Brock Lesnar Destroys Shane Carwin At UFC 116

Brock Lesnar tapped out Shane Carwin at UFC 116 Lesnar vs. Carwin. Brock Lesnar wins his fifth fight after a one year layoff. There will be no questions about Brock Lesnar’s next fight. Cain Velasquez will be the lucky or unlucky fighter next to challenge Brock Lesnar.

The intensity throughout UFC 116 leading up to the fight was just awesome. There was something different about this show that has been missing since maybe UFC 100. Whether it be boxing or UFC, there is still nothing better than a good heavyweight fight. The fact that you had two guys with the knockout power of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin only intensified an already exciting event.

This was one of the most impressive wins you will ever see in MMA. Shane Carwin destroyed Brock Lesnar for the entire first round. Carwin caught him with an upper cut and just dominated Lesnar for the entire round. Carwin sat on top of Lesnar and dropped down hammers and elbows. Lesnar was cut bad and looked like he was out of it at one point. The onslaught obviously gassed Carwin out. Lesnar finally got a take down in Round 2 and dominated him on the ground. Lesnar was able to tie him up with a choke and get Carwin to tap. The win was huge!

Brock Lesnar remains the 14th undisputed UFC heavyweight champion. Even with the comeback win, Lesnar continues to be the most hated fighter in all of MMA. At this point it has to be either jealousy or the embarrassment of a professional wrestler jumping into the UFC with little MMA experience and becoming arguably the greatest heavyweight fighter in UFC history.

It was gutsy performance from Shane Carwin. If anything, Shane Carwin made himself a star tonight. For the first time since Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar 1, Lesnar looked human. Even with his matching power and wrestling acumen, Carwin was still no match for Lesnar in the end. Carwin and Lesnar will likely meet again at some point. Carwin is just too good to go on an extended losing streak so whether it is for the UFC title or not, I see a rematch between these two guys at some point down the road.

Carwin immediately brought attention to himself in the MMA community after he blasted Brock Lesnar on his website following UFC 100. “The flipping off of the fans that just lined your pocket with millions of dollars is just LAME. He may be a Champion but he has a long ways to go before he earns the respect of a Champion. The fans are why we do this Brock, this sport is not about fat paychecks and drama it is about hard work and sacrifice for a shot to do what you did last night.”

Ironically Carwin did more trash talking for this fight last July than he has done in the last three months.

Brock Lesnar finds himself hunted by the most dangerous heavyweight field in UFC history. Cain Velasquez vs. Brock Lesnar is on tap for the next UFC heavyweight championship collision. Junior Dos Santos, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Roy Nelson, Randy Couture, Mirko Cro Cop (retirement pending), Ben Rothwell, and Frank Mir are all out there as potential future challengers. Of course a rematch with Shane Carwin would be big but the money is Lesnar vs. Mir III. If Frank Mir can get a win or a bunch of top contenders are injured, this could be the biggest match in UFC history.

Alistair Overeem and Fedor Emelianenko are also wildcards. Emelianenko only has one fight left on his Strikeforce deal and Overeem has already publicly expressed interest in joining the UFC at some point. While Lesnar vs. Emelianenko won’t have the luster it would have if Fedor remained undefeated, it will still be a huge match if Fedor can avenge his loss to Fabricio Werdum in convincing fashion. One more dominating national appearance by Overeem and the UFC could have a juggernaut on their hands with Alistair Overeem vs. Brock Lesnar. The match would also likely be a lot easier for Dana White to make than Fedor vs. Lesnar.

Lesnar will first have to get past Velasquez before anyone starts even thinking about Lesnar vs. Fedor or Lesnar vs. Overeem. Velasquez is a very dangerous opponent for Lesnar. I don’t think Velasquez could handle Lesnar’s power, but I think Velasquez’s speed could give Lesnar some real fits. Carwin vs. Lesnar won’t have the sizzle of most UFC heavyweight title collisions, but it will be a really fun match to see.

As it stands today there is nobody in the UFC that would be favored against Brock Lesnar in the octagon. Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva have both talked about moving up to heavyweight to fight Lesnar. Dana White has never been a big fan of “freak shows’ until of course Randy Couture vs. James Toney was signed. So you never know what could be down the pike in the UFC heavyweight division.

Terrell Owens In Buffalo 'Time To Move On"

The Buffalo Bills have higher standards than VH-1.
Despite abysmal ratings, the cable network renewed "The T.O. Show" for a second season in 2010.
The Bills weren't so inspired. Their reality show simply wasn't compelling enough to bring Owens back. A whirlwind affair is over after one year.

Saturday night the Bills publicly disassociated themselves with Owens, receiver Josh Reed and defensive end Ryan Denney. In a news release, Bills general manager Buddy Nix said the team would not offer them contracts and allow them to become unrestricted free agents Friday.

