The Return of Boxing?

Let me start of by saying I'm sorry to the, well one person who follows my blog which is probably my brother for not keeping up with it like i said i would, ill try my best. But I wanna talk about a subject that I'm starting to get more and more excited about, good old fashioned boxing, that's right boxing. And not just The Heavyweight Division, because believe it or not, the heavyweights aren't the story this go around. Let me explain why i think boxing will make a comeback, some of the fighters that are making a name for themselves, and why the heavyweight division killed boxing back in the middle to late 90's.

I'm kinda stealing this a little from a guy named Jeremy Poplin, who is a sports radio personality, for 1430 The Buzz in Tulsa, OK along side Chris Plank on The Big show. Simply put people love to see other people pummel each other till there is a victor. Along side MMA, people hurting other people for some reason is a major attraction for our human race. And it stretches across all continents. Boxing is what gave MMA such a big platform to begin in the first place, in my opinion i like boxing a bit more than MMA because they don't go down to the ground at all other than when they get their clock cleaned. Granted i like MMA also because it is a little different from boxing in the fact that they do go down to the ground if they like, but its kinda like comparing apples to oranges, but somewhere the oranges used to be apples but have transformed into apples, do, um you understand what i just said if you do you know what I'm talking about, Anyway boxing is something everyone can talk about, it stretches across different races, cultures, ethnicity's. It is a world sport and personally i like the different styles of boxing, if you aren't familiar with the styles go to this website http://boxingbeginners.com/how_to_box_styles.php . But basically i love boxing again because i got brought back into to it at a time a couple months ago when boxing was grabbing headlines again and bringing itself to the fore front of sports again, and it did so even more with the annihilation of Ricky Hatton, at the hands of super fast Manny Pacquio, a guy I'm bout to fill you in on.

Manny Pacquio 49-3-2 is a native of the Philippines born in 1978. He currently holds the IBO and Ring Magazine Light Welterweight titles. He beat the living crap out of Rickey Hatton in the 2ND round for a K.O. He has also beat Oscar De La Hoya, Erik Morales, and a host of other fighters, These are the belts he holds or has held in his career just to name a few,

• WBC world flyweight champion
• IBF world super bantamweight champion
• WBC world super featherweight champion
• WBC world lightweight champion

The Ring Magazine titles:

• World featherweight champion
• World super featherweight champion
• World light welterweight champion

these are some his most recent recognitions

• 2006 & 2008 Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year
• 2006 & 2008 Boxing Writers Association Of America Fighter of the Year
• WBC Emeritus Champion
• The Ring Magazine #1 Pound For Pound

He can fight obviously.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/02/mayweather-boasts-boxings-best-back/

Take a look at the article i linked right above and another one is Floyd Mayweather Jr. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is 39-0 and on May 1, 2009, it was confirmed that Mayweather is coming out of a 16-month retirement to fight Juan Manuel Marquez on July 18 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He has basically held every title between the WBC Super featherweight Belt to the Super Welterweight Title, I personally don't like Floyd because he is to flashy and me me kinda attitude, but he can fight although he has received some criticism that he is stating to lose some of the speed in his hands and his side to side movements, although he could probably still clean my clock if he wanted so im not taking to much from him.

Another guy who although is getting up there in age, is Vernon Forrest a guy i personally like, he currently holds a 41 and 3 record, and became a boxing name by beating Shane Mosley for a bid to go to the Olympics in 1992(is this crazy or not, but 1992 was almost 20 years ago), and also he compiled a 225-16 record as a amateur before making a name for hiself by beating Shane Mosley, um yea that's a lot of fighting. He is 38 and losing a bit a speed but Vernon Forrest (41-3) reclaimed his WBC 154-pound title on September 14, 2008, against Sergio Mora via unanimous decision, the judges score were 118-109, 117-110, and 119-110. He can still fight, and will fight i suppose until his hands fall off or he gets his head rolled off his shoulders. On to the years of boxing that almost took it to its knee's.

