On this day in 1931, Transcontinental and Western Air Express Flight 599 crashed in Chase County, Kansas after losing a wing. A crew of two and six passengers were killed, and one of the passengers was a living legend, Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. Rockne was on his way to participate in the production of a film, The Spirit of Notre Dame.

The Rockne plane crash hasn’t lived on in pop culture quite like the Buddy Holly or Marshall football plane crashes, but in that early era of commercial aviation, it was one of the most shocking and influential air disasters of the century. It was front page news for months afterwards, and an investigation into its causes discovered that the Fokker Trimotor plane (named after Dutch manufacturer Anthony Fokker) had lost its wing due to cracks in its plywood structure. Similar cracks were found in other Fokker planes and they were subsequently grounded, causing the Fokker brand to be completely discredited in the U.S. As a result, the standards for the infrastructure of commercial planes was completely overhauled, and all-metal planes became the industry norm within a few years.

In Bazaar, Kansas, there is a memorial to the victims of the Rockne crash at the site where the plane went down. It is tended to by Easter Heathman, now 90 years old, who, as a thirteen-year-old boy, was one of the first people to come upon the scene of the crash.

3/25
Sentimental Education
On the anniversary of Mike Tyson being released from prison in 1995, Large looks back at an Esquire interview that Pete Hamill did with Iron Mike while he was incarcerated and discovers a drastically different Tyson than the one in our imaginations. “He tells Hamill that when he gets out of prison he wants to go to college, that he wants to go back to Paris so he can visit the Louvre, that what he misses most about his life is bullshitting with his friends and flying his pigeons and talking to Camille Ewald (Cus’s companion). All in all, he sounds like a crack addict who has gotten clean and is dizzy at the prospect of a different, more rewarding existence.”

Good Times, Bad Times, Sunday Times
I-berg directs our attention to a Sunday Times piece on former Cubs prospect Adam Greenberg. “His tragedy combines Cubs fans’ and Jewish mothers’ worst nightmares and eerily parallels the misfortunes of Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, who never made it past the on-deck circle (but was immortalized in baseball’s favorite tour de schmaltz, Field of Dreams).”

3/26
HOYA SAXA: Jesuits Gone Wild
Our resident D.C. resident and college basketball maniac, Unsilent, documents the Georgetown madness outside his window after the Hoyas beat UNC in OT.

K.O.W. – Pure Magic
To celebrate the announcement that ABC is getting back into the fight game to televise Antonio Tarver’s next bout, we celebrate the Magic Man in our Knockout of the Week by going back to his one-punch demythologization of Roy Jones.

3/27
Ninety Freaking Three
On his 93rd birthday, we send our warmest regards to No Mas icon, Budd Schulberg, and reprint a passage of his that fills us with esprit de corps. “I’ll be looking for him, along with the ghosts of Homer and Lord Byron, at the next writers conference at Caesar’s Palace, or MGM Grand, or wherever the next epic encounter captures the imagination of the writers who see The Fight as a microcosm, an intensification of the life forces we struggle to understand.”

3/28
Sweet Redemption
The anniversary of Marquette NCAA final victory over UNC in 1977, the last game of Al McGuire’s storied career.

Mr. Woods, Mr. Federer… meet Mr. Phelps
Michael Phelps is putting on a show at the World Championships in Melbourne that defies the imagination. As far as Large is concerned, Mark Spitz’s seven-gold-medal record is now officially an underdog in Beijing.

Deep Tennis with Steve Tignor
Steve looks back at the greatness of Rod Laver and Lew Hoad, the Sampras and Federer of another time. “Laver does share two things with Federer and Sampras: (1) He was a shy man and a gentleman, the opposite of what we’re told top professional athletes need to be to succeed. (2) Laver, Federer, and Sampras were all the Sandy Koufaxes of their eras.”

3/29
Sharpshootin’ with The Franchise
As you might imagine, just days before the grandaddy of ‘em all, Franchise is pretty worked up. In this week’s column, though, he showed a measure of restraint and tackled all of the big business news in the MMA world before getting down to the many Wrestlemania-related matters at hand.

