And so we wait. No word yet on De La Hoya’s May 3rd bout, a sweepstakes for which a true friend of No Mas, Dmitriy Salita, remains in the running. I haven’t spoken to Dmitriy’s attorney, Kurt Emhoff, about the situation since I interviewed him last week – I haven’t wanted to bother him in this busy time. Every rumor mill on the web has Stevie Forbes getting the fight, and Boxrec currently has the fight made with Forbes for the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA. Don’t take Boxrec to the bank on that one, however – as reliable as that site is for information on bouts of the past, I have found it to be unreliable on unannounced bouts. Last summer they had Cotto/Margarito as a done deal long past the point where everyone knew that fight was scotched.

News does seem to emerge about Oscar and his plans at fairly regular intervals, however, so I have to imagine the May 3rd question will be wrapped up once and for all by the end of this week. Also, for all of us who have been wishing that Oscar/Floyd II is a boondoggle that will somehow disintegrate, that fight seems more and more certain with time. I say this in particular with regards to Oscar bringing Floyd Sr. back as his trainer, and reportedly not even having the good graces to tell Freddie Roach personally before Freddie heard it from the media.

I heartily agree with this piece over at FoxSports.com about this decision – it’s all about the baby-daddy drama. Already Floyd Sr. has been dissing “Freddie the Joke Coach Roach” and presumably this is an angle that Oscar will be using to justify a second fight that is in dire need of a lot of justifying – that he didn’t have his real trainer in his corner for the first bout, and now that he’s reunited with Floyd Sr., he will win the rematch over his trainer’s son.

Also, obviously, The Return of Daddy Floyd has 24/7 written all over it. One wonders if we’ll see a 24/7 before Oscar/Floyd II, but it’s certain that even if we don’t the HBO franchise will be resuscitated come September for the big rematch. And let’s face it – the drama of Money May and his piles and piles of money was wearing a little thin in the Hatton series, and Oscar, well, Oscar wasn’t that interesting in the first place. Floyd Sr., however, is good TV. Now the whole fight has a hook that it was sorely lacking when it was first announced. It’s a thin hook, no doubt. But is it that much more thin than whatever motivated everyone to buy Roy v. Tito?

On that score, let me finish by asking – why is it that Roy Jones suddenly thinks that he is in the running for Oscar’s money? Bizarre though it is, I take reassurance from Roy’s aimless blathering on two counts – one, maybe Roy is reconsidering fighting people his size who will beat the shit out of him, and two, as bogus as he is in the ring, outside of it he’s still a bonafide wacko.

Take a breath fight fans, because this weekend coming up is the last one for a long time that you can relax. After this relatively uneventful Saturday, date night is going to be booked for a while with significant action in the ring: Feb. 9 – Williams/Quintana and Berto/Trabant (with the exciting Mexican heavyweight Christobel Arreola on that card as well, although I don’t know if we’ll see that on HBO), Feb. 16 – dah, a certain Mr. Pavlik and Mr. Taylor have another meeting scheduled, Feb. 23 – Klitschko/Ibragimov at the Garden, first heavyweight unifier since Lennox/Evander, with John Duddy on the card, Mar. 1 – Vasquez/Marquez the Third, Mar. 8 – Maskaev/Sam Peter, Mar. 15 – Pacquiao/J. M. Marquez rematch… and then at last we get a bit of a breather before the Cotto/Gomez, Cintron/Margarito card on April 11.

So what am I going to do with my spare time this weekend? Well, there is this football game. Also, I’m thinking about watching some boxing. I must say I’m sort of curious about the Amir Khan/Gairy St. Clair fight over in London. Everything I’ve seen of Khan thus far (not a tremendous amount, I admit) has been exciting in the way of his hero and stylistic ancestor, Prince Naseem, and St. Clair, a tough Aussie who went the distance back in the dizzle with Corrales and Vivian Harris, is definitely a huge step up for the 21-year-old British wunderkind.

Thinking about Amir Khan (who looks eerily like Hamed) has the primary effect on me of making me miss the Prince a little. What a bizarre phenomenon that dude was, one hell of an exciting fighter to watch whether you liked him or hated him. All of his bouts felt like some strange boxing equivalent of Russian roulette.

