history Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
American Gladiators Is Iconic Because It Took Itself Just Seriously Enough
Virtually from the moment that it launched 30 years ago this week, people both loved and misunderstood American Gladiators. For a show that was successful with viewers and which inspired a constellation of spinoffs and reboots and knockoffs, it’s a strange legacy. Bill Hicks’ “Go back to bed, Americ...
Vince McMahon's Defiant Paranoia Was Shaped By His Steroid Trial
Twenty-five years ago this week, at the now-shuttered federal courthouse in Uniondale for the Eastern District of New York, WWE chief Vincent Kennedy McMahon was acquitted on charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute anabolic steroids. It was a pivotal moment in wrestling histor...
The Forgotten All-Star Game That Helped Integrate Baseball
When Cleveland celebrated its sixth time hosting MLB’s All-Star Game last week, it might have seemed an odd event to commemorate baseball’s integration. But when Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform in April of 1947, becoming the first African-American to play in whit...
The Man Who Walked His Life Away
George Wilson stepped out into the medieval-walled prison yard and began to walk. He was 47 years old, beaten-down, and half-starved. His squat frame and stubby legs hardly suggested athletic excellence. But Wilson was well-known as a perambulator, a peregrinator, and a master of “leg-ology.” He was...
Getting A Medal From Donald Trump Fits Jerry West All Too Well
Have you ever seen Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Lonely Island’s 2016 mockumentary about a very specific kind of post-Obama cultural success? It’s a good movie. Funny gags, and some insight into the sort of of-this-moment famous person who is transparently drowning in narcissism but also d...
After Two Decades, Owen Hart's Death Is Still WWE's Darkest Hour
If you were a wrestling fan on May 23, 1999, you were probably doing one of three things. One of those was watching WWE’s latest pay-per-view event, Over the Edge. Another was using “scramblevision” to listen to that event by tuning a TV or VCR without a cable box to the pay-per-view channel. Some f...
Portland Wronged The Jail Blazers More Than The Jail Blazers Wronged Portland
Late last year I attended a jersey release party thrown by the Portland Trail Blazers and Trillblazin, a Trail Blazers-centric independent clothing concern. The Cleaners, a gallery in Portland’s Pearl District, was flooded with people looking to get free t-shirts and tote bags, and looking at a doze...
After 18 Years Away, TNT Is Back In The Wrestling Business
Last Wednesday, All Elite Wrestling and WarnerMedia made a longstanding wrestling rumor official when they announced that the startup promotion’s flagship show will air weekly on TNT beginning this fall. No financial terms were revealed in the initial statement or at the upfronts, and neither was a ...
Today's WWE Began With A Tragic Injury And A Devastating Legal Defeat
It’s a cross between a family value and a corporate one, but WWE is notorious for not settling lawsuits. They will when they have to, as in the fight over the rights to the gimmick of the Demolition tag team, but even then they dragged it out for just over a decade before finally making the call. Th...
Baseball's Unwritten Rules Are The Vestiges Of A Drunk And Violent Sport
Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson is having a very good April, give or take a gratuitous insult to his buttocks. He’s hitting .383, which is second in the AL, and has stolen nine bases, which leads the league. He has popped four home runs, too, which is the issue, here. After one of those hom...
How The Crooks, The Cons, And The Legends Built America's Largest Stadium For The Beating Of The Century
Toledo was a place where you could fight a man for money....
An MLB Strike Threat Might Be The Players’ Only Leverage
There hasn’t been a strike in Major League Baseball for nearly 25 years. Not coincidentally, MLB’s owners and front offices are at this moment in arguably the strongest position they’ve occupied since before the Major League Baseball Players Association existed. They’re using it to implode free agen...
An MLB Strike Threat Might Be The Players’ Only Leverage
There hasn’t been a strike in Major League Baseball for nearly 25 years. Not coincidentally, MLB’s owners and front offices are at this moment in arguably the strongest position they’ve occupied since before the Major League Baseball Players Association existed. They’re using it to implode free agen...
Not Even A Baseball Strike Could Stop Cleveland From Hosting The All-Star Game. Sort Of.
When Cleveland was awarded the 1981 MLB All-Star Game, it was a city in dire need of a boost....
Wisconsin GOP Throws Successful Tantrum To Remove Colin Kaepernick From Black History Month Resolution
The Wisconsin Legislature voted on Tuesday to approve a resolution to honor key historical figures for Black History Month. The catch is that the original resolution—drafted by the Legislature’s Black Caucus, which is composed exclusively of Democrats—featured Milwaukee-born football player Colin Ka...
40 Years Ago, Antonio Inoki Maybe Possibly Almost Wrestled Against Idi Amin<em></em>
As a mainstream athlete, Antonio Inoki is probably best known for battling Muhammad Ali to a draw in an actual on-the-level fight—albeit one restricted by last-minute rule changes—after The Greatest backed out of plans to lose a traditional entertainment wrestling match. But Antonio Inoki is not a m...
Twenty Years Ago, The Rock Beat Mick Foley About The Head And It Was Fucked Up
What still stands as quite possibly the most viscerally memorable match in the modern history of World Wrestling Entertainment took place 20 years ago this week at Royal Rumble ‘99. How much of a compliment that is depends on your perspective. ...
WWE Released A Failed 1989 Wrestling Pilot And It's Awesomely Terrible<em></em>
The WWE Hidden Gems section of WWE Network’s on-demand library is one of the more reliably enjoyable things that the promotion offers, a weekly release of unseen or rarely seen footage from their vast archives that offers a compelling look at weird days gone by in the sport. Not every week is a home...
Gibraltar Wins First Competitive Match In Its History
History was made at the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium in the Armenian capital on Saturday as Gibraltar won its first ever competitive match, beating Armenia 1-0. The self-governing territory was first officially recognized by UEFA in 2013 and had lost 22 competitive matches since, including all...
Wrestling Magazines Were Bloody, Dumb, And Sleazy, And I Loved Them
A couple weeks ago at an independent wrestling show in New York City, the promoter, Jac Sabboth, arrived with a treasure trove of old magazines. Sabboth also owns a pro wrestling memorabilia store, but even bearing that in mind the selection was startlingly eclectic, from the most popular magazines ...