This Week in No Mas

3/18
Decisions, decisions...
Large runs down Saturday's boxing action and its plethora of dubious decisions.

Birthday Birthday
A distinguished crew of born-todays, including Plimp, Sledge, the Wicked Pickett and the 22nd (and 24th) President of the United States.

Birth of a Chevy Nation
A Large rant on the ubiquitous "Our Country" Chevy ads currently marring the NCAA Tournament. "The ads now feel to me like this large wink-wink sales pitch to the red states - 'this country it belongs... to folks like you and me' - and we all KNOW who those folks are. They're not black or Latino or Asian or Jewish or, perhaps most emphatically, gay. They're man's men and women's women, white Republicans with their hats and their trucks and their unbearable nostalgia for a monochromatic past that never actually existed."

3/19
And we're back
Unsilent raves about Saturday's action in the tourney. "It was as if somewhere in Indiana Myles Brand rose from his coffin to flip the switch on the second round. On the third day there was action, and it was good."

K.O.W. - The Casablanca Clouter
For our Knockout of the Week, we turn to the great French champion, Marcel Cerdan, and his one-round destruction of Jose Ferrer in 1942.

Nitti Gritty
The anniversary of the suicide of infamous Capone-era gangster, Frank Nitti, who is among other things the nick-namesake of Flyers goalie, Antero Nittymaki.

3/20
Super Tuesday
A slew of born-today's, led by champion wood-chopper David Foster and champion femme fatale, Pamela Harriman.

Pawns in the Game
A review of Michael Weinreb's new book Kings of New York, which follows a championship high school chess team from Brooklyn through a tumultuous season. "...there's a lot to be learned about chess culture in this book, from the long shadow still cast by Bobby Fischer to the absolutism of the Elo ratings system to the rigors of the Washington Square hustling scene to the threat that the popularity of the high-stakes poker boom poses to the chess world at large."

3/21
Redemption on the Lost Saturday
Unsilent continues his the tale of his wild Saturday in transit, just one man trying to make it back to D.C. and catch some basketball action on the way.

Le Noble Art
Our Parisian correspondent, Madsear, sends us an eyewitness account of the Mormeck/Bell cruiserweight bout in Levallois last Saturday. "A few actors were shown on the big screen, all seeming bored out of their minds. The card girls were being chatted up by some rapper when the lights are dimmed and Don King nearly blinds half the crowd with an amount of ice I haven't seen since Jay-Z's last show."

Deep Tennis with Steve Tignor
Steve tells us about the day that German Karsten Braasch took on the Williams sisters back to back. "Braasch was there at the time, and he was ranked No. 203. He had had a couple beers that morning before playing a round of golf, but he said sure, he'd play them. He went out and beat Serena 6-1 and then Venus 6-2."

I'm that little bit of hope
Unsilent runs down his favorite unlikely stars from the opening weekend of March Madness.

3/22
Sharpshootin' with the Franchise
Franchise finally made it back, thank Jesus, from his fighting tour of the Midwest and got his ass down to some Sharpshootin'. What's on his mind? The steroids controversy, UFC's potential purchase of Pride, WM 23 and the deaths of Ernie Ladd and Arnold Skaaland.

Not with a whimper but a bang
The anniversary of Ali's last fight in the 1960's, his seventh-round knockout of Zora Folley. "The great tragedy of Ali's Vietnam exile from a boxing angle is that in '66 and '67 he had evolved into a type of athlete as yet unseen in the heavyweight ranks, and one we may never see again - a 212-pound man with power in both gloves and the agility and handspeed of an elusive middleweight."

The Greatest Fights of Large's Lifetime
Large gets all Franchise and counts down the top ten fights of his lifetime, all in response to a Bert Sugar clip on ESPN.com in which he counts down the greatest fights ever. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I tell you that the Thrilla in Manila is on both lists.

3/23
The No Mas Top 23 Wrestlemania Moments
Oh people, we're getting down to the bone with this list - Franchise takes us into the top ten with the pioneering ladder match and a whole lotta Bret "The Hitman" Hart.