So, anyway, I don’t know if you all caught this or not, and it’s quite a testament to how his star has faded that it did not make big news here in the States, but a very bloated edition of the Prince was at the Mayweather/Hatton fight talking comeback, and he was sitting right next to his desired opponent, Marco Antonio Barrera. You most likely recall that Barrera gave Hamed a veritable boxing lesson in 2001 in a fight that all but retired the Prince. Below I give you a snippet of a ringside Sky interview from Mayweather/Hatton followed by the No Mas Knockout of the Week, the final round of the Hamed/Kelley fight at the Garden in ’97, a four-round war that was certainly one of the crowning moments of the Prince’s career.

(For the most part, I like to pretend that the Super Bowl isn’t happening, because the whole thing gives me the heebie-jeebies and because, well, if you want to stay on top of the injury updates and how many times Tom Brady peed yesterday, you’re probably not looking to No Mas for your info. That said, it is a thang, the Super Bowl, and so today I thought I’d take you back to my post from last year about the glory that was Super Bowl XXIX…)

On January 29, 1995, 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 make passionate love to 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 kids on to the field disguised in their uniforms. At which point, 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 mathematically incalculable 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.

I remember talking to Franchise a few weeks ago in an interview over at Jarry Park after Paulie Malignaggi beat Herman Ngoudjo, the Cameroonian by way of Quebec. Franchise is from Montreal (as his site name would indicate), and he roots hard for all fighters from the Great White North. When we talked about the Malignaggi/Ngoudjo bout, I could hear in his voice that special brand of disappointment that comes after you’ve seen a boxer leave something in the ring in a fight that he might have won if only he’d pushed his advantage just a little harder.

It’s a disappointment that I feel this morning after yesterday’s Alexander Povetkin/Eddie Chambers bout in Germany, which Povetkin won by a hard-earned unanimous decision. My disappointment is tempered somewhat by the very present feeling that that neither of these guys would have a chance in hell against Klitschko, a sentiment echoed in the post-fight press conference by none other than Povetkin himself, who said, “I will have to do a lot of work on myself before I fight Wladimir Klitschko.” Klitschko, the current IBF champ, most likely will be Povetkin’s next opponent provided that Wlad beats Sultan Ibragimov in the February 23rd heavyweight unification bout at the Garden.

On the whole, Povetkin can’t come out of this victory feeling too enthused, although credit him with the heart of a lion despite the fact that the edge in true boxing talent clearly resided with his opponent last night. I had Chambers (born in Pittsburgh, fights out of Philadelphia) winning four of the first five rounds simply on the basis of his lightning-quick and clean counter-punching that lit up the Russian like a pasty, flabby Christmas tree. By the fifth round, Povetkin’s left eye was rapidly closing and both eyes were purpled with bruises. I thought, sheesh, I never would have imagined it would be so easy for Eddie and I admit at that point I started fantasizing about having a Philly boy fight for the heavyweight title once again and devising strategies in my mind for how Eddie might cope with Klitschko’s size. Povetkin was working much harder than Chambers to no avail and breathing in his corner in between rounds as if at any moment he might collapse and die. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen a fighter in such bad condition as Povetkin looked in his corner throughout the entire fight.

Nevertheless, starting around the sixth, the Russian amazingly managed to find another gear, and that proved the difference the rest of the way. It was a volume victory, end of story. He outworked Chambers, was first, second and third in every exchange with a breathless output that rarely scored to great effect, but flummoxed Eddie in that “the best defense is a relentless offense” way of boxing. More than anything, he created an appearance of a complete mismatch for the judges. Come the eleventh and twelfth rounds, Povetkin was throwing 70-80 punches per frame to Chambers 15-16. It was very frustrating to watch. A few times I said out loud to the television, “son you can’t win if you don’t punch.”

