- Faced with a battle it was losing and losing badly, the sport of boxing may finally be adapting and finding a way to survive while competing against the rising phenomenon that is mixed martial arts. With MMA skyrocketing in popularity and boxing becoming an afterthought for all but the most hardcore fans, one of boxing’s most famous faces is embracing MMA and combining it in a single event with boxing for the first time. Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, one of the leading boxing promotional companies in the world, is branching out into mixed martial arts. Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer announced Saturday at a news conference at the MGM Grand that the company Affliction, a fledgling MMA promoter and apparel company known for its hip T-shirts, will partner 50-50 on at least four pay-per-view shows next year that will include boxing matches and MMA fights on the same card. This isn't the first time such a promotion has happened, but it is the first at the elite level of the sport of boxing. “We have started looking at mixed martial arts and we finally decided to throw our hat into the mixed martial arts ring,” Schaefer said. “I think there are some tremendous opportunities for crossover promotions and to team up with an iconic brand such as Affliction is a big step for us.” The deal seems like a natural fit, since Affliction’s apparel is popular with many MMA fighters and boxers such as Kelly Pavlik and Bernard Hopkins. Golden Boy Promotions and Affliction actually tried to team up when an Affliction pay-per-view was canceled recently, with Golden Boy attempting to have the main event rescheduled as part of the Oct. 18 Pavlik-Hopkins HBO PPV card. Unfortunately, small-minded, short-sighted co-promoter Top Rank and HBO rejected the idea. “They presented us with the option and we respectfully declined,” HBO PPV chief Mark Taffet stated. As you might expect, there is a merchandising facet of this deal, with Affliction producing a line of event T-shirts for Golden Boy fights to sell at retail locations and at the fight. For old-school boxing fans, this might be a jarring development, but the truth is that boxing is no longer a premier sport and if it hopes to survive and thrive again, it’s going to have to grow and adapt like Golden Boy Promotions is attempting to do……
- Don’t give up, America. If we keep at this, sooner or later, we’ll find something Michael Phelps isn't good at. Sure, he’s the best swimmer in the world, a top-flight pitch man for all kinds of products and now he managed to pull Saturday Night Live’s best premiere ratings in seven years, bringing in a 7.4 household rating/18 share in the 55 metered markets. Although he wasn’t the most polished, slick host the show has ever had (though he was better than some of the tools who have hosted before), Tina Fey's return, a cameo by William Shatner and a performance by rapper Lil Wayne still generated the a huge buzz for the show, which jumped the shark a decade ago but refuses to go away. The episode was SNL's most-watched edition since Dec. 17, 2002, when inventor of the Internet and aspiring savior of the environment/former vice president Al Gore hosted. What’s funny about the strong ratings Phelps brought in is the fact that his numbers were a 64 percent increase over last year's LeBron James-hosted premiere. James is Mr. Media Savvy, the aspiring billionaire who wants to be the best at everything and become a global icon, yet here he is being bested by a swimmer. Just funny, that’s all……
- Now here’s a dog that’s impossible to dislike. Budd, an 18-month old German shepherd, saved the life of owner Joe Stalnaker by calling 911 when Stalnaker suffered a severe seizure. Stalnaker and his dog reside in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the retired military man has lived since being involved in a military accident ten years ago that severely injured part of his brain, leaving him prone to potentially fatal seizures. With exactly this type of situation in mind, an organization called Paws With a Cause, an assistance animal adoption service, trained Buddy to call 911 when his owner suffers seizures and placed the dog with Stalnaker. So when a seizure hit Wednesday morning, Buddy grabbed the phone and whimpered for help when the dispatcher answered. Chris Trott, a veteran police operator, heard a cry from Buddy and sent an ambulance.
