Rampage Cometh?: If you would have asked me a couple of months ago to predict the outcome of this Saturday’s UFC Light Heavyweight fight between Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson I probably would have picked the Iceman. But two days before the fight, I have a weird feeling that Jackson just might pull off the upset (I use the word upset loosely because lord knows Jackson is no slouch). Does this have anything to do with the fact that there has been a slew of upsets in the UFC throughout the last few months? Maybe…but I am smart enough to know that one fight has nothing to do with the other. Basically, I have two reasons as to why I am favoring Rampage come Saturday night:

The first lies within the video below. Liddell, who had a cameo in the film ’300,” recently appeared on a local Dallas morning show in pretty bad shape. Now, I should mention that his camp has repeatedly said that he was very sick and took too much medicine the night before this interview but I just don’t buy it. I fear he may be covering something up and the controversy surrounding this incident as well as the time he took off to promote the movie leads me to believe he hasn’t dedicated himself enough to winning this fight. Take a look at the clip and judge for yourself. Once he started talking about challenging Tommy Morrison to a fight I knew the man was out of it.

Now that you’re done watching that train wreck take a look at Liddell vs. Jackson I from 2003 in Japan. Remember, Liddell is 7-0 since losing that fight but you can’t ignore the fact that Rampage completely dominated him in all facets of the bout. Some will say that Liddell was out of his element fighting in a ring as opposed to the Octagon (just ask Mirko Cro Cop how strange that transition can be) but that’s no excuse. Impressively, Jackson was the more dominant striker throughout the fight. Liddell is known to be one of the best takedown defenders in MMA but once Jackson finally brought him down there was no turning back for the Iceman. Trust me when I say that no one has ever manhandled Liddell like this before and Jackson is probably the only MMA fighter out there who could do it again.

So, there you have it. Liddell is arguably the most dominant fighter in the world and there are plenty of reasons as to why he will avenge his loss to Jackson but, simply put, I have my doubts.

Urban Cowboy
CMT, 8 p.m.
Here it is – the Texas edition of Saturday Night Fever that made mechanical bull riding a nationwide phenomenon for, oh, maybe a minute back in the early 80′s. The only quote I remember from this movie is some chick asking John Travolta if he’s a real cowboy and him replying, in his terrible Texan accent, “Depending on what you think a real cowboy is.” Got all philosophical on her and shit.

TNA iMPACT!
Spike, 9 p.m.
Remember the Steiner Brothers? Well, they’re back to challenge Team 3D for their TNA tag titles. Plus, Sting battles Samoa Joe in a qualifying bout for entry into the King of the Mountain match at the next PPV.

The Ultimate Fighter 5
Spike, 10 p.m.
The quarterfinals get underway with Joe Lauzon taking on Cole Miller. On top of that, Franchise warns us that if you want to see an insane street fight between two eliminated fighters you must tune in tonight.

Bull Durham
WE, 1 a.m.
The fact that this is movie is so frequently shown on WE forces me to face a fact that I think I’ve always known but until now I have suppressed – Bull Durham is a nothing more than a glorified chick flick.

Steve – Growing up as a tennis fan, there were three essential racquets in my mind , Borg’s black Donnay, Mac’s Dunlop, and Connors’ metal Wilson atrocity. Also, as the racket I truly despised, I was aware that Lendl (as he would) used an utterly characterless Adidas piece of crap. So my question is, aside from those, what are the iconic rackets, either before or since the Borg and Mac era? Did Laver or Newcombe or any of those dudes have a certain racquet that everyone just knew was “their racquet?” Has a certain racquet defined a single player in the Borg/Donnay fashion in, say, the last 15 years of tennis?

In tennis’ days of yore, a few high-quality racquets were enough to serve generations of champions. Two in particular stood out: The thin-beamed Dunlop Maxply used by, among many other champions, Rod Laver when he won the Grand Slam; and the Wilson Jack Kramer Autograph, known by its distinctive white throat and crown logo and wielded by more major-title winners than any other, including Chris Evert and Arthur Ashe. The Kramer was still the stick into the 1980s; it’s what Pete Sampras first took to the court.

