There's Your Karma, Ripe As Peaches

George Foreman Was Drugged Before Getting KTFO

In the most laughable case of denial in sports, George Foreman is now claiming that he was secretly drugged prior to 1974's Rumble in the Jungle - the heavyweight title bout against Muhammad Ali in Kinsasha, Zaire. 

Foreman believes his trainer gave him a tainted cup of water (he only remembers it as being "strange-tasting") just prior to the fight:

"I almost spit it out ... Man, I know this water has medicine in it," Foreman told his trainer at the time, according to his book. "I climbed into the ring with that medicinal taste still lingering in my mouth ... After the third round, I was as tired as if I had fought 15 rounds. What's going on here? Did someone slip a drug in my water?"

No, George. Muhammed Ali rope-a-doped you to death in oven-like heat until you'd punched yourself into exhaustion. And when you were finally gassed, he dotted your face up with combinations before busting you in the jaw and sending you head first into the canvas. How hard is it to wrap your brain around that result?

If you're Foreman, I know it's probably easier to think that one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century - and likely all time - was rigged.. that there exists some plausible explanation for why you - the single greatest puncher in heavyweight history, the man that turned Joe Frazier into a beaten child in two rounds - lost a fight because your opponent essentially allowed you to punch yourself into oblivion. But there is none. Ali's strategy was legal and if Foreman had been poisoned, he would have gone down long before the 8th.

In the end, it comes down to this - did you win? If not, sell your grills and shut your mouth. It's been 30 years.

As a side note, I can't help but be amused at the title of Foreman's memoir, "God in My Corner." Say George, where was God when your trainer slipped you that mickey finn? Maybe he was in Ali's corner working on a conversion.

Viva De La Hoya!

Since that night in Las Vegas, I've been hopelessly drawn to the most brutal of sports. Foolishly, many believe that boxing isn't an athletic competition but a showcase of barbaric corruption that brings the masses to that primitive place in their souls and feeds their lust for bloodsport.

But boxing is the closest any athletic contest comes to purity. It is a nasty reflection of life, rife with pain and failure, greed and hate, dishonesty and corruption. For the worthy, it offers pride and grace, honor and nobility, but the worthy are few and far between.

All my love for soccer, football, baseball, and basketball does not change the fact that boxing has always been my favorite. The sport has declined in recent years but it remains a beautiful display of determination, durability, and power that demands constant training of both the body and the mind. Miss a workout, skip some roadwork, waste some time partying and chasing wool, and you'll be exposed in the ring.

Unlike team sports, where ineffectiveness and laziness are rewarded by a teammate picking up the slack, all a fighter has is himself, and no matter how badly he's losing, he's still in the game. If a team is down by three touchdowns with 3 minutes to go, they need four, Peyton Manning, and some help from God. But in boxing, a fighter can lose 9 straight rounds but only needs one punch, that knockout blow, to shift the tide.

How can you not love that? The footwork, the dips, slips, bumps, and pushes... The sweet science is poetry in motion and there's nothing better in sport than watching two professionals with a true understanding of their trade putting on a show. Tonight's bout between Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. may be the sweetest of them all.

Since the date was announced months ago, I've begged and begged my father to get tickets and about a month and a half ago, he came through - just like he always does. Since then, the wait for May 5 has been almost too much to bear but now that the day is finally here and we're in Vegas yet again, things feel a bit, I don't know, bittersweet. Less than six hours remain before my dad and I are thirteen rows away from watching the greatest fight twenty years. But less than six hours also remain before the last great fight of a dying sport is under way. As excited as I am for things to get started, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness in knowing that by the time midnight rolls around, the sport of boxing that I have grown to know and love - a sport that has provided some of the great memories of my life - will be gone.

Heart Prediction: de la Hoya by TKO
Head Prediction: Mayweather in a decision 

They Called You 'Sugar' Cause You Gave It Out... So Sweet

I’m guessing that I'm the only person around here that watched the Mosley-Collazo fight on HBO Saturday night, yah? … I know, I know – boxing isn’t nearly as cool as MMA; boxing sucks; it’s not 1980 anymore; blah blah blah. I hear you but it’s just not sinking in. I will be loyal to boxing for the rest of my days and nothing can be said that will convince me of MMA’s superiority.

