Knicks v. Bulls, 11/21/86
ESPN Classic, 5 p.m.
The early editions of the Jordan Bulls and the Ewing Knicks lock horns in Chicago in a game from 1986. Bill Cartwright’s still a Knick, and Charles Oakley is still a Bull. And so is Philadelphia streetball legend, Eugene Banks.

UFC Fight Night Spike, 9 p.m.
Replay of last Thursday’s card that featured two major upsets and a very strong early candidate for knockout of the year. The featured matches were Rashad Evans v. Sean Salmon and Spencer Fisher v. Hermes Franca. If you missed it, don’t miss it again.

TIVO ALERT FOR TOMORROW MORNING
One Day in September
IFC, 8 a.m.
This Munich Massacre documentary is stylized within an inch of its life and wrought with a soundtrack straight off a high school gothdork’s MySpace page. Nevertheless, there’s meat on this bone.

Slap Shot
HBOc, 9:35 a.m.
Charlestown Chiefs, Reggie Dunlop, the Hanson bros, yeah cheers. Seen it a million times? No dice, Tonto. Watch it again.

Dah, to what Tank? How many guns you had?

Tank Johnson says gun arrest ‘opened my eyes’ (ESPN.com)

Super Bowl XVII was on this day 23 years ago, also referred to more commonly as The John Riggins Bowl. Ole Riggo ran roughshod over the Dolphins no-name no-defense defense and earned himself the MVP award (which he evidently gave to Sandra Day O’Connor after he shagged her), as the Skins beat the Fish 27-17.

I would just like to point out here that the Redskins were 3-point dogs in this game (just in case you were feeling nervous about betting on Lindsay Hohan in that Tyson fight – underdogs do come through sometimes on the big stage). Other than that, I have nothing to say about it. It was a Super Bowl that I remember being marginally more interesting than most, which is to say still not very interesting.

What I would like to comment on, however, is the entertainment. The game was played at the Rose Bowl, and an all-district band from L.A. was the musical act of the pre-game show (and no, that all-district band was not Van Halen). The halftime extravaganza was something called “KaleidoSUPERscope” that featured a local drill team. And get this, the national anthem was sung by Leslie Easterbrook. If you’re wondering who that is, well, that’s her lovely mugshot over there on the right. She, uh, was Lt. Callahan in the Police Academy movies. And that’s about it.

I mean, all’s I’m saying is… those were different times. A district marching band and a Hollywood q-lister to sing the national anthem? Where have you gone, 1983?

In conclusion, The A-Team debuted after this Super Bowl, which is about the most big-time thing it had going for it. I pity the fool who changes that channel, yeah yeah yeah…

Because this shit right here is some serious shit. Word is that Iron Mike Tyson has checked himself into the Wonderland Center, the same rehab facility where Lindsay I’m such an incredible Ho-Han is currently trying to get over whatever horrible thing is now wrong with her life. There is clearly only one reason for this coincidence – they plan to fight.

Here at No Mas, we are not in the business of making book, but we are nevertheless prepared to take action on this thing. To start we’ve got Ho-han paying 240 on the c-note. You may think those are great odds given the fact that she’s facing the former heavyweight champion of the world and erstwhile Baddest Man on the Planet, not to mention that Tyson weighs about 260 while she weighs about 85 pounds wet, and make that 70 less the implants. But we’ve got a funny feeling about this one. We hear the Ho-inator has wanted a piece of Tyson for years, and vice versa. We hear she’s the nastiest bitch on two heels and that even though she’s in rehab she’s still smoking a ton of crack, which would have to be in her favor. We also hear that after the bout (ten 3-minute rounds, bare-fisted, no hair-pulling or nipple twisting or crack smoking) they’re going to get married, which is definitely the Joe D/Marilyn nightmare that all of us reality-television-watching Ipod-listening millennial mutants so richly deserve.

MUST-SEE NO MAS TV

Lennox Lewis Trifecta
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Three, count ‘em, THREE Lennox fights back-to-back-to-back on Classic tonight. These are rarely shown on Classic, and never shown anywhere else, so if you want to see them, tonight’s your chance. The first fight is Lennox’s bout with Tommy Morrison, aka Tommy Gunn, from 1995. It was Lewis’s second bout since losing the title to Oliver McCall, and also his second bout since stealing McCall’s trainer, Manny Steward. The second fight is Lennox against Shannon Briggs from 1998, and the third is his 1993 bout with Frank Bruno. All’s I will tell you here if you haven’t seen these fights is that all three have a lot of action and all three end in stoppages.

BEST OF THE REST

Evander Holyfield SportsCentury
ESPN Classic, 4 p.m.
This is one of the full-hour jammies, and has a lot of good footage, definitely worth a look

Happy Gilmore
AMC, 8 & 10 p.m.
Adam Sandler as a hockey goon turned golfer. Adam Sandler and Bob Barker in a bare-fisted fight to the death. A guest appearance appearance by Apollo Creed. Enough said.

ECW Wrestling
Sci-Fi Channel, 10 p.m.
The rematch nobody wants to see: ECW World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley vs. Test.

Warrior Nation
MSNBC, 10 & 11 p.m.
The fourth and final installment in this mini-docu series looking at the growing world of MMA. Featured in this episode is the build-up to the most anticipated match in UFC history: Liddell vs. Ortiz II.

John Cena on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
CBS, 12:30 a.m.
Personally, I can’t get over feeling that John Cena belongs in a gay porn movie. But hey, what do I know? Here’s hoping he rips that Scottish wanker a new one either way. I can’t stand that ponce.

