The Outsiders' Edge

Well folks welcome back to the Edge. I hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend.

Big Sports scene over the past few days with Strikeforce’s event on Showtime, Masters weekend, the WWE draft on Monday, and the unfortunate death of Harry Kalas.

Look, I’m a Phillies fan, but I’ve grown up in Maryland. My old man on the other hand grew up with Kalas and listened to countless games as a young man with Kalas’ amazing pipes shepherding listeners through the action. I’ve personally loved Kalas’ work as the narrator of NFL Films. I always loved listening to him narrate those “Season in Review” videos that used to air on ESPN every Summer. Kalas could draw me into those videos even if I didn’t give the least bit of a damn over what teams were involved. Only Harry Kalas could get me to watch: “Oakland Raiders 3-13: A Season of New Hope” followed by “New York Jets 6-10: Return to Mediocrity”.  Well so long Harry. I’m glad you were able to witness the World Series last season. It was one of the great sporting thrills of my life and I know it had to be extra special for you since you weren’t allowed to cover the ’80 World Series against KC. Whether you were covering baseball or the NFL you were incredible at your job and a really special person. You were the man.

Harry waives to his fans during Philadelphia's first championship parade since 1983.

The final round of the Masters was an interesting bird this year. It had a weird sort of anti-climatic climaticism to it. If you had told me on Wednesday night, before the tournament started, that it was going to come down to an exciting three man playoff involving a couple of Ryder Cupers and a former US Open Champion, I would have been intrigued. If you had told me those three people were going to be Kenny Perry, Angel Cabrera, and Chad Campbell I would have asked you to get the hell away from me before I shoved you down a flight of stairs. I’m sorry Kenny but you were a total choking dog. Thats just the way it was. And enough with the “I’m happy with my career, everything is just gravy” BS from your press conference. You’re 48 years old. This opportunity is never going to happen again. Maybe this experience will help you value the majors a little bit more instead of foregoing the British Open by playing in the John Deere Hick Invitational to rack up easy Ryder Cup points for a spot on the team that you already had in the bag. I’m a big Greg Norman guy, so I’m used to seeing this kind of disappointment, but at least the Shark has a few Claret Jugs to his name. This was Kenny Perry’s chance to establish a foothold in history. Now he’ll be regarded as much as such Master runner up notables as Len Mattice and Chris DiMarco. So congrats to Angel Cabrera and his oddly pale forehead. He seems like a man of the people and is turning into a great “big tournament” player. Only the most hardcore of golf fans would recognize Chad Campbell if he walked into their local convenience store. After the Masters, still only the most hardcore of fans would recognize Chad Campbell if he ever walked into your local convenience store. But alas, despite Cabrera’s big win and the excitement generated by Tiger and Phil during their highly covered final round, the 2009 Masters will forever be remembered as the one that got away from Kenny Perry.

I guess things could have been worse. At least I didn’t have 100/1 odds on Perry winning like some British guy I know.

Over compensating with a ridiculously large trophy and hideous sports coat won't make people forget about blowing the Masters, Kenny.

Also a note to Phil Mickelson. There is a difference between actually being buff and wearing ridiculously small shirts to create the illusion your buff. Dude, you’re trying way too hard. You aren’t Meghan Fox. Try wearing some man-sized shirts.

Megan Fox looks sexy when she wears miniature shirts. Phil Mickelson just looks like a tool.