It was the onset of the professional era that changed the racquet landscape forever. There was more money at stake for players and manufacturers, and innovations began to flow. New materials were introduced in the late 1960s, most prominently in Jimmy Connors’ Wilson T2000 and the Slazenger Smasher, which were both made of metal; in 1976, the first oversize frame, the Prince Classic, made its debut; Pam Shriver put it on the map when she used it to reach the final of the 1978 U.S. Open as a 16-year-old.

By the early 1980s wood was on its last legs, as the top pros were switching en masse to midsize graphite frames. The last major holdout was McEnroe, naturally; his switch from the Maxply to the green-and-black graphite Dunlop Max 300G in 1983 officially spelled the end of the wood-racquet era.

The next few years were a golden age for tennis sticks. A couple modern classics were introduced, and the basic technology, despite today’s promotions for ‘liquidmetal” and ‘aerogel” and ‘nanotechnology,” hasn’t been altered much since. The Wilson K-Factor racquet (not to be confused with the NCode from two years ago) that Roger Federer currently plays with is a near-replica of the Wilson Pro Staff that Pete Sampras made famous.

The Pro Staff is one of two iconic sticks from the 1980s that have never gone out of fashion. The other, the Prince Graphite, was used by Andre Agassi and Michael Chang. The simple excellence of those racquets! The names were minimalist, the colors were dark and basic,orange and black for the Pro Staff; green and black for the Graphite,and the frames were substantial and not-too-springy. You brought the power, the racquet helped you put the ball where you wanted it to go. Neither stick was for novices; the Pro Staff in particular had a sweet spot the size of a dime.

But there was no feeling quite like hitting it. In college I put down my McEnroe 200G (I’ve pretty much always played with the racquet of the No. 1 men’s player, moving from Borg’s Donnay to Mac’s 200G to Sampras’ Pro Staff and now to Federer’s K-Factor) one day, picked up a Pro Staff, and won the first match I played. It was that user-friendly. Over the years, I moved onto other racquets (there’s not much else you can do when a racquet company stops producing your frame; Sampras himself bought the last batch that Wilson manufactured) but every time I went back to the old Pro Staff I said to myself, ‘Yeah, that’s what hitting a tennis is supposed to feel like.”

The same was true for the Prince Graphite. I used it exactly once, in college, after breaking strings in two other racquets. But like the Pro Staff, it was such a universal frame that my doubles partner and I went out and played what might have been the best match in our three years together, upsetting the No. 1 team in Division III that year (I never used the Graphite again and we never beat them again.)

There wasn’t much you could improve on with these racquets. Despite the widespread belief that new racquets get more and more powerful and are at least partly responsible for ruining the sport, the pros still use basic, control-oriented frames. These guys have the power already. (There’s no doubt, however, that increased head size and lighter weights have allowed for the heavy topspin and huge swings that the pros employ today.) Sampras stuck with the Pro Staff until the end, and even while Agassi changed to Head later in his career, the racquets he used later in his career were not markedly different from the good old Prince Graphite.

What are the iconic racquets of today? With Wilson, Prince, and Head churning out new models and discontinuing old ones every couple years, it’s hard for any one racquet to gain traction. Not to mention that names like NCode, K-Factor, AeroGel 300, and O3 Speedport Red have none of the simple, memorable gravitas of ‘Pro Staff” and ‘Graphite.”

The one stick that has made its mark this decade is Big Blue, the Babolat Pure Drive, which is used by many pros, most famously Andy Roddick. It’s bright and attractive, has a distinctive two-line stencil on its strings, and does a good job of blending heft with light weight,it’s the icon of the widebody age. Just as important, Babolat, a French company known mostly for producing excellent guy strings for the last century, has also given it a chance to become a signature stick by keeping it in production and introducing very few other ones around it. Whether it will match the staying power of the Autograph or the Graphite is yet to be seen, but these days, any racquet that’s around long enough to actually be recognized qualifies as a classic.
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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.