Some of the big names and promoters in boxing back in the late 80's and early 90's were making a lot of money in my opinion off of the what i like to call Super Fight Phase. Year after year, Don King and other promoters put fighters like Evander Holyfield, Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, David Tua, (Do you know what they have in common, they are all Heavyweights. These guys who make a living off of a sport a lot of people love,)up agaisnt each other and it almost seemed that they were paraded in front of us like they were the best thing ever, and guess what, they were at that time. That type of stuff dies eventually but the sport itself will not. I call it a Fad, there are a lot of good boxers out there that were heavyweights, that i think to a extent were used because it at the time was the thing to do and watch, do you remember how many people were getting together to watch fights, or putting money together to buy the PPV. I remember as a kid in the late 80's seeing people in my family get together to see a big time Heavyweight Bout between someone huge and someone that was either huge or was on the cusp of being a big time player in boxing, but then Mike Tyson lost his marbles and bite off Holyfields ear, and Tommy Morrison got AIDS supposedly, and a couple of fighters tried to come out of retirement to help save the heavyweight division but i think it was too late. The whole heavyweight phase of boxing was only going to continue as long as the ones that were currently a part of it could carry it, and eventually people got old and tired and couldn't carry it anymore, and it for the most part has sort of went away in the past OH lets say 5 to 9 years. its a shame because there are a lot of good heavyweights out there as well right now trying to make a name for themselves, they just don't get a lot of media coverage from any of the major media outlets for that matter.


But boxing as a whole has not and will not die, there are too many interests and too much money floating around for it to disappear, and like i said before boxing wont die for this reason, its like chess but with humans and there are no kings, queens, and bishops. Just uppercuts, jab, and right hooks. Everyone that watches this give boxing a chance, check out a PPV or even some Friday night fights on i believe ESPN can be very entertaining. Give it a chance there is too much talent out there for it not to make a comeback. I promise you wont be let down as long as you look for a good fight to watch, they are getting more and more common.

Welcome to Socialism

Well, well ,well, here comes a big ol heaping helping of good ol' socialism. MMM, taste that yummy goodness. Why on Gods great green earth are we passing the biggest earmarked bill in the united states history. The whole bill is a earmark, its all about spending our way back to a healthy economy, really? Tax Cuts my left foot. The only thing we have heard is that everyone under 135,000 to 150,000 per couple per year will receive a extra 12 to 15 bucks a week on our paychecks. But here is my question, is the IRS going to bring the actual tax owed for a year down so that we are not paying that 400 per person back at the beginning of next year, if they don't then its really just a zero percent interest loan.

Then they say we are setting up a website to let you know how we are spending your money. "Federal building conversion to "high-performance green buildings." How in the hell does this stimulate the economy, the price for this 4.5 billion dollars. Come on people i don't have a problem putting some money into the economy, but spending money on this when we are supposed to be "STIMULATING THE ECONOMY." Next "National Institutes of Health fund to support scientific research. " That's in there too. 7.4 billion, we are giving this money to scientists to research mice growing cancer cells on there back, to see if it will be cured with the sap of a 4 leafed mukinfuch plant from south Indonesia. 650 million dollars for those dumb coupons to get a digital converter box, yep that stimulates alot.

Also turns out that they are saying that they will not nationalize banks. Kinda true, but not really. Taking a stake in banks who have crapped out because they cant figure out who to give loans to or not. Yeah that's nationalization of banks of a short term likeness.

OH yea and one more thing Mr. President Obama announced today, over the next 10 years he wants to save almost 700 billion dollars for national health care. Hmm, we gotta save money and not make government big and cut our budget by half in 3 years but we gotta do some stuff first, national health care for everyone in the USA, give banks alot of money to do nothing with. Give alot of people a tax cut when most of them don't pay taxes anyway(you may pay lets say 2000 dollars a year but when you file you receive 4000 back from the government because you have kids, then sorry but you don't pay taxes). And we got to spend 700 billion dollars to stimulate the economy, when really only about 350 billion of that will do anything that has to do with bringing the economy back from a recession, give me a break. If you want socialism just ask us and well give you a answer.

College Basketball Mayhem

OK so college basketball is ramping up to be a very good tournament this year. Blake Griffin and the Oklahoma Sooners are looking to easily make it to the elite 8 if not the final four, the man has 22 double doubles this year the most in the NCAA. Oklahoma averages 80 points a game and 39 rebounds per game with OU shooting almost .500 from the floor. This is one team i see making it very far in the tournament, the only thing is griffin needs to work on the free throw, that is one weakness he has and other teams go after that weakness late in the game, basically because there is a 50/50 chance he will or wont make it.

Another team is the UCONN Huskies, playing just great basketball, i can almost guarantee they will be in the elite 8, and the final four. Hasheem Thabeet is my favorite center in college right now, he is a beastly man, averages 13 points a game and over 10 rebounds a game, with limited turnovers, can make some big plays and can at times shoot a 10 or 15 footer every once in a while. What i like about UCONN is that they are very close in numbers to Oklahoma and they play in the Big East. Simply put right now the Big East has better basketball schools than the Big 12 does, that might hurt Oklahoma a little in the tournament, but personally i don't see it hurting them at all.

