professional Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It’s time to move on from Ric Flair
It’s rarely a good sign when you have to make two attempts at a public relations statement....

It’s <em>G1 Climax</em> time, baby! (Oh, were you not hip to that?)
Say you’re one of these people. You run with the popular crowd. The shiny crowd. But you’ve never felt like you quite fit in there. As you walk to yet another lounge or patio that you don’t really want to go to, filled with people you can easily come to revile, you stop in front of some dive bar or ...

Becky Lynch’s heel turn proves that WWE doesn’t know what makes its characters successful
It’s clear, no matter what they say, that AEW has WWE scrambling, if only a bit. While they would never admit it, and WWE is in no danger of losing its massive TV deals or its place in wider culture, you can tell by their need to shake things up that they feel something is pressuring them. Even toda...

Bears fans should be freaking out about Week 1
The old adage is that fans shouldn’t read too much into Week 1 of NFL play....

The Chiefs slept through the first half of Week 1 and still won, but how long can they keep this up?
After falling behind early in the game, the Kansas City Chiefs survived a brief scare in Week 1 against the Cleveland Browns with a 33-29 win. The Chiefs looked to be suffering from a Super Bowl hangover in the first half as they headed into halftime down 22-10. The Browns came out ready with their ...

A nod to Toni Kukoč and all of the 2021 Basketball Hall of Fame inductees getting their dues today
We’ve feted Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace, Bill Russell, Rick Adelman, Jay Wright, Lauren Jackson, Yolanda Griffith, Chris Bosh, and Chris Webber this week for their induction into the hoops Hall of Fame....

Trae Young finds a way to get booed at Madison Square Garden during the offseason
Last night’s WWE Smackdown card included a 10-man tag team match, which in itself is fairly uncommon. The match was scheduled to be Sami Zayn, Otis, Apollo Crews, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode (the heels) to battle Big E, Rick Boogs, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Rey and Dominik Mysterio....

Don’t be shocked if Dallas comes away with the win tonight
Before I start, I just want to say that I totally believe Tampa Bay will win this game, but should Dallas pull off the upset, I wouldn’t be that surprised. The more I look at this game, the more I see factors pointing in favor of the Cowboys....

No wonder Adam Cole left WWE
Oh, man. This would’ve been an awful idea....

2021 NFL Preview - AFC West: The Chiefs got better and will still rule this division and the conference
Like it or not, this is still Kansas City’s division to lose. It’s not very often we can look at a team that went to the Super Bowl two years in a row and go “Wow! They really improved this offseason.” Yet, that’s exactly what the Chiefs did. The biggest problem for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl was ...

Ruby Soho is yet another chance for AEW to keep promises about its women’s division
My fear is that once or twice a year, until my bosses find out that I’m just an absurd algorithm devised out of some combination of bong water and Primus records and they fire “me” (even though I don’t exist in physical form), I’ll be writing some piece about how this is the time that AEW can, shoul...

2021 NFL Preview - AFC North: Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson will duel for the division
All eyes will be on Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns in 2021 after making the postseason for the first time since 2002 last year. A major storyline for the Browns this year will be Mayfield’s contract status. Baker is eligible for an extension of his rookie deal, but the Browns are being caut...

Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole now define AEW, just like that
It’s strange to say that a company that has been around almost two years still was trying to find something of an identity. And it’s always had one, but until Sunday it still had some nebulous quality, after Sunday’s All Out pay-per-view, we know exactly what AEW is, what it’s going to be, and where...

NFL RedZone Previews, Part 4: The Prime Time Players
The NFL’s television partners don’t necessarily take the best teams in the league for the most primetime games. They take the teams that are going to get the biggest audiences and make the networks the most money....

AEW <i>All Out</i> 2021 preview and predictions
It’s the first week of September, you know what that means! It’s time for AEW’s biggest show, All Out. Not only is it the biggest show they’ve ever run, or their most important, but it has a real chance to shift the wrestling world in a way we haven’t seen in a couple decades. AEW could very well be...

Baseball For All's message to women and girls: You don't have to stop playing the game you love
The 29 young women who gathered on the pristine green turf of the Centenary University baseball field in mid-August for Baseball For All’s first-ever scouting combine for women — a group looking to continue their baseball careers into college — all shared commonalities in their individual stories....

Y’all had jokes for Karrion Kross’ new entrance attire — and rightfully so
Let’s provide you with some idea of how high the WWE’s been on Karrion Kross. ...

Yo, Bears: Please don't feed Justin Fields to the wolves
Did the league not learn anything from Joe Burrow’s catastrophic knee injury last season?...

This weekend told you everything you needed to know about what WWE and AEW are
The idea WWE higher-ups have been pushing that they don’t pay attention to AEW seems as flimsy as ever now....

Just when I think I'm out, WWE's big events pull me back in
SummerSlam is Saturday night, the second-biggest night in pro wrestling behind WrestleMania, and as a casual fan of the grapples, I’ll be tuning in as usual....