I would say "Barking on the internet" is probably their best game.
Don't confuse that with "Banking with the Beard".
Good one - they are Fargorate 840 at that.
$10,000 One Pocket Challenge: Lou Figueroa vs John Barton
- Thread starter ShootingHank
- Start date
Good one - they are Fargorate 840 at that.
Here's the backer story...
John and Lou can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it's an interesting addition to the story.
John and a guy going by Mlalum both ended up getting banned in 2011 for some pretty serious bickering. Mlalum thought he
was in the right and thought he was the good guy, and he thought John was the bad guy. At the time John had vicious
fights going on with Mlalum, Lou and Jack Justis if I recall. That was just to name a few.
For some reason, both Mlalum and Jack Justis contacted me about their beefs with John. With Jack, who I absolutely respect,
I tried to help mitigate it because it was really bothering him at the time. Jack and John ended up in an uneasy truce eventually,
kind of on and off. (I think and hope it's since been resolved). With Mlalum I could tell he had no interest in resolving but it was
more of a complaint thing. I decided not to get involved but heard his complaints, the details of one I won't disclose without John's
permission - but it's pretty funny involving a phone call from China and it really upset him.
Anyway, after the match we found out Mlalum backed Lou, never did get the exact deal but it sounded like a good chunk of the bet. I don't
know how that came down but I speculate he wanted his revenge. I don't think Mlalum was a bad guy at all, just a guy that wasn't about to
drop the fight and John got to him and became his mortal enemy.
By the way, I can tell John has mellowed out a lot. He was easily angered back then. Him and I were in touch because I was trying to help him retain his cool better when baited.
Here's the post that lead to Mlalum's banning. The moral of the story is, don't ever challenge AZ House Pro (Mike) to ban you, you will get your ass banned:
John and Lou can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it's an interesting addition to the story.
John and a guy going by Mlalum both ended up getting banned in 2011 for some pretty serious bickering. Mlalum thought he
was in the right and thought he was the good guy, and he thought John was the bad guy. At the time John had vicious
fights going on with Mlalum, Lou and Jack Justis if I recall. That was just to name a few.
For some reason, both Mlalum and Jack Justis contacted me about their beefs with John. With Jack, who I absolutely respect,
I tried to help mitigate it because it was really bothering him at the time. Jack and John ended up in an uneasy truce eventually,
kind of on and off. (I think and hope it's since been resolved). With Mlalum I could tell he had no interest in resolving but it was
more of a complaint thing. I decided not to get involved but heard his complaints, the details of one I won't disclose without John's
permission - but it's pretty funny involving a phone call from China and it really upset him.
Anyway, after the match we found out Mlalum backed Lou, never did get the exact deal but it sounded like a good chunk of the bet. I don't
know how that came down but I speculate he wanted his revenge. I don't think Mlalum was a bad guy at all, just a guy that wasn't about to
drop the fight and John got to him and became his mortal enemy.
By the way, I can tell John has mellowed out a lot. He was easily angered back then. Him and I were in touch because I was trying to help him retain his cool better when baited.
Here's the post that lead to Mlalum's banning. The moral of the story is, don't ever challenge AZ House Pro (Mike) to ban you, you will get your ass banned:
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I forgot about Mlalum. Was he banned for life over that post?
Seams harsh and one sided to me. Change my mind??
Seams harsh and one sided to me. Change my mind??
Yep, it was his last post and he's still banned.
Like Clint says: "Fair's got nothing to do with it."
He didn't want back anyway. Obviously he had a serious grudge. Later on he did some pretty good educational videos about pool. He's in Arizona. I thought he was a nice guy.
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Yeah I never understood so many bannings. JB must have the record next to Fast Larry. Probably banned 100 times. Other members that were excellent contributors like Superstar, got banned for life. Doesn't make any sense. I think I'd rather have the site a free for all. Its kind of sad when someone bumps an old thread, and 1/4 of the posts show banned next to the member names.
Really, you REALLY don't understand why JB got banned so many times? Almost every one of those threads before the match spiralled out of control with constant abuse, trolling and threats of physical violence. JB was not an innocent bystander or victim in all of this. And that was only a small selection of such behaviour. Look, I like him, he's an interesting character and all, but why he got banned so many times is no mystery to anyone. For what it's worth, he always got to come back, which I think is nice. As long as a person has interesting stuff to contribute, I feel that permabans should be extremely rare. Many of those banned members of old are duplicate accounts of serial trollers, btw, and I have no issue with those bans what so ever.
I'd say many people permanently banned on here has had the hammer come down on them for much lesser offenses and were also great and knowledgable characters. I don't have any objections that JB was allowed back, I think it was good, but it's sad that some others never got that chance. We can agree on that.
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Taken in the context of JBs saying he's not afraid of my game; I'm not much of a 1pocket player, and his denial of cheating when it was clear to everyone at the venue that he was getting coached, I'm OK with it.
Lou Figueroa
Here's what I said shortly after the match about that shot:
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We progress to the point in the last game of the night where two balls are on the spot and I hide the third ball on the table ball on the other side of the two balls. John looks at the shot and then does an odd thing. John goes to his corner and studies the shot from there. That made no sense to me, since any player would be looking at it from behind the CB, or directly facing it. But John is off in his corner, spends a few moments there and then, to my surprise, John shoots an intentional foul laying the CB up behind two balls on the spot. The owed ball is spotted and I am now sandwiched between two balls and I think to myself, “No way John knows that shot.” Now in this situation, taking himself off the hill, it’s actually the wrong shot. But nonetheless, now I’m wondering what’s going on.
