Here is a link to John’s Amazon page. All his books are 4 stars and higher. He has written about horse racing, Baltimore, Dallas football, and the NFL.
http://www.amazon.com/John-Eisenberg/e/B00…t_athr_dp_pel_1

We will be discussing the World Cup which John just attended for 2 weeks, Baltimore sports, his time covering Dallas High school football, his new book about Vince Lombardi, current projects and so much more.

I will also be covering the latest in UFC, World Cup, the LeDecision, and more.

Your calls are requested at 646-716-5746. You’re always welcome.

Elevation Radio with John Eisenberg

You know you do

Coach’s answers in bold. Be sure to visit his website

The Dragon Slayer is a man of virtue and posseses the warrior spirit.

JPK- Hello Coach, I appreciate you taking the timeout to answer a few of my questions. First of all, prior to your involvement in Survivor: Tocantins and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains did you undergo any sort of training regimen to prepare yourself physically or mentally for your time in the game?

CBW- The first time I went to Tocantins I worked out, but all in the wrong way. I was doing heavy weights and an hour of cardio. WRONG. Worst thing you can do. Survivor is all about sprint spring jackass all over the place. So the second time (whats the saying? First time shame on you, second time shame on me) I trained like a warrior. I knew what to expect. I worked out three times a day, sprinted on the sand, weights, swimming, and then I would sit down exhausted and work out a puzzle. That’s the key.

JPK-How did you become a part of the Survivor franchise? Did you decide to apply and audition for the show on your own, or did family or a group of friends get the word out about you?

CBW-I sent in a tape with an application. My coaching staff was asking me to apply for a show, the soccer players wanted me to go on the bachelor, and one thing let to another and voilla

JPK-Did you find it more challenging to play the game in Survivor: Tocantins where all the contestants were total strangers or in Heroes vs. Villains where many of the contestants already had relationships with each other coming into the game?

CBW- Tocantins was by far better because we all had a fair shot. It was a lot of getting to know people and fencing mentally every day to see who you wanted to go with. On an all stars the fate of some are decided before they even walk on the first challenge.

JPK- During this past season, you like many others were extremely critical of Russell. Now that you have had the chance to look back and see the way he played the game from a different perspective, has your opinion of Russell as a person and as a competitor changed at all?

CBW-I respect all competitors and if you read my interviews you will see that I have lightened up in terms of other people and my opinion of them

Good to see that Coach and the Evil One are back on the same page

JPK- I agreed with your vote of Parvati as champion for Heroes vs. Villains. Do you think it is fair that Sandra won solely because she was not Russell or Parvati?

CBW-Life is not fair. Survivor, without question, is atrociously not fair. I think that the strongest should win, and the most noble, but that just doesn’t happen sometimes. Its frustrating but you gotta learn to deal with it

JPK-It seemed like in the Survivor: Tocantins season you spent a great deal of time sharing your tremendous survival experiences, such as the awesome getting captured by pygmies story. Did you make a conscientious decision not to be as forthcoming about your past experience in the Heroes vs. Villains season or were they mostly edited out?‘

CBW-I told a story every single night. I think if I had gone farther they would have shown them more. I love telling stories they are part of what makes me me.

JPK-You seem like a very spiritual and philosophical person. Are there any particular authors or works of literature that were particularly important in your philosophical development?

CBW-Shantaram is the best book I have ever read. A Voyage Beyond Reason isn’t a slouch either I love all philosophers, because there is something that you can learn from each teacher if you just open your ears to hear, your mind to mold, and your body to breathe it in (I just made that up, literally in five seconds)

JPK-Are there any particular lessons you learned on Survivor that have changed your approach to soccer coaching or working with symphonies?

CBW-Be true to your self no matter what

Walk the way of the noble warrior even when everyone around you does not

Don’t take yourself so seriously

You can admit wrongs and defeat

Be more humble

JPK-In your work as a Maestro with the Susanville Symphony, I’m assuming that you primarily work in the work with the classical music medium, however on the Survivor Ponderosa show, we saw you Courtney and J.T. delve more into the rock and roll/ electronic dance music side of things, coming off that experience do you expect to spend more time creating and performing rock music?