Four MC’s with Reasons to Bring This Game to Its Knees
Unsilent’s Final Four preview, a.k.a Beat Street Breakdown. “As good as Jordan Farmar was (and you know I love my Jewish ballers) Darren Collison is a prototypical Ben Howland point guard. He runs the offense more efficiently than any of the other talented guards heading into Atlanta and he’s got the balls to let it fly when that’s what the team needs from him.”

Cowardice and Treason
The anniversary of the day (early morning) when the trucks rolled into Baltimore and snuck the Colts out of town to Indy. “Has there ever been such a craven act on such a grand scale in the modern era of sports business?”

Jews for Michael Ray
I-berg – journalist, playa, Jew – vouches for the cred of alleged Anti-Semite, Michael Ray Richardson. “Now because he has the temerity to say that Jews are good lawyers, Jews are industrious people, Jews use their wits to get ahead in a world where they are more often hated than loved, we are going to excommunicate him from basketball like he’s Tim Hardaway or Al Campanis.”


3/30
The No Mas Top 23 Wrestlemania Moments
WM 23 is this Sunday, and so the ‘Chise wrapped up his epic 23 moment countdown today in style by breaking out the top five. People, I’m not going to spoil anything here – just believe me when I tell you that the shit is positively shocking and not to be missed.

The Granddaddy of ‘em all is this Sunday, Wrestlemania 23. I know this because the first thing Franchise did when he got into the office this morning was put me in a sleeper hold and scream “WRESTLEMANIA” in my ear about thirty times (which mercifully I could not hear, because I had already fallen asleep – kid’s got a hell of a sleeper hold I must say). So without further ado, here is the top five of the Chise’s epic Top 23 Wrestlemania Moments. If you want to backtrack for the full list before you get into the top five, you can click here for moments 9-6, here for 13-10, here for 18-14, and here for 23-19. All right ‘Chise, the envelopes please…

#5: Year of the Dragon
Wrestlemania III , Pontiac Silverdome, Detroit, MI
March 29, 1987

The Match: Intercontinental Championship: Ricky ‘The Dragon” Steamboat vs. Randy ‘Macho Man” Savage (c)

The Moment:
Forget Wrestlemania, many wrestling fans consider this I-C title match to be one of the greatest matches ever. While I will forever love this contest I don’t hold it in that high regard. The best parts, hands-down, were the near-falls. Back-and-forth they went and in the end, Steamboat, with the incomparable George ‘The Animal” Steele in his corner, would add another title to his impressive career resume.

____________________________________________________

#4: Icon vs. Icon
Wrestlemania X8 , Skydome, Toronto, ON
March 17, 2002

The Match: ‘Hollywood” Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock

The Moment:
This match, and WM X8 for that matter, have a place near-and-dear to my heart because it was the only Wrestlemania I have ever attended. I have been to the World Cup of Hockey and Soccer, the Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals and the NCAA Tournament and I have never heard a crowd as loud as when the Hulkster and the Brahma Bull stepped into the squared circle to face off for the first time ever.

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#3: The Heartbreak Kid meets Kid Dynamite
Wrestlemania XIV , FleetCenter, Boston, MA
March 29, 1998

The Match: WWF Championship: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels (c)

The Moment:
Remember when Mike Tyson first appeared on WWE Raw in January 1998 in the midst of the whole Stone Cold vs. Mr. McMahon saga. How amazing was that? The baddest man on the planet going up against the toughest S.O.B in the WWF. Predictably, Kid Dynamite joined forces with Austin’s opponent at WM XIV, ‘The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels, only to turn on ‘his friend” on the grandest stage of ‘em all. Gotta love Jim Ross’ call at the end of this one , somewhere Howard Cosell must have been smiling.

____________________________________________________

#2: Genesis
Wrestlemania , Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
March 31, 1985

The Match: ‘Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff & ‘Rowdy” Roddy Piper w/ Cowboy Bob Orton vs. Hulk Hogan & Mr. T w/ ‘Superfly” Jimmy Snuka

The Moment:
The match that started it all. Not only was this the inaugural Wrestlemania Main Event featuring the likes of Hogan, Piper, Snuka and Mr. T but check out this impressive list of celebrity representatives at ringside:
Guest Ring Announcer: Billy Martin
Guest Time Keeper: Liberace
Guest Official: Muhammad Ali
Add the Rockettes and Cyndi Lauper (who appeared earlier in the night) and there will never, ever, be another Wrestlemania I.

