Professional sports coverage
An injury-plagued start to 2018 left UFC with a bevy of early fight cancellations, but that proved only to be opportunity for new stars to shine at UFC 221 in Perth. The absence of notable names on a card headlined by the main event of Luke Rockhold-Yoel Romero for the interim UFC Middleweight Championship gave…
University of Arizona football's never won an outright Pac-12 Conference championship, much like the Philadelphia Eagles and the Super Bowl prior to Sunday's 41-33 win over the New England Patriots. In 2009, Nick Foles led the Wildcats team that came the closest. Arizona had better teams in its history than the 2009, which finished an…
After an excellent night of fights at UFC 220, where Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic put on classic performances to set up a planned July superfight, the UFC landscape quickly descended into a February lull. With the Super Bowl and Olympics dominating the February sports schedule, the UFC opted to fill the month with an…
Ronda Rousey made her WWE debut over the weekend at the Royal Rumble, the culmination of a years-long flirtation that began in earnest at the height of the former MMA champion's popularity. In the 34 months since Rousey teased a feud with Stephanie McMahon -- appearing alongside mega-star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and WWE fixture…
Among the din following Major League Baseball's announcement Monday that the Cleveland Indians uniforms would no longer feature Chief Wahoo -- which Chase Ruttig tackled here -- I learned of the Cleveland Spiders. The short-lived organization predated the current Cleveland MLB franchise's launch in Grand Rapids as the Rustlers by a few years. Likewise, the…
On Monday morning, Major League Baseball announced the news that the upcoming 2018 season will be the last for the Cleveland Indians' controversial Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms. The move signals the end of a logo MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made a goal to remove from the league after decades of pressure from Native American…
Kyle Lowry will join Toronto Raptors teammate DeMar DeRozan on the Eastern Conference All-Star Team next month in Los Angeles. Their representation of the East's second-place team might be the most exposure an American audience gets before the Playoffs. At the very least, the All-Star Game marks the only national stage for any of the…
For three quarters on Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium, the Jacksonville Jaguars executed the perfect gameplan and utilized their strengths to dominate the New England Patriots. A dream season nearly took the next step, into the Super Bowl. Blake Bortles - maligned all season in a year the Jaguars mostly won in spite of their…
If modern MMA has advanced beyond the 2000-2010 era of wrestling/boxing specialists a la Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Forrest Griffin, UFC 220 at the TD Garden in Boston was a throwback to the old guard. Takedowns and ground and pound dominated the co-main events on a night in which striking was neutralized by the…
My first time playing NBA Jam marked a seminal moment in my childhood. I still remember it quite vividly. Following the recession of the early 1990s -- and commensurate with the shift in ownership of resorts from mob-tied entities to corporations, as Ace Rothstein laments at the end of Casino -- Las Vegas transitioned to…
UFC 220's main event features the UFC Heavyweight Championship battle between defending champion Stipe Miocic and the electric Francis Ngganou in what could set the early pace for Fight of the Year. Yet, in the co-main event, a subplot equally, if not more, deserving attention features Volkan Oezdemir challenging champion Daniel Cormier for the Light…
As everyone who has tuned into ESPN or scrolled Twitter in the past six months knows by now -- an introductory phrase I hate to use but is patently true in this situation -- Isaiah Thomas was forced out of his cherished role as the Boston Celtics point guard after an incredibly emotional postseason. After…
The CFL is a league known for its carousel of journeyman quarterbacks. For every Anthony Calvillo, Jeff Garcia or Warren Moon who managed to ply their trade on one team for the majority of their Canadian careers, there are several notable quarterbacks who plied there trade on what felt like every team in the league at…
Throughout the 2017 NFL season, it was impossible to avoid a feeling of fatigue toward the sport. The countdown to a Sunday of football was replaced by the guilt of supporting a league that not only ignores the safety of its players, but also now proved its owners aren't above blacklisting a player or attempting…
After a Wild Card Weekend of upsets and entertaining affairs, the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs features plenty of heavy favorites facing seemingly overmatched opponents. In the AFC, the Steelers and Patriots are expected to handle their business this weekend and set up a meeting between the two in the AFC Championship. New England…
