champions Page 29 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Set your DVR when Deebo Samuel and Talanoa Hufanga are playing
In the fall of 1994, Michael Jordan was still away from the NBA and the World Series was canceled. For a young Chicago Bulls and White Sox fan, there wasn’t much to look forward to in sports, especially with Horace Grant having just signed with the Orlando Magic in free agency....

The Rams should take down the banged up 49ers on Monday Night Football, but only if they shore up a key weakness
Opening night was a grand affair for the Los Angeles Rams. In their shiny facility in Inglewood, Calf., they were able to relive the night that they became the second consecutive team to win a Super Bowl in their home stadium. They got the rings, unveiled the banner, and three hours later they were ...

Rafael Leão is carrying AC Milan, and should punt Cristiano Ronaldo off of Portugal
In a lot of ways, AC Milan mirrors Serie A overall. They’re incredibly fun, and were able to take advantage of Juventus’s slide into the abyss and a blip from Inter to win the Scudetto last year. But how good they actually are, much like the league as a whole, is hard to pin down. Considering that t...

The Dallas Cowboys are frauds
Sports has a short menu: Wins and losses....

Baseball cares not for your plans, especially when you’re the New York Mets
History will record it as another case of Mets-ian fortune. A Mets team that still might win 100 games blowing the NL East on the last weekend of the season. A Mets team that at one point was 10.5 games ahead of the Braves. A Mets team that really only had to win one game of three in White Flight Co...

All you can do is marvel at Erling Haaland
Unless you’re decked out in blue, there has been an overwhelming sense of unfairness in the English Premier League this season. We already had the richest club in the world, with the best manager, the best squad, probably the best passer in the world, and we’ll just add the best finisher there is. A...

Antonio Inoki leaves behind a legacy that rivals any in combat sports
There’s not an athlete in combat-sports history with a bigger influence than Antonio Inoki. How many other professional wrestlers have a common opponent in Superman? Inoki is one degree of separation from Clark Kent because of his 1976 fight against Muhammad Ali, then the WBC and WBA heavyweight cha...

Saudi Golf may have found, err, paid for a broadcast partner
How’s the saying go? You couldn’t pay me to watch (blank)? Well, it turns out the LIV Golf traveling circus/Saudi Arabia vanity project might just have to pay to get people to watch. With no major sports network bidding to air their rancid product, the upstart golf league reportedly is closing in on...

What if Christian Pulisic isn’t that good anymore?
Also, he might be kind of a prick, but we’ll circle back to that....

Magnus Carlsen officially accuses Hans Niemann of cheating
It’s been a few weeks since 19-year-old Hans Niemann shocked the chess world by taking down the world’s highest-rated player, Magnus Carlsen, at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. After his stunning defeat, Carlsen withdrew from the tournament, and tweeted out this video....

Qatar is conscripting its citizens to be security for the World Cup, so this is definitely going to go well
Here’s the thing about Qatar hosting the World Cup in about six weeks: Even if you could ignore the disgusting and egregious human rights abuses that built the infrastructure for it (which you can’t), or if you could ignore the country’s homophobia and sexism as state policy (which you can’t), or th...

If expanding MLB playoffs was about keeping people interested, why does no one care?
The concepts of “parity” and “fairness” in sports were exposed as fig leaves long ago. The idea that fans would care more, i.e. buy more tickets and watch more games on TV, if more teams had a chance at playoff berths and championships was never as important to owners. What was important was not bei...

Welcome to ROH is Jericho?
There was this internet pipe dream back in 2007. This little company with a cult independent following called Ring of Honor finally became popular enough to appear on television. It happened to be in the form of a taped pay-per-view called Respect is Earned, a live event held in New York City in May...

Delusional Donald: Trump thinks miraculous Jets win makes Robert Saleh 'greater than Vince Lombardi'
For most of his life, former President Donald Trump has been obsessed with football. There are failed bids to become the owner of an NFL team, taking control of the New Jersey Generals in a past version of the USFL, and calling players like Colin Kaepernick who knelt during the national anthem to pr...

It’s OK to enjoy Albert Pujols’ 700th home run
I never know how to write about the teams or players I like. I could pen 2,500 words on Albert Pujols in 20 minutes, literally breaking Mavis Beacon records along the way, and none of it would be coherent or old-time-y poetic like in the days when you had to read sports writers to see a swing. ...

Clemson is still waiting on D.J. Uiagalelei to make the leap
There’s generally a better sense of Clemson by this point in the season. Dabo Swinney isn’t afraid of a tough non-conference game, and it just so happens that the Tigers’ big non-ACC game at Notre Dame takes place in early November this year. Obviously, that would’ve been a better resume builder bef...

This is Aaron Judge’s year, but if Yankees win a title, Giancarlo Stanton will be the reason
Make no mistake about it, this season belongs to Aaron Judge and his historic run through MLB America....

Hopefully Robert Williams III is only suffering a small setback, but this isn’t the first one
I hope Robert Williams III believes that it was worth it....

Juventus is pretty garbage and it’s pretty wonderful
While one traditional power of European soccer might only be in a temporary blip, there’s another that has fallen off its horse and then had that horse piss on them. Bayern Munich will most likely recover. Juventus, on the other hand, might be headed to the muck for a while....

Kirk Cousins’ Monday nightmare
In a weak NFC, the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles soundly defeated their Week 1 opponents. They linked up in Philadelphia for a primetime matchup last night....