____________________________________________________

#1: The Irresistible Force meets The Immovable Object
Wrestlemania III , Pontiac Silverdome, Detroit, MI
March 29, 1987

The Match: WWF Championship: Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan (c)

The Moment:
How can I not give this match top billing on the twentieth anniversary of WM III? A battle which featured two of the biggest legends ever in front of, at the time, the largest audience in North American wrestling history. WWE is back in Detroit this year at the new-and-improved version of the Silverdome, Ford Field, and they can only dream of having a moment equal when Hulk finally slammed Andre.

3/30
1987 NCAA Final
ESPN Classic, 2 p.m.
Keith Smart. Steve Alford, Daryl Thomas. Sherman Douglas, Rony Seikaly. Derrick Coleman, freshman.

Heaven Can Wait
HBOSGe, 2:45 p.m.
God doesn’t have a football team, Max, so he couldn’t make me first string.

Pedro Martinez SportsCentury
ESPN Classic, 4 p.m
Hopefully a significant portion of this program is devoted to explaining why Pedro needs a midget in his entourage like he’s Slim Thug or some shit.

Days of Thunder
WGN, 8 p.m.
No, no, he didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he rubbed you. And rubbin, son, is racin’.

WWE Smackdown
CW, 8 p.m.
Stone Cold makes a special appearance on the final Smackdown before ‘Mania. Plus, Finlay vs. Kennedy and King Booker vs. CM Punk.

Late Show with David Letterman
CBS, 11:35 p.m.
With his hair on the line at Wrestlemania 23 on Sunday, Donald Trump visits Letterman in perhaps the days of the infamous Trump comb-over.

3/31
Archie Moore v. Joey Maxim, 1952
ESPN Classic, 7 a.m.
At the age of 36, and a veteran of 161 fights, Archie Moore got his first shot at world title in 1952 against light heavyweight champ, Joey Maxim. The Old Mongoose made good on the opportunity, succeeding where Sugar Ray Robinson had failed just sixth months prior.

Legendary Nights – Hearns/Leonard
HBO2, 7 a.m.
My favorite of the Legendary Nights series, including Manny Steward talking about how he stayed in his basement for days after Tommy lost this fight, and how he still to this day doesn’t like to talk about it.

The Final Four
CBS, 6 p.m
Georgetown/Ohio State followed by UCLA/Florida. Click here for Unsilent’s rundown.

Ringside
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Tivo alert. While you’re watching basketball, you’re going to want to record this shit, because the Ringside series is taking on The Brown Bomber. The only Louis fights I ever see on Classic are Abe Simon and then the Marciano tragedy, so presumably they’ll be busting out some new material in this one.

Deliverance
AMC, 8 & 10:30 p.m.
Now you listen, Ed. Damn it, we can get out of this thing, without any questions asked. We get connected up with that body, and the law, this thing’s gonna be hangin’ over us the rest of our lives. We’ve gotta bury that guy.

2007 WWE Hall-of-Fame Induction Ceremony
USA, 12 a.m.
They won’t be showing the entire ceremony due to time constraints so look for the Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Dusty Rhodes and Curt Hennig inductions. Always a nice trip down wrestling memory lane.

Fight Club
Spike, 12 a.m.
We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

4/1
The Bullfighters
FMC, 6 a.m.
Laurel and Hardy are working as detectives in Mexico (of course). But Laurel happens to look exactly like a famous matador who has suddenly disappeared, so he is enlisted to step into the ring. If that doesn’t sound funny to you, you wouldn’t know funny if it ate your ass.

Wrestlemania 23
PPV, 7 p.m.
The grandaddy of ‘em all, the Super Bowl of wrestling…whatever you want to call it, just know that it’s finally going down tonight from Ford Field in front of some 80,000 crazed people. Oh yeah, some billionaire is supposedly getting his head shaved too.