Now to a team i would put money on to be in the national championship game, The North Carolina Tar Heels. All of the starters led by Tyler Hansbrough,they all have over 11 points averaged per game. while the starting 5 don't have very many big rebound guys, they have a deep bench that can rebound and gives them 42 rebounds average per game. Tyler Hansbrough is a very very good forward. Averages over 21 points per game, gets his rebounds however their could be a little more, but Hansbrough is a shooting forward and not a real big rebounder like others in NCAA are. The man can drain a free-throw with a over .800 percent free throw shooter, so you don't want to foul him. North Carolina i almost betcha will be in the final four.

Now a couple teams to watch, Pittsburgh has a very solid offense and can score points off the bench, which gives a a starter or 2 a break to keep players fresh. Another is Illinois, they only score 65 points per game but they can make free throws late in the game no problem, that is the difference in some games. but there problem is they play in big 10, that could hurt them also in the tournament, because the big 10 is so bad this year. Another team is Missouri, they shoot very deep into there bench, i think like 9 guys on the team average over 5 points per game, that's not to bad. And they got some good free throw shooting guys on the team. last but not least in Duke, look i know they got blown out really bad by Clemson, and got beat by North Carolina, but the guys play good fundamental basketball, they pass it a couple three or 4 times per possession, and they make buckets. One thing that hurts them is they live and die by the 3-pointer, the team has attempted over 520 three pointers this year, that is a lot. Cant win pivotal games when you depend on the three pointer. If they stick to good passes(OH wait they don't have much of a big man, no wonder they depend so much on the three pointer, they got pretty much 4 guards on the floor at one time during the whole game)and they gotta get the ball inside to someone some how. But they gotta get away from all the three pointers.

There are some good basketball teams out there this year, i really think things are shaping up to be another super exciting month of march.

The night off

I had to work on my truck tonight, so i didn't get to post like i would have wanted to but either way, i am a little right now. I see that Ken Griffey Jr. went back to his old stomping grounds, the Seattle Mariners. Could be a good move, i just see the ownership pulling a fast one over the fans eyes however, everyone likes Griffey up there but he is definitely not the same Griffey. and i think they are trying to rekindle that love for the mariners like they had in the 90's. hey why don't we bring back good ol Jay Buhner. YEA right.

I'll also touch on a little NBA. I really like Chris Paul and the Hornets. there playing good basketball at the right time, and completely annihilated the Orlando Magic. Paul ended up with i think it was 43 points and 10 assists. pretty good night. I think we are seeing probably the best point in the NBA right now.

Also one more note before i get ready to watch some MLB Network, don't adopt Chimpanzee's, they will hurt you, there not people.

The Money in Nascar

I'm going to take a subject on that i hold it very close to my person. Nascar, i am a huge fan and a avid watcher every weekend, i follow it closely and have some favorite drivers that i follow closely as well. But i have a huge problem, with the way the that Fox Broadcasting, ESPN, and TNT and Nascar seem to almost make a joke out of the racing and the racing fan.

Digger? Are you serious, i wish they would cram Digger the douche bag gopher up their rear ends. Really....are you people truly serious about promoting a stupid gopher for a ground cam, that is mounted on the apron of the track. Its one sweet view of cars going around the track, but come on. i didn't have a problem last year with it, just for the fact they kept the dad nab gopher to its own home which was when they would cut to the camera, he would pop up and do his little thing, and we'd get to see some racing at apron level(the flat part of the race track for those of you that don't know what apron is). But know they are promoting this thing like its the next great thing in Nascar, I'm more pumped up about the kind of toilet paper that's in the porta-potties, than i am that stupid cartoon animal.