Another news worthy event from this past weekend was the debut of the bigger, faster, stronger, new Strikeforce in San Jose on Saturday night. The event was headlined by a catch-weight 179 pound bout between Nick Diaz and the legendary friend of Elevation Radio (Interview can be found here http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LordElevation/2009/02/06/Show-4-with-Special-guest-Frank-Shamrock) Mr. Frank Shamrock. I was really pulling for Frank to pull out the victory, but I’m not going to pull any punches here. Shamrock got totally pummeled by the younger Diaz. I thought Shamrock would have no problems and would pound Diaz somewhere in the first few rounds. Well, it was not meant to be. This fight was more lopsided than Michael J. Fox vs. Mike Tyson. Diaz had scary good striking power and was able to effectively use his reach advantage to land punch after punch and keep Shamrock far enough away to avoid getting any serious damage. It’ll be interesting to see where both these men go from here. Diaz currently fights at welterweight but Saturday’s performance showed me that he would be just as comfortable fighting at middle weight. If he does that, there are some very intriguing potential matchups with everyone from Robbie Lawler to Scott Smith to Frank Trigg. As for Shamrock, he may be done. He has suffered two devastating losses at the hands of Cung Le and Nick Diaz. I suppose they could feed him a few jobbers to help regain his confidence but he would have to fight somebody good at some point, and it just wouldn’t work. Two months ago Frank told me he had two big potential matchups. 1- Against Ken Shamrock in a brother vs. brother matchup. That seems off the table now since Len will be suspended for up to a year for failing a steroids test his last fight. 2- Against Tito Ortiz. I suppose that could still happen, but the intrigue of that matchup is significantly lower after Frank’s loss Saturday. However, I bet Tito still sings with the promotion and has a big fight with Renato Sobral. Thats about the best matchup Strikeforce can drum up for Tito at the moment.

Even though his fighting career appear to be winding down, Frank Shamrock is still a great guest on programs such as Elevation Radio with John Kline

Finally the WWE draft was held on Monday night.  I thought it was a solid show. I really enjoyed the Swagger/Cena match, which is a statement I thought I would never make after my WWE devlopmental screed last week. But I like Swagger’s in ring stuff. He has a great amateur wrestling style offense that was honed by his years at Oklahoma. If he was a Ted DiBiase or Vladimir Kozlov WWE developmental mini-Hunter or Orton clone he would never have such an interesting arsenal.

Speaking of Hunter, its nice to see HHH return to a brand that he has been featured heavily on for the last three months. Hell, it would have been bigger news if he was selected to be a part of Smackdown, even though he was already a member of their roster. I think Smackdown did well on Monday night. Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and CM Punk are fresh guys who will create some interesting matchups. Best of all for Smackdown, they retained Jim Ross. Smackdown features this thing called wrestling on their show. Its when two guys meet in the middle of the mat and the winner is the person who pins the other guy for a three count. There is no better person in the history of the business who is better at calling matches than good ol’ JR. Raw is the show that features backstage segments and angles with the McMahons that are seemingly booked by a 9 year old with severe head trauma. My favorite moment from the draft was when the camera was spotlighted on the ECW announce crew of Matt Striker and Josh Matthews, and all of a sudden Matthews’ nose made the unfortunate decision to start bleeding at that very moment. Oddly enough Matthews spilled more blood then HHH and Randy Orton have over the last three month,s despite being seemingly engaged in a blood feud with only truth, justice, love, and the American way being at stake.

HHH with his favorite child around his waist.

Well folks, its been fun. Thank you for checking out The Outsiders Edge. Be sure to visit Elevation Radio for more updates on my podcast as they become available. I’ve been having some difficulty with guest wrangling over the past few weeks, but things should be back on track soon. I have a story to tell about trying to interview Rudy from the Notre Dame movie, but I’ll share that another time.

Lets just say this, who would have thought that Bret Hart, only one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, would be extremely generous with his time and have an extremely efficient staff, yet Rudy Ruettiger- the 14th string defensive end ,who only has a movie because of one stupid sack, would have the nerve to blow off a scheduled interview with me two weeks in a row. I need to get in touch with my close friends Frank Shamrock and Bret Hart and give that troll of a man the severe ass kicking he deserves.

Achtung Baby!

Rudy Ruettiger following a confrontation with Elevation's close personal friend Bret Hart.

~ by lordelevation on April 15, 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Frank Shamrock, Harry Kalas, HHH, Kenny Perry, Masters, Megan Fox, Rudy Ruettiger, Strikeforce, WWE Draft