Jim Thorpe, All-American
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Burt Lancaster plays Jim Thorpe in this 1951 classic. Burt Lancaster – now there was a goddamn movie star. Just thinking about Burt Lancaster makes me wish that Colin Farrell would go drown in a tub of tartar sauce. Another tip – Pop Warner is actually in this movie.

Muhammad Ali: Young Champion
ESPN Classic, 10 p.m.
Ali in his prime, the mid-60’s, against Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo and Floyd Patterson. Followed by those portraits of the artist as a young rumbler, Cassius Clay’s Greatest Hits Vols I & II.

To whom it may concern:

This Jew would like to vouch for Michael Ray Richardson.

He is a lover not a hater of Jews as well as every other variety of human being, and he does not deserve to be run out of professional basketball for his allegedly “anti-semitic” remarks.

For those who may have missed this story, Richardson, the one time Knick and Net star, was suspended yesterday from his job as head coach of the Albany Patroons after the second game of the CBA’s championship series.

ESPN reported:
********************************
Before Tuesday’s game against the Yakima Sun Kings, Richardson made anti-Semitic comments to two reporters in his office when discussing the contract general manager Jim Coyne had offered him Monday to coach his team in the CBA and USBL.

“I’ve got big-time lawyers,” Richardson said, according to the Times Union. “I’ve got big-time Jew lawyers.”

When told by the reporters that the comment could be offensive to people because it plays to the stereotype that Jews are crafty and shrewd, he responded with, “Are you kidding me? They are. They’ve got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to an airport in Tel Aviv? They’re real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they’ve got to be crafty.”

And he continued, “They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean?” he said. “Which I think is great. I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people.”
*******************************

In 2001, I did a story for the Village Voice, about Michael Ray’s long road back from cocaine addiction and his adventures in International basketball. Richardson was the first player to be expelled from the NBA under the ‘the three strikes” drug rule. Forced to play abroad, his first stop was in Tel Aviv. I caught up with him fifteen years later in Livorno, where he was then playing in the Italian B League at the age of 44, and he told me about his time in Israel:

“You think it’s going to be an awful place. You just see bombs going off all the time, but it ain’t like that.” He starts talking about a club in Tel Aviv called Cinerama. “On Thursday and Friday nights, you’d get 4000, 5000 people in there. Yeah. There’s another side of Israel too.” He raises his eyebrows and turns down the corners of his mouth. “Let me tell you something. Them Jews know how to party.”

It didn’t make the Voice’s edit of my piece, but Michael Ray went on to tell me about a James Brown performance in Tel Aviv:

“James Brown! The Godfather of Soul. Oh, he came with the leg kick and everything. He had it goin’ on. Hummm. I never see them Jews have that much fun in they life. You know, for us blacks, James Brown is like Elvis Presley. He’s our king. James Brown! James Brown will go all over the world!”

Michael Ray Richardson doesn’t speak politically correct English. He isn’t the guy who knows it may be more expedient to say: “The Jewish people have a deeply celebratory spirit.” He’s the dude that says, “Them Jews know how to party!” But if you hear him say it, you know his heart is in the right place. He was proud of James Brown, and he was happy that Israelis could appreciate a performer who he felt represented to a certain extent the collective spirit of his people. It clearly made him feel more at home and more comfortable in Israel. If they could truly appreciate James Brown, you could feel him thinking, maybe they could truly understand and appreciate him.

I really can’t think of any better way to illustrate that Michael Ray is the opposite of a racist. Confronted with the reality of Israel he abandoned preconceived notions and evaluated people on how they actually behaved. Michael Ray has done that in every country he’s been to. And that’s why he’s been loved all around the world.

Now because he has the temerity to say that Jews are good lawyers, Jews are industrious people, Jews use their wits to get ahead in a world where they are more often hated than loved, we are going to excommunicate him from basketball like he’s Tim Hardaway or Al Campanis.

It’s not right. Michael Ray is proud to have a Jewish lawyer because he thinks they are the best lawyers. Certainly it’s a stereotype, but it’s a stereotype rooted in a reality. A disproportionate number of the great lawyers in America are Jews. A disproportionate number of the great basketball players in America are black. We have learned to be very careful around these facts because here the line between fact and “stereotype” can get very blurry and if you’re not careful, you can get into deep water real quick. Michael Ray was unwise to have been so indiscreet around reporters, but it wasn’t exactly Elders of Zion territory.