CBW-I would love for a producer to come along right now and say lets record your band. I like creating, whether it is the character of the dragonslayer or the classical music of a symphony or the rock and roll of a band.

JPK-Are there any coaches in soccer, or any other sport, that influence your philosophical and day to day style of coaching?

CBW-No. I look to people outside of soccer to be my mentors because although some people say soccer is life, life is not soccer and you must branch out of your own world to truly see.

JPK-Since you are a collegiate soccer coach, do you follow the professional game at all, and do you have any prediction on who will win the 2010 World Cup?

CBW-Look for Ivory Coast to make a strong showing. I think that England might look good, and if Argentina coach gets it together than maybe we will see something good from them too.

Coach + Drogba could equal World Cup gold for the Ivory Coast.

JPK-Coach, now that Survivor Heroes vs. Villains has wrapped up, are you exploring any other potential acting or reality television roles for the future? America needs more Ben Wade.

CBW-I just wrapped up filming a movie called Isabel, filmed by the Ketola brothers in Maine. I have a supporting role there. I am also staring in the movie 180 www.180film.com that is filmed this summer. Both movies will be out later this year or early next year. Another door is opened and Im kickin it in.

JPK-Now finally Coach, do you have any future plans to head back down to South America and kick a little Amazonian pygmy ass?  I think it’s time you got a little pay back.

CBW-HAHA That’s a good one. I have always wanted to go back and kick some ass down there but the time for retribution has passed. I am now more the peaceful warrior than the vengeful ahole.

Don't piss off the half pint pygmy.

I want you to know that I will be doing a radio show this Wednesday night at 10PM EST with my buddy Johnny Moorhead who is a soccer expert. Listen to us here. We really want your calls.  We will break down all the groups, and share the teams, players, coaches that you must look out for during the tournament. I promise no gratuitous Diego Maradona cocaine jokes. Besides our World Cup chat, I will be revealing the contents of my exclusive e-mail interview with the great Coach Ben Wade from Survivor. Coach was my favorite contestant from the last season on Survivor. He wasn’t able to make the radio show, but he was kind enough to take part in an e-mail interview with me. The Dragonslayer was in fine form and it will be quite entertaining.

Coach: Part Man, Part Myth, Part Dragon Slayer

I will reveal my final 4 for the tournament which includes one CRAZY, IDTIOTIC, PSYCHO surprise.
I’ll be back in a few days with the Coach interview, NHL and NBA thoughts, and World Cup.

It was a solid show. I’m not going to sit here and say that it will be forever on the consciousnesses of the wrestling fan’s mind like Mania X-7 or something ridiculous like that, but it was an entertaining way to spend 4 hours.

Here is a run down of the card:

Yoshi Tatsu won a 26 man dark match battle royale. Nobody except the live people saw it, so I can’t really comment. Seeing as how he hasn’t been on Raw the last two weeks since winning, it clearly was a career changing moment. He is a fine man.

The show began with a long ass video package talking about how special WrestleMania is. Thank you WWE. I’m already going to be sitting in a chair for 4 hours watching the damn show, I don’t need to be reminded about its specialness.

Miz and The Big Show defeated R-Truth and John Morrison in a 3 minute nothing match that would have been better at a house show in Piscataway, New Jersey then the biggest wrestling show of the year. There was nothing special here. It ended with the usual “Big Show punching a guy in the face while the refs were turned away” finish we have seen 4356 times the past 10 months on Raw and Smackdown.

"What's Up?" Not your popularity among fans.

The WWE tag team situation really sucks right now. I don’t want to sound like Rick Pitino but, “The Steiner Brothers aren’t walking through that door. The Hart Foundation isn’t walking through that door. The Rockers aren’t walking through that door.”
Can The Mexicools at least walk through that door?

After that amazing exhibition in professional grappling we were greeted by the lightly anticipated three way between Ted DiBiase, Cody Rhodes, and Randy Orton. That sounded a little gay. However to be honest, DiBiase and Rhodes would probably be more recognizable to the general public if they had spent the last two years in gay porn than wrestling. Lets just say there is probably alot of homosexual men and frustrated housewives who would have rather seen those two “get swallowed by The Viper” than the actual match.

Moving on.

