General: Sterno's Talkin' Smack -- Episode #53

Sterno's Talkin' Smack. No holding back here. It's all trash, all the time. Welcome to another wacky and crazy Tuesday installment of the best column in all the land. On today's program, we discuss the controversial decision in the Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley fight, the state of the New York Jets and other tidbits and observations from this past weekend.

Smack This: The Sport of Boxing: Let me tell you something. I have completely had it with boxing. Now, I know that I have said this before, referring to the sport that is anything but, but this time I am serious. Every single time, and it never fails, I am disappointed by something involved in a boxing event. No, I am talking about the actual boxers. Don't even get me started on Bob Costas and what the heck he is doing there at all.

You remember earlier this year when Boxing had its latest disaster. Lennox Lewis, the supposed great champion, was getting destroyed by no name challenger Vladmir Klitschko, when the fight went sadly in his favor due to a lucky cut over the Ukranian's eye. The fight wasn't even close to the worst of it. If you recall, after the fight, Lewis and his team of idiots, claimed that they were putting a whooping on Klitschko. All of this, despite the fact, that the entire world spent an hour watching Lewis' blubbery ass get thrown around the ring.

You know, that brings me to another point. How come in other sports like baseball, if a pitcher loses a game because he just doesn't have it, he tells it like it is, but in boxing that never happens. You never hear, "I didn't bring my A game tonight." I would respect that, wouldn't you? No, you get, "He could never hurt me, blah, blah, blah!" Why? Oh yeah, promoters and casino's run this so called sport. Yeah, that's why!

Anyway, I ended up ordering this fight on Saturday night and figured that I couldn't go wrong. Here were two guys that a fan can actually like because they have personalities, and the last time they fought, I was too stubborn to miss the fight of the year. I waited through hours and hours of nonsense (Bob Costas), and finally the fight was here.

First I will tell you how I saw it. The first couple of rounds were all De La Hoya. As far as I saw it, Mosley was barely even throwing any punches. To me, he looked tentative, because he was being severely out-jabbed by a fighter who is supposed to be more of a loose cannon. Far different from the first fight, Mosley was having to change the way he fought De La Hoya. It was clear that Oscar was prepared for the fight.

The rounds kept going by ever so slowly with action in small spurts. The asinine commentating from the HBO team actually was dead on, that Mosley wasn't nearly active enough to hurt De La Hoya. No, Oscar never hurt Shane, but the opposite end wasn't true either. On we went.

As the later rounds came, you could clearly see Mosley's father, his trainer, getting into his son's ear and telling him that he was losing on the cards. There didn't need to be a translator to tell you that Mosley's father knew that his son was in trouble.

In the ninth round, "Sugar Shane," came out blazing and had his best round of the night. Too bad it was round nine, and I had him down six rounds to three in a fight that was less than entertaining. Despite the fact that he repeated the same fury in the final round, a round in which his father asked him to knockout Oscar De La Hoya, it wasn't enough. Not enough for me. Not enough for the people I watched the fight with. Not enough for the guys at HBO PPV.

It was clear. De La Hoya, the "Golden Boy," had revenged his loss to Mosley. Then, it happened. Nobody spoke in my living room. Nobody spoke on the television. Nobody. Some how, some way, Mosley had won the fight. I now officially have seen it all folks. I cannot believe that De La Hoya lost this fight. You have got to be kidding me. Let me ask you something. Don't number of punches count? De La Hoya landed a million more jabs and thirty million more punches. It was a joke. I don't care if the judges had "Compu-box," which Jim Lampley kept alluding to. Are they blind? You don't need a calculator to figure out that Mosley spent half the fight just standing there.

Seriously! I like Mosley. So does Foreman, and those guys over at HBO. That is the only reason that they didn't rip him up after the decision. However, give me a break! Mosley was shocked by the decision. You could just tell. We all saw it. He even told De La Hoya he thought it was at least a draw. Then, suddenly, he was tooting the same horn that his father started tooting, the press like this Max Kellerman over at ESPN started tooting. There was a whole lot of tooting going on, if you know what I mean.

Look, I hope De La Hoya goes through with this protest. I know it is going to look bad for him and make him a whiner and that he will have several people begging him not to do so, and to take a rematch that Mosley will surely give him. I still think he should do it.

In a sport run by promoters and such, are we surprised? I'm certainly not. In order to keep the sport of Boxing alive, and all of these guys employed, these lies and bologna have to be told. That's just the way the dumb thing works.

However, in a small moment of actual value, George Foreman had enough. He lashed out at Boxing, Bob Arum, and even that little weasel Larry Merchant. Big George has had enough. He knows it's fixed. There is no way that judges can be that bad. No way. Maybe I am blind. Who knows?

The so called sport of Boxing -- Smacked!!!

Smack This: Tidbits from the world of sports: Let's take a trip around the world of sports from this past weekend for a minute, shall we? I'm glad you agree, as if you had a choice.

* What were the New York Jets thinking this past Sunday against the Dolphins? Vinny Testaverde is 40 years old, and he did a valiant job impersonating Peyton Manning, but why are you throwing the ball 100 times against the Dolphins? When Chad Pennington went down in the preseason, the only question that every Jets' fan had was not how many carries Curtis Martin would have, but how many additional carries Lamont Jordan would see. Yet somehow, Martin has done nothing and carried the ball less than half of the back ups in the NFL.

Hmmm, that's a ton of respect for that offensive line from ol' Herm.

* I could not believe the story about the third and unknown Williams' sister. It is sad. There is no way around it. I am not denying that it's a sad story that someone was killed. However, how do two sisters who have millions upon millions of dollars, have someone related to them that spends time in Compton? I really don't care why she was there. Have you ever been to Compton? Can we throw our sister a bone please? Yikes!

* Please explain to me how this wide receiver on the San Francisco 49ers gets caught running with the ball as time runs out in the fourth quarter! Please, explain this. How many times? How many times have we heard this? Do you think any coaches talk about this in practice? I am so sick of seeing guys lose games for their teams because they don't know how many timeouts their team has, how to work the clock late in the game, or when the heck to get out of bounds. The way the Niners lost that game is a disgrace!

Mental Meltdown -- Smacked!!!

One for the Road: Today's one for the road is dedicated to the Rams quarterback situation. Is there any doubt what is about to happen? After this past Sunday's performance, Marc Bulger is sure to get the nod as the starting QB of the Rams. I feel bad for Kurt Warner and I see another Drew Bledsoe situation on the horizon. Warner will excel again, and do it somewhere else.

That's it for me. I'm off to Giants Stadium to unceremoniously boo Bill Parcells. It's been way too long to still be sentimental.

Hit me up with feedback at eSports (click the Write the Editor link) or on my homepage at http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/theycallmethecloser. Come on and click that link already! You can't possibly agree with everything I say!

See ya' all next time folks! Until then, don't be the one who's smacked!