(By no means an exhaustive list, No Mas takes you back through the years and the Academy Awards’ longstanding love affair with the fight game in all its vicissitudes.)

The Champ (1931)
Best Picture Nominee
King Vidor – Best Director Nominee
Wallace Beery – Best Actor Winner
Beery stars (appropriately) as a drunken ex-heavyweight champion who takes one last fight for the sake of his son. The original of the ’79 Jon Voight/Ricky Schroeder tearjerker. Beery tied with Frederic March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) for Best Actor.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Best Picture Nominee
Alexander Hall – Best Director Nominee
Robert Montgomery – Best Actor Nominee
James Gleason – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
The original of Warren Beatty’s 1978 Heaven Can Wait in which all of the names are the same (Joe Pendleton, Max Corcoran, Mr. Jordan the Angel, of course) but Joe is a boxer, not the quarterback of the Rams.

Body and Soul (1947)
John Garfield – Best Actor Nominee
A quintessential Hollywood depiction of the boxing universe. Young and naive fighter Charley Davis, played by John Garfield, is increasingly led down a corrupt path by his crooked manager against the wishes of his loving mother.

Champion (1949)
Kirk Douglas – Best Actor Nominee
Arthur Kennedy – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Based on a short story by Ring Lardner. Kirk Douglas playes “Midge” Kelly, a heavyweight with a wild streak.

The Quiet Man (1952)
Best Picture Winner
John Ford – Best Director Winner
Victor McLaglen – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
A John Wayne/John Ford classic about an ex-fighter who has accidentally killed a man in a bout. He moves to Ireland and takes over his family farm and falls in love, etc.

On the Waterfront (1954)
Best Picture Winner
Elia Kazan – Best Director Winner
Marlon Brando – Best Actor Winner
Lee J. Cobb – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Karl Malden – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Rod Steiger – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Eva Marie Saint – Best Supporting Actress Nominee
You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am.

The Great White Hope (1970)
James Earl Jones – Best Actor Nominee
Jane Alexander – Best Actress Nominee
James Earl Jones as Jack Johnson in an adaption from the famous play. Great movie.

Fat City (1973)
Susan Tyrell – Best Supporting Actress Nominee
John Huston directs this underrated movie based on Leonard Gardner’s famous boxing/noir novel.

Rocky (1976)
Best Picture Winner
John G. Avildsen – Best Director Winner
Sylvester Stallone – Best Actor Nominee
Talia Shire – Best Actress Nominee
Burgess Meredith – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Burt Young – Best Supporting Actor Nominee

Raging Bull (1980)
Best Picture Nominee
Martin Scorsese – Best Director Nominee
Robert Deniro – Best Actor Winner
Joe Pesci – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Cathy Moriarty – Best Supporting Actress Nominee

Pulp Fiction (1994)
Best Picture Nominee
Best Director Nominee
John Travolta – Best Actor Nominee
Samuel L. Jackson – Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Uma Thurman – Best Supporting Actress Nominee
No, it’s not a boxing movie, per se, but a crucial plot twist hinges on Bruce Willis’s turn as a stubborn pug who refuses to take a dive.

The Hurricane (1999)
Denzel Washington – Best Actor Nominee

Ali (2001)
Will Smith – Best Actor Nominee

Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Best Picture Winner
Clint Eastwood – Best Director Winner
Clint Eastwood – Best Actor Nominee
Hilary Swank – Best Actress Winner
Morgan Freeman – Best Supporting Actor Nominee

Cinderella Man (2005)
Paul Giamatti – Best Supporting Actor Nominee

“I’m so great I don’t have a mark on my face, and I upset Sonny Liston, and I just turned 22 years old. I MUST be the Greatest. I told the world I talk to God every day. If God’s with me can’t nobody be against me. I shook up the WORLD. I KNOW God, I know the REAL god!”

(At around 7:15 of the clip below, Cassius brings Sam Cooke into the ring – “that man’s the greatest rock and roll singer in the world… and we both pretty.” Also, one thing I’d never noticed before – Robert Deniro reffed this fight.)