This match had a horrific build in the lead up to Mania. Rhodes and DiBiase should have formed a tag team called Mind and Matter. Nobody pays much mind to Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase Jr. doesn’t matter at all. In the weeks leading up to Mania Orton was presented as a half face/ half heel which = zero reaction. The other two guys have been jobbers throughout their entire alliance with Orton and this feud did nothing to change that perception.

It was actually a pretty good match. Orton won with an RKO on DiBiase after punting Rhodes in the head. The action was pretty swift, and the people were really into Orton as a babyface. I have no idea why because the pre Mania Raw crowds could have cared less about him, but the Mania hardcores were completely into him as a face. The crowd stood up when he was about to hit the drapping double DDT on the other two guys like he was Hulk Hogan hulking up for the Atomic Leg Drop.

Randy Orton's reaction to reading the gay porn soliloquy.

Up next was MITB. It was a solid match, but did not feature the suicidal hilarity of most years. I imagine this was a result of the new emphasis on wrestlers’ health due to Linda’s stupid Senate campaign. Having someone like Shelton Benjamin getting injured from falling from a 10 foot ladder through an announce table onto Matt Hardy would probably look bad.

There really wasn’t anything too memorable here except for Kofi Kingston creating a pair of stilts from a broken ladder. That was pretty creative, but wasn’t exactly death defying or anything. There were 10 men here. Thinking back to this match a few weeks later, I have no memory of 8 of them.
Jack Swagger won after taking a hilariously long amount of time to unhook the briefcase from hanging hook. Time just completely stood still during this moment. It took Swagger so goddamn long to take the briefcase down, Stephen Hawking could have made a run in here. Swagger is now the champion on Smackdown. He has already jobbed twice to Randy Orton since winning MITB. I expect that to be the norm of his glorious title reign.

In the next match HHH defeated Sheamus clean in the middle of the ring with a Pedigree. I don’t really want to talk about this match because the result sickens me, but Hunter looked like he had been sleeping in a tanning bed for 9 straight days coming into this match. I wish he had just stayed in it.

Up next Rey Mysterio Jr. defeated CM Punk in a really good 6 minute match. This bout would have been better if they took away the stupid 5 minute pre-match video package and just given the guys more time in the ring. Rey came out in his stupid Mania super hero costume. He was dressed like one of the Na’Vi from Avatar. Yes, because I would definitely wear ring gear that pays homage to the Na’Vi tribe while engaged in a fight defending the blood honor of my family against a hated rival. I love CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society. That group has 5 members if you include Luke Gallows, Serena, CM Punk and the two bald men attached to Serena’ chest.

I didn’t really understand why Rey won this match. I would have loved to see him have to be a memmer of the Straight Edge Society. Plus, they are continuing the feud. Booking 101 says you have the heel win the initial matchup of a long feud so that the fans will pay to see the face get his revenge. Based on the results of the Cena, HHH, and Rey Jr. matches, Booking 101 is no longer a part of the WWE cirriculum.

Following Punk-Rey we go to witness a strange beat down 13 years in the making. With the exception of Shawn vs. Taker, Bret-Vince was my most anticipated match going into WrestleMania. It was just surreal seeing Bret out there on Raw the last few months and competing at WrestleMania after some of the comments he gave on my show back in January of 2009. Check out www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio to hear my interview with The Hitman.

Coming into this match, I knew that both men were going to be severely limited physically. Vince is now 64 years old, suffers from back pain and was never a great ring technician to begin with. He has had alot of good street fights through the years, but age has to be catching up with him. Bret is 52 years old, coming off a stroke, severe concussions that ended his active career, and a right knee replacement. That being said, both men actually did very well performing the physical elements of the match. Vince did a great job of selling and taking a massive beating, while Bret looked very good throwing on the sharpshooter, and hitting elbow drops, and some of the other basic offensive things he used to do during the early days. It was good seeing Bret get out there and receive a little peace and closure in his life through this match and his recent reconcilation with Shawn Michaels, however the match itself was put together in such a strange, backwards way.