Stalnaker says Buddy is to recognize when he is having a seizure and respond by grabbing the phone and bringing it to him. “He doesn't actually sit there and dial 911, but whenever he picks up the phone, one of his teeth inevitably hits the number, and if it's held down for more than three seconds, it dials the police department,” Stalnaker said. When Buddy hears the operator, he puts the phone down and whimpers as if he's in distress. With Stalnaker’s address in the emergency response system and specially designated because of his condition, the 911 system matches the call to the address and dispatches emergency help. Trott stayed on the phone with Buddy until she heard paramedics arrive, less than three minutes after the dog had placed the call. Buddy then rode in the ambulance with Stalnaker to the hospital, and two days later both of them were back home. Well done, Buddy, here’s hoping you get an extra rawhide and chew toy out of this one…
- Death and danger were all around in the third installment of this season of Prison Break, along with a pinch of torture. The first death is one we learned of last week, Bruce Bennett, but news of his demise reached Michael Scofield and his convict crew in L.A., most importantly Sara Tancredi. When Sara learns out Bruce’s murder by company hitman Wyatt, she goes AWOL and ends up in a bar in San Pedro, pouring out her heart to the bartender and debating whether or not to have a drink for the first time in three years, three months. Ultimately, it’s not the alcohol that does Sara in. As she laments Bruce’s death, a sleazeball at down the bar tries to hit on her, then steals a credit card belonging to Bruce Bennett from Sara’s bag. When he uses it, the card pops up on the Company’s radar and Wyatt makes a beeline for the bar. There, he’s able to track down Sara as she leaves and begin tailing her. Unfortunately for Sara, she’s mostly on her own because while Michael is there for her, he also has to be about the business of finding the next of the six cards comprising Scylla, the Company’s “little black book.” That quest starts with dissecting the video clip he took on his cell phone at the end of the last episode while staking out a meeting at the Newport Beach power plant where all six card holders were present. Picking license plate info from the video directs Michael and his team to the Turkish ambassador in L.A., but when they tail his car and try to copy the card using tech ace Roland’s wireless hard drive device, the copy fails in the middle of the transfer even though the car Michael, Linc, Mahone and Sucre are in is within a few feet of the ambassador. It’s then they realize that the ambassador isn't the card holder; it’s his wife. In finding that out, Linc makes eye contact with one of the ambassador’s wife’s security guards. That proves to be a problem later on, when the same guard recognizes Linc again. That spotting comes when Linc, Michael, Mahone, Sucre and Brad Bellick crash a reception for a charity benefiting the families of policemen killed in the line of duty because it’s their only shot to get near the ambassador’s wife and her Scylla card before she leaves town. By hiding Roland’s wireless device under the able where the ambassador’s wife is supposed to sit, Michael appears to have things in hand. However, when her lead security guard spots Linc, the Company decides it’s too dangerous for her to stay at the reception and orders her to leave immediately. As Linc flees in the hopes of keeping the operation alive without him present, the lead security guard tracks him down, IDs him and is about to shoot him when Bellick and Sucre, responding to Linc’s distress call just made, show up and together, they take out the guard, with Linc fatally stabbing him to finish things off. Michael decides to use to guard’s death as an opening, allowing his body to be discovered and then approaching the ambassador’s wife with Mahone, telling another of her guards that he needs to come ID the body of the dead guard while Michael stays with the ambassador’s wife. That gives him time to have the wireless device, which he retrieved, near the Scylla card in her purse. The card is copied and two of the six cards are now in the possession of Scofield and crew. With that in mind, Bellick also began pressing Michael to develop a plan for the second part of their operation - breaking into Company headquarters once they have all six cards. Michael is focused on obtaining the cards, but the break-in looms. Also looming is T-Bag, who is now in L.A. and stepping into the role of Cole Pfeiffer, the man James Whistler was supposed to pose as before he was murdered in the season premiere. This week, T-Bag began his first day of work at Gate Industries, i.e. the location of the Company HQ. He is met first by a smokin’ hot secretary (Lindsay from The O.C.) that you know he will eventually try to sleep with. He’s then shown to his plush corner office and learns along the way that Cole Pfeiffer is apparently a sales hero for Gate who has broken every sales record at the company. T-Bag also makes a regular habit of referring to messages scrawled in the bird watching book Whistler dropped while escaping SONA in last season’s finale. One such entry clearly refers to a phone message already waiting for T-Bag when he shows up at Gate, but he’s left to decipher what “Xing” means. His troubles don’t end there; a run-in with Michael and Linc outside the building lets the cat out of the bag about T-Bag’s presence in L.A. However, building security happen by the scene of the altercation and the interruption forces Michael and Linc to let T-Bag go so they don’t get identified and caught up by the cops. The episode also contains two foreboding notes: 1) Michael and Sara see a yacht in the water near their warehouse home and Michael promises Sara that one day soon, once “this is over,” they’ll be together on a boat like that, and 2) Michael’s continued nosebleeds, one of which pops up during the Eagles and Angels police reception, leading me to believe that he either has a brain tumor or some other sort of neurological problem that is going to become a big, big issue as this season goes on. But for now, that’s all, stay tuned….
- Gotta love it when soccer goes soccer. You know what I mean: riots over the outcome of a match, lit flares thrown at players on the field, fans bagging up their urine in plastic bags to throw at the opposing fans, that sort of thing. Even with all of the soccer hijinks and shenanigans I’ve heard about in recent years, though, this is a new one. In the eastern city of Kinshasa, Congo, accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft during a match sparked a riot that killed 13 people. Better still, most of the victims were between the ages of 11 and 16, according to a U.N.-sponsored radio station in the region. Those killed were suffocated as hysterical crowds rushed for the exits during the mayhem Sunday in Butembo in eastern Congo's North Kivu province. Local police attempted to control the violence at Matokeo stadium by firing into the air to protect their commander, but to no avail. The match involved two local clubs, Socozaki and Nyuki System. That one player being accused of practicing witchcraft on the field is my favorite part of the story, simply because it’s so bizarre, so ridiculous…..so soccer. I don’t think you’re going to see Dallas Cowboys fans and New York Giants fans stampeding for the exits at Texas Stadium during a game because someone fingered Eli Manning for practicing witchcraft during a key series in the third quarter. Only in soccer will you see this, that’s for sure. In the aftermath of the tragedy, dozens of teenagers marched through Butembo's dirt streets Monday in protest. I’ll be interested to see where this goes and find out more specifics on how this all started, but thank God we live in a country where soccer is still a peripheral, second-tier professional sport……
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