Growing up in the Philly area, I had my fill of Dennis Johnson, or, as we referred to him, Dennis the Menace. People talk about the greatness of the 80′s in the NBA and they talk about two teams, the Celtics and the Lakers, forgetting that there was a third squad in the equation, the Sixers, who in the 1982-83 season were in my (possibly biased) opinion the greatest basketball team to ever take the court.

The dominance of the Sixers that season was what brought Dennis Johnson to the Celtics. A myth has grown up in retrospect that Red went out and got DJ to guard Magic Johnson, which is preposterous. When the Celtics brought in DJ, it was unclear whether they’d actually ever meet up with Magic in the playoffs, because the Moses-led Sixers looked like the team to beat for the next decade.

No, Boston got Dennis Johnson for one reason – to get the Boston Strangler’s hands off an entire city’s throat. The Boston Strangler was, of course, the Sixers’ combustible shooting guard Andrew Toney, who had his finest seasons in ’82 and ’83, making it to two All-Star Games, and more importantly, carving the Celtics a new one on a game-by-game basis.

Ironically, Johnson never really did that great a job with Toney after arriving in Boston, but it didn’t turn out to matter much. The Sixers imploded without his help, meeting up with the Celtics in the playoffs just one more time in the 80′s, the ’85 conference finals, when Boston embarrassed us 4-1. But Andrew Toney aside, DJ was undoubtedly the final piece of the puzzle for the Celtics dynasty of the decade. Without him, I seriously doubt if they would have won another championship in the 80′s, and we might be talking today about the Sidney Moncrief Bucks and their incredible rivalry with the Lakers. If you think that’s overstating the case, just refer to Larry Legend himself. “He’s the greatest player I ever played with,” Bird has said many times of DJ. Take that Kevin McHale.

Below is a short video of Johnson talking about his playground days in Compton and some of the greats he played with there. If you haven’t heard, Johnson died on Thursday, collapsed at a practice with his D-League team, the Austin Toros. DJ – R.I.P.

2/18
The Final Lap
The day of the 2007 Daytona 500 was also the anniversary of two seminal events in the race’s history – the fight between Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers at the 1979 Daytona, and the tragic crash that killed Dale Earnhardt in 2001.

Letdown
Large wasn’t happy with what he saw on Saturday’s Boxing After Dark card – you know when the thing that impressed him most was Paulie Malignaggi’s humility, it was not a night to remember. Norberto Bravo took one look at the horrifying specter of Andre Berto’s jab and thought better of making an evening of it. Berto thrice knocked Bravo off his feet in the first round as if he were tumbling an old dog from his hind legs.

2/19
K.O.W. – Uncle Rog
With Floyd Mayweather’s birthday coming up (it’s tomorrow actually, hope you got your shopping done), we turn to Floyd’s uncle and trainer Roger Mayweather for our No Mas Knockout of the Week, taking you back to the night that the Black Mamba got tamed by a young Julio Cesar Chavez. Mayweather looks lethal at first, dominating the action with his rattlesnake jab. Of course, as we would all learn over time, you had to hit Chavez about a thousand times with a telephone pole to hurt the guy.

2/20
Two Moments on Ice
Two Olympic anniversaries of note – Boitano facing down Orser in the Battle of the Brians at the Calgary Games, and Tara Lipinski once again ruining Michelle Kwan’s life by stealing the gold at Nagano.

It’s all George Forman’s fault
Tommy “Gunn” Morrison is on the comeback trail after deciding he doesn’t have AIDS anymore. He won by knockout last night in West Virginia over a truck driver who thought he’d signed up for an arm-wrestling tournament. Morrison says he’s going to be better than George Foreman in his comeback. We have our doubts.

2/21
Deal or Shit Deal
With the NBA trade deadline coming around this week, we recall some famous and infamous deadline moves of the past to play a little Deal or Shit Deal. Neek for Danny Manning anyone?

2/22
Sharpshootin’ with The Franchise
Oh the Franchise’s heart was heavy this week, due to the passing of Mike Alfonso, a.k.a Mike Awesome. The ‘Chise also throws some mad love to Mr. Perfect and previews Wrestlemania 23 and this weekend’s Pride PPV.

