UFC welterweight Chris “Lights Out” Lytle called it a career Sunday night after locking in a nice little guilliotine near the end of the third round on a slightly, farty, and bloated heavy Dan Hardy in the main event of UFC on VS 5.
Hardy came to the weigh in at 171.5 and was given two hours to cut weight to qualify for the fight. He made it; but training with Big Country Roy Nelson had him looking a little soft around the middle.
He informed UFC officials of his decision before making the announcement.
Lytle leaves a legacy as one of the most exciting competitors in UFC. After losing six of his first eight fights for the organization from November 2000 to March 2007, he went 8-4 over the next 12 bouts. Lytle won eight fight-night awards, a total matched only by middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
Lytle is apparently eyeballing a career in politics; which would be highly useful if this were Taiwan but doesn’t really do much good in the U.S.
Still, it would be cool to see him debating issues. “Keysenian economic theory has been historically disproved and I encourage pro-growth policies that enhance the earning potential of all Americans, and if my opponent disagrees then I will choke him out,” I imagine Lytle stating at a picnic to enthusiastic applause and chants of “Four more years!”
Lil Wayne lookalike and dental hygienist’s retirement plan Chris Johnson, or C2K to fantasy owners, would like to get stupid paid; talking Bud Cramer “Mad Money.” The Tennessee Titans, who basically have their entire offense riding on C2K, have so far declined.
Johnson said last year that he wanted a new deal with $30 million in guaranteed money. The Titans revised his contract by boosting his 2010 salary by $1.5 million to $2.05 million to convince the running back to report.
Johnson is heading into his fourth season and due to make $800,000 in base salary. The final two years of his deal can max out at roughly $2.7 million.
Part of the problem is that running backs typically are not paid as well as some of the league’s other top players. Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is the league’s highest-paid running back at $10.7 million. DeAngelo Williams received $21 million guaranteed from the Carolina Panthers to re-sign this offseason.
Johnson has rushed for 4,598 yards and 34 touchdowns during his three seasons. He also has caught 137 passes for 1,008 more yards and four more touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Eddie George lifted his head from some Ohio State muff to chime in that C2K needs to get his; and I concur. NFL deals are basically a series of 1-year contracts anyway; and it’s not like RBs are going to be playing for 20 years. Keeping up those grills alone is going to cost mucho dinero, so pay da man!
Jason Garrett is starting his first full season as the head coach for the Dallas Cowboys after the team unceremoniously dumped Wade Phillips in the middle of last season. Garrett appears to be taking a much more “all inclusive” approach to training camp, unlike most of his other peers in the coaching world. Garrett is of the mindset that rookies in the NFL shouldn’t be singled out because of the mere fact that they are rookies. In other words, there will be no rookie hazing on Jason Garrett’s watch.
“It’s just something I believe in and we believe in as a staff,” Garrett said. “The young guys are part of our football team. They certainly need to get themselves acclimated in a lot of different ways, and our veteran players are in charge of welcoming them to the NFL in a real positive way.
“Also, there are some other things that go with that, but there’s not going to be anything that’s demeaning in any way that a rookie has to do. We just don’t believe in that.”
Well dang, that is just isn’t any fun at all now is it? I’m not saying you have to do some animal house type stuff to the rookies to make them “pay their dues” but, c’mon, carrying shoulder pads and tying them up to the goalpost with athletic tape are time honored “rites of passage” for NFL rookies league-wide. What is the harm in doing any of that? Those are team bonding moments that one just can’t get by doing things like singing Kumbaya fireside with some smores. I mean, is this an NFL training camp or summer camp?
The NFL has already taken away two-a-days and full pad/helmet practices out of the training camps under the new collective bargaining agreement and now the Cowboys taking it to a whole new level of wussdom with this move.
Make the kids earn their keep. None of the “hazing” that takes place in the NFL is all that bad anyway, its appears to simply be a good way for the players to build trust and camaraderie with their teammates. No physical harm, no foul, right?
I wonder how this judgment call of his will affect how Garrett’s players feel about him this season. Last season, apparently, he wasn’t making a lot of friends in that locker room:
Maybe he just needs to lighten up a little? Could probably go a long way to getting his team on his side.
So Kimbo Slice is again reinventing himself. The one time backyard brawler superstar turned perennial MMA assault victim is now attempting to become a professional boxer. Slice’s first match was this past weekend against James Wade (0-1 career) at Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Okla and to no one’s surprise, Kimbo won.
You can actually watch the entirety of the fight below as it lasted just eleven seconds. Yeah, eleven seconds. Quality fight right there. I mean, c’mon, even Don King is shaking his head at this match-up.
Regardless, enjoy watching Kimbo attempt to regain some semblance of a career…at least until someone asserts some copyright claim on the video.
So the Aggies of Texas A&M thought that they could get the jump on the whole college football realignment business by joining the SEC right away. Like, they thought they’d be in the SEC next season. The only problem with this is that the SEC never asked Texas A&M to join them, doesn’t really want them right now and basically told A&M “Yeah, uh, thanks big guy…but no thanks” on Sunday. Boy, have their faces got to be red…or orange…or burnt sienna or whatever their school colors are.
“(Texas A&M) did approach the SEC, not the other way around,” [Arkansas chancellor Dave] Gearhart said. “I’m not really sure of all the reasons for that. I’m sure that there’s a lot of speculation on behalf of a lot of people that what caused them to do that.
“The bottom line is they did approach the SEC.”
One has to assume that A&M was attempting to be proactive because they do not want to be left out in the cold when Texas bolts out of the Big 12 for greener pastures in the next year or two. Too bad for them that it appears A&M will not be going anywhere greener anytime soon.
Will anyone take on A&M now that the SEC flat out rejected them? Did they blow their proverbial wad when attempting to hook up with the prettiest girl in college? Could they now have to hook up with the last girl in the bar at 3am when the lights come on? Is it possible that I can make any more forced awkward references to my time spent in college? In all seriousness, no, they’re probably going to end up in the SEC at some point even though it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.
Discounting money for a second, why on earth would A&M want to be in the SEC? They can barely compete against Texas (and that is being really really generous to them) how are they going to compete in a conference that most seasons has 2 or 3 teams that have the talent level as good or better than what Texas has on a yearly basis? Football-wise, the move makes zero sense whatsoever. Getting into the SEC would help them out financially for a bit sure, but in the end, it could hurt their program more than its already being hurt by languishing behind the Longhorns season after season.
I understand that big conferences with big teams bring in big dollars, but maybe A&M might do better for itself in the long run thinking smaller and instead trying to become a bigger fish in a littler pond. Perhaps A&M should think outside the box a little more, Nebraska and Colorado certainly did.
UFC welterweight Chris “Lights Out” Lytle called it a career Sunday night after locking in a nice little guilliotine near the end of the third round on a slightly, 