That Michael Ray later apparently called a fan who heckled him a ‘faggot”, I’m not going to try to defend. For me, it’s much more of a problem than his remarks about Jews. He should know better than to use that word. But I guarantee Michael Ray, unlike Tim Hardaway, does not actually hate homosexuals any more than he hates Jews.

Michael Ray simply has not learned how to talk differently in public than he does in private. Michael Ray does not censor himself. That’s why he has always been quotable. That’s what’s ’shocking” about his remarks. They are not hateful or malicious. They are candid and politically incorrect. Not politically incorrect in the tradition of Al Campanis whose remarks revealed the unspoken assumptions behind a shameful and unwritten policy of exclusion. They were just words better left unsaid in public.

So Benito Fernandez, Jim Coyne, David Stern–or whoever calls the shots on this one–please give Michael Ray some sensitivity training, give him a spanking, and then let him back in the good graces of the CBA.

He is a good man and he doesn’t deserve to be run out of town.

March 29th is a dark day in Baltimore history – on this day, or rather early early morning, 23 years ago, Mayflower Transit trucks from Indianapolis arrived at the Baltimore Colts training facility in a driving snowstorm. They rolled in at 2 a.m. – the team offices and equipment were quickly packed in an hour’s time and then the trucks departed, taking the Colts franchise to Indianapolis, breaking Baltimore’s heart in the process.

Has there ever been such a craven act on such a grand scale in the modern era of sports business? Colts owner Robert Irsay repeatedly had assured the city of Baltimore that he would not move the team, and all the while he was secretly negotiating with Indy, duplicity of such magnitude that he literally snuck the team out of town under cover of the night. The Colts players themselves did not know that they were moving until the wee hours of March 29th, after the trucks already had left town.

Of course, along with the entire city of Baltimore, true Colts of the likes of John Unitas, Raymond Berry and Art Donovan never forgave the Irsays their treachery, and never considered the Indianapolis edition to have any relationship whatsoever to the legendary Baltimore team. This became evident once again this year with the Indy Colts’ Super Bowl victory, as many of the old Colts wanted it made clear that this should NOT be considered the second Super Bowl championship in franchise history, because the Indianapolis franchise was an entity unto itself with no historical connection to the Baltimore era.

Florida, UCLA, Georgetown, and Ohio State.

The Final Four: Stairway to One Shining Moment

On paper it’s as flawless a Final Four as we could hope for, precisely as I visualized back on Selection Sunday. It remains to be seen how well the games will play out on the court but there is one certainty, these are the teams that belong in the Georgia Dome (whether or not the tournament belongs in said venue is another matter entirely).

Forget about favorites and dogs, for all intents and purposes these teams stand on equal footing atop the ever-turbulent world of college basketball. Here’s a handy guide to what you need to know heading into the glorious culmination of gambling season collegiate athletics in America (fuck you college baseball…bunch of tree hugging metallurgists).

UCLA Bruins Pac 10 Regular Season Champions/Best Coached Team In America (aka: The Anti-Lute Olsen Award)

The most important thing to remember about this team is that they’ve improved significantly since they were dismantled by the Gators this time last year. As good as Jordan Farmar was (and you know I love my Jewish ballers) Darren Collison is a prototypical Ben Howland point guard. He runs the offense more efficiently than any of the other talented guards heading into Atlanta and he’s got the balls to let it fly when that’s what the team needs from him. Once again their front line will struggle to match up with Florida’s ridiculously athletic post players, but their mastery of Howland’s defensive rotation can be an equalizer.

Florida Gators SEC Champions/Defending National Champions/Future Millionaires Club

The big “distraction” in this year’s Final Four run has been the constant speculation surrounding Billy Donovan’s eminent departure. What you need to remember is that it’s only a distraction for the people who care. You think the players really care? Please. The only distraction facing Noah, Horford, and Brewer is picking out some ballin’ pinstripes for draft night. Even Taurean Green might be getting in on the act, but he’s saddled with the task of finding a suit that meshes with all three shades of his face.