Anyway, if you come to my house on Saturdays, you know that it’s fight night. And this past week, we had Sugar Shane Mosley and Luis Collazo squaring off for the WBC Welterweight title. But the mood grew bleak about a minute before the two touched gloves when Larry Merchant actually said:

"When Callazo's handlers said the other day that sugar melts under heat, Jack Mosley (Sugar's dad and trainer) responded that sugar can give you diabetes and is bad for the heart... one of them (dramatic Larry Merchant-esque pause) has to be wrong."

Oh, ya think, Larry, you self-righteous, senile old fuck!! I want to clock you in the face. You'd think Jim Lampley would be good for it but he's too busy beating on his lady friends. Christ.

Before Mosley foolishly upped sticks to the junior middleweight division a few years ago, he was a joy to watch. Fast, fluid, and powerful, he was the kind of fighter that made all the brutality look beautiful. He was the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing and even when he took down Oscar de la Hoya (my then-favorite) in a 12-round decision, I couldn’t help but love and appreciate his style. 

But then he started putting on muscle mass and even more muscle mass. It wasn’t long before his name came up in the BALCO scandal, which, given the looks of him, wasn’t too surprising… he could have benched 80 pounds with his ear lobes alone.

Too tight to punch accurately or throw combinations, he settled for the Mike Tyson method – loading up for single blasts under the theory that bigger men required bigger power. Though he beat de la Hoya for a second time to become one of the few boxers to reign in three divisions, he got his ass handed to him twice by Winky Wright. Eventually he came back to his home at 147 and here we are.

Though Mosley looked good in his bout against Fernando Vargas last year, I thought he’d go down on Saturday. Collazo was a counter-punching southpaw with youth on his side. No matter how good Mosley said he was feeling, Collazo would jab, jab, and jab again until Mosley simply wore out. And at 35-years-old, what could Mosley possibly do to prevent it?

Beat his ass – that’s what he could do. And that’s what we happened. Mosley destroyed Collazo in a 12-round unanimous decision, knocking him down once and lighting him up like an unworthy chump in each successive round.

Shame on me for expecting a sluggish, aging Mosley. He turned back the clock and delivered an impressive, dominating performance. Mosley’s footwork and combinations were dazzling; he sported quick hands, harder punches, and a zip, passion, and energy unseen in years.

Collazo had a few eye-catching punches and tried to throw the jab so successful against Ricky Hatton but Mosley ducked them, got to the inside, and dotted up Collazo’s face and body with three-punch combinations. It was brutal. And it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting out of a boxing match since Floyd Mayweather Jr beat Arturo Gatti into a bloody mess nearly two years ago. I don’t know who Mosley has next but I’m looking forward to it… After Mayweather and de la Hoya retire, at least somebody will be left that knows what he’s doing.

Baldomir vs. Mayweather: Pay-Per-View Ripoff

Last year, my dad took me to the Mayweather/Gatti fight, where we witnessed a nasty beatdown from the 7th row. I knew Pretty Boy's next step was the Welterweight WBC crown, so I hoped to fly to Las Vegas with my dad for the action. As luck would have it, my job got in the way and I had to stay around here.

But I couldn't complain - a title fight between a modern-day Cinderella man and the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world on a 60" plasma. It could be a lot worse.

So after the game, we ordered the fight, a few kegs, a lot of pizza, and set up a viewing party at $10 a head. I didn't know about anyone else, but I was expecting a helluva fight.

Before the action began, I called a 12-round, unanimous decision in Mayweather's favor but was sure Baldomir would make it entertaining. I saw what he did to Zab Judah and Arturo Gatti. The Argentinian isn't a puncher with true KO power but he's gritty, durable, and has a chin made of stone. Mayweather lacked the power to bring him down the way pound-for-pounders of old could. If Baldomir could get him on the ropes and unleash a furied, sustained assault on the body, Floyd could make a few mistakes, allowing Baldomir to capitalize and make a run at a great finish.

Sadly, the contender thought too much of himself and too little of his opponent, convinced that natural strength alone would nullify lightning-quick speed and ability.

During the first round, I thought Baldomir looked tentative because he was trying to feel out the situation.  But it became readily apparent that he looked slow because he was doing the last thing a man in his position should -- engaging in a thinking man's game. Floyd Mayweather Jr is too fast and skilled for a guy who moves like Unfrozen Caveman Boxer to handle. You don't box guys like Mayweather; you come correct with a balls to the wall attack and hope for the best.

By the end of the first round, Baldomir had a bloodied nose and cut above his left eye. And as you can guess, things went from bad to worse. Amazingly, it took four more rounds before he realized his strategy was a one-way ticket back to feather-dusting sales in Argentina.

