Earlier in the year, when you saw Rich Beem sink a hole-in-one at the Nissan Open and jump on top of his shiny new car, the first thing you thought was: “This is gonna be a commercial.” Well, actually, you probably thought: “You idiot! Get off your new ride! You’re f’n it up!” Either way you would have been right because we just stumbled across this Nissan ad featuring Beem and the man/car lovefest that ensued immediately following his big shot.
Wouldn’t you love to see that kind of enthusiasm out of Tiger every once in a while? We know that the fist pump is his trademark and all, but it’s okay to let loose every now and then. After all, he’s got a lot to be happy about; is slobbering all over an inanimate object really too much to ask?
The Ultimate Fighter 5 finally came to a head on Saturday night and the free event on Spike did a lot to put the excitement back in the UFC. After a disappointing Chuck Liddell/Quinton Jackson main event, followed up by a pair of decisions in the co-main events at UFC 72: Victory; The Ultimate Fighter finale was a night of much needed wild and unexpected endings.
In the main event, B.J. Penn finally got his revenge on Jens Pulver by slipping a deep choke on Lil’ Evil at the 3:12 mark of the second round. The smart money was on Penn coming into the fight and the Prodigy showed why he’s considered one of the best in the game as he dominated Pulver on the ground. And it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a heated third contest in this rivalry as the fellas seemed to have squashed their beef once and for all with hugs and kind words. Well, actually, Penn didn’t say anything to the crowd immediately after the fight other than directing everyone to his website, but Pulver couldn’t have been more humble in defeat.
In the championship match of TUF5, Nathan Diaz and Manvel Gamburyan had a great fight going, but when Gamburyan went for a takedown 20 seconds into the second round, he dislocated his shoulder and had to tap out. While it’s an unfortunate turn of events for Gamburyan and nobody wants to win by injury, the tap out crowed Diaz as the winner of the season and the six figure contract. But as anyone who follows The Ultimate Fighter fallout knows, it’s often the losers of the season who end up becoming UFC PPV fixtures (see Chris Leben).
But the fight of the night was between Rob Emerson and Gray Maynard. After a physical first round, Maynard picked up Emerson and delivered a wicked slam that caused Emerson to tap because of an injury to his ribs. And it’s a good thing for Maynard that Emerson tapped because during his throw of Emerson, he ended up falling on his own head and knocking himself out. You can enjoy it for the brutality, or you can enjoy it for the hilarity, but at least this card had something to enjoy. Maybe the UFC should consider limiting all their fighters to 155 pounds, because this has definitely been the most entertaining division of late.
We are so relieved to find out that soccer actually had some untapped potential hidden deep down inside. This is honestly the greatest spin put on a sport since the Lingerie Bowl.
We’re sure that soccer has amazingly athletic and graceful plays that occur from time to time, but for some reason the only news that catches our eye from the world of futbol seems to involve riots or, uh, well, riots. That is, until now. We’re still not moved to the point of showing you highlights or anything but we did come across a clip that we thought we’d share with you. Apparently it’s a few years old but that doesn’t mean the incredible gayness of the whole thing has diminished in the least.
And you fools thought that Chad Johnson and T.O. liked to “celebrate in a different way.” Even Dennis Rodman thought the soccer dude’s behavior was kind of disturbing.
Links:
[The Offside]: ‘Biting his Unit’ s certainly a different way to celebrate
If you thought badminton was lame, there’s an even lamer sport built on top of it. Meet blackmington — it’s like speedminton, which is based on badminton, tennis and squash.
Blackminton is like speedminton but played in the dark with neon paint and black lighting. And… uhhh… it’s huge in France.
You know, ESPN wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for all the clowns they use in front of the cameras. Thank goodness the NBA Finals finished up in just four games because we couldn’t take any more of Stuart Scott’s on-location improv. And while the nausea begins with the Cyclops for most fans, unfortunately the mother ship’s horrifically annoying lineup is deep; real deep. John Anderson, Scott Van Pelt, Kenny Mayne, John Buccigross, Steve Berthiaume, Neil Everett; the list goes on and on. And don’t even get us started about that sick freak Chris Berman. So, when we heard that SportsCenter was taking celebrity applications, we had just five words for the ESPN bigwigs: “Bob Barker, come on down!”
Talk about an impressive audition! He’s already got more charisma and mass appeal than any of those dopes we listed earlier, and who wouldn’t want to her Bob’s World War II stories during slow news days? Then you’ve got Barker’s Beauties. Now, those are some women that Joe Namath would want to kiss even if he wasn’t piss drunk. Sorry Suzy, you know you’re like a little sister to us.
So, it appears that Jevon Kearse has been donating his off the field services to some really crappy rappers for a really crappy song that got made into a really crappy video. Kearse makes a pair of brief but very impact appearances (3:40 and 1:46 marks) in Shawty featuring T-Pain and Symon Dagrapp’s single entitled Piles. Uh, who?
Now, we don’t know too much about the modern hippity-hop, but we figured that if Jevon wanted to be in someone’s rap video, it would have been more along the line of 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg. But hey, if Lil’ John is working on the same project as the Freak, then it has got to be some extremely high quality work.
I know that pretty much everything is wide open in the sports blogging world but the owners of “The Kobe Video” seem so shady. While they purportedly have been offered “a lucrative offer” to destroy the tape, they feel to need to make it public because information wants to be free… or $1.99.
The big story in the tape apparently is that Bryant rips on the Lakers organization for not trading for Jason Kidd because they wanted to bold onto Andrew Bynum. OK cool. And Kobe probably curses and bunch and talks about all the assholes in the Lakers organization. For this, I’m supposed to part with $2? Especially since someone will watch the video and post it or the transcript of it anyway?
What I’m afraid of is that these opportunists will actually benefit from this and then athletes will no longer talk to fans candidly for fear of being videotaped and posted on the internet.
The video was taken around June 10th which means it’s already old news. I don’t know what it is but it just seems like this is a mildly interesting story that’s getting a lot of play for no reason. And these guys are trying to make a cheap buck out of it. I don’t begrudge people who try to make a fast buck but it should be at least clever or amusing. This is just a guy talking to Kobe while Kobe was clearly agitated about his situation. I’m not here to defend Kobe but this whole thing is cheap.
Here’s an interesting take on the Kobe video on Sports Law Blog.
Links:
[Lakers Blog]: Obviously, there are worse “amateur videos” to pop up in
[Hoops World]: Lakers: Video – Bryant Frustrated
Every now and again we feel compelled to bring you a moment of stomach turning disgust. Don’t believe us? Just check out our Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries. So, today’s painful moment comes to us from the world of MMA where some guy snaps his leg in two during a fight.
We have no idea about the who, when or where of this horrifying accident, but does it really matter? After all, we are talking about a guy who shattered his leg bone for the entire world to see and be grossed out by. How often does something like that happen in life? Oh, wait; now that we’ve recovered from our lightheadedness we know why this is starting to feel like déjà vu all over again. We tried to mentally block it out but our BONUS injury lives on.
Cars for Kids is a good charity that raises money for children in need but they made a terrible mistake by having a car race down a highway with no guard rails performing a stunt. Six people died and 20 more were injured in the small town of Selmer as they gathered to watch a driver do a “burnout” – spinning the tires until they smoke – in a drag car.
The car was driven by pro drag racer Troy Warren but he lost control and the car flew into the crowd. Here’s amateur video of the accident from WMC-TV in Memphis.
Links:
[WMCTV]: Car show disaster kills 6, injures 20 in Selmer; press conference Monday morning
[KETV]: No Charges Yet After Dragster Deaths
