The Fights Page 78 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Oscar De La Hoya Wore A Full-Body Fishnet, Because, C'mon, Who Doesn't After A Few Drinks?
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: the Golden Boy is getting clean and coming clean....

Was Arturo Gatti Murdered? A New Investigation Into His Death Says Yes
When undertalented and overtough boxer Arturo Gatti was found dead in a Brazilian hotel in July 2009, police initially charged his stripper-wife Amanda Rodrigues with murder. Rodrigues, it was suspected, had strangled her husband with the strap of her purse as he slept. Three weeks later, the Brazil...

Almost Six Years Later, One MMA Fighter Is Still Campaigning For The UFC's Fastest Knockout
Way back in January 2006 (Did they have cell phones back then?), Duane "Bang" Ludwig scored a flash knockout of glass-jawed Jonathan Goulet at UFC Fight Night 3. Ludwig did it with one punch. He did it in four seconds, according to the official clock. That'd make it the fastest knockout in UFC his...

UFC Announces First Fight On Fox; "Fair And Balanced" Coverage On Fox Sports Ensues
In August, the UFC revealed that it was teaming up with Fox to broadcast fights. Details were scarce at the time. The UFC usually reveals such details later in media conference calls. And it usually declares such media conference calls in the manner that Crazy Eddie once sold stereos: "UFC PRESIDENT...

Wonder If This TCU Fan Still Wanted Some Loving After His Team Blew A Gigantic Comeback
Your morning roundup for Sept. 3, the day that Dragon Con's Comic Book Babes Costume Contest becomes an Elvira-hosted reality in Atlanta. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

MMA Fighter Has A More Racist Fantasy Football Team Than You
A small confession: I have often dreamed of creating a fantasy basketball team composed exclusively of players with the surnames Jefferson and Jackson. (The team, obviously, would be called the Jefferson-Jacksons, in reference, obviously, to the nascence of the Democratic Party.) Never have I dreame...

Oscar De La Hoya Admits He Was A Suicidal, Coke-Snorting, Boozing Philanderer But He's All Better Now
And how many women did he bag outside of his marriage during his two-year bender? "We are obviously not talking a Tiger Woods here, but I was unfaithful" So less than 20. [BSO via Boxing Scene]...

Yes, Anderson Silva Is Being Likened To Muhammad Ali...
And Michael Jordan. And Wayne Gretzky. Okay, fine. Anderson Silva is a great athlete. He mauled Yushin Okami last weekend at UFC 134. But Ali, Jordan, and Gretzky rolled into one? Come now. Come. Let us not forget that a year ago, Silva was the one getting mauled for five rounds by Chael Sonnen unti...

If You're Going To Pick A Fight With A Memphis Transit Security Guard, Make Sure It's Not The MMA Fighter-In-Training
When a Memphis Area Transit Authority security guard beat the piss out of some chump who was harassing the ladies outside a downtown station, the local ABC affiliate did God's work....

IBF Orders Immediate Rematch Of Fight That Featured 12 Rounds Of Brutal Nut-Punching (Video)
Anyone in search of evidence that boxing is crooked need look no further than the above video. It's from the rather disturbing title fight last weekend between Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko. Mares won a majority decision to take the bantamweight belt. He also won the championship for punching anot...

Does The UFC's Fox Deal Mean MMA Has Finally Gone Mainstream?
Oh god. Now we're going to have this idiotic debate again. Sports Business Daily today reported that the UFC has signed a seven or eight year deal to air as many as four events a year on the Fox network. The deal represents "a major push into the mainstream for the UFC."...

Only Real Men Drink (And Fight) At The Brown Derby Niteclub In Silver City, New Mexico
If you ever get the chance to talk to a professional MMA fighter, it's worth asking about the fights he had before he started making real dough. The grimy ones. Almost all the MMA guys of a certain generation have wild stories about scrapping in the streets or in the gyms after hours. Joseph Benavid...

Manscaping And A Mankini Helped MMA Reach Its Aesthetic Nadir At UFC 133
No one watches UFC—what with its bloody noses, sweaty chests, cauliflower ears—for beauty's sake. No one would confuse Dana White with Donna Karan. But holy lord, things got ugly in one of the undercard fights last night....

Floyd Patterson Was A Coward And Other Excerpts From One Of The Best Collections Of Boxing Writing In A Long Time
In the foreword to "At the Fights," a newish boxing anthology that spans over a century of pugilistic history, the novelist Colum McCann observes, quite appropriately, that, "Boxers get told to imagine punching a spot behind your opponent's head, to reach in so far that they can extend the destructi...

MMA Sexpot Gina Carano Is Starring In A Soderbergh Movie With A Bunch Of Real Actors
A lot of female MMA fighters don't like Gina Carano because they don't look like Gina Carano. Well, shoot. The world ain't fair. Carano hasn't fought in over two years, when she got the bejeezus beat out of her by Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos. Yet Carano has leveraged her pretty face into a pretty sw...

UFC Ring Girl Arianny Celeste Spotted Making Out With A Giant Banana Penis
These UFC ring girls have tough lives, let me tell you. They prance about in bikinis, get schtupped by fighters and create art that would make Michelangelo weep. None of them appears to have more than a lone synapse firing upstairs. This one is Arianny Celeste. She's the queen of the ring girls. Acc...

If You're Going To Break Your Nose, You Might As Well Break It Like This
This is Ryan McGillivray, a mixed martial artist who was on the last season of The Ultimate Fighter. To be more precise, this is Ryan McGillivray after taking a knee to his face in training. His new nose looks to be an inch off-kilter. The picture has been making the rounds on MMA blogs after McGill...

An Old Video Of A Dumb Ref Letting A Dazed Fighter Nearly Get Killed
A little gruesome, this one. Or a lot. It's a Brazilian vale tudo fight. That means "anything goes." And boy does it go, thanks to this blind fool of a referee. The video comes via Frank Shamrock, who calls it "really sad." Yes....

Upcoming Reality Show Will Follow Sheriff's Deputy Butterbean Around
Step aside, Steven Seagal: Lawman. There's a new novelty cop in town, and, well, it's former heavyweight fighter Butterbean....

They're Making A Full-Body Wax Casting Of Bernard Hopkins For Display In An "Odditorium"
Hot off the presses from Bernard Hopkins's press folks and the good people from Ripley's Believe It Or Not is word that the boxer has committed to a two-day appearance in the F/X department at Ripley's world headquarters in Orlando. There, on Monday and Tuesday, he will "begin the tedious task of h...