At least, I think it was four rounds... that's how long it took for the "Oh fuck" expression to settle across his face.

Were Baldomir up against any other boxer, he could have turned it around. But Mayweather was boxing on a different plane. He threw too many punches from too many angles and left the Argentinian looking sluggish and overwhelmed. His only answer to Mayweather's hit and run, defensive style were these spectacular whiffs, which occurred at a frequency that would make Jeff Francouer blush.

The fight got so boring that in the 7th round, Larry Merchant - whose inane babbling has reached a head - started rolling out the baseball references:

"So far through 7 innings we have a Kenny Rogers style shutout."

Someone must've written that joke for Merchant. It takes him 45 seconds to voice the most basic of sentences. I refuse to believe this attempt at an amusing metaphor was produced under his own brain power... he was probably reading Jim Lampley's cards.

In any case, it was around this time that Mayweather started coasting. He dipped in here and there for a jab or two, connected on a few straight righthands, and, when we were lucky, a half-hearted attempt at a combination. By the 11th round, the boobirds were in full force, both at the fight and my house.

At the conclusion, Mayweather revealed that he hurt his right hand sometime in the 6th round, which limited his ability to throw punches. But the truth is - he wasn't doing much before the 6th anyway, so that's not much of an excuse. 

This fight was worth about $5 of the $50 pricetag until Larry Merchant got owned.

LM: You've often talked about boxing as entertainment. You came to the ring as a gladiator, but do you think this is particualrly entertaining? There were people booing and leaving their seats after the 10th and 11th rounds...

FM: You always give me a hard time, you never give me the credit I deserve. You're just a commentator; stick to commentating... let me do the fighting. I'm the best at what i do... Don't always be a critic and be so negative. Let's be positive. I got the victory... You've always got your fingers crossed, you're hopin and wishing a fighter can beat me... You always talk, let me do the talking! Larry Merchant's just a commentator, he dont' know nothin about boxing!

(Merchant hemmed and hawed through all of that and then regrouped)

LM: Are you looking forward to fighting Oscar de la Hoya? Do you think this fight will get him in the ring with you?

FM: If Oscar de la Hoya wants to leave by fighting the best, bring it on, and I'll tax that ass too!

LM: *jaw drops.. drooling ensues* 

So in the end, we got our drama. Larry Merchant is an abomination and Floyd Mayweather punched him in the mouth with criticism that I've been dying to deliver for years. That was nearly worth the remaining $45!

That said, I'm not wasting $50 to watch another fight that's over before it even begins. Floyd Mayweather Jr is an unbelievable talent but I'm sick of such underwhelming victories. I want a show, god dammit! I want punches! I want exchanges! I want a fucking brawl! And until HBO can produce quality bouts on regular broadcasts, they shouldn't have the nerve to put them on pay-per-view.

Two thumbs down, HBO. I only wish I had more hands to give this broadcast four thumbs down.

The GOP: Party of Lincoln, Reagan, and... Mike Tyson

You've all seen Dumbo, right? Do you remember when the crows sang "When I See An Elephant Fly" after Timothy, the mouse, concluded that Dumbo must've flown into the tree after a night of drunken excess?

I heard a fireside chat,
I saw a baseball bat
And I just laughed till I thought I'd die.
But I'd been done seen about everything
When I see an elephant fly. 

No? Anyone? I suppose that reference was a stretch. But thanks to Mike Tyson, we are seeing the real life equivalent of a pachyderm taking flight:

The Baddest Man on the Planet is on the stump for the the Grand Old Party.

That's right. Mike Tyson - convicted rapist, possible cannibal, and resident of Bolivian - is on the campaign trail, convincing citizens of Maryland to vote for his ex-brother-in law, Lt. Governor Michael Steele, in the race for the US Senate.

While at a Steele function, Kid Dynamite was clad in a white and blue "Steele for U.S. Senate" t-shirt, stating that while he used to think black Republicans were "sellouts," he's done his due diligence in researching the issues and the party.

"We have to open our eyes more."

Is this the bizarro world? Is up, down? Is black, white? Are we actually on Htrae?

Well, maybe not. Brace yourselves! I'm about to work out a theory.

Put the GOP's moralistic agenda aside for a moment and consider that this is an economic issue.

Once one becomes rich, the goal is to maintain said level of wealth while working to increase it over time. And when one rises from poverty to having millions in the bank, spacious homes across the country, and budding entrepreneurial ventures, free-market policies supporting limited regulation, capitalism, and economic liberalism suddenly become matters of import. As such,
it's likely that this individual's views will shift to a more western brand of conservatism.