2/23
Cuba Libre
The forty-ninth anniversary of the kidnapping of Formula One legend Juan Manuel Fangio by the 26th of July Movement in Cuba. On the evening of the 23rd, Fangio left his room at the Hotel Lincoln in Havana and went downstairs, where he was seized in the lobby by Cuban rebels. The kidnapping was immediately front-page news around the world, bringing Castro’s cause more publicity than it had yet achieved in two years of guerrilla warfare.

On this day in 1958, Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement staged one of its most widely publicized acts of terrorism against the Batista government, kidnapping Argentina’s great Formula One racer, Juan Manuel Fangio.

The larger-than-life Fangio was in Havana to participate in the Batista-sponsored Cuban Grand Prix. The 1950′s was the first decade of Formula One, and Fangio dominated it, winning 24 Grand Prix races and five World Championships, a record which lasted nearly a half-century until Michael Schumacher won his sixth in 2003.

On the evening of the 23rd, Fangio left his room at the Hotel Lincoln in Havana and went downstairs, where he was seized in the lobby by Cuban rebels. The kidnapping was immediately front-page news around the world, bringing Castro’s cause more publicity than it had yet achieved in two years of guerilla warfare. Two days later the race went off without Fangio, and turned quickly into a tragic boondoggle as a Cuban driver, Armando Garcia Cifuentes, lost control of his car less than 15 minutes into the race and ploughed into the throng of spectators lining the Malecon. Forty were injured and seven killed. In a fit of rage after the disaster, Batista ordered Cifuentes arrested and charged with manslaughter.

Fangio was released unharmed that night at midnight. He claimed to have been treated with great care and civility by the rebels and to bear them no ill will. Likewise, they announced that the Argentinian driver was a man of immense charm and dignity who they found to be a natural ally in their cause.

2/23
Champions League Highlights
ESPN2, 3 p.m.
Been missing the action, ‘ave ya? Well bloody ‘ell mate, ere’s your ticket.

Junior Jones v. Tracy Harris-Patterson, 1999
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m. & 12 a.m.
Jones was a year removed from a bitchslapping from El Terrible, and only six bouts removed from his last fight. Still, it’s good to see a Poison fight on Classic, taking on Little Caeser no less, who was likewise near the end of his career.

WWE Smackdown
CW, 8 p.m.
Rey Mysterio, who hasn’t been seen on WWE television in over four months due to knee surgery, returns tonight to San Diego (his hometown). Also, look out for King Booker vs. Kane in a Money in the Bank Qualifying match for Wrestlemania 23.

International Fight League
FOX Sports Net, 11 p.m.
The IFL settles into their new weekly timeslot on FSN with a battle between the Chicago Red Bears and the New York Pitbulls. Also on tap are the Toronto Dragons going up against the Oregon Wolfpack.

Karate Bullfighter
IFC, 12 a.m. & 3 a.m.
Maybe not the best Sonny Chiba movie, but as I heard Joe Tessitore saying the other night about Pernell Whitaker, “his B minus beat most people’s A plus.” Chiba plays karate pioneer Masutatsu Oyama in the first in a trilogy of films.

2/24
Archie Moore v. Yvon Durelle, 1958
ESPN Classic, 7 a.m.
The fight that Moore called his finest achievement in the ring and a testament to the iron will of the Mongoose. Down three times in the first round, ole Arch comes back to KO the Fighting Fisherman in the 11th. Read more of what I had to say about this bout in my obituary of Durelle from last month.

Ringside
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
The Ringside series takes on the career of Evander Holyfield.

Pride FC 33: The Second Coming
PPV, 9 p.m.
Pride returns to PPV and to Las Vegas. Main televised fights are: Mauricio Shogun vs. Alistair Overeem, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs,. Sokoudjou, Takanori Gomi vs. Nick Diaz and Middleweight champ, Wanderlei Silva, defending his title against Dan Henderson.

2/25
NLL Lacrosse – Portland v. Colorado
VS., 2:30 p.m.
Pro lacrosse at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday – strictly for the violently hungover.

