Ultimate Celebrity Alert

One of the stranger sports stories of the past is that of Rick Ankiel. Ankiel became a vital cog in the starting rotation of the 2000 St. Louis Cardinals and as a lefthanded pitcher possessing both velocity and wicked breaking stuff his upside was unlimited. As the playoffs began, injuries had decimated the Cards starting rotation forcing Tony LaRussa to use Ankiel as the game 1 starter against the Atlanta Braves and their ace, Greg Maddux. In the course of an inning, it all fell apart for Rick Ankiels career as a starting pitcher. In the third inning of game one, working with a 6-0 lead, Ankiel allowed 2 hits, 4 walks and 5 wild pitches before being pulled with two outs. Initially, he wrote it off as a bad outing until history quickly repeated itself in game 2 of the NLCS against the NY Mets. He threw only 20 pitches in that game, 5 of which went past catcher Eli Marrero. For the next several years he tried to fix the control problems that suddenly manifest themselves on baseballs biggest stage but was unable to do so. Compounding the frustration of Ankiel and his team was the fact that his control problems werent physical or mechanical, but strictly psychological.

The last time that Georges St. Pierre defended his UFC welterweight title, it quickly turned into the low point of his career. Already facing a number of personal issues away from the cage, he looked sloppy and distracted as Matt Serra defeated him by brutal TKO. This time, things were different”before an enthusiastic and knowledgeable crowd at Minneapolis Target Center arena GSP brutalized Jon Fitch over five rounds to win an easy unanimous decision. The judges scores of 50-43, 50-44, 50-44 underscored the one sided victory, though Jon Fitch showed a lot of heart and toughness to go the distance.

Brock Lesnar will make his first defense of the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 106 against another college wrestling standout, Shane Carwin. The event will take place at Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Events Center on November 21st.

Decades before mixed martial arts became popular in the United States, events matching fighters of different fighting disciplines were very common in Japan. They weren’t called “mixed martial arts” at the time, but that’s essentially what they were.There’s an entire history of pro wrestlers fighting specialists from other martial arts (particularly judo) that were leaving out, but during the 1970’s Antonio Inoki began to put the concept of “mixed martial arts” on the map with his matches against fighters from other disciplines.

It may be a bit of a stretch to call Satoshi Ishii the Michael Phelps of Japan, but not by much. His victory in the heavyweight judo competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was easily the defining moment of the games for his countrymen and was considered by most media outlets the #1 highlight of the year in all of sports.