Normally, I wouldn't imagine this phenomenon operating in reverse but we're talking about Mike Tyson. Could it happen any other way?

Iron Mike has gone from being the baddest man on the planet to the posterboy for the human shame spiral. The time for his interest in the conservative ideal to be piqued was in the days after Cus D'Amato died and before Don King, Rory Holloway, and John Horne began stealing his money. But it never happened and he spent 20 years making dreadful personal and financial errors, went bankrupt, and is presently getting nickel and dimed by the federal government.

But now, reduced to the role of the dancing bear at the county fair, his eyes have opened to the party that emphasizes the role of personal decision making in fostering economic prosperity...

Given his relationship with the candidate, it's easy to be suspicious. But Mike Tyson is a man of convictions and even though he'll probably get mad at the Republicans next week and threaten to eat their hearts and their children, I'm gonna buy it.

... 

I don't know what idiots would look to Mike Tyson for political advice but kudos to him for helping to rock the vote. That said, I live and work in this country for a large portion of the year, and it's not comforting to know a man running on the Iron Mike Seal of Approval could enter the Senate this January but I suppose Steele can't make things worse than they already are. Maybe he can get Tyson to hang out in the chamber and intimidate votes out of others.

"I'm on the Zoloft to keep from killing y'all... but I won't be anymore if you don't change your vote to yes, motherfucker!" 

HT: Off Wing Opinion

The Missing Link Retains WBA Heavyweight Title

Boxing is far and away my favorite sport, so I tuned in to HBO on Saturday night with a fair amount of drunken enthusiasm to watch Nikolai Valuev, history’s largest heavyweight champion, in his American debut against lowly Monte Barrett.

Valuev, who is now controlled by Don King, was looking to legitimize his reign by beating a relatively known fighter in Chicago while keeping his chase for Rocky Marciano's undefeated record in tact.

• Side note: It is absolutely disgusting to me that Valuev is 4 fights away from Marciano's record having padded his own with bums and tomato cans at every step of the way. Keep in mind that Valuev has fought no one - not even Wladimir Klitsccko or Calvin Brock. The last heavyweight to come close to Marciano was Larry Holmes, who went 48-0 before losing to Michael Spinks in 1985. Twenty of the fights in that streak were title defenses against the likes of Muhammed Ali, Ernie Shavers, and Gerry Cooney - you know, real fighters. But let's get back on topic...
  

Monte "Two Gunz" Barrett, who hadn't fought in 14 months and also stood nine inches shorter and 106 pounds lighter than Valuev, was the perfect schmuck for this campaign and it showed straight away.

I know HBO said this was boxing and with Jim Lampley, the braindead Larry Merchant, and Michael Buffer in place, it certainly looked like it should have been boxing. But what we were treated to wasn't boxing; it was some type of David & Goliath battle between the Missing Link and an able-bodied but sluggish man from the 21st century.

The best thing I can liken it to is Westley's wrestling match with Fezzik (Andre the Giant) in The Princess Bride, except, in the end, Barrett wasn't able to jump on Valuev's back and disable him with a sleeper hold.

Things started well enough, as Barrett rocked Valuev with a looping overhand right that caused the champ's legs to buckle. But Two Gunz most effective shot proved to be his last, as he immediately retreated into this ridiculous strategy of throwing sloppy right hands and holding on for dear life. And while he tried to actually fight the Russian for about a minute in the fourth round, the match was all Valuev. What's sad is Valuev wasn't doing anything remarkable... he looked belabored to actually lift his hands up to fight but showed that it's not too hard to beat a man down when your bunches, by default, land in the middle of your opponent's noggin.

By the 8th round, things were a mess, as Barrett got dropped to the canvas for the first time with a short right. It happened again - twice actually - in the 11th when Valuev put all of his might into another right and then again later on with a solid left.

Sadly, that was all she wrote.

I was hoping that Valuev would rise to the occasion in this fight even though his opponent had never managed to rise to the occasional in any major bout but this wasn't even close.

There are currently four heavyweight titleholders running around and this one might be the most limited of the bunch (and of all time).

With a repetoire consisting solely of stamina, I imagine you could go back in time, kidnap Cro-Magnon man, and even after you took away his club, he'd be just as good. 

What a colossal waste of time this turned out to be. Had I known we were about to be treated to 11 rounds of sloppy, painfully unskilled fighting, I would have flipped over to ESPN for a couple episodes of "The Contender."