NFL’s Greatest Games: Super Bowl XXXII
ESPN2, 1 a.m.
Forget who was in this one? Well, give a click then love, and we’ll set you straight. Or I’ll give you a clue. It just may be… the single… greatest… moment… in the HISTORY… of… ah forget it. Broncos/Packers.

On this day 36 years ago, the UCLA men’s basketball team beat UC-Santa Barbara 74-61 at Pauley Pavilion. It was a notable win for the Bruins because for the first time in almost a year, they were coming off a loss, their nationally televised defeat to Notre Dame, where they were trampled by Austin Carr’s 48-point extravanganza.

But in retrospect, this win over Santa Barbara was also notable because it would prove to be the first of many more to come, 87 more to be precise. The Bruins would not lose again until Digger Phelps and the Irish rolled into town on January 19, 1974 and again played the spoiler, ending the longest winning streak in college basketball history at 88 games.

Most people associate that streak with Bill Walton, and yet the 1970-71 team that started the streak had no big red Deadhead at center. This was the team that presided during the two years between the Walton and Alcindor eras. Forward Sidney Wicks (pictured right) was its star – the other four starters were Steve Patterson at center, Curtis Rowe at forward, and Henry Bibby and Terry Schofield at guards. This was the nucleus of a team that won two national championships, in 1970 and 1971.

Of course, come the ’71-’72 campaign, there was a new group of sheriffs in town, a more familiar gang in UCLA history – Walton, Nater, Wilkes. Whereas the team before was exemplary in both skill and discipline, this team was frightening in its abundance of size and talent. Their closest game in their undefeated ’71-’72 season was a six-point win over Oregon – their next closest was a fourteen-point win over Cal. In general, if they beat you by 20, you’d had yourself a good night out there.

MUST-SEE NO MAS TV
Any Which Way You Can
AMC, 3:30 p.m. (all times EST)
Look, Every Which Way But Loose may be the greatest movie ever made. We all know that. But given this fact, I’ve always been surprised how under the radar the sequel is. In Any Which Way You Can, two-fisted streetfighter Philo Beddoe finally bags Lynn Halsey-Taylor, continues his ongoing feud with the Black Widdas motorcycle gang, and ends up being forced by the mafia to come out of retirement to fight the ultimate bare-knuckles brawl against a martial-arts expert. If you just read that last sentence and still don’t want to see this movie, it might be time to admit that you are dead.

BEST OF THE REST
The Color of Money
ESPN Classic, 4:30 p.m.
I honestly think this movie is better than The Hustler, if only because Eddie Felson was so much older then, and he’s younger than that now.

Buster Douglas v. Mike Tyson, 1990
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m, 12 a.m.
Shakespearean tragedy in a boxing ring in Tokyo.

Youngblood
Spike, 9 p.m.
Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze are hockey players. They get in lots of fights. Swayze is the tough one, Lowe is the Streisand (naturally). Until the end…

Monday Night Raw
USA, 9 p.m.
On the heels of last night’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view, will “the Samoan Bulldozer” Umaga seek revenge on WWE Champ John Cena for choking him out? Also, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon is planning on calling out Donald Trump – does he have the balls to see it through?

Twelve years ago today, the San Francisco 49ers were slated to meet the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX, and for some reason they went ahead and played the game anyway. What ensued was an orgy of strangeness and bad feelings that started off with Kathie Lee Gifford singing the national anthem and then got worse.

First of all, there was the fact that the Chargers were in it. Led by Bobby Ross, no less. I can’t even remember who their quarterback was. Wait a second, it’s coming back to me… ah who cares. How can you remember the Chargers quarterback when the Niners quarterback had such a record-setting evening? Let’s recap shall we:

• 49ers QB Steve Young set a Super Bowl record by throwing for nineteen touchdowns on 7,010 yards passing.
• Wide receiver Jerry Rice set Super Bowl records by catching twelve of those touchdowns and also managing to bang every one of the Chargers cheerleaders while the game was still in progress.
• Ricky Watters also scored six touchdowns, including three during halftime.

It’s a little known fact that the game got so boring for the Niners that in the fourth quarter, no member of the team actually played in the game. They sent their wives and sons on to the field disguised in their uniforms. At this point in the game, Steve Young’s son threw eight touchdown passes to Jerry Rice’s wife.

The score of the game is thought to have ended up at around 278-12, but the final tally was ultimately deemed incalculable using traditional methods and is now represented by a symbol that looks something like what Prince’s name used to be. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, whereas the Super Bowl usually does pretty well in the ratings, Super Bowl XXIX actually lost its ratings timeslot to both the shows on the other networks – NBC had a Sanford and Son marathon while CBS was showing like, one of the old Super Bowls. A good one.

(ratings were so bad that this Apple ad was the way most people found out that the Niners won the Super Bowl)

As all you No Masians probably know, I had (have, I guess) some serious love for The Boxing Banker, Calvin Brock, mostly because I started following him at the Sydney Olympics, where I was on hand to witness his only bout (which he lost miserably – I sure can pick em).

But that love is not why I have chosen his knockout of Zuri Lawrence for this edition of the No Mas Knockout of the Week. It’s because this coming Friday said Zuri, brave soul, is venturing into the ring for the first time since Brock nearly decapitated his ass not quite a year ago.

It was last February on the Sugar Shane/Vargas I undercard. The odd thing is that Zuri was handling himself in there pretty well and probably was ahead on the scorecards. Then again, knockouts be like that, and this right here is a straight-up one-punch goodnight Irene of the highest order. Ref has the paramedics in the ring almost before Zuri hits the canvas. Now maybe you’ll understand why I lost all that money on Brock against Klitschko. A left hook like this can make a man a believer.