Three more things banging around in my cranium…
1) The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that Bryan Murray is frustrated with the way the Senators are playing and he wants to shake up the team. Hey, Bryan, thanks for catching up.
Let’s cut the bullshit. It was Murray who created this 12-14-5 mess. It was Murray who took a Stanley Cup contender built by John Muckler and turned it into a big time loser. It was Bryan Murray who fired John Paddock, replaced him with Craig Hartsburg and made a first-place team in the East, a 12th place team in the East.
Maybe the shakeup in Ottawa should start with Bryan Murray. It was former Ottawa GM John Muckler who told me in Tampa this season, “Bryan Murray can’t coach talent.” Bryan Murray can’t manage it either.
2) Ever seen a fixed fight before? You probably did on Saturday if you watched the Evander Holyfield-Nikolai Valuev heavyweight championship fight in Zurich on TSN2.
Valuev barely landed a punch and was awarded the fight 114-114, 116-112 and 115-114. Valuev couldn’t have hurt me with the wussy punches he threw and he certainly didn’t hurt the much smaller, and older, Holyfield, who danced all over the ring and was barely touched. Granted, neither fighter was worth his weight in dog-shit, but let’s not lie to people (as the Associated Press report did on Saturday), Holyfield kicked the crap out of the big Russian.
The TSN2 announcers called it one of the worst fights in history. That was definitely true. Valuev barely landed a punch and made the 46-year-old Holyfield look like a 20-year-old, as he danced around the ring. In fact, both announcers called it 117-112 Holyfield.
However, the judges gave it to Valuev. And I get that. It was fixed, but it was fixed for a reason. They gave it to the champion because even though the challenger was the better fighter, he didn’t do enough to take the belt away.
I’ve always maintained, unless you knock the champion down a couple of time, you don’t get his belt in a decision.
Unless you fight a Winnipeg guy in Winnipeg. Then you can just steal a belt. Remember that WBA Championship of the Americas fight. Dome guy from Colombia rolls into Winnipeg, fights Winnipeg’s Larry Sharpe to a draw and gets to take home Sharpe’s belt because Winnipeg judges are so afraid that they might look like homers. They aren’t afraid to look like idiotic assholes, but they sure don’t want to be homers.
Boxing has long been weird, but no wonder MMA is stealing its thunder. It’s hard to watch boxing when you and everybody else in the building know who won the fight, but the judges go the other way because (a) they’ve been told to go the other way or (b) they’ve been paid to go the other way.
However, judges are so unpredictable, boxing is starting to look as phoney as figure skating because either Valuev-Holyfield was botched or Sharpe-and the Colombian guy was botched. Or fixed???
3) On Thursday, one of Fox Sports Radio’s NFL handicappers suggested that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo had never proven to anyone that he could win a big game.
“Never done it in the regular season, never done it in the playoffs,” said our fearless prognosticator. “That’s why I believe Baltimore wins by a touchdown.”
Wow, was that guy ever right.
Now, in fairness, the Dallas defence was dreadful in a 33-24 home loss to Baltimore on Saturday night, but two interceptions and too many red zone stalls made Romo look less than effective.
Dallas might not make the playoffs. It could be very easy to blame head coach Wade Phillips, but Tony Romo might not be as good as the NFL media wants us to believe.
And once again, it takes a professional gambler to figure it out.