Two years ago in Istanbul, in what will definitely remain for some time the biggest upset in the history of the Champions League final, Liverpool overcame a three-goal defecit in less than six minutes and then won 3-2 in the penalties. Everybody’s still talking about how the Italian’s ‘catenaccio” strategy was dominated by the famous English ‘fighting spirit”. Liverpool triumphed that evening but it seems very unlikely that history can repeat itself tonight in Athens with two of the most titled franchises in football history (Milan has won the trophy six times and Liverpool five). Tonight, Milan will seek revenge while Liverpool will be continuing its quest of European titles since they haven’t been able to win anything in the kingdom lately. Two highly experienced teams, two brilliant collectives and diametrically opposed football philosophies will face off tonight. The confrontation is sumptuous but there’s no way to top the dramatic intensity of two years back. Unless…

The Outsider

Liverpool enjoys being the underdog. There hasn’t been a megastar on this team in a really long time, yet they remain one of the most beloved team in Europe and still continue to rake in trophies at a more regular pace than, say, Arsenal. But Liverpool loves that role. They love to be the champions of the people, the working-class team with no stars built on morals and values. They place their whole communication on that particular image and, now that they have been sold to American investors too, they’re living their last days of feeling superior and of playing the humble card. Because this team has no reason to be humble. You don’t become European champions by chance, you don’t reach your second Champions League final in three years by a misunderstanding. Just like their Italian counterpart, Liverpool has built this team on stability – out of the 22 players on the European champion side from two years ago, seventeen will be reporting for duty tonight (Luis Garcia still out for the season). They’ve only gotten stronger and will cause more problems to Milan then Manchester did some weeks ago. Rafael Benitez and his medical staff will not sleep tonight, everybody working and praying that Zenden will be ready to take his place on the left side of the attack after hurting his ankle last Thursday in Spain. Jermaine Pennant will be ready to replace him even though it seems Momo Sissoko is definitely not going to play, his position being filled in by Mascherano. With a filled infirmary, a team with no name players and a less than impressive course, people are quick to dismiss Benitez’s boys. Regardless of what anybody says though, Liverpool is far from dead and should not be underestimated tomorrow. Last time that happened, Steven Gerrard was the captain that ended up lifting the trophy.

The Favorite

Milan has nothing to prove. They’re definitely the best football team of the last twenty years. They possess in their midfield alone four contenders for European player of the year and if football had a hall of fame, seven of the players entering the pitch for Milan tonight would already have been inducted. They have legends still holding it down and someone who seems to be destined for many more years of world domination. The bookmakers didn’t make a mystery of it and nobody seems to even fathom the notion that they could lose this game. Any other game, but not this one. Clarence Seedorf is going to play his fifth Champions League final and has already won three with three different teams before. He has never seemed this light on the field and Marco van Basten better be watching tomorrow if he wants the Netherlands to win something next summer. BUT the biggest celebrity of this team this year has no doubt been Kaka. Coming from a World Cup where he was the only Brazilian playing like a Brazilian, he showed Manchester’s Cristiàno Ronàldo how to dominate a world-class game and in a strong demonstration of both skill and power, singlehandedly eliminated what seemed like the best team out this year. The other big focal point for Milan is Paolo Maldini’s left knee. The knee that has been playing for 24 years at the highest level, the knee that helped him win the Champions league four times in seven finals, the knee that will be operated on next Sunday and the knee that will be infiltrated all night and most of the day. That knee is the only key to tomorrow’s lineup. The medical staff will give Carlo Ancellotti their diagnosis two hours before the kick off and Maldini will do anything in his ability to play. Two years ago, he scored in the first minute of what many believed would be his last game. But then he woke up still hungry and continued. He is the last of the greats. Baresi stopped, Albertini stopped, Costacurta gave his goodbyes to San-Siro on Sunday at 41 and Maldini is ready for one last go-round at 38, no matter what happens tonight. Hopefully, his knee will be ready also.

Personally, like two years ago, I’ll be watching the game from inside the British embassy’s pub where I know the very Liverpudlian Martin will have champagne bottles ready. But I can’t see him drinking from them out of joy like last time. Gennarino won’t let this happen.

MUST-SEE NO MAS TV

AC Milan v. Liverpool
ESPN2, 2 p.m.
Oh shit. Supersize me. An epic rematch for all the marbles in this year’s Champions League final, with pregame starting at 2 and kickoff around 2:30. Replays are on the deuce at 7 and Classic at 11. Check Madsear’s preview above to whet your whistle lads.

