Mens_Fitness_South_Africa_JulyAugust_2017

GAME CHANGERS 2017
DIPLO
The beat master
who runs in
hyperdrive
BY TOM FOSTER
WHEN I TALK TO DIPLO (AKA
Thomas Wesley Pentz) in LA,
USA, the electronic-music trailblazer
and one of today’s most influential
producers, he’s just finished helping his
6-year-old son build a Millennium Falcon.
It’s a rare domestic moment for the
music mogul, who’s had a monster year
and shows no signs of slowing down.
The previous week, he’d spent time
in the studio, then was flown out to do
shows in Las Vegas, Surrey, BC, and
Alaska — where he played the state’s
largest outdoor electronic-music show
ever (dubbed “Diplaska”) — then back to
Vegas again. He’s then headed to Europe
to play 17 shows in 14 days, sometimes
doing two a day: a concert with his band
Major Lazer, then a solo Diplo set in a
nightclub. He’s psyched to have a day
and a half off in Ibiza — “That’s a big
deal”, he tells me — but says he’ll spend
it shooting a music video for his record
label, Mad Decent.
It’s a pretty standard schedule for the
38-year-old, who’s also won two Grammys
for his DJ collaboration Skrillex and
Diplo Present Jack Ü (including one for
the track “Where Are Ü Now”, which
finally made Justin Bieber cool); released
Spotify’s most streamed song ever with
Major Lazer & DJ Snake with MØ
(“Lean On”); played historic concerts in
Pakistan and Cuba (the latter for 450
000 people); invested in the pro Arizona
United soccer team; run a travelling
music festival, produced two tracks on
Beyoncé’s Lemonade album… Well, you
get the idea.
Physically, he works out six days a
week. “I’ve been doing Bikram yoga for
10 or 15 years”, he says. “No matter where
I go, there’s always a studio, and I don’t
need to know the language because I
know the moves.” He does yoga about
twice a week and mixes in some strength
training on the remaining days.
“My favourite place to work out
is Parque de Arpoador, in Rio — a
little beach between Copacabana and
Ipanema with an outdoor gym that has
weights made of concrete and metal
poles. You don’t need much.”
TOM HIDDLESTON
THE BABE MAGNET
WHO MAY
BECOME BOND
BY MICHELLE RUIZ
AH, TOM HIDDLESTON. NOT SINCE BENEDICT
Cumberbatch has a British actor with a name that
sounds like a Hogwarts House had such a massive
year. Best known as Loki, Thor’s Norse nemesis (you
know, with the greasy Van Helsing hair), Hiddleston,
36, also turned heads through the years in bit parts
as a kindly soldier in War Horse and the dandy F
Scott Fitzgerald in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. But in 2016, he went
from smarmy villain to bona fide badass. In the addictive AMC mini-series
The Night Manager, he played the title soldier-turned-spy tapped to crack
an evil arms dealer’s inner circle. The performance proved why Hiddleston
is in the running to succeed Daniel Craig as the next 007 (earmuffs, Idris
Elba) — and won him throngs of new “Hiddlestoners”, the name for his army
of “stans”. Revealing his bare buttocks in a memorable sex scene helped, unleashing
the #hiddlesbum. What was I saying? Sorry, I got distracted. Throw
in an eerily good starring turn as country legend Hank Williams in the
biopic I Saw the Light (he ran gruelling 12Ks through the Tennessee hills to
get lean for the role) and a whirlwind romance with a certain pop star with
the initials TS and we’re all getting a little Hiddlestoned. “In an industry
that’s feast or famine”, he’s said, “I’ve got no complaints”.
LORENZO FERTITTA
The biz guy who bought the UFC
for R17M — and sold it for R58B
BY SEAN HYSON
■
In 2001, Lorenzo
Fertitta — co-owner
of the Station Casinos
in Las Vegas — bought
the Ultimate Fighting
Championship for R17
million with his brother,
Frank. The fledgeling
mixed martial arts
organisation was facing
bankruptcy, a victim of
its own aggressive marketing,
which promised
brutality and aroused
American Senator John
McCain to call for its dismemberment,
branding it
“human cockfighting”.
The Fertitta brothers,
along with high school
pal Dana White, whom
the brothers installed
as President, rebuilt
the business of ultimate
fighting, changing its
image as a bloody
spectacle to that of a
legitimate sport with
top-notch athletes. With
Fertitta as the UFC’s
Chief Executive and
main power, the trio
expanded the promotion
abroad, and negotiated
to get its biggest stars
from rival organisations.
In July 2016, the
Fertittas sold the majority
of their stake in the
UFC for a reported R58
billion to sports/entertainment
management
group WME-IMG. Eclipsing
even the R22 billion
sale of the LA Clippers in
2014, the deal was one
of “the largest ever in
the history of sports”,
Fertitta crowed.
To further put it into
perspective, it rivals
the price George Lucas
got from Disney when
he sold the entire Star
Wars franchise in 2012.
Fertitta isn’t wistful
about parting with the
organisation. “When you
take something from
nothing to [R58 billion],
I don’t think you should
have regrets.”
JULY / AUGUST 2017 MEN’S FITNESS 77