You won't find any outrage in Buffalo that Owens won't be wearing a Bills uniform this year. Bills fans didn't come to loathe him at all, but somehow a polarizing figure came to town and engendered shoulder shrugs and vague feelings of meh.

Before it reached that level of apathy, the one-year relationship was a marketing success.

Owens and the Bills used each other. They were a perfect fit, a team desperate to capture their disenfranchised fans' imaginations and a character in need of an image makeover.

Owens came to Buffalo because it was the only place that would take him, and he knew he needed to seize the opportunity to cleanse himself, to show the rest of the NFL he could be in a locker room without detonating its chemistry.

He's a future Hall of Famer who should've generated more attention than he did when the Dallas Cowboys cut him. Perhaps that was a wake-up call. He couldn't afford to depart Buffalo with another quarterback controversy similar to the ones he left behind in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Dallas.

His mission: Show up, play football, be a good soldier and hope the football community notices he served his time with good behavior.

The Bills, meanwhile, needed something -- anything -- to stimulate their followers. The fans were disgusted with how 2008 ended. They started the season 5-1, then collapsed, failing to reach the playoffs a ninth straight season. Head coach Dick Jauron not only was retained, but the club insulted anyone paying attention by refusing to acknowledge what was known, that they'd given him a contract extension before the implosion.

So intense was the furor in Buffalo that some wondered if Bills owner Ralph Wilson would get booed during his induction speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Owens was identified as the solution. He sold tickets. He sold jerseys. The mere fact the Bills would make such an organizationally deviant acquisition put fans in a euphoric state.

Owens arrived with the type of fanfare Buffalo will look back upon with at least a little embarrassment.

There was a lot of fanfare for Owens in Buffalo, including a key to the city presentation.He touched down at Buffalo Niagara International Airport to find cheerleaders, chanters and other assorted zealots certain he was the savior. One fan dressed up as a popcorn box, a reference to his showstopper promise to "Get your popcorn ready."

The moment was staged for his VH-1 show, but the feelings expressed were genuine. Bills fans were smitten, drunk in love with a personality who might make their team relevant again. The next day, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown presented him with a key to the city, an honor Wilson has never received.

Pageantry pretty much was all Owens brought to Buffalo, and the front office acted as though that's what it was most interested in anyway.

Whatever daring the Bills showed in signing Owens was offset by their inept evaluation of personnel. They traded Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters, fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert 10 days before the regular-season opener and released right tackle Langston Walker and running back Dominic Rhodes.

After the season began, they scrapped the no-huddle offense they'd spent the entire offseason installing, fired Jauron and revoked Trent Edwards' job as starting quarterback.

Not even counting the new Bills regime, Owens played under two head coaches and two offensive coordinators and with three starting quarterbacks -- in the span of nine months.

The Bills sold out every home game with his help. And while Owens showed flashes with little teammate support, he rarely made enough of an impact on the field.

He posted his lowest receptions-per-game average since his rookie campaign with San Francisco in 1996. He finished with 55 catches for 829 yards and five touchdowns.

The theory was that if Owens didn't have a big year, his presence would allow underrated receiver Lee Evans to excel on the other side of the field. Evans had 44 catches for 612 yards (both career-lows) and seven touchdowns. Evans' career average entering last season was 6.4 touchdowns.

In Week 3 against the New Orleans Saints, Owens' receptions streak ended at 185 games. It seemed like an appropriate time for Owens to lash out against the Bills, new offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt or Edwards, who'd become known locally as Captain Checkdown.

But Owens admirably held himself together and set a media tone for the rest of the season. He was disappointingly uninteresting, but he kept his nose clean. He was adamant about remaining as bland and politically correct as possible. It was part of his cleansing, after all.

Owens' employment options will be limited. He'll turn 37 before the next season is over.

But the way he carried himself in Buffalo and the excuses he'll have at the ready -- thanks to Buffalo's dysfunction and hindrances outside his control such as a slew of injuries on the offensive line -- might give him more possibilities if he's willing to play for a discount.

From the Bills' standpoint, they extracted all they could from Owens' aura. Besides, they cleared the way for younger receivers.

James Hardy, a second-round draft choice in 2008, has only three receptions. He missed almost all of last season while coming back from a knee injury, but he's ready to go. The Bills think highly of Steve Johnson, a seventh-round pick who has been lost in the shuffle.

For Owens, it's time to move on.

The Bills got what they wanted. So did he.

The only ones left unfulfilled were the fans, their excitement turned to yawns.

Tiger Woods Apologizes "Cry Me A River"

The ritual celebrity apology: We've seen it time and again, from Kanye West to Mark Sanford to John Edwards to Mel Gibson to Mark McGwire. And now it's Tiger Woods' turn.

Only this time there will be no Oprah, no Leno, no "Nightline" -- no inquisitor at all, just a single camera, some unidentified friends and a handful of reporters, unable to ask questions. Woods is gambling that his words and charisma can achieve the public redemption that he sorely needs.

