis 2022: Nick Kyrgios wows in ‘absolutely bonkers’ Washington Open win over Frances Tiafoe