Downhill Racer
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Robert Redford as a brash young skier who battles with his coach, played by Gene Hackman. From 1969 – a bizarre movie worth watching just for its preposterousness.

Floyd Patterson v. George Chuvalo, 1965
ESPN Classic, 12 a.m.
A straight-up bloodbath, probably the most brutal fight of Floyd’s career, not counting the two homicides he suffered at the hands of the Big Bear.

Simply Awesome: Just as wrestling fans were beginning to get over the untimely passing of Bam Bam Bigelow, we’re hit with the shocking suicide death of former ECW Champion, Mike Alfonso, a.k.a Mike Awesome. Alfonso was found dead in his apartment this past Saturday night.

When are all these young wrestlers going to stop dying? Awesome had just recently retired from wrestling and was only 42 years old. He was on top of the wrestling world just seven years ago when he won the ECW World Heavyweight Title for the second time. I always admired him because he never wrestled the typical big man match, flying around the ring with an agility impressive for a man of his size. While he was one of the top foreign stars in the FMW promotion in Japan. it wasn’t until the late 90′s that he really made a name for himself in Extreme Championship Wrestling. In April of 2000, he was involved in one of the most unusual matches in wrestling history when he showed up unannounced on WCW Monday Nitro despite the fact that he was the current ECW Champion. Awesome always maintained that he never had a contract with ECW and could jump to the competition whenever he felt like it. He later agreed to return to ECW for one night only to drop the belt against WWE wrestler, and former ECW alum, Tazz. It was an unprecedented match, a WCW wrestler against a WWE wrestler in an ECW ring. When Awesome returned to WCW full-time, he had a good run as a member of Team Canada (despite not being Canadian). After WCW was bought by WWE in March 2001 he faded away, but did return to steal the show in the ECW One Night Stand PPV in June 2005 in his match against Masato Tanaka. Rest in Peace, Mike.

Hall of Fame Bound: Speaking of wrestlers who passed away at a very young age, WWE announced this week that they would be inducting Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig, to the WWE Hall of Fame during Wrestlemania weekend. Hennig will join Dusty Rhodes (and a few more unannounced wrestlers) in this year’s class. As I’ve mentioned before, Hennig’s death in 2003 was so shocking to me because he was one of my favorites growing up. I would even argue that he was the most technically-sound wrestler of his era. Needless to say, this induction is way overdue.

The Road Begins: WWE presented its No Way Out PPV this past Sunday and things went as planned leading up to Wrestlemania 23. Now all the focus will go on hyping the ‘granddaddy of ‘em all” which goes down April 1st from Ford Field in Motown. WWE is doing a fantastic job building to their version of the Super Bowl by announcing most of the big matches early on and allowing people to get excited about them. One of the major problems in this current wrestling scene is that there are way too many PPVs. There are so many shows now, every angle and feud has to be rushed and there is no time to get the fans emotionally involved. This year, however, they seem to have realized that the earlier the matches are announced, the more time there is for momentum to build. They’ve already announced the two main events featuring Cena vs. Michaels and Batista vs. Undertaker. Not to mention Trump vs. McMahon in their hair vs. hair match. Also announced are the first two competitors in this year’s Money in the Bank ladder match – Edge and CM Punk. Look for them to announce the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin as special guest referee in the Trump vs. McMahon showdown.

Second Coming: Pride Fighting Championships, the number one MMA promotion in Japan, is holding its second-ever PPV event on US soil this Saturday night. The rise and fall of Pride FC is fascinating because just two years ago they were the worldwide leader in Mixed-Martial-Arts with UFC a distant second. Now the tables have turned dramatically with many people predicting Pride will either fold or merge with UFC by the end of 2007. Coming to the United States is part of their plan to broaden their appeal and save their sinking ship. If you’ve never watched a Pride show before, tune in this Saturday night. They always put on amazing PPVs. Fights to look out for on are: Mauricio Shogun vs. Alistair Overeem, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs,. Sokoudjou, Takanori Gomi vs. Nick Diaz and, in the main event, the baddest Middleweight on the planet, Wanderlei Silva, defending his title against Dan Henderson.

