This week in MMA is a weekly feature submitted by Kyle Norton.
UFC Fight Night 13 – KenFlow – J-Lau
With WEC 33 wrapped up, Zuffa will launch its next event in five days. UFC Fight Night 13 is headlined by a lightweight showdown between BJJ black belt and Sityodtong Muay Thai fighter Kenny Florian and BJ Penn understudy Joe Lauzon. There are a number of great fights on the card, which could all potentially be main events. A more in depth breakdown will follow.
More after the jump!
I have a new article up over at Hoops Addict looking at how the NBA’s D-League can develop from a business and basketball perspective to best achieve its purpose.
This week’s Podcast features Stu Wilkinson as a guest and we really jump all over the place, talking about the Sweet 16, Pittsburgh Pirates baseball and, of course, Wrestlemania.
Guest: Stu Wilkinson
Topics: Sweet 16, Pittsburgh Pirates, Wrestlemania
Play it here.
Additionally, as we hit Weekend 2 of March Madness, here are the top 5 (of 45) from the ODC Madness Pool:
1. Tie – Dave Power and “Love the Drake”
3. Silky Johnson
4. Tie – Rob Shaw and “How We Do”
*I’m 18th but have a high Possible Points total and my Final Four still in tact. I’m a Cinderella pick to win it, for sure. And for the record, I have the same Final Four, Finals, and Champion as Gus Johnson.*
Hey everyone, just thought I’d make you all aware that for the rest of the season I will be doing Southeast Division (NBA) recaps on Tuesdays for About.com’s Pro Basketball page. You can check my debut out here.
Mar 26
This article has been submitted by Jack Forsayeth. With the MLB season just around the corner, you can expect the last two of these divisional previews in the next week.
I was going to rotate between AL and NL, but people seem to want the NL East next. This is good, because then I can end with the AL East and Central. This is probably the easiest division to predict but maybe not. Starting from the bottom…
Washington Nationals
It is tough to call who will end up at the bottom of the division but I think it will be the Nats. They are going to really struggle this year. They have some good young guys in the lineup with Ryan Zimmerman and Lastings Milledge but they lack at almost every other position. Christian Guzman and Ronnie Belliard are average middle infielders and Lo Duca behind the plate will help this year, but guys like Wily Mo Pena, Austin Kearns, and Dmitri Young in the heart of the order around Zimmerman will simply not cut it in this division.
More after the jump!
This is just unreal. I wonder if he’d have the balls to try this in a real game, perhaps over a second baseman trying to swipe 2nd…
This article has been submitted by Stu Wilkinson (this week’s Podcast guest), and is a regular Wednesday feature.
I’d like to offer my condolences to Mark Few and Greg Paulus, who were obviously the first victims of what will become the Gary Roberts Wednesday Curse. Despite the dangers of putting the curse on one of my favorite college basketball players, this simply must be an NCAA Tournament themed edition of the well-respected and oft-praised GRW. I thought for a little bit about which tournament standout to go with, but with apologies to Scottie Reynolds and Russell Robinson, the man of the week is Joey Dorsey of the Memphis ‘Paper’ Tigers. Derrick Rose gets all the NBA hype, and Chris Douglas-Roberts gets the national awards and accolades, but Dorsey is easily my favorite player on the Memphis Tigers, and probably one of the baddest men on the planet to boot.
More after the jump!
Mar 25
Carl English is a professional basketball player you may not have heard of. Coming from a small town in Newfoundland and dealing with tragedy at a young age, Carl’s development as a person and basketball player is a great story. Like most other serious ballers, Carl played NCAA Division-I ball and tried his luck at the NBA. When he didn’t make the Indiana Pacers in 2003 or the Seattle Supersonics in 2004, he jumped from the D-League to Euroleague Basketball. In Croatia last season, in Spain this season, and over the past few years on the Canadian national team, Carl has developed his game to become a premier international player. I had the luxury of interviewing him recently, and we spoke about life as an international player, the Canadian national team, and Carl’s chances of fulfilling the NBA dream.
Blake: Let’s start at the beginning. I’ve heard a story that while living with your aunt and uncle in Patrick’s Cove, Newfoundland, you developed your game by shooting jump shots on the side of the highway. Is this a true story? How hard was it to stay involved in basketball in such a small community?
Carl: That’s a true story, yes. We didn’t have a basketball court or anything in town and we only had one practice a week in the high school gym because the coach wasn’t from the area. So I built a hoop on the side of the road and we’d play there and just move for traffic.
And it wasn’t hard to stay involved, I just had a love and passion for it. I never got tired of it or bored, it was always something for me to do. Everywhere is different but it just comes down to your dedication and basketball is what I wanted to do.
More after the jump!
Mar 25
This article has been submitted by Alex Pennycook.
As the NHL regular season wraps up the big question on everyone’s mind is what is it going to take for the Toronto Maple Leafs to make the playoffs. Currently the Leafs sit in 12th place in the tight Eastern conference but are only 4 points behind the 8th place Bruins with 6 games left. The situation is bleak at best, but for everyone in Toronto you have to BELEAF.
After an incredible weekend performance without their top two scorers, Nik Antropov and captain Mats “I want to die a Leaf” Sundin, Toronto pulled out two gutsy wins to get a much needed 4 points and improved to 12-4-1 in their last 17 games. On Friday night, Toronto jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead. After they took an atrocious 7 penalties in a row they still found themselves in front 2-1 thanks to superb goaltending from team MVP Vesa Toskala and amazing penalty killing from Stajan, McCabe and Kubina. The momentum they built up from these kills helped pace them to a 4-1 victory. Then they traveled to Ottawa for another installment of the battle of Ontario. The Leafs battled back after falling behind twice and came out with a gutsy 5-4 win to pull within 4 points of the Bruins.
More after the jump!
Mar 25
This one comes via Skeets at Ball Don’t Lie. Had me in stitches pretty badly, otherwise I would wait a day or two to blatantly steal someone else’s video.