Of course, Chambers’ trainer and father Eddie Sr. along with Buddy McGirt (brought in to work with Eddie for this bout) were frustrated as well, and pleaded with Eddie to step it up, but he continued to look helpless in there, unable to mount a significant charge in any of the late rounds. In his defense, I have to point out that it didn’t seem to me a question of will so much as one of tactics. Povetkin was working like freaking Kassim Ouma in there, putting out an almost unprecedented punch-rate for a heavyweight fighter, and Chambers simply had no idea how to find his openings against such an onslaught.

In the end, his main problem was one that he couldn’t control – he’s just not big enough. He landed some great punches yesterday, head-snapping, sweat-spraying straight right hands directly on the button, five or six of them in the first four rounds that were without question the best punches of the fight. If he had some size and weight on those shots, they most likely would have turned the tide in his favor and slowed his opponent, the banderillas that prefigure the sword. But Povetkin needed not much more than a brisk headshake or two to put them in the past. After the fight, Max Kellerman suggested that Chambers’ best move would be to move down to cruiserweight, a thought I admit I was having myself for most of the fight. Coming in around 208 or so just does not make you a heavyweight in this day and age, and Eddie Chambers is too talented with his hands and has too many natural boxing instincts to flounder in the sport simply for being too small.

As for Povetkin, I’m not sure what to think. It’s hard to question his power based on the Chambers fight, because he never really rocked Eddie with a clean blow. A good eighty percent of his punches were blocked, and even the ones that landed seemed to be partially blocked. He moves well for a heavyweight, and his heart… what can you say about his heart? He was completely outclassed in there yesterday and willed himself to victory by punching like a featherweight on meth, a superhuman effort that literally seemed like it might kill him at times. I tip my hat to him on that score, but I can’t help but think of those big right hands that Eddie landed on him early, and think about how the night might have gone if it was Klitschko landing those big right hands.

This isn’t an official Deep Tennis post from our man Steve – I’m just piggybacking on his post over at Tennis.com about last night’s Federer/Djokovic shocker. I’d like to write something about that match myself but I’m dragging today, and look, I know he’s my boy and all, but I’m telling you Steve is the most interesting and entertaining tennis writer on the web. Often when I’m writing about tennis it occurs to me that I should stop wasting my time and just link to his shit. And so I shall. First graph below followed by the direct link.

Watching the first few games of the Federer-Djokovic semi this morning, I found myself thinking, ‘Does Federer ever get tired of having to win these things? Is he ever tempted to say, ‘Forget it, I just can’t deal with this today’?” Something about the look in his eye at the very start of the match put that thought into my head. Darren Cahill saw it, too, from his sideline perch. He commented that Federer looked ‘flat” and didn’t have the ‘anger” he usually has when he goes up against Djokovic…

Loco Djoko (Tennis.com – Concrete Elbow by Steve Tignor)

Super Bowl Anniversaries: 32 , Broncos v. Packers
The who, what, where and why of one of the most dramatic Super Bowls of them all. Elway’s helicopter? Smokey Robinson doing “Tracks of My Tears” at halftime? Buxom Jewel with her hand right on her buxom while she sang the national A? In so many ways, it was an evening well spent.

Round by Round – Boxing Notes
A little breakdown of the week’s news, most of which is already familiar territory for the average No Masian. Oscar’s vacillations, the B-Hop/Calzaghe manifestation, Roy Jones’ exaggeration, and Eddie Chambers’ potential U.S. heavyweight salvation.

Weekend Late-Night Sports Movie TV Guide
At three in the morning, when the bong is clogged and your brain is fogged and your lady is nowhere to be found… people, I’m here for you. This week’s highlight? Blood Surf. Check out the clip below and learn the Blood Surf lesson – you don’t be kicking no giant murderous man-eating crocodile even if you think the shit is dead.

Lot of very No Masian birthdays to celebrate today including the legend above, a man who died long before his time and yet still in his short life set the American record in every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. He’s one of three American runners on today’s list along with the former Mr. Marion Jones and a Northern Californian middle-distance man who to this point has been more bark than bite. Also born today we have four footballers (Portugal’s finest, Pele’s forward partner with Brazil in 1970, one of Brazil’s finest forwards today, and a Barca lifer), three Pro Football Hall-of-Famers (The Toe, a Purple People Eater and the unsung hero of Super Bowl III), two hockey players (a well-traveled Finn and an American captain), a giant of Spanish motocross, a honky tonk wrassler, the bass player on the track that accompanies every victory celebration, one of Bangladesh’s finest cricketers, an all-time NASCAR hero, the only man ever to serve as a head coach in the NFL, AFL and CFL, and the voice of the Tigers who is also one of the true historical voices of the game of baseball period.

