In a stroke of inspiration, Ottavia Bourdain, writing a VICE.com column about her love of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, decided to ask her dearly beloved “bad boy” husband Anthony Bourdain what he thought about her new passion. While he plays the part of loving, supportive husband well, we secretly think that Tony is completely and utterly terrified by Ottavia’s eternal bloodlust. What else explains the following answers?
You agreed to spar with me a couple of times — you might or might not have been drunk — but you’ve refused to do it since. Didn’t you enjoy being my training partner?
No! It ended badly! You don’t know how to regulate your strength and you are overly aggressive. In what was supposed to be a friendly wrestling match I caught an elbow three minutes in. I’m not an athlete by a long shot and it really irritates me that all the ways I know to get out of a hold are apparently illegal. No finger breaking? No vertical elbows to the spine? No eye gouging? I got no chance. What? I’m supposed to let you get the hooks in and just lay there? No way!Are you getting used to the fact that I’ve got bruises all over my body?
I am. But when your wife has clearly defined handgrips and fingerprints on her upper arm and you are in a fine-dining restaurant, the hostility in the room is palpable. But at this point, keep packing on muscles and they are going to take a look at you, a look at me, and they are going to say, “No way he did that.”
It is never, ever, ever funny to make fun of victims of spousal abuse. That said, this is the one time we can explain the battering with “He asked for it!” and actually mean it. (Our inner feminists are now confused.)
However, he’s rather cute when it comes to indulging in his wife’s passion for the sport, even calling her out on paying less attention to matches than he does. That’s so friggin’ cute. (No wonder this Grantland guy hates him.)
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