Daytona could have started at lets say 12:30 maybe 1:00 in the afternoon, but no we had to wait for Keith Urban, to play his little pretty Daytona 500 Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar. Come on guys, then you follow up with the most lackadaisical famous words in nascar, and we start the race, and here is what really sticks in my crawl. Because of all this malarkey going on before the race we get a rain shortened Daytona 500. I kinda felt cheated really i did. i understand why they stopped it, it didn't quit raining till like 10 at night, but this could have been avoided if they would have started earlier in the day. Now onto what i see as a pain

Why OH why is it that when someone spins out down in the grass, or burns a tire and has to go into the pits, we have to burn 4 laps and 5 to 6 minutes on a yellow flag that is spent strictly on commercial time. I could understand if it was a 5 or 6 car pile up ad there was sheet metal and fiberglass everywhere but a spin out, are you serious. I think i just answered my own question, they have that many yellow laps so they can cram as many freaking commercials down your throat as possible, and before people start thinking, " hmm. i really think there doing this for a reason." they restart the race from commercial a total of 1.2 seconds before the green flag restarts racing, then they go 5 or 6 laps and go to freaking commercial break again, then they come back and send it down to bobby cant do wrong and he explains on his little built to scale car that's upside down why this tire goes down at a certain time, then guess what 2 more laps of racing and commercial break.

Guess what, its all about the money anymore, and all sports are falling into this trap. The almighty dollar has taken over the love, passion, and enthusiasm that all Nascar fans have and sports fans in general have for the whatever respective sport they love. These companies and Nascar are more interested in getting us to pay attention to what product their pushing than whats going on in the race, or that sporting event we are at. Think about it, the next time you are at a sporting event pay attention to all the different ads, endorsements, and general persuasion that has nothing to do with the sporting event that you actually came to see, Preparation H, the brand that the NBA trust for Hemorrhoids. I'm serious it is almost coming to that. But as bad as it gets i cant help but love sports because it is something that brings people together and we can rejoice in something together no matter how bad things get in the real world.

Little tid bit of Info: In 2007 Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon made a combined 49 million dollars, with endorsements included. Thats just 2 drivers out of a consistent 43 to 45 drivers every year. Granted someone like Dave Blaney or Mike Wallace doesn't make that kind of money but they make some sort of a decent living. Its still big bucks. But ultimately, we are to blame because we are and will continue to eat up sports in this great land, we call the United States of America

A-Roid

Well, I'm back and this blog will be better than ever. Now lets get done to brass tacks. So I'm sitting here watching the Alex Rodriquez press conference, and i walk away with a couple of different takes.

He came out and sit down next to the man with the plan in, Brian New York. I figured so, its not like he is going to sit up there alone, sweating and looking around like what am i going to do. there going to make him as comfortable as possible up there while he is supposedly spilling the beans.

The only thing he told us that we didn't already know is that his cousin told him about it, and helped him inject it into god knows what area of the body. So you mean to tell me that they didn't know, what was happening, BULL. Alex Rodriquez knew exactly what he was doing. He was proposed with something that would give him more energy(an edge on everyone else=performance enhancing)and he took it. Don't play dumb Alex, you knew what you were doing. There is a reaction for every action taken.

Personally i think he is still in damage control mode. And that's fine with me, if he feels he still has to play that game. But there was a couple things he easily could have done.

1. When you're asked the question about the what parents could tell their kids about this.

How about its bad, i should have never done any of this, and you see how people are making an example out of me, as they should, i did a very bad thing, and later in the future I'm sure it will have a effect on my health in the long run, but right now i don't know what that might be. So what I'm saying is to the kids of the world who love baseball and will listen or are listening to this right now. Drugs do not improve anything in the long run, it only makes it worse in the long run, and when you're a public figure like i am you have to set an example to all the people who look up to me, and i failed at that tremendously. That's what he should have said instead of a well me and some dude no one knows really is gonna go talk to groups of kids, what a b.s. answer, cause more kids are gonna see this than they will him in them groups.

Last but not least, i actually think in the end this will all blow over for the most part until lets say 15 years from now when he goes up for the Hall of Fame. then here we go again. but until then i think we will still hear about it when a game is on TV or when the all star week hits, you might hear some rumblings about it. but i think for the most part he's some what respectable about the issue, not like douche bag Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens or Mark Mcgwire.

World Series Revised

I think the Angels have stole the Red Sox's thunder as far as a team that can go to the world series, the freaking Angels pick up Mark Texeira, wow, i mean he is awesome he just played for Atlanta, who are a bunch of scrub-a-doo's this year and maybe for a couple to come, anyway, i think if John Lackey and that pitching staff can stay together as a staff and more importantly teammates, that staff and there defense will differently help them get to the world series, now that Texeria will be hitting either in front of or behind Vlad Guerrero, there is a big 1-2 punch to help, take them all the way, the team just doesn't have one great player, but they have a bunch of aggressive good players, and that wins championships, this team is the real deal, and so is the angels on taken the American League to the world series