I was surprised by the recent news that Oscar De La Hoya was planning a tune-up fight for May before his now seemingly certain rematch with Floyd in September. But when I heard the three potential opponents he was considering – Stevie Forbes, Paulie Malignaggi and Dmitriy Salita – I was completely blown away. Going to fights in New York, I’ve been following both Malignaggi and Salita for years, and I still to this day count Salita’s march into the ring with the rapping Matisyahu for his fight with Shawn Gallegos to be the greatest ring entrance I’ve ever seen.

If you’re unfamiliar with Salita, he’s a Ukrainian-born fighter who moved to Brooklyn when he was nine and learned the fight game under the tutelage of local legend Jimmy O’Pharrow at the Starrett City Boxing Club. Dmitriy is also an observant Orthodox Jew, which has brought him a lot of attention and a passionate fan base in the city. His story is remarkable, and it’s told in Jason Hutt’s new documentary, Orthodox Stance, which has its last showing at the Jewish Film Festival in New York tonight and then opens in the city starting Friday.

The first person I thought of when I heard the news about Oscar’s plans was Kurt Emhoff, who is Dmitriy’s attorney and who once represented Malignaggi. No Masians probably know Kurt from the comments pages (where, very sneakily, he calls himself “Kurt”), and I know him as an insightful and articulate guy who is a veritable treasure trove of information about the fight game. As you can imagine, this is a very crazy time for him, but nevertheless, he was gracious enough to give me an interview last night about these most exciting recent developments.

L: Kurt, I’m very interested with this Dmitriy/Oscar situation in hearing how the whole thing started. Did you contact Oscar’s people or did they contact you?

Kurt: I actually read Dan Rafael on ESPN.com about how Dan had spoken with Richard Schaeffer (Golden Boy CEO) about it, and then I started getting calls from people all over boxing. Golden Boy hadn’t reached out to me, so I ended up reaching out to Golden Boy, and it’s a good thing I did because apparently Shelly Finkel called Dmitriy and said, ‘look I can get you the fight done, I can make it happen,” and then basically he started unilaterally negotiating with Golden Boy on Dmitriy’s behalf.

L: (laughing) Wow.

Kurt: (also laughing) Yeah. It’s a dirty business man. Dmitriy had told me that Shelly called, but then when I talked to Golden Boy myself and told Dmitriy what Shelly had done, he was completely disgusted.

L: So the timeline is that you started hearing whispers around the boxing world that the idea was in the atmosphere and then you made the call to Golden Boy?

Kurt: Right. I made the call to Golden Boy because I know Dave Itskowitch, the COO at Golden Boy. He used to be Lou DiBella’s right-hand man, so we’re very tight with Dave. Actually, that’s really how I found about this initially, because Golden Boy thought that Lou still promoted Dmitriy and they contacted him. Lou called me and told me that De La Hoya was interested and that I should give them a call.

L: Where do you think the idea for Dmitriy as an opponent for Oscar came from? Because it’s definitely not the most natural match-up out there.

Kurt: Well, you know, I think Oscar is looking for a tune-up fight before Floyd, and the best thing to do is take on a naturally smaller guy. A naturally smaller guy who doesn’t have a lot of punching power. That’s the logic they’re using. So they’re looking at junior welterweights who HBO wouldn’t be completely offended by for an Oscar fight. You got Stevie Forbes, former world champion, just had a nice win on pay-per-view over Francisco Bojado, and he’s affiliated with “The Contender,” so that ups his profile. Paulie, obviously, is a world champion, and Golden Boy has ties with Lou DiBella (Malignaggi’s promoter), they’ve done a lot of business with him.

L: Where do the negotiations stand right now?