BEST OF THE REST

WWE Classics
MSG, 8 p.m.
The old-school wrestling Gods are smiling upon us. Witness two-hours of classic MSG wrestling featuring: Ron Garvin vs. Mr. Perfect, Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bossman in a Steel Cage match, The Rockers vs. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard, Tony Garea vs. Mr. Fuji, Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Ray Stevens and Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco for the WWF title.

Legends
TVG, 12:30 a.m.
An interview with Hall-of-Fame jockey Chris McCarron, who won all three of the Triple Crown races twice and the Breeders’ Cup Classic five times.

If you’ve seen the Sugar Ray Robinson Ringside on Classic, you know that Carmen Basilio, in his terse, no-bullshit, crusty old man kind of a way, steals the show. Watching the Basilio fights that they show during his segment, I was reminded of what a hard-as-nails badass he was and I realized that he was long overdue as a subject for the No Mas Knockout of the Week.

I wanted to put up Carmen’s twelfth-round TKO of Tony Demarco, when he first won the welterweight crown in an all-out battle that was named Ring’s Fight of the Year in 1955. Unfortunately, the video is not available. The Ring Fight of the Year for 1956 is available though, and it also features Basilio, avenging his loss to Johnny Saxton from earlier in the year with a vicious ninth-round TKO.

This bout was especially sweet for Basilio as it redressed one of the most infamous mob fixes of the mafia’s heyday of boxing control. Saxton was a known favorite of the mob, while Carmen had always refused to play ball – the result of that disparity was a ridiculous decision for Saxton in their first fight. In the second, Basilio wised up and made sure the judges didn’t get involved, punishing Saxton early and often, splitting his lip into a bloody mess that caused Saxton problems the rest of the fight. When we pick up the action below, Saxton is already several paces down queer street, clearly staying away from Basilio in the hope that he’ll get his wits back. With a roundhouse leaping right in the ninth, however, Carmen puts those wits on permanent vacation. After that, the end comes quickly.

As the Yankees were drifting over the weekend toward the magical 14 games they fell behind the Red Sox in 1978, for a moment I couldn’t remember who managed the team during its epic comeback that season. I knew it wasn’t Billy Martin, who had resigned in midsummer around the nadir. But was it Dick Howser? Bob Lemon? Was it possible I had forgotten someone?

That summer, I was 15 and at the peak of a Yankees infatuation that had begun during the Horace Clarke Era. Two autumns earlier, I cried in front of the TV as Chris Chambliss hit the bottom-of-the-ninth home run off of Kansas City’s Mark Littell for the 7-6 win and first pennant of my sentient life. My immigrant father, smoking a cigar in his white imitation-leather chair, didn’t understand. A few days later, from a mezzanine box in the Bronx, I witnessed the only Yankees home run,the hitter: Jim Mason,in the dismal World Series sweep by Cincinnati. The next October, I was present for Reggie’s three homers against the Dodgers. Present for the first one, that is. In the tunnel beneath the third-base stands for the second. In a River Avenue parking garage for the third. The family friend who took me to the game wanted to beat the traffic back to Westchester. My 25-year-old brother didn’t think to have me stay overnight with him in Manhattan. I’m still pissed.

My memory lapse,the manager was Lemon, of course,is less about the fog of years than the glorious turbulence of those times. Who could keep track? Reggie fighting Billy in the dugout. Billy suspending Reggie for ignoring a sign. Billy “quitting. ” George announcing five days later that Billy would be back. Billy punching the marshmallow salesman. George calling Dave Winfield “Mr. May.” I looked up the rotation of managers under Steinbrenner from the skipper of my preadolescence, Ralph Houk, the old baseball man George inherited when he bought the team in 1973, through Martin’s final Bronx exit, in 1988. (His earthly exit followed shortly thereafter.) It’s a staggering list: Houk, Bill Virdon, Martin, Howser, Lemon, Martin (2), Howser (2), Gene Michael, Lemon (2), Michael (2), Clyde King, Martin (3), Yogi Berra, Martin (4), Lou Piniella, Martin (5).