Ohio State Buckeyes Big Ten Champions/The Best Team They Could Buy With the Leftover Football Money (kidding…kinda)

Yeah I hate Ohio State, so what? Just because I think Thad Motta is a Goober doesn’t mean I don’t respect the talent he’s able to put on the floor. The Conley/Oden combination gets the press but on any given night Daequan Cook, David Lighty, or Ron Lewis could be their most dangerous option on the offensive end of the court. On defense Oden has to stay out of foul trouble. Considering the opponent he’s likely to be leaned on for more minutes then he’s used to, if he picks up early fouls Ohio State could be in a lot of trouble. Similarly Ivan Harris will have his hands full with the inside/out game of Jeff Green. Harris has to be able to establish position in the high post and deny the pass to disrupt the “Princeton” offense.

Georgetown Hoyas Big East Champions/The Beginning of a Dynasty/My Neighbors

People look at this team and they see the Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green, but there’s so much more. In a year that featured dominant freshmen all over the nation Dajuan Summers remains an overlooked superstar. Yet it’s not just the big time recruits of that’s carrying the squad. Junior point guard Jonathan Wallace rose to prominence with his second half daggers against UNC but his performance was nothing new to those who know him. He was originally recruited by JTIII at Princeton, not surprising when you consider his athletic and academic accomplishments in high school. Wallace’s leadership and experience could be the difference when the Hoyas face off against Ohio State’s star-studded freshmen backcourt.

Good Call: Before we get to the Wrestlemania business at hand, there are a couple of MMA tidbits we need to touch on. First up, Tito Ortiz was supposed to fight his boss, UFC President, Dana White, in a three-round boxing match this past weekend. This sparring session came about after Ortiz returned to the UFC a couple of years ago and had it written into his contract. It’s one thing for Vince McMahon to step into the ring with a wrestler in a ‘worked” environment but I never understood what benefits both sides would derive from this event. If Ortiz loses to a former amateur boxer wouldn’t he lose all his credibility as ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy”? And if White gets his ass kicked then wouldn’t his aura as the tough boss disappear? And what if either man injured himself in the bout, what good would that do for the UFC (especially if the injury would have cost Ortiz a big payday)? Anyhow, after all the hype, Ortiz never showed up to the weigh-ins and the whole thing was called off. Cool, thanks for wasting our time.

Worlds Colliding Update: The worst-kept secret in MMA was officially announced on Tuesday when Pride president Nobuyuki Sakakibara announced that the company was being sold to one of the UFC owners, Lorenzo Fertitta. Details are still a bit unclear but it appears as though both companies will be run completely separate with one or two supershows scheduled each year. Clearly, Pride was in a lot of trouble so this appears to be the best-case scenario for them. I am just happy that the Fertittas will not be pulling a Vince McMahon by combining both companies. There is a lot more money to be made by separating the two entities and joining forces once a year for a World Cup-like event. For the boxing fans out there please don’t confuse this with the WBO merging with WBC. No, this would be comparable to the AFL buying the NFL or the ABA buying the NBA. Some of the dream matches that were mentioned were: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Shogun Rua, Dan Henderson vs. Anderson Silva, Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovsky and Georges St. Pierre vs. Takanori Gomi. My mouth is watering just thinking about some of those.

Anything you can do, we can do better: Fighting Entertainment Group, Showtime and Pro Elite announced that they will be holding their own super(duper)show on June 2nd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Say what now? I hope they are talking about some other L.A. Coliseum that I don’t know about because there is no way they are thinking about selling out a stadium that holds 92,000, right? Apparently not. Some of the fighters signed to to fight on the card are: Royce Gracie, Antonio Silva, Jake Shields, and, everyone’s favorite fight girl, Gina Carano. In addition, former WWE champ, Brock Lesnar, will be making his MMA debut against Choi Hong-Man. Oh, and former NFL star Johnnie Morton will also be fighting on the card. Yes, Matt Millen’s favorite football player has hung up the wide receiver gloves for MMA gloves.