Kurt: Well, basically Golden Boy has an idea of their budget, and everyone’s making their pitch to them about why they should get the fight. It’s kind of a beauty contest at this point. The bottom line I think is that they’re looking for the person they can get the cheapest. I’m not sure they really have a preference beyond that.

L: This is not a pay-per-view fight, right?

Kurt: Right, it’s regular HBO, so it’s not this big upside for money. It’s a cut-and-dried budget, and Golden Boy is just looking for that fighter who’s willing to, you know, get in there with Oscar and move up two weight classes and fight him in his hometown (laughs).

L: Well, on that score, there are a lot of other junior welterweights out there that people know who Oscar could beat and that have bigger names than Dmitriy. I’m thinking that Dmitriy’s story, and now the release of the movie, must play a role in Oscar’s interest. Do you think that’s true?

Kurt: I definitely think so. Dmitriy sent out invitations before any of this happened to Richard Schaeffer and Dave Itskowitch to attend the movie. And, you know, the documentary is amazing.

L: You’re happy with the movie?

Kurt: Oh very, very. Jason Hutt is a tremendously talented filmmaker and he followed Dmitriy with a camera for three to four years and really did an amazing job of capturing any number of things. Not just your usual boxer-in-training type shots either, but also of Dmitry’s conversion to being an Orthodox and observant Jew and how the community views him and views boxing and the conflict between his faith and a violent sport. And, you know, it’s also the classic story of an immigrant just trying to make it in Brooklyn. Plus, as an attorney in the sport one part of it I really think is compelling is that Lou DiBella actually allowed Jason to capture some of the negotiations of the promotional contract with Dmitriy. And, well, I suspect that material will confirm some people’s thoughts about the way things go in boxing (laughing).

L: Wow. And DiBella signed off on that?

Kurt: Yeah. Lou’s seen the movie and he likes it. You know, Lou for the most part is an open book. Things didn’t work out between him and Dmitriy, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a pretty fair, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.

L: So you guys are still on good terms with Lou? I mean, you must be if he’s willing to call and give you the Oscar tip even after Dmitiriy had broken with him.

Kurt: Oh yeah, definitely. We parted on amicable terms. DiBella put out a press release that was very positive, and we’ve been very positive, and you know, it’s just one of those things. Dmitriy wanted to pursue things on his own, no hard feelings. But Lou’s a good guy and I would without question take fighters to Lou again. I think he’s still the best promoter in New York, the East Coast for the most part.

L: So back to the Oscar question, Kurt – when do you think it’s all gonna go down? When will we know?

Kurt: I think it’s going to happen by the end of the week. They want to get it wrapped up and get the promotion started. They don’t want to drag it out. And we’d like to know as well, because there are a lot of issues to work out for us well. I mean, if the fight is on the west coast it may pose a big problem for Dmitriy with Shabbat and sundown and the timing of the fight.

L: Man, that’s interesting. I never would have even thought about that.

Kurt: Yeah, well look, HBO is a New York-based company that caters to the East Coast. I don’t know that they’d want to bring the main event on much later than 11 or 11:30, especially when it’s regular HBO. That could be a problem for us with sundown. Dmitriy’s going to need at least an hour to warm up before the fight.

L: And on a Saturday right, he won’t do anything until sundown.

Kurt: Right.

L: Wow. I, ah… I gotta think that as far as a big-time fight goes, and I know that there’s no title at stake here, but still right now whenever Oscar fights it’s a big-time fight… and for a fight of this magnitude I have to imagine this is an issue that’s never been dealt with before.

Kurt: Not that I know of. And yeah, it’s definitely a big deal, because Dmitriy is living it, you know. He’s observant.

L: I know, I know. Man. All right, so let me change the subject here and ask you about Dmitriy’s prospects against Oscar. Obviously he’d be a heavy underdog, but to me it seems like a Paulie/Cotto situation, where if Dmitriy goes in there and gives a really good account of himself, he changes his career incalculably even if he loses.