"The whole world has been waiting for three long months," says Laura Ries, who heads a brand strategy firm in Atlanta. "And the longer he's postponed it, the bigger it's become."

Media organizations are naturally angry that Woods, who until now has only issued a written apology, is refusing questions. They see it as the same old Tiger -- the Tiger who always played by his own rules when it came to the media, stage-managing the carefully selected appearances he made.

Yet many others can understand why he's handling his public confession this way.

"He's not stupid," says sports psychologist Mitchell Abrams. "At least this way no one can stump him -- he'll only be saying what his PR people have already vetted."

But the whole approach could backfire, notes Rick Burton, a communications professor who specializes in sports marketing.

"He's trying to control the moment, but the problem is that by not having a dialogue where he can look into someone's eyes, he's going to continue to seem impersonal," says Burton. "It's Communications 101 -- you tell your story in a personal way. But clearly his advisers, family and friends think this is the way to go."

Besides, the media will spin the story the way they see it, adds Burton, of Syracuse University. "Tiger may think that just by looking into the camera he'll be speaking directly to the public, but the reality is that the media is going to interpret his communication.

"And so right away, Tiger has lost control."

Journalists may be irate, but the public may not notice or even care that there will be no give and take with the world's best golfer. Experts agree it all depends on what he says -- and even more importantly, how he says it.

First, Woods needs to be contrite -- genuinely, unmistakably contrite -- not to mention humble, and visibly aware of what he's done both to his image and his marriage, says John Sweeney, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's journalism school. And much of that has to do with the nonverbal cues Woods gives.

"Look, people have been waiting for this for a long time," says Sweeney, who is director of sports communication at the school. "They're going to be looking into his eyes tomorrow. If he can convey true, heartfelt remorse with the one camera available, then he has a chance at getting back the incredible good will fans had for him.

"But if they see the old Tiger -- the one who gives an impersonal statement and then is outta there -- then it'll just be another slam against his brand," Sweeney says. "If he mishandles this, some people are just gonna walk away thinking, 'You kept us waiting months, for this? You put your wife through tabloid hell, for this?"

Indeed, one nonverbal cue that would help Woods enormously Friday would be the presence of his wife, Elin.

"Obviously the best-case scenario is that she's there, in the front row," says Ries. "Of course it can be painful to watch, as it was with Eliot Spitzer's wife," she says. "But having the wife there says a lot. If she can forgive him, why not everyone else?"

So what precisely should a contrite Woods say? Enough to answer the most pressing questions, but not TOO much about the sordid recent past, some say.

"I don't want to hear too many details about sex addiction," says Ries, president of the Ries and Ries branding firm. "I don't need to hear anything New Agey either. But he needs to give us the State of the Union of Tiger. And he needs to talk about golf, too. Is he going back? When, exactly? People want to know that he has a future ahead of him, that he's not some randy frat boy but a champion who wants to focus on golf and his family."

And while he's talking about that, make sure it's not too polished, offers Pauline Wallin, a psychologist who deals with impulsive behavior.

"The less rehearsed the better," says Wallin. "He needs to be authentic. If he stumbles on his words, people will believe it more -- a little bit of rambling might help, too."

And another thing, Wallin adds: "He still needs to go on a talk show. The public expects that now. You do something wrong, you go on a talk show."

To some, it won't matter much what Woods says or how he says it. Any apology will have a false ring to it, says ethics columnist Randy Cohen, because the evidence shows that Woods clearly enjoyed what he was doing -- so much that he did it again and again and again.

"So what is this apology, other than a relentless pursuit of self-interest?" Cohen asks. "He hopes his wife will come back, that he can play golf again and make money again. But it will be hard to be persuaded that he's changed his view of anything, other than he regrets getting caught."

But from a strategic point of view, will the apology work? "Probably," Cohen laughs. "In our country we love this cycle of sin, confession mixed with remorse, readmission to society, repeat as needed. We have songs about it. You sin on Saturday night, confess on Sunday morning, and you're back at it the next Saturday night."

As a society, we may need the ritual apology -- in any case, we certainly won't be able to resist watching it.

But we mustn't forget, notes Abrams, the psychologist, that we're not the ones who really deserve the apology in the first place.

"There's a family we should be thinking about," says Abrams. "A real family, with children, and their future is in the balance. I hope for their sake that they work this out. And they shouldn't have to do it in public."

Evander Holyfield Accused Of Domestic Abuse

Former heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield has been served a restraining order after his wife says he hit her in the face.

Candi Holyfield filed the complaint against Evander saying that he became angry with her about church payments and “urged her to put god first in her life.”

She says he demanded to see check stubs of her tithes to the church and when she refused, he hit her in the head, face and back.

She also says this is not the first time he's been violent and reports other incidents of choking and hitting, sometimes in front of their children.

Evander is expected to appear in court February 18.