This Week in No Mas

4/22
Southpaw Jinx
A great day for lefties, the 13th anniversary of Michael Moorer's victory over Evander Holyfield, making him the first southpaw heavyweight champion in history.

4/23
Large v. Plimp
Large examines George Plimpton's candidacy for the No Mas Hall of Fame, quite unfairly influenced by Large's one bungled trip to the Plimpton mansion. "There can be no finer looking set of nubiles at any Vogue party thrown last week than were at Plimpton's house that night, and the master of ceremonies was trailed by an adoring gaggle of these shiny geese everywhere he went. To my eye, this was the point of the party, and anything else that transpired was incidental."

Sons of Sakhnin
I-Berg reviews Roger Bennett's Sons of Sakhnin, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last night. "Sakhnin casts new and interesting light on the greatest political, cultural, and religious struggle of our time, while simultaneously giving up all the David vs. Goliath sports documentary goodness we require. Basically we are in the territory of Bad News Bears meets "From Beirut to Jerusalem", which is some pretty rarified air."

The O'Brien Glide
No Mas bids a sad but swarthy farewell to the great Parry O'Brien, legendary shot-putter and inventor of the groundbreaking O'Brien glide, who died this past Saturday at the age of 75.

K.O.W. - Sturm und Drang
To get us all primed for the Felix Sturm/Javier Castillejo rematch tomorrow night, our No Mas Knockout of the Week goes back to the first fight, where Castillejo prevailed with a TKO in the 10th. "Crumpling forward into Castillejo, Sturm received three whipping uppercuts to the head before the ref could mercifully put an end to the proceedings. I tell you people, those last three punches were like killing a mockingbird."

4/24
No Mas Caption Contest
A caption contest for tickets to last night's premiere of Chavez at the Tribeca Film Festival.

2007 New York Golden Gloves
Our man No Mas Nick Strini, who has been covering the Golden Gloves this year, congratulates the winners and offers up a spectacular slideshow of the proceedings.

4/25
The Milan Debacle
We reprint an excerpt on the movie Hoosiers from Jeffrey Lane's excellent new book, "Under the Boards: The Cultural Revolution in Basketball." "The movie Hoosiers captures both the enormous pride Indiana takes in its basketball tradition and the throwback aestheticism routinely attached to this pride. Two former Indiana University students, director David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo, collaborated to recreate an immortal slice of Indiana folklore, the "Milan Miracle," which is considered by many the greatest Cinderella story in all of hoops history."

The Sports Guy Also Thinks Boxing Is Dead
Bill Simmons' recent piece on De la Hoya/Mayweather and the decline of boxing gets Large's blood up. "His boxing column boils down to the firm grasp of the blatantly obvious that I've come to expect from him: in short, boxing used to be good, now its not. He throws in the blanket assertion that De la Hoya/Mayweather will be the last big fight, unlike his memories of the good old days when he and his buddies evidently watched a fight of this caliber every weekend (I can only imagine how The Sports Guy and his posse whooped it up for the likes of Zaragoza/Morales)."

4/26
Sharpshootin' with The Franchise
For this week's Sharpshootin', Franchise gives his column over to a trip down memory lane, a reminiscence of the greatest wrestling move of all time, Beyond the Mat.

Deal or Shit Deal
And ah, what a shit deal it was - the Tribe sent Chris Chambliss and Dirt Tidrow to the Yanks for four crash test dummies on this day 23 years ago. "...the moustache parity between the two teams was not disrupted in this deal, as Tidrow and Buskey's liprugs cancelled each other out and those Zapatas that Peterson and Chambliss had going were of equal measure."


4/27
The Best Sports Movies You've Never Seen
Baggiesboy continues our series on unheralded sports films with On a Clear Day, which follows that grand tradition of mid-life-crisis-go-swim-the-English-Channel movies that were all the rage a few years back.

Three for the Money
With the recent Cuban boxing defectors set to debut professionally tonight, longtime friend of No Mas Bud Schmeling, a.k.a. Morty Bravo, ruminates on what it means to leave the Socialist island for the lure of the big payday. "Every potential defector is faced with a harrowing decision; remain, compete as an amateur and continue the great struggle with his fellow countrymen, or leave and possibly subject family and friends to various persecutions to pursue the dreams that are the birthright of all world-class athletes outside of Cuba."