Kurt: Without question. Dmitriy definitely has his critics right now, people saying that he hasn’t stepped up and taken big fights. MaxBoxing did an article where they presented that very issue to us. But, you know, to be willing to jump up two weight divisions to fight the biggest star in the sport, a certain Hall of Famer and a guy who last year lost a split decision to the best fighter in the game… I mean, let’s face it, Oscar still has some heat on the fastball. To take him on in Mexico in front of a hundred-twenty thousand fans – that’s big balls right there. And if Dmitriy could give him a run for his money in those circumstances, there’s no question his stock goes way way up. Plus, there’s just the cultural dimension of it. I don’t think an orthodox Jew has ever fought for a title or, you know, occupied that type of air space where you’re fighting an Oscar De La Hoya. It’s just huge all around.

L: One more thing, Kurt. I know you used to represent Paulie , you have much to do with him anymore?

Kurt: Not that much business-wise. We’re still very friendly. I actually got him an endorsement not too long ago. I’m a big Paulie fan.

L: So obviously you’re competing with Paulie’s people for this fight. That said, what do you think are his chances of getting in there with Oscar?

Kurt: Well, it’s interesting with Paulie, because he actually has more to risk. He’s a titlist at 140 already, and then if he steps up and takes the Oscar fight and looks terrible in there and gets blown out, I’m not sure people are even going to want to see him fight Ricky Hatton. So I think that’s kind of weighed into the calculation. If Oscar’s offering relatively short money for an Oscar fight, do you make as much or more in a more competitive fight with Hatton? Because I think it’s fairly certain that they can make the Hatton fight.

L: No kidding? Really?

Kurt: Yeah. Hatton doesn’t really want to fight Junior Witter, and Ricardo Torres doesn’t mean anything to him. That leaves Paulie as the most compelling fight for him.

L: All right Kurt, thanks a lot for your time, and know that all of us here at No Mas are rooting hard for Dmitriy in this one. Take care.

Kurt: Thanks Large.

(One final note for all you New York No Masians out there – Orthodox Stance makes its final appearance in the Jewish Film Festival tonight at Walter Reade, 8 p.m. I haven’t seen the movie, but all reports I’ve heard are that it’s excellent. Our crack correspondent, No Mas Nick Strini, will be on the scene to give us a full report.)

My latest Super Bowl post is up over at The Sporting Blog. Titled “More Macking and Less Quarterbacking” it takes on an issue that I’m sure the average No Masian will have some pretty strong opinions on – The All-Time List of the Most Macklicious Quarterbacks in NFL History. I’ll just tease the list by dropping this bomb on you – Joe Willie is NOT number one. The lead paragraph is below followed by a direct link:

One of the big questions going into SB XLII is how another ring and Super Bowl MVP award will affect Tom Brady’s standing on The All-Time List of the Most Macklicious Quarterbacks in NFL History. Me, I don’t see it doing that much for him. Basically, the guy is already one of the best on the list. In my mind, if he wants to make it to the very top though, he needs to concentrate on (in the immortal words of Redd Foxx), “more macking … and less quarterbacking.” Because macktastic though he is, the names above him right now are some of the true Olympian giants of gridiron mackitude…

More Macking and Less Quarterbacking (The Sporting Blog)

I took an enormous amount of aesthetic satisfaction from yesterday’s championship games, particularly Giants/Packers, so much so that I was moved to write to Paul Lukas over at Uniwatch and ask if I could contribute a post. He graciously accepted, and so today I have a piece up over there titled “Winter Classic.” Let me just add that if you don’t regularly read Uniwatch, you’re really missing out – it’s one of the smartest, most unique and consistently excellent sports sites on the web. I’m proud to be a pinch-hit contributor.

Here’s my lead paragraph with the direct link following:

Could any true football fan of a certain age who watched the Packers/Giants game last night honestly say that their enjoyment wasn’t keenly heightened by the mere sight of those two iconic uniforms doing battle against the freezing backdrop of Lambeau Field? The way the colors and logos so vividly hearkened to championship games played by these same two teams in the NFL’s glory years lent an inescapable air of nostalgia to the contest and a powerful sense of the sport’s past being present, a feeling that all too often seems lacking in this day and age of the league’s generally wretched marketing aesthetic…

Winter Classic (Uniwatch)