Bret came to the ring first after a massive pop. Vince then came out and informed Bret that the match was now a lumberjack match and it would have a special referee. Vince than revelaed that the lumberjacks were all of Bret’s brothers, sisters, and member of the Hart Dynasty. The special referee was Bruce Hart who had been doing a stellar impression of Bernie Lomax from “Weekend at Bernie’s” throughout the previous night’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the beginning stages of this match. I think the aviator sunglasses were welded onto his face. This was a pretty interesting surprise, but it was kind of dumb when a minute later Bret revealed that actually, he had met with the Hart Family beforehand and that The Hart Family was actually on his side and had  created a unified front against Vince.

Alright, I understand pulling a fast one on Vince, but shouldn’t this surprise had been revelaed during the course of the match instead of beforehand? Just too much going on at once. So of course the Harts than turned on Vince and created what was basically a 1 vs 15 handicap match. I’ll be honest, it is kind of hard to cheer for a 64 year old heel getting beaten down by an entire family. This almost became a retirement match for Vince when he took a brutal bump from an off the rope Hart Attack administered by Tyson Kidd and Harry Boy Smith. After getting beaten on by the family for awhile, Vince then hid under the ring and pulled out a tool of some type and caused the Hart Family to back away like he was holding a thermal detonator like Leia when she was dressed as a bounty hunter in Return of the Jedi.

Vince then hopped in the ring and proceeded to get beaten down for a very, very, veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time by Bret. The beating included all sorts of elbows and kicks, and a crowbar. The worst part was when Bret hit Vince close to 20 times with a single chair. If it was any other performer taking a beatdown like this, they would be over to a Rock like level as a babyface, but this was Bret v. Vince, so the people weren’t going to start booing The Hitman and cheering Vince. Finally, after a ton of chair shots and teases that resulted in kicks to the man area Bret finally clamped down the Sharpshooter and we got the moment we had all been waiting for. Vince tapped out and The Harts all had a group hug. I wanted to give Vince a hug after this match. It was just booked so backwards and the psychology sucked. People want to see the face get beaten on forever and then have the heel get beaten in the end. They’d rather not see a 15 minute face family on heel beat down. Apparently Vince wants to retire the Mr. McMahon character so he wanted to go out by getting the holy hell beaten out of him. Whatever. People just wanted to see Bret hit the Sharpshooter, not the Vince McMahon vanity project. That was just strange to watch. Its good to see Bret is back in good health, but that was just weird.

I like Bret Hart's jeans in this picture.

Chris Jericho then defeated Edge in a very good singles match. Jericho did a fantastic job of working over Edge’s torn achilles. This match reminded me of alot of the older matches I saw on my Bret Hart DVD this week. I was watching some great singles matches from Bret against the likes of Ted DiBiase and Ricky Steamboat. I love watching the old time, slower paced style of one guy targeting the other’s specific body part and doing everything possible to work over that particular area. It gives the match a great story and makes every move feel important and logical. This is unlike today where most matches are clearly heavily scripted out and are basically Move A followed by Move B followed by Move C followed by the finisher. My favotie spot in this match was when Jericho worked over the achilles by putting Edge into a half Boston crab. Y2J got the victory after hitting Edge with the title followed by a kickout. The finish really caught me off guard. I guess I am just used to the typical WWE Mania finishes of the face kicking out of the heel’s finishing move and getting the victory. However, unpredictability can be good if done correctly. A very deliberate, retro early 90s WWE match. I’ll take a well worked story over a spot fest 8 days a week,

Following Edge-Jericho there was a horrific multi-woman tag team match. It was horrific. It is amazing how bad the female workers in TNA and WWE are at wrestling. They all look hot and a few are decent here or there, but the total divas’s division is filler. Gone are the days of Trish vs. Lita.
The final match for this review is Batista vs. John Cena. The two big men actually had a much better match than I was expecting. It was a little clunky in points, but had a nice mixture of athleticism and strength. The finish came when Cena was able to reverse a Batista bomb into a STF which caused Big Dave to tap out. Batista and Cena aren’t quite Kurt Angle-like ring technicians, but they are really good at all of their signature moves. All of their major moves are also super over so the crowd is always into their finishes. The five knuckle shuffle into a spine buster was another sequence of this match that I enjoyed. In a perfect world, Dave would have won this match. He has been the best heel in the company since turning last year. His promos and outfits have all been fantastic. The build for this match was tremendous, and the two giants  definitely lived up to the hype.

