After McGregor’s triumph in UFC 205, the organization’s new owners may as well give the Irishman a cut of the money. He’s doing whatever he wants now anywayFight report: McGregor puts on a show to become two-division championConor McGregor may act like an unrepentant lout at times. He may taunt, scorn and torment his opponents, the way he played with Eddie Alvarez before finishing him off early Sunday morning. He may drive you nuts. But he has turned the UFC into his own little game, in which he makes the rules and picks the prizes. At some point you have to shake your head and marvel.Well after midnight on Sunday morning, UFC president Dana White glowed as he sat at...
The NBA engenders an climate of open dialogue that’s made basketball players more willing to speak on social issues – and it’s more important now than everThe NFL and NBA have roughly the same racial profile with African Americans comprising 68 to 74% of their rosters. They have long been leagues dominated by athletes of color and should be places where essential social issues involving race are discussed. And yet when it comes to the actual expression of their players’ voices the two sports are worlds apart.While NFL players like Colin Kaepernick have spoken out about racial inequalities and police shootings in recent years, their voices are lonelier on those issues than in basketball, where stars feel emboldened to address the problems...
As the New York Cosmos prepare to take on Indy Eleven in Sunday’s final, one NASL owner is set to take legal action alleging ties to ‘dirty money’ – another blow to a league that has suffered more than its fair share of problemsAs the North American Soccer League gears up for its championship final between New York Cosmos and Indy Eleven in New York on Sunday, Tampa Bay Rowdies owner Bill Edwards has warned he is poised to take legal action against the league, alleging ties to “dirty money”. Related: America's Azteca: how a small Columbus stadium became a fortress for US soccer The politics of soccer in the United States is pretty volatile at the moment and NASL...
Even without the background of Donald Trump as president-elect, Friday night’s World Cup qualifier will be played between two teams in transitionWell, that escalated quickly. The preamble to last year’s USA v Mexico clash, for the right to represent Concacaf at the Confederations Cup, seems impossibly quaint at this moment. To pick out a couple of random phenomena, Fox Soccer were forced on the defensive for a video montage that seemed to make light of Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, while on the Mexican side it was possible to walk through the Rose Bowl parking lots before the game, and see Trump piñatas dotted among the portable BBQs. But it still all seemed like so much carnival posturing on both sides.The...
Dak Prescott will need to be at his sharpest to keep pace with Ben Roethlisberger, whose offense should be too much for DallasAfter the drought, the deluge. For consecutive weeks we had no clean sweeps to celebrate in our Pick Six contest, but this time I bring you seven … and a half. Let’s have rapturous applause for alpenvo, Barkotron, CosmicTrigger, GlennyTheElder, ITLaw23, waterhoose and zoomster - who called every game correctly in week nine. And also a commiserating clap for aalipour - who did the same, but won’t get the full six points because he submitted his predictions after the early games had already begun. I’ll have those overall standings up shortly in the comments section below. Until then,...