The chaos could be embarrassing and infuriating, and players described it as maddening. But there was a vitality to Steinbrenner’s autocracy. He spent money in ways that not only began redressing the players’ 100 years of servitude but transformed the backward, parsimonious lords of baseball,plantation owners before the Civil War isn’t a terrible analogy,into progressive, if not judicious, freespenders. George was batshit, yes, and his codependent relationship with Martin was perverse. But his look-at-me behavior, coupled with his determination to assemble the talent that produced the first winning Yankees team in a generation,and not by “buying” pennants; the free-agent imbalances of today’s baseball marketplace didn’t exist in the late ’70s and early ’80s,made baseball in New York essential. There was an urgency to those championship years, and not because the Bronx was burning or because winning was predictable. Steinbrenner was irrational, impulsive and irredeemable, but damn if he didn’t make you care. George performed the neat trick of allowing New York to say fuck you to the rest of baseball while also saying fuck you to him.

Steinbrenner began losing it, and many of us, with his absurdist signings and paranoiac behavior of the ’80s. When he was banned from baseball, supposedly for life, it was a relief. When he returned, baseball was changing. Success was determined, mostly, by the size of your cable contract. George hired recidivist managing failure Joe Torre, the Yankees inevitably won and the team became fashionable. But the winning, regular season and otherwise, has not only become anticipated but uncompelling. In the years between Mickey Rivers and Johnny Damon,how’s that for a contrast of eras,all sports have been corporatized, homogenized and overtelevised. But it’s been sad to watch the Bombers become (as in the similarly unmeritocratic 1950s) another drab megabusiness. The all-id Yankees of George, Billy and Reggie defined my childhood. What defines my middle age? The empty press releases of Howard Rubenstein. The forced march of “God Bless America.” The lame, scripted, earnest announcement that a pitcher older than I will return to play part-time. As if.

This doesn’t mean I’d like to see Torre fired if the Yanks lose to Boston tonight and tomorrow night just because George can fire him, the way he fired Billy because he could. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about living in a sports world in which, I, fan, am made to care. It’s about making sports, especially New York sports, indispensable. To win and make money, the 21st century Yankees don’t need to be spontaneous or dramatic. But it was a lot more fun when they were. It would be comforting to know that, 30 years from now, some kid won’t be able to remember whether it was Joe Torre or Don Mattingly or Joe Girardi who led the Yankees back from double digits down in the summer of 2007. At the very least, let’s hope Steinbrenner is dictating his memoirs now, and plans to go out with a bang.

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When he isn’t hanging out with Sparky Lyle or imitating the swings of Horace Clarke and Bobby Murcer, Stefan Fatsis is writing a book about his Plimptonesque summer as a kicker for the Denver Broncos, which will be published next year by Houghton Mifflin. He’s also the author of the bestselling Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and a sports commentator for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” We are extremely proud to have him on No Mas.

AC Milan v. Liverpool
ESPN Classic, 4 p.m.
As all football fans are aware, tomorrow’s Champions League final is a replay of the 2005 edition, which was also one of the most improbable soccer matches you’ll ever want to see. Just in case there are some No Masians out there who haven’t seen this, I’m not going to spoil the outcome. But it will blow your tiny little heads off.

Kelly Pavlik v. Lenord Pierre
VS., 7 p.m.
Versus getting on the Kelly Pavlik bandwagon by showing this one-sided bout from last November. I saw this thing – the Ghost makes short, surgical work of his Haitian opponent. The fight was held in Youngstown, Pavlik’s hometown.

U.S. Open Highlights
Golf Channel, 8 p.m.
Remember when Corey Pavin was supposed to be the next Jack Nicklaus? This show takes you back to the height of that short-lived furor, after Pavin won the Open at Shinnecock in ’95 over perpetual bridesmaid Greg Norman.

Marlon Starling v. Mark Breland
ESPN Classic, 9 p.m.
Mark Breland remains the eternal cautionary tale to any “can’t miss” prospect. Never was there more of a “can’t miss” fighter than Breland, the five-time Golden Gloves king and Olympic champion. And yet, he never quite lived up to the hype in the pro ranks. In this fight Breland tries to avenge his first pro loss and regain his briefly held WBA welterweight crown.