Looking Back: I thought for a trip down memory lane this week, we could enjoy the Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect I-C title showdown from Summerslam 1991. Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper and Bobby Heenan on the call. Oh, how I miss these old matches.

Daytona 500
Speed, 3 p.m.
A replay of this past Sunday’s race, so if you’re curious to see what all the fuss was about, this is your chance. I may just tune in myself. For like, the last five minutes.

Hank Aaron SportsCentury
ESPN Classic, 4 p.m.
I don’t think there is a better SportsCentury to watch during Black History month than this one to get a sense of the level of hatred black people have endured in this country even when their talents brought them to the heights of success.

When We Were Kings
Sundance, 7:30 p.m.
I sincerely doubt that you are reading No Mas and have not seen this movie. But in the off chance that this is possible, here is your chance to make things right.

TNA Impact
Spike, 9 p.m.
An interesting episode of Impact tonight with an “NYC Belting Pot” match between LAX and Team 3D with Sopranos star Steve Schirripa in their corner. Yes, you read that correctly. Also, look out for an X Division ladder match to crown a number one contender for next month’s PPV. And if that’s not enough, Andre “Bad Moon” Rison makes an appearance.

UFC Unleashed
Spike, 11 p.m.
A best of UFC show featuring some good matches: Randy Couture vs. Mike Van Arsdale, Tank Abbott vs. Frank Mir and Chuck Liddell vs. Jeremy Horn.

Hoosiers
AMC, 1 a.m.
Look, mister, there’s two kinds of dumb… a guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and a guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter, the second one you’re kinda forced to deal with.

With the NBA trading deadline almost upon us, and with a lot of big talk floating around the rumor mills, we thought we’d go back and play a little “deal or shit deal” with some great trade deadline moves of the past. We’ll break it down wherever possible with cards, because that always seems to clarify the matter in stark detail. I always feel like GM’s would avoid making a lot of bad moves if they’d just lay out the trading cards on their desks and use their inner greedy collector to assess the situation. Anyway, deal or shit deal, you make the call…

1989
Kiki Vandeweigh from the Blazers to the Knicks for a first-round draft pick that eventually became… Byron Irvin.

1994
Neek from the Hawks to the Clips for Danny Manning and a draft pick.

1996
Tim Hardaway and Chris Gatling from Golden State to Miami for Kevin Willis and Bimbo Coles.

1999
Milwaukee sends Terrell Brandon to Minnesota, and Eliott Perry to New Jersey. The Nets send Sam Cassell and Chris Gatling to Milwaukee and Brian Evans and future draft considerations to Minnesota. Minnesota sends Stephon Marbury, Bill Curley and Chris Carr to New Jersey and Pula Grant to Milwaukee.

2001
The Sixers send Theo Ratliff, Toni Kukoc, Nazr Muhammad and Pepe Sanchez to the Hawks for Dikembe Mutombo and Roshown McLeod.

Chelsea v. Porto
ESPN2, 2:30
Live Champions League match from Portugal featuring the English champions against the Champions League titlist from 2004.

Evander Holyfield SportsCentury
ESPN Classic, 4 p.m.
Real Deal, solid SC. He get his props for being a warrior, and yet it’s made clear that it’s the warrior in Evander that just won’t let him stop. One thing’s for sure – you definitely come away feeling like Evander was THE heavyweight of the 90′s.

Liverpool v. Barcelona
ESPN Classic, 5 p.m.
The Champions League champions of the past two years face off in their first match of the knockout stage. The Liverpool lads evidently have been acting up a bit while training in Portugal. The plot thickens.

UFC Fight Night 3
Spike TV, 9 p.m.
This card is from January 16, 2006. Fights to look out for are: Chris Leben vs. Jorge Rivera, Josh Burkman vs. Drew Fickett, Stephan Bonnar vs. James Irvin and, in the main event, Tim Sylvia vs. Assuerio Sylvia. This is also the event where they shockingly announced the historic Gracie vs. Hughes.