Wrestlemania Recall: Since we’ve pretty much run down this year’s WM card, I thought it would be interesting to go back exactly 20 years today to WM III from the Pontiac Silverdome. 93,000 fans (in reality it was more like 79,000 but we’ll give WWE the benefit of the doubt) witnessed the pageantry of ‘Mania on March 29, 1987. When comparing both cards I’ve got to give the nod to WM III over WM 23. Why? More matches, better personalities and a MUCH BETTER main event (for more on WM III stay tuned to tomorrow’s final installment of The No Mas Top 23 Wrestlemania Moments). Take a look and enjoy this weekend’s festivities:

• Can Am Connection def. Cowboy Bob Orton & Magnificent Muraco
• Full Nelson Challenge
Billy Jack Haynes vs. Hercules went to a double count-out
• Hillbilly Jim, Little Beaver & The Haiti Kid def. King Kong Bundy, Lord Littlebrook & Little Tokyo by DQ when Bundy flattened Little Beaver
• Loser Bows Match
King Harley Race w/ Bobby ‘The Brain” Heenan and Fabulous Moolah def. Junkyard Dog
• The Dream Team (Brutus Beecake & Greg “The Hammer” Valentine) w/ Luscious Johnny Valiant and Dino Bravo def. The Rougeau Brothers
• ‘Rowdy” Roddy Piper def. ‘Adorable” Adrian Adonis w/ Jimmy Hart
• Hart Foundation & ‘Dangerous” Danny Davis w/ Jimmy Hart def. British Bulldogs & Tito Santana
• ‘The Natural” Butch Reed def. Koko B. Ware
• Intercontinental Championship
Ricky ‘The Dragon” Steamboat w/ George ‘The Animal” Steele def. Randy “Macho Man” Savage w/ Elizabeth to capture the WWF Intercontinental Championship
• Honky Tonk Man w/ Jimmy Hart def. Jake ‘The Snake” Roberts w/ Alice Cooper
• Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik def. Killer Bees by DQ
• Main Event for WWF Championship
Hulk Hogan def. Andre the Giant w/ Bobby “The Brain” Heenan to retain the WWF championship

Welcome to the Hall: Not only does this weekend mark the 23rd edition of Wrestlemania but it’s also WWE Hall-of-Fame induction time! Other than the year Piper and Hogan were inducted this seems to be one of the most impressive classes of all-time. A portion of the 2007 WWE HOF Induction ceremony airs this Saturday on USA at midnight (technically Sunday Morning). Let’s take a look at the list of inductees and inductors:

• Matt “Rosey” Anoa’i and Sam “Samu” Anoa’i will induct their fathers, The Wild Samoans (Aka & Sika)
• MLB Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs will induct “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig
• Star Trek Superstar William Shatner will induct Jerry “The King” Lawler
• ‘The Magnificent” Don Muraco will induct his former manager Mr. Fuji
• Cody & Dustin Runnels (aka Goldust) will induct their father, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes
• Bobby “The Brain” Heenan will induct AWA legend Nick Bockwinkel
• Sabu will indict his uncle ‘The Original Sheik,” Ed Farhat*
• Stone Cold Steve Austin will induct Jim Ross*

*Rumored

I’ve often felt that the Wild Samoans get overlooked when discussing the greatest tag-teams of all-time so I am really happy that they’re getting the recognition they deserve. In the spirit of HOF wrestling, enjoy this rare match involving six of the greatest wrestlers to ever live: Andre The Giant, Junkyard Dog & Dusty Rhodes vs. Ernie Ladd & The Wild Samoans.

1999 NCAA Final
ESPN Classic, 2 p.m.
Khalid El-Amin, Rip Hamilton et al. defeat the mighty Blue Devil squad of Battier, Brand, Langdon and Maggette. I wouldn’t exactly say, as El-Amin did repeatedly, that the Huskies shocked the world. But it was close.

1982 NCAA Final
ESPN Classic, 7 p.m.
There’s this guy who hit the winning shot in this game. I can’t remember his name. He was freakin good though, that dude.

Oscar de la Hoya v. Jimmi Bredahl, 1994
VS., 9 p.m., 12 a.m.
Sort of a strange fight for Versus to break out (probably the best one they could afford), but hey, it won Oscar his first title, as he gave the Dane Bredahl a virtuoso whuppin and walked away with the WBO Super Featherweight title. And check out that hairdo on Little Vanilla Oscar over there. Ice ice baby.

