Friday, May 28, 2010

The top 5 awesomest boxing injuries of the last decade...

Boxing has arguably the the most strict health and safety regualtions of any professional sport. Extensive physicals and medical examinations are done on each fighter before and after each fight. Ringside physicians are assigned by every commission to monitor both fighters between rounds and determine their ability to continue. Referees are highly trained to know when a fighter is taking too much punishment and to step in and stop it. An ambulance is always present at each fight and ready to transport the fighter(s) to the hospital in a timely manner in the event of a serious injury. Yet, some people still complain the sport is too violent and barbaric and poses health risks to all involved. Generally, these people are referred to as "women". And every time boxing is on the verge of finally convincing these broads that it's a safe and closely monitored sport, someone leaves the ring looking like they got their head caught in a bear trap and the whole argument starts all over again. The following are the top five examples from the past decade of why mothers prefer that their sons become aerobic instructors instead of boxers.

5. Edwin Valero TKO 9 Antonio Demarco


















Upon hearing the news of Valero's death earlier this year, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking it was this cut that killed him. It's very rare that someone gets cut so deep that you can see their thoughts. It's also very rare that someone gets cut this deep and goes on to not only win a fight but dominate it, as Valero did by stopping Demarco in the 9th round. Though it appears to be an axe wound, the cut was actually caused by Demarco's elbow in the second round. The amount of red liquid dripping from Valero's face made it appear as if he was sitting front row at a Gallagher show. Apparently Valero was not at all fazed by the sight of blood as evidenced by the amount of it that likely came shooting out of his wife's neck after he stabbed a knife into it three times on the morning of April 18th, 2010. Though Edwin Valero compiled an eye popping record of 27-0 (27 ko's) inside the ring, he put together a less impressive record of 0-1 versus his sweatpants, which he used to hang himself in his prison cell just hours after confessing to his wife's murder.

4. Evander Holyfield Tech. W8 Hasim Rahman














In the last century or so, modern medicine has turned our world from a primitive, hostile breeding ground for disease, famine and death into a safe, sterile and fertile world where people don't have to be afraid of each other's boogers any more. The men and women who have helped advance our knowledge of health and medicine have been amongst the brightest the human race has to offer and without whom our lives would undoubtedly be shorter and of diminished quality. That being said, it's gonna take a long time before anyone can properly identify what the fuck that thing that formed on Hasim Rahman's head was on the night of June 1st 2002. Some specualted that Rahman was wearing a miner's cap on the inside of his skull while others inquired as to how someone could fight with a snow globe stapled to their forehead. One thing everyone seems to agree upon though is that nobody wants to be around when that thing finally hatches.

3. Rafael Marquez TKO 3 Israel Vazquez















In 2007 and 2008 Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez engaged in a sensationally brutal three fight trilogy that some describe as the best in boxing history. Marquez took the first fight after a broken nose caused Vazquez to retire on his stool after six rounds. Vazquez however took the next two insanely violent encounters and in the process almost lost an eye. After taking over a year off from the sport, presumably to have an extra layer of skin grafted to those things they call their face, the two fighters met for a fourth time less than a week ago. Vazquez, who now begins bleeding from his face on the drive to the arena, was cut almost immediately. And as if his eye was trying to send a message to his head that it no longer wanted to be punched in the retina anymore, it decided to drip every ounce of blood from his forehead directly into his cornea, effectively rendering him blind until Marquez stopped him midway through the 3rd round. Due to the size of the cut, doctors were forced to perform an experimental procedure in which they inserted a needle into one side of the wound and FedEx'd it to the other side and waited for it to return days later. This was repeated numerous times until doctors were finally able to identify Vazquez's face as that of a human being.

2. Lennox Lewis TKO 6 Vitali Klitschko



















As if we already didn't have enough proof that Russia was creating and harboring cyborgs, along come the Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali. While Waldimir was considered the more talented of the two, it was Vitali who earned a place in the hearts of boxing fans by submitting his entire face to a scientific experiment in which doctors aimed to learn how many times it could be punched by Lennox Lewis before falling off completely. Turns out, the answer to that question is "a lot". To be fair, the hell that broke loose under Vitali's eye didn't accurately reflect how well he did in the fight. He was up on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage and vehemently protested with the referee not to stop it, at which point the ref held up a mirror to Vitali's face and said "There's nothing left for him to break on your head. In America, that means he wins."

