On paper the Dallas Cowboys look like the team to beat in the NFC. They have the most talented team, but they also have the most distractions which will be their downfall in the end. Terrell Owens is a one man circus whether he tries to be or not, Tony and Jessica are always in the news for something, and the team is involved in a ton of television programming. All of the exposure is good for the players, but considering this group hasn’t won a playoff game they might want to focus on football instead of stardom.

Dallas Cowboys, Superstar, Hard Knocks, video, youtube

I’m a big fan of HBO’s The Wire. If you’ve never seen it, don’t try picking it up now during the 5th and final season.. Rent seasons 1-4 on dvd, and be prepared for a show that’s 10 times better than The Sopranos. The stories and subplots are suprisingly deep, and the way the different facets of a failing city (government, schools, drugs, media) are covered is unlike anything ever done on television.

Whether you’re a fan of The Wire or not, tell me I’m not dead on with these NBA-Wire look-a-likes.

Toronto Raptors Head Coach Sam Mitchell and Detective Lester Freamon

NBA Official Joey Crawford and Deputy Commissioner for Admin. Stanislaus Valchek

Grant Hill and Sergeant Ellis Carver

Brevin Knight and Malik “Poot” Carr

Scot Pollard and Officer Anthony Colicchio

Darius Miles and Omar Little

Baron Davis and Dennis “Cutty” Wise

Shout out to my brother in G’hood, JG, for helping me put this together.

The Wire cast. Courtesy of HBO.com
Carmelo Anthony’s Fave Five Wire Characters
The NBA and their Hip Hop counterparts

Tags: NBA, The Wire, Photos, Pictures

I thought Floyd would win the fight by decision, but after Ricky Hatton was deducted a point for hitting behind the head in the 6th round, Mayweather stepped his game up. The left hooks were locked and loaded in the 10th, leading to one of the funnier knockdowns I’ve ever seen… C’mon, I know y’all laughed too when Hatton went face first into the corner post.

More Knockouts
Kelly Pavlik knocks out Jermaine Taylor

Tags: Floyd Mayweather, Ricky Hatton, Boxing, Knockout, KO, Youtube, Utube

• Gus Haynes, a newspaper editor, will be a high profile character as the show explores the world of journalism.
• Mayor Carcetti will still be a major player.
• Dukie dies? Maybe, maybe not. There’s also mention of one character finding a way out, so maybe Dukie makes good.

These were my favorite random Wire moments from the piece:

• A junkie gave up his dope to Andre Royo (Bubbles) saying “Man, you need a fix more than I do”.
• Somebody got shot and staggered onto the set.
• “Snoop” caught some people bootlegging The Wire and called David Simon to see what she should do about them.

If you’re reading this and you have no idea what I’m talking about, shame on you. I’m smf at you. Go buy the past seasons on dvd, catch them ondemand, do what you have to do, but get up to speed so you can watch the final season of the best show on television. A show that will not go out with a bs Soprano’s type of ending.

As much as people praise the show, it has never won an Emmy, and it averages 4.4 million viewers per week. That sounds like a lot until you see that the Soprano’s averaged 13 million and even Big Love averages 6 million. This makes sense since the show was a hard sell to HBO in the first place. David Simon had to challenge the cable giant to show some balls:

It is a significant victory for HBO to counter program alternative, inaccessible worlds against standard network fare. But it would, I will argue, be a more profound victory for HBO to take the essence of network fare and smartly turn it on its head, so that no one who sees HBO’s take on the culture of crime and crime fighting can watch anything like “C.S.I.” or “N.Y.P.D. Blue” or “Law & Order” again without knowing that every punch was pulled on those shows. For HBO to step toe-to-toe with NBC or ABC and create a cop show that seizes the highest qualitative ground through realism, good writing, and a more brutal assessment of police, police work, and the drug culture—this may not be the beginning of the end for network dramas as the industry standard, but it is certainly the end of the beginning for HBO.

Good thing the man can put together an email. For all of you Wire junkies, the show will be back in January. If you’re a fan of David Simon, he’ll still be putting in work for HBO. The next show will focus on musicians in New Orleans.

STEALING LIFE: The crusader behind “The Wire”. Courtesy of The New Yorker

Tags: The Wire, David Simon, Baltimore, The New Yorker, HBO

It was set up as a great night to watch television if you’re a fan of mob shows and the NBA. I had to decide what I wanted to record and what I wanted to watch live. I ended up watching The Sopranos, and when the show was over I flipped over to the basketball game just in time to catch San Antonio putting the finishing touches on a first half beatdown. Needless to say, I didn’t go back and watch the first 21 minutes of the game that I missed.

Before I go on and talk about Tony Soprano and the rest of the gang, I’m saying loud and clear, **SPOILER**.

If you’ve already seen the show or don’t mind having some of it ruined for you then go ahead and proceed.

I consider myself a pretty big boxing fan. If there’s boxing on tv I’m gonna tune in.. Unless it’s The Contender, and that’s just because I don’t watch reality shows. So last night I sat down to watch HBO’s double header before getting into my Saturday night activities.

The first fight, featuring Kelly Pavlik and Edison Miranda, had more action in the first two rounds than De La Hoya/Mayweather had their entire night. If Oscar and Floyd had given us that kind of performance people would still be talking about the fight and saying “boxing is back”. After the back and forth action of rounds 1 and 2, Pavlik took over the fight. He floored Miranda twice in the 6th, and picked up the victory in the 7th when referee Steve Smoger stopped the fight. Kelly Pavlik aka “The Ghost” was the superior fighter in every aspect. He landed the cleaner, more effective power punches, and he was definitely more skilled than Miranda. If/when Pavlik gets a shot at Jermain Taylor he’ll be the underdog, but trust me, he’s a live dog.

