I hope everyone has had a wonderful and safe 4^th of July Holiday. A very special Thank You and I Love You goes out to my wonderful wife Stephanie for putting up with all of my bull s#!+ for the past five years. We celebrated our 5 year anniversary this weekend by attending the U2 show in Nashville Saturday evening. That concert had to be a Top Five Show of all-time for us and if anyone gets an opportunity to go see U2 perform, go! U2 has such a stage presence about them that make standing outside for 4 hours to get in and be third row from the stage in the general admission pit very worthwhile. 

 

Before I begin this, I am sitting here watching George Carlin’s last stand-up special and it is amazing how good this man was at his craft.

 

So while we were at the show in Nashville, what did I have to catch up on yesterday and today? UFC 132 took place at MGM Grand in Las Vegas this past weekend in front of 12,947 drawing a gate of $2.3 Million. Here are the results from this past weekend courtesy of MMAJunkie.com

 

There was some great action on this card Saturday evening. The Bantamweight fight headlining a UFC PPV for the first time, Chris Leben’s knockout of Wanderlei, possibly sending Silva into retirement, Carlos Condit’s flying knee that knocked out a previously undefeated Dong Hyun Kim, the questionable decision that was awarded to Dennis Siver over Matt Wiman, were all impressive, but not the highlight of this card to me. The highlight to me was the return to the winner’s side of things by the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, Tito Ortiz. Tito Ortiz has been a lightning rod around the UFC that last few years. Saturday’s submission victory over Ryan Bader was Ortiz’s first in five years and five fights.

 

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend UFC 126 with Ortiz after dropping the ball on my credential. Ortiz placed a mention on his Twitter account that he had an extra ticket to attend the fights with him to the first person to meet him at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. I made the trip from Aria to Mandalay Bay in about 8 minutes and was the first one there and the winner. Tito Ortiz only knew that I followed him on Twitter and I never mentioned that I did this at any point of the evening. I was able to walk into the Mandalay Bay Events Center with Tito Ortiz, meet Steven Segal in the deep dark hallways of the hotel, and sit with Ortiz and ask a lot of questions and meet a lot of fighters during this event. At one point during the evening, I looked to my right and Tito was there, and on my left was Rampage Jackson. As a Big UFC fan, I am not sure it gets any better than this. Ortiz was super cool, explaining anything I asked him. Having worked at WFNZ producing the Panthers Pre and Post Game shows for ten years allowed me to sit with a lot of NFL former players and learn a lot regarding strategy and tells. Sitting with Tito at UFC 126 provided me the same opportunity with the UFC. I was able to have my picture taken with Jamie Pressly and Bruce Buffer, all because of Tito. If the UFC ever wanted to sale tickets as the Ultimate Fan Experience, this would have been it for me. Sitting with a star in the UFC, Tito explained that he still gets a little nervous when he enters the octagon, the feeling he gets when he walks out and hears the crowd erupt, and watching the fights from the first row, this was a bucket list evening for me.

The crazy thing, to me, is that at UFC 126, we saw Jon Jones take on Ryan Bader. Bader knew Tito was in a win or go home situation Saturday evening. Tito came in and won the fight in the first round. Tito, who has had more injuries and surgeries over the last few years, has not been dominated in any of his last six fights. Afterwards, Tito mentioned he would like to see the winner of the Shogun- Forrest Griffin fight as his next opponent. One fight doesn’t mean that Tito is back, but it does mean he lives to fight another day. Hopefully this resurgence continues as long as Tito wants to fight. I know I will be cheering for him.

        

 

David Regan won the Coke Zero 400 in Daytona. Kudos to Dale Jr. for speaking up about his dislike for tandem racing after the event Saturday evening. I know this is not something Junior enjoys doing, but for a driver of his stature in the sport to speak up when he normally doesn’t, that has to speak volumes to NASCAR that there is an issue that needs to be addressed at Daytona and Talladega. As much as he may not like it, Junior has a voice that will be heard by NASCAR when he speaks. No one is expecting him to be vocal on every issue, but when he does speak, people listen. It is now up to NASCAR to make the necessary adjustments.   

 

Both the NFL and NBA have lockouts going on now. Word is the NFL lockout is much closer to be resolved than the NBA. The NFL structure was not as broken as the NBA’s was. Many are saying that the NFL will not miss any games and that should the resolution come within the next two weeks, all activities will be back on the normal schedule. This fight of “Billionaires versus Millionaires,” seems to be in its final stages, as both parties realized missing games on the ten year anniversary of 9/11 would be a public relations nightmare. It is nice to see that both sides understand this and that they are working to get this done. On the other hand, the NBA seems to be digging their heels in for a long work stoppage. Coming off of the successful playoffs, this could not happen at a worse time for the NBA. All of that momentum of the playoffs stands to be eliminated with what many have said could be a complete season lost. Again, at this time with the US economy in the state that it is, many fans struggle to understand the fighting between Millionaires arguing over Millions of dollars when some struggle to place food on tables. This is not going to be an easy resolution, but until both realize that this structure has some major issues that need both addressing and correcting in a fair and equitable manner, I don’t see the NBA playing this fall. Should a season long lockout occur and drag into next summer, it will be very interesting to see what some of the underclassmen in college do. Maybe the 2012-13 college basketball season will be stacked with incredible talent of guys with more than one season of college experience.  One can dream.  

 

Joey Chestnut ate 62 Hot Dogs in ten minutes today to win his 5^th straight Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest. Darren Rovell tweeted these nutritional stats about that performance: 19,158 calories, 1,246 grams of fat, 2,170 mg of cholesterol, 42,408 mg of sodium, 657.2 grams protein. What else can he eat for the rest of the month?

 

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