#####
From there, I tuned in to what was going on and witnessed you getting coached by the guy hiding behind the column with his hand to his mouth.
Lou Figueroa
Like cats and dogs. I think even John will admit he was quite the terror at that time. It seemed back then there were many more active participants, so banning any one member was no great loss. What we really lost was entertainment value. I used to read every post by Drivermaker and Jimbo, both really interesting and amusing but two permabans I believe. When I think of all the expertise we had and the knowledge - that is what is lost when people get banned.
I guess I find well behaved people a little boring. That usually includes me.
I don't recall what the beef between Mike and JB was all about.
I do recall that at one point JB called Mike's house. Mike's mother answered the phone and what JB said and/or how he said it did not sit well with Mike. If it can be said that I dislike JB, it is probably fair to say Mike despises him.
It was actually a couple of years before the match that Mike approached me, when I was playing in the US Open One Pocket in Vegas, about the idea of playing JB. In any case, when we walked into the pool room in NJ, the blood drained out of JB's face. Total shock. Until that moment he had no idea Mike was my backer.
Lou Figueroa
That's the story I was going to tell. Michael told me about it, If I recall, John and Mike were going at it pretty good. John was in China and decided to call Michael at his place in Arizona, I guess to discuss their differences. John inadvertently got Michael's very elderly mother's phone number, spoke to her and apparently frightened her.
I sensed that he truly hated John. I didn't want to get in he middle of that. No telling what a man might do so motivated. Next best thing - back Lou and make some money off John to get even.
I don't think anybody really thought this match would ever happen, but it did.
Beware the fury of a patient man!
I think that many of the "permanently" banned folks would be able to come back if they requested it, in a respectful manner. I don't have any knowledge of this, just a hunch, based on having been here a while. Apparently those folks aren't interested enough in coming back. Interested enough to reach out to AZMike, at least.
I agree that many of the banned folks are missed. I also think its a shame that some folks feel that its ok to go off so badly that a ban is necessary, if only to calm things down. (Obviously, the repeat offender trolls are a different case, no pun intended.)
Damn! Shaking down little old ladies!!!
This is better than Tiger King,,,, somebody call Netflix
I’d lose my shit if someone was even remotely disrespectful to my mom over a pool match!
That is 100% UNTRUE.
Michael posted his location and said anyone who has anything to say to him should contact him directly. I looked him up and called the number and identified myself and a woman who was very nice and identified herself as his mother told me that he did not live there and OFFERED his phone number. I said that would be great and wrote down the number and thanked her. That was it. Don't believe the BS. I then called Mike's number and a woman answered and I again identified myself and added "from the AZ Billiards forum". When Mike finally came to the phone I said let's work this out and stop the arguing. Then I was BERATED and yelled at and told that if I had issues with people defaming me then I should take them to court rather than to argue with them on a public forum. I literally was lectured for more than 30 minutes on COMPLETELY IMPRACTICAL and EXPENSIVE and USELESS things I should do instead of simply stating my objections and case on a forum. Michael Lalumiere's COMMAND to me was that I should just take it and sue.
And furthermore there was ZERO mention of frightening his mother BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT FRIGHTENED. This is exactly the kind of shit that I am talking about. This forum is supposed to be a place to exchange information and ideas and to better the pool world and instead it is INFESTED with human cockroaches who LIE AND TWIST things for their own sick amusement. I am a yes sir, yes mamn, person who is exceedingly polite when speaking to people on the phone, especially to my elders. The conversation with his mother was exactly that, polite and short with no subterfuge and ABSOLUTELY nothing frightening.
This all happened while I was banned from the forum BECAUSE of Lalumiere. Lalumiere POSTED that ANYONE could contact him and gave his location. I simply used the phone book to look up whatever numbers were available for his name in that area. I didn't do anything other than what he told the entire forum to do. Prior to that I didn't know his name or where he lived. After the phone call where I was lectured to and where I said to him that I would try to follow his "advice" he immediately went to AZB and FLAT OUT LIED about the call to his mother AND the phone call we had. FLAT OUT LIED while I was unable to answer.
This is the absolute truth and if I am lying may my whole family and all my friends and myself die horrible deaths. This makes me SO SO SO sick to hear this again. This man is one of the worst people and he and Lou are in the same category of despicable people. I called him up to offer an olive branch and instead he flat out lied about me when I was defenseless.
I don't hold grudges. I don't hold onto negativity. Where I once felt that the internet was the great equalizer and we would all be kumbaya sharing of knowledge and ideas and taking cooperative action to better our world I found out that it was also infested with downright evil people who get their jollies by screwing with other people. And as someone who has never backed down from bullies even when I took the worst of it, I unfortunately waded right in to the online arguments naively thinking that the presentation of superior logic would end the fight. STUPID STUPID me not to understand that in an online fight there is no incentive to stop for the bully. Because when a person is unrestrained by the truth and unrestrained by civil practice between humans they have effectively unlimited ammunition. It's truly sickening.
And the ONLY WAY that it will stop is IF there ever is a way to knock someone out physically for what they dare to say to another person on the internet. Because in real life people ARE constrained by the possibility of getting hurt when they go to far. Every human understands this innately and moderates their behavior accordingly.
Until then the really evil people will run around the net picking on whoever their victim of the day is with zero regard for the truth because they know full well that the odds of anything happening to them in the real world are slim to none.
So would I and in my case it NEVER HAPPENED.
She was not frightened at all. NOT ONE BIT. She offered her son's phone number without me asking for it. I was going to leave my number.
This is pure bullshit.
