Photo from Google Images
“I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I know what to do; I just don’t know where to start.” – Coach Pat Riley
My favorite Coach Riley quote sums up how I feel about his weekend’s sports lineup! It’s a big weekend full of excitement with the draft, the derby and the fight. Thank you sports gods for not having them all at the same time!
The 2015 NFL Draft begins on Thursday. Who will go number one? Where will Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston fall? Cardinals GM Steve Keim told reporters “If Hannibal Lecter ran a 4.3 we’d probably diagnose it as an eating disorder.” This is the desperate mentality that Missouri DE, Shane Ray will be banking on during the draft selection.
Maybe Ray was just sending Denver a smoke signal that he fits the mile high city slogan with his recent marijuana citation. What an idiot! Three days before the biggest day of this kids life and he gets pulled over for speeding and ends up getting busted with pot. A projected first round pick has now raised a red flag to teams that could cost him millions as experts now have him slipping into later draft rounds. He’s already enrolled in phase one of the NFL’s substance abuse program and he will be given random drug tests. His career just went up in smoke. Funny, last week teams were concerned with Ray’s turf toe. Now, they are more worried about the grass.
What are my Washington Redskins going to do with the 5th overall pick? Do they even remember what to do in the first round? We haven’t had a first round pick since 2012 and look at how well trading up worked out for us. Maybe we should trade down this year to get more picks so that on the field we can throw less picks.
The Kentucky Derby is known as the fastest two minutes in sports. The first race in the Triple Crown series starts on Saturday. I’m convinced that in horse racing you only need three things to be successful; a great name, a lot of luck, and somewhere the name Bob has to be associated.
Let me be honest; I judge a horse by its name and their profile picture. To me, the horse name defines how much humor the owner has. Based on the Derby Contenders featured on the Kentucky Derby’s website, Mr. Z looks like a beast, with old man cleavage. He scares me a little and “Mr. Z” doesn’t sound like a fun name. My favorite name is Itsaknockout. It just made me giggle and it goes with the theme of the weekend in sports. He will also be outfitted in Mayweather/Pacquiao ensemble as a last minute marketing for the weekend’s main event. Itsaknockout; it just feels like a good name to win on Saturday. But, to win in horse racing you need a lot of luck and by luck I mean you shit lucky charms. I only know one person who has this super power and his name happens to be ‘Bob’.
Speaking of the name Bob, Bob Baffert is a Hall of Fame trainer whose resume has three Kentucky Derby victories, five Preakness wins, one at Belmont and ten Breeder’s Cup trophies. Baffert hasn’t won since 2002, but this year he has two of the favorites trying to end his streak of bad luck with American Pharoah and Dortmund. Something tells me that if Lucky-Charms-Bob is betting on Bob Baffert’s horses, it could be a good day to be named Bob.
Saturday night will be the Fight of the century. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (47-0, 26 knockouts) vs. Manny Pacquioa (57-5-2, 38 knockouts) its been the most anticipated fight in our era and MGM Grand in Las Vegas is ready to finally see the best two current fighters finally step into the ring.
There are all kinds of speculation over why this fight has taken this long to happen. The longer the wait, the bigger the hype, simply means more money. But what happens to boxing after this fight? No other current fighter can draw a crowd or revenue like Mayweather or Pacquioa.
Mayweather is undefeated and an eleven-time world champion and ranked by Forbes as the world’s highest-paid athlete with $105 million dollars last year. Mayweather made zero dollars from advertisement endorsements, mostly because he also has a resume of knocking out women. Money Mayweather has been accused of seven different assaults against five different women that only led to a citation or arrests and two months in jail.
Mayweather is definitely the bad guy in the sport of boxing, but because he is also the cash cow for boxing and Vegas he has bobbed and weaved to keep him in the boxing ring. The New York Times has estimated that the revenue for Saturday night may be around $300 million. With a 60-40 split, Mayweather could make well over $100 million. But Money Mayweather isn’t fighting for just the money; he’s fighting for his ego. He wants to instill that he is the greatest boxer to step into the ring. He needs a win on Saturday to prove that.