TNA iMPACT!
Spike, 9 p.m.
In a preview of next month’s Lockdown Xscape match we’ve got Jerry Lynn vs. Alex Shelley vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. the Austin Starr vs. Petey Williams vs. Shark Boy – every man for himself. Plus, Kurt Angle takes on Abyss.

Steve – the discussion of the greatest men’s tennis player of all time has boiled down to one titanic match-up that fascinates everyone – Sampras v. Federer. To me, this unfairly throws Laver on the dustbin of history, left out of the conversation because of the evolution of the game and the passage of time. So my question is – first of all, is there anyone else you think is getting short shrift from the prevalence of the Sampras/Federer conversation, and then how are we to measure Laver and the other greats of the past against Pete and Fed when the game has changed so much?

I’ve thought of doing an article about how Laver has been dropped from tennis’ GOAT (Greatest of All Time) discussion. I wouldn’t say it’s unfair, exactly,if you see any old clips of the 5-foot-8 Aussie flicking the ball around with his tiny-headed wood racquet, you could only conclude that he would have been, well, mauled by the 6-foot-1 Pete Sampras and Roger Federer.

Look a little closer, though, and you can begin to appreciate why Laver still has a place in the debate. I think of him as the master of ’small ball tennis,” or ‘dead-ball era” tennis (maybe ‘dead-racquet-era” tennis is the best way to say it). This was a time when being able to hit every shot in the book was as important as being able to hit them hard. (The book of essential tennis shots and skills has gotten much thinner since Laver’s day,pretty much the entire net game has been abridged.) Laver had them all, from the hook lefty serve out wide to the one-handed topspin backhand pass up the line to a deadly slice lob that has all but disappeared from the game. He did all the things you’re taught to do as a kid, but which the pros don’t bother with now,change speeds, sneak into the net, construct points.

Laver does share two things with Federer and Sampras: (1) He was a shy man and a gentleman, the opposite of what we’re told top professional athletes need to be to succeed. (2) Laver, Federer, and Sampras were all the Sandy Koufaxes of their eras. By that I mean they started out as throwers, guys with so much raw skill they didn’t know what to do with it. It took them longer than some other top players to learn to be pitchers, to get all that talent under control. None of them won Grand Slams out of the gate, but once they mastered their own games, they were utterly dominant.

Laver did it by adhering to the simple but strict practice sessions mapped out by his Davis Cup coach, Harry Hopman. They were always two hours on the nose, always involved a half-hour of forehands crosscourt, a half-hour of backhands down the line, etc., and always finished with a half-hour of match play. One journeyman player spent a week practicing with Laver and found himself playing the best tennis of his life,he said the difference was the way Laver made every shot count. He ended up thinking, ‘If only I’d practiced like that my whole life, I think I could have been No. 1…”

The other legendary figure who was once a regular in the GOAT discussions, but who’s largely forgotten now, is Lew Hoad. An Aussie champ from a slightly earlier era than Laver’s, he’s long been considered the best athlete the sport has seen,the purest tennis player imaginable. Watching a few clips of him, at first I wondered what the fuss was about. He hit a nice kick serve, but he also hit an old-fashioned flat forehand like everyone else from that era. A few games in, though, Hoad rushed the net and his opponent threw up a lob. He launched himself backward off one foot and, with no wasted motion, snapped the ball away with a crisply efficient overhead and immediately headed back for the next point. All I could think of was Sampras,the resemblance, as well as the natural athleticism, was uncanny.

This is a long way of saying that at the level of wins and losses, there’s no way to compare eras in tennis, or at least there’s no way of comparing the amateur-wood era with the pro-graphite era. (Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors began late enough that they were able to cross multiple modern eras and succeed in all of them.) The only resemblances between now and the pre-Open era are found in those fleeting glimpses of past greats like Hoad, which remind you that tennis genius is eternal.

As for Laver, if you can’t call him the GOAT, at least you can say this: He was the best at what he did.

Steve Tignor is the executive editor of Tennis magazine. For more of his writing, check out his weekly column, The Wrap, on the Tennis website – today he takes on the match on everyone’s mind, Guillermo Canas’s upset of Moby Fed in Key Biscayne.