Mayweather Viciously Destroys Gatti

I flashed back to the countless drinking races I've been in, cracked my neck, and foolishly demonstrated what I've been doing the past few years. My record at school still stands at 12 ounces in 3.18 seconds, unspilled. I didn't touch it tonight but I made the mistake of licking my lips and smiling in triumph like I had.

It wasn't until a nearby man congratulated me on my skill ["That was like you opened up your throat!"] that I stole a glance at my dad and saw his mouth hanging open. Trouble was brewin. Luckily, Maussa, a fighter who might best be described as an awkward slugger, then landed an absolutely brutal left hook, putting "Vicious" Vivian on his arse and diverting my father's attention. The second the fight was over, I ran away to escape the inevitable questioning of my "skill" and didn't return for 20 minutes.

When I got back to my seat, Boardwalk Hall had become electric. The entire crowd was pro-Gatti; the chants of his name grew louder by the minute and if Mayweather had fans besides Allen Iverson, they weren't making their presence known. The fight got started smoothly enough and through the 1st round, I truly believed that Gatti could pull out a victory. I knew he could keep up with Mayweather at the very least, and if he could lure Pretty Boy into a brawl, he could manage a knockout. But this fight proved as lopsided as Mayweather was impressive.

Mayweather lit Gatti up with every combination from every possible angle and danced out of danger, so quickly, so easily, that comparing him to Sugar Ray Leonard in that regard would understate his performance.

Mayweather was too slick, too fast, and, surprisingly, too powerful. To make matters worse, he put together a fight of tactical brilliance that helped him outslug one of boxing's best sluggers.

Whether on offense or defense (which was rare), Mayweather's freakish quickness and ferocity left the crowd in stunned silence for 6 rounds.

But then Gatti, eyes nearly swollen shut, didn't answer the bell for the 7th round and it all came to an end - a merciful end.

Soon after leaving Boardwalk, I tried to make a post to recount what I'd just witnessed, but nothing came to mind other than "goddamn." And now, hours later, all that can really be said is that in the end, there was no thunder. The only thing Gatti ever had on his side was the crowd, as his will was no match for Pretty Boy's skill.

This is the most devastating, non-heavyweight title fight that I have ever seen. It was an absolute slaughter. Wright-Trinidad and Hopkins-de la Hoya were truly great matches where the unappreciated fighter toppled the heralded champion but neither Wright nor Hopkins can boast this level of frightful mastery over their opponents.

I went into Boardwalk knowing that Mayweather was a good fighter, but I left assured that he is the next great one.

Floyd Mayweather put on a dazzling clinic of epic proportions and beat the most popular boxer of this era into abject submission... And it was a breathtaking performance to watch.

I Love the Sweet Science

Since then, I've been hopelessly drawn to the most brutal of sports. Foolishly, many believe that boxing isn't an athletic competition but a showcase of barbaric corruption that brings the masses to that primitive place in their souls and feeds their lust for bloodsport.

But boxing is the closest any athletic contest comes to purity. It is a nasty reflection of life, rife with pain and failure, greed and hate, dishonesty and corruption. For the worthy, it offers pride and grace, honor and nobility, but the worthy are few and far between.

All my love for soccer, football, baseball, and basketball does not change the fact that boxing has always been my favorite. The sport has declined in recent years but it remains a beautiful display of determination, durability, and power that demands constant training of both the body and the mind. Miss a workout, skip some roadwork, waste some time partying and chasing wool, and you'll be exposed in the ring.

Unlike team sports, where ineffectiveness and laziness are rewarded by a teammate picking up the slack, all a fighter has is himself, and no matter how badly he's losing, he's still in the game. If a team is down by three touchdowns with 3 minutes to go, they need four, Peyton Manning, and some help from God. But in boxing, a fighter can lose 9 straight rounds but only needs one punch, that knockout blow, to shift the tide.

How can you not love that? The footwork, the dips, slips, bumps, and pushes... The sweet science is poetry in motion and there's nothing better in sport than watching two professionals with a true understanding of their trade putting on a show. And tomorrow, my dad and I are going to Atlantic City to watch Arturo "Thunder" Gatti put his Super Lightweight Championship on the line when he challenges boxing's best pound-for-pound fighter, #1 ranked contender "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather.

I'll be in the 7th row, just far enough away to avoid flying sweat. This will be a beautiful fight to watch.

Mike Tyson Ate Van Gogh's Ear

To think, the art history books and critics have been lying to us all this time! The bastards.

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