1. Antonio Margarito TKO 10 Sebastian Lujan




















When Antonio Margarito threatens to box your ears off, he fucking means it. Just ask Sebastian Lujan, who in 2005 became the first boxer in history to leave the ring with his ear in a wheelchair. Lujan held his own for the first half of the fight but as Margarito began to take over in the middle rounds, Lujan's ear decided to make a run for it. Some observers recall hearing the ear say "If you're not going to protect me, I'm just gonna leave. See you in the car." Some fighters careers are stunted and cut short due to a glass jaw. Imagine Lujan's surprise when he found out the hard way that he has a glass ear. In Lujan's defense, Margarito was caught before a fight with Shane Mosley in 2009 with plaster of paris in his hand wraps. We can only specualte as to whether Margarito's knuckles were cemented in his fight with Lujan but when you consider that the one ear that fell off in a prize ring in the 00's did so at the hands of the only guy to be suspended in the 00's for putting asphalt in his gloves, it's kind of hard to believe the playing field was level that night. Regardless, Lujan's career continued but he was never the same again. And thanks to Margarito, he could only hear the ring announcer declare him the loser through his right ear.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Predicting the future of fatness...

According to a randomly googled site on the internet that I quite honestly had trouble reading, I am overweight. There's obviously varying degrees of being overweight and I'm quite sure that the alien sex wizards who control the diet pill industry heavily influence the numbers to help lower the curve and in turn sell more organic dung slushees, yet I can't help but agree with the numbers. I have a very unhealthy relationship with food and booze that has only grown more voracious as I approach the age of 30. We exist in the same symbiotic fashion as the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol comprised of a snake eating its own tail. Food's existence is validated solely by a person's willingness to ingest it and I am, more often than not, all too happy to volunteer my services. Honestly, every meal I eat mirrors that of a recently rescued shipwreck victim. It's always been this way. I'm the only person I've ever known who didn't eat meat for six years and somehow managed to gain weight. A lot of this is due to a deteriorating metabolism and an almost allergic type reaction to exercise, not to mention a nearly olympic style ingestion of alcohol. This too is a gift as well as a curse.

I started my drinking career around the age of 15 but with the tolerance level of a 66 year old drunken sea captain. It has led to countless wasted calories and untold fortunes in bar tabs, the ensuing depression of which was quickly consoled at the sight of a shoebox sized serving of buffalo wings. I have no shame about my food consumption nor my weight. I think any fashion choice that is not entirely practical, ie. tattoos, piercings, jewelry, cologne and yes, toned bodies, are simply vanity and therefore useless. I have no desire to be attractive or fit, strong and healthy or in any way physically appealling. I simply enjoy the taste of food too much to turn back now. That being said, a quick mathematical equation will show that the future does not look good for my already food-ravaged body, let alone my current wardrobe. A quick glance at my two previous driver's licenses will show the rapid rate of descent to my physical health. Here we go.

My license at 16 shows a fresh, boney faced kid ready to kick the world in its face's ass and show it who's boss. It lists my height at 6' 1" and my weight at 160 lbs. Not too shabby at all.

Cut to 2005. A little more hair on my face and little less room to maneuver around my chin area. Still, a youthful exuberance stares back and a jaw line is clearly visible. Height is now a towering 6' 2" and my weight has blossomed into a full figured 190 lbs.

Now to the present. Mr. Shit, meet mr. fan. I am still a sexy 6' 2" but we've cracked 200 in the weight department and peaked at a flabby yet mobile 215 lbs.

So let's add it up. Age 16 to age 25 we went from 165 to 190, for an average of roughly 2.8 lbs a year in weight gain. Not terrible. From age 25 to 29 we went from 190 to 215 for an average yearly gain of nearly 6.25 lbs. Not cool, Zeus. So let's assume that I've peaked and I will, at some point set foot inside the fitness center that is located on the first floor of the building I've lived in for 2 years, and combine the two numbers and come up with a mean of roughly 4.525 lbs a year. Where will I be in 30 years?

30 x 4.525 = 135.75

So, (current weight at 29 years of age) 215 + (weight gain over 30 year span) 135.75 =................holy fucking 350.75 lbs!

Here's a short list of people I know of who are 350 lbs:

Bam Bam Bigelow (Dead)
John Goodman
John Candy (Dead)
Chris Farley (Dead)
Norm from Cheers (getting close to dead)
and so on...

This is not good. Why do I get the feeling that one day I'll be having one of those What's Eating Gilbert Grape moments with my kids?

".....I wasn't always this way, you know?"