ECW
Sci-Fi, 10 p.m.
Rob Van Dam & C.M. Punk vs. Marcus Cor Von & Elijah Burke. This might be RVD’s final match in WWE/ECW so get the TIVOs ready. Don’t worry, though, Franchise keeps telling us he expects to see him in TNA by the end of the summer.

(I turned over the guide to Franchise for today. The results, listed below, are predictably combat-oriented. – Large)

IFL Battleground
My Network TV, 8 p.m.
Ken Shamrock’s Nevada Lions take on Pat Miletich’s Quad Cities Silverbacks.

Countdown to Dynamite
USA Showtime, 8:30
Part two of the six-part series counting down the huge MMA show on 6/2 from the Los Angeles Coliseum featuring Brock Lesnar vs. Choi Hong-Man and Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba.

WWE Raw USA, 9 p.m.
The fallout and carnage from last night’s Judgement Day PPV.

Countdown to UFC 71
Spike, 10 p.m.
One-hour preview show for this Saturday’s Light Heavyweight title fight between Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson.

UFC All-Access Spike, 11 p.m.
A behind-the-scenes look at Quinton Jackson’s training for his title fight against the Iceman.

In an early candidate for Fight of the Year, Youngstown, Ohio’s Kelly Pavlik outslugged and outboxed the much ballyhooed Edison Miranda last night to earn a seventh-round TKO. This was a middleweight eliminator bout – Pavlik, a.k.a. the Ghost, is now the number one WBC contender at 160. And after his performance last night, anybody who’s paying attention has to be licking their chops at the prospect of a Pavlik/Jermain Taylor smackdown.

As for Edison Miranda, somebody, SOMEBODY, needs to teach that pantera how to fight a little. We know he has the power, and after last night, we also know that he has the chin and the heart. Pavlik must have hit him with at least thirty shots that were worthy of knockouts. By the end of the fight, Miranda’s face was a swollen mess, a combination of Gatti after the Floyd fight and Malignaggi after the Cotto fight. He took one hell of a beating, so bad that by the end I was starting to worry that he was going to die in there before he went down. The point is – he has all the raw materials of greatness (including an obnoxious cockiness and self-aggrandizing impulse), but he is an incompetent fighter. He doesn’t move his feet right, he doesn’t throw his punches right, he doesn’t keep his hands up, he doesn’t know how to move backwards or forwards, let alone come in at angles… he’s a disaster, the most technically unsound fighter I’ve ever seen competing at this level. Freddie Roach, Buddy McGirt, Dan Goossen – some trainer with a proven track record for molding fighters needs to get a hold of this kid, because he has the potential to be an immortal and right now it’s going to waste.

On the other hand, what Kelly Pavlik has right now is the potential to become the undsiputed middleweight champ and become a huge star in the process. In his postfight interview, Pavlik displayed all the aw-shucks decency and down-to-earth charm of his famous Youngstown predecessor, Ray Mancini. And his style in the ring last night was certainly reminiscent of Boom Boom in his heyday – come straight ahead relentlessly and throw bombs like your life depends on it. You can’t say enough about the courage of Kelly Pavlik today, because as incompetent as Miranda is, he is equally ferocious, known for his devastating knockouts. Pavlik walked right into that fire and took the fight to Miranda all night, eating some big shots along the way. I’m not going to waste any words on the debacle of the Spinks/Taylor bout last night, other than to say that it gave me the impression that Jermain, for all of his physical gifts, still doesn’t have much of an idea of what he’s doing in the ring. He is ripe for the taking by someone as savvy and focused as Kelly Pavlik. Sadly, I imagine that Lou Dibella is hip to that as well, and in that Pavlik/Taylor is nowhere near a PPV-level fight, don’t be surprised if it never happens, if Jermain jumps the middleweight ship to fight Calzaghe at 168 for a bigger payday. I hope it doesn’t play out this way, but I can’t see Jermain’s people sending him into a fight where he doesn’t stand to make much money but does have a strong chance of his ass kicked.