How do you know when it’s time to put a term or phrase to rest? Here’s how:

Larry Merchant: There’s a new expression in the South called “Crunk” from Southern Hip Hop music it means hot. This fighter, fight, figures to be crrruuunk.

Larry dropped that jewel on us right before the Pavlik/Miranda match. I would say that “crunk” has now jumped the proverbial shark. Go ahead and put “crunk” on the same list as “you go girl”, “fa shizzle my nizzle”, and “da bomb”…

The second fight got off on the wrong foot as Cory Spinks walked to the ring with the rapper Jibbs performing King Kong alongside him… I should have heeded the omen and went about my business. I stuck around because I was still giving Jermain Taylor the benefit of the doubt. Taylor’s style is.. is.. well, I don’t know what it is. When Jermain took on Bernard Hopkins, Hopkins’ style took the blame for the 2 fights being stale. When Jermain fought Winky Wright, people said that Wright’s defense can make anybody look bad. I know it’s hard to look good against a guy that seemed more interested in track than boxing, but Jermain Taylor just didn’t take the fight to Spinks the way I had hoped the bigger, stronger, champion would. Even Taylor’s trainer, Emmanuel Stewart wanted more out of Jermain. Stewart to Taylor before the 12th round:

Don’t give a fuck whether you land or not just let ‘em go. Don’t worry about it, he’s gonna be a shitty fight but you gotta let punches go. You can’t wait until you gettin him, if you miss him buuyoow and go right back..and don’t take 30 seconds and start another punch… but you gotta get ready to fight this Goddamn round man. He is doing exactly what he said he was gonna do.. Trying to steal the bullshit championship. but you gotta throw some Goddamn punches, quit going up and down up and down..get in there and fight.. you got 3 minutes man, you gotta fight.

The transcript doesn’t do justice to the tone and frustration in Stewart’s voice, but it’s exactly what anybody watching this fight was feeling. There was no doubt that Jermain won the fight, but he’s just not living up to the potential people see in him. I’m not sure if he ever will.

The were only two interesting parts of this fight. 1) After the fight when Cory Spinks was “running around, celebrating as though he has just won the World Series” (c) Jim Lampley, and 2) the judges scores. Let’s look at the scores.

Judge Michael Pernick scored the fight 117-111, and Judge Gale Van Hoy scored the fight 115-113 both for Taylor. The judge’s scores could be reversed because Michael Buffer announced that Van Hoy had it 117-111 and Pernick had 115-113, both for Taylor. The scores in the beginning of this paragraph are from ESPN. The score that both ESPN and the HBO broadcast agree on is Judge Richard Flaherty’s 117-111 scorecard in favor of Cory Spinks. Whaaaaa?!? To quote Jim Lampley on his views about Flaherty’s scorecard “on the basis of that I would say that he should never judge a major championship again. That’s a complete travesty”. I’m not saying that Flaherty was getting paid to score for Spinks, but after a card that far off, I hope he was. I hope he made as much money as possible for working the fight because I wouldn’t let him judge a wet t-shirt contest at this point.

One last boxing related story. In the middle of April I had a post about Joe Frazier suing his daughter. Then I had another post where I reported Joe had called off the dogs on the lawsuit. In that post (this post) I said the only reason he was calling it off was because Jaquelyn Lyde-Frazier was running for a seat on the city of Philadelphia’s Municipal Court in the May 15th Democratic Primary, and he didn’t want to ruin her chances, but I expected the lawsuit to be refiled on May 16th. I was right. Sorta. He refiled on the 17th:

Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier has refiled a lawsuit against his daughter, days after she won a primary election for city judge. Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde turned over some of the documents that are being sought, but hasn’t fully accounted for the money she managed for her father from 1989 to 2004, Frazier’s lawyer said Thursday. The 63-year-old Frazier sued for the return of his records in April, but suspended the suit as his daughter waged a campaign for Philadelphia Municipal Court judge. “Joe just didn’t want to ruin his daughter’s judgeship [race],” Frazier lawyer Michael P. Kelly said Thursday.

I guess I’m supposed to type something about blind squirrels or every dog, but I won’t. This should have been obvious to everybody.

Spink’s style frustrates crowd as Taylor wins by split decision. Courtesy of ESPN.com

Frazier seeks documents from daughter in lawsuit. Courtesy of ESPN.com

Frazier stops lawsuit against daughter while she runs for judge. Courtesy of YBB

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The Village People didn’t have this in mind. Thank you Waikato Times via Stuff.co.nz

Vince Carter says he must dominate Pavlovic.. Sends T-Mac get well text. Thank you The News Herald

IGF-1, the new HGH. Thank you Blog Critics

Jaws understands McNabb’s predicament. Thank you Philadelpia Daily News

Just what mom needs: a football book for women. Thank you PR Web

Group wants to keep the “ping” in high school baseball. Thank you ESPN.com

HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht charged with domestic assault and battery. Thank you The New York Times

30% of MLB and 50% of the Yankees are foreign born. Thank you Seattle Post Intelligencer

Shaun Alexander doesn’t care to know if his foot is broken. Thank you Philadelphia Inquirer via the AP

Texas basketball fans are 66.6% bummed. Thank you The New York Sun

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