UFC

some interesting fights on the UFC PPV card this weekend:

- matt hughes defends welterweight title against georges st. pierre
- tim sylvia defends heavyweight against jeff monson
- up and coming brandon vera against former champ frank mir

any predictions? my hope is that gsp and monson both take the belts, but i'm not optimistic that will happen.

Tuesday Links

- skip bayless writes his me-o book review. i haven't read the book, but i strongly suspect that skip's article is more entertaining. skip agrees with me that there is no way that me-o is going to be successful in dallas. i can't see a honeymoon period happening there: a) me-o couldn't get along with jeff garcia and donovan mcnabb, no chance in heck that he's going to get along with drew bledsoe, b) bill parcells checked out years ago, if parcells couldn't take the bs that comes with antonio bryant, there's no way in heck that he's going to handle volume of crap that comes from me-o, and c) if me-0 was focused on the cowboys and fitting in, he wouldn't have missed the mini-camps and he wouldn't be out there making a fuss about his book (causing a distraction to his team). no sir, i just don't see it happening.

i know many eagles fans are concerned about how good the division is supposed to be, but not me. if the eagles just take care of business and focus on being team again, they'll be fine. the cowboys are going to implode (or parcells is going to quit), the redskins are a rotisserie team of mismatched parts with no QB, and the giants have a QB with no guts and a sour disposition. of those teams, i am most concerned about the giants because their defense is going to be top notch, but i think the offense is highly overrated and full of prima donnas.

- you know you're starting to make in-roads to becoming mainstream when "dyed in the wool" boxing writers like bernard fernandez are writing about UFC. i watched UFC 1-5 with great interest, but UFC sort of fell off the radar and for a long time i thought they went out of business. little did i know that there was a whole "mixed martial arts" sub-culture thriving underground. i watched some of this show on spike called "ultimate fighter", and i caught the bug again. it's pretty damn entertaining to watch and seems like it hasn't been politicized/corrupted yet (like boxing).

- looks like there's a pretty good chance that all draft picks will be signed in time for the start of training camp. only "the thing" is left to sign now that winston justice signed yesterday. just keep the momentum going. keep everything trending positive, big red and joe.