Batista may have lost to John Cena, but he is forever a bad ass.

You can read my review for Shawn-Taker in the entry that is just below this one.

Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker put on a match for the ages at WrestleMania 26 that was pretty damn close, if not better than the all time classic the two legends threw down at Mania 25. They are the two best in-ring story tellers alive today. I suppose Kurt Angle also belongs in the conversation, but he just doesn’t have the canvas you need to create a true masterpiece in the rinky-dink confines of TNA. From now on when friends or family bug you about why you follow pro wrestling, this is the match you must show them. The match last night had so many amazing moments. My favorite sport was the hellacious moonsault when Michaels (45 by the way) launched himself off the ropes into the air and landed onto a prone Undertaker who was stretched out on the announcer’s table. The impact of the crash destroyed the table and caused me to nearly take a bump on my basement floor because I was so blown away. Another great, little simpler moment, was when Shawn was able to reverse the Undertaker’s Hell’s Gate gogoplata submission into a pinning predicament. I actually thought there was a chance the match was going to end on that quick little reversal.

If this is really the end of Shawn Michaels' career, wrestling is going to suck.

Another thing that made this match feel so “big” was the stipulation of streak v. career. You actually felt like something was on the line, unlike most years where The Undertaker winning at WrestleMania feels like a mere formality. Please, did you really think the likes of Mark Henry, Ric Flair, Edge, Batista, The Big Show and A-Train actually had a chance in hell of winning? I actually predicted that Shawn would win going into the show. I thought the combination of everyone in the world knowing Taker was probably going to win plus it would create a natural storyline for Taker-Shawn III at WrestleMania 27. This little bit of uncertainty made all the near falls seems really important, because there was a little voice in the back of my mind saying “This Sweet Chin Music might actually be it.” But it was not to be. The match ended in a great sequence where Taker hit a tombstone pile driver that everybody thought was the end of the match. However, Shawn kicked out and The Undertaker said “What the hell do I have to do?” He then stood up and lowered the straps on his ring gear and looked ahead with an empty look in his eyes and implored Michaels to stay down. You could tell he wanted him to stay down. However, Shawn used the Undertaker almost like a railing and grabbed onto his chest and hoisted himself up while trying to keep his balance. Shawn than shocked Taker by doing the deadman’s throat slash gesture and smacking Taker right in the face. This enraged The Undertaker and led to him hitting Shawn witha  jumping tombstone. 1, 2, 3 bell rings, match over. It was amazing. The two men embraced after the match and Shawn Michaels went away taking in the adoration of the fans with a relieved look on his as he entered the next phase of his life.

I expect we will be seeing the steely glaze of The Undertaker at WrestleMania for years to come.

Its amazing the performance these two athletes were able to give despite all the physical issues plaguing them. The Undertaker must be in terrible pain since he is dealing with constant hip and knee pain. He has had several hip operations in the past few years and will probably get a full replacement like Konnan sometime soon. Shawn missed 4 years of his career due to severe back problems and also has to be hurting in his knees and legs. The Undertaker did a masterful job of selling a bum knee after coming down awkwardly on it while completing his famous “Old School” rope walk maneuver. Hell, for a few minutes I thought he had actually severely injured it until Michaels started going after it as much as he did. It was still a great performance by The Undertaker. Who knows, maybe there was some reality in all that limping? The combination of grit, craziness, excitement, mastery, fear, desire, and uniqueness made Shawn-Taker II one of the greatest matches to ever come down the pro wrestling pike. Its scary to think about a WWE without either of these performers. Where are our great matches going to come from? What performers are going to be able to draw out such an emotional response from crowds in arenas and at home? Will there ever be a match this good in the WWE again? I don’t know. Time is the only way to find out, but right now all we can do is sit back and thank The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels for laying it all on the line one more time. If this is truly Shawn Michaels’ last match, (Its wrestling, people) thank you for a magnificent career. From your early work with the likes Marty Jannetty, Bret Hart, and Razor Ramon to the modern stuff with Kurt Angle, HHH, Chris Jericho, John Cena, Ric Flair, and The Undertaker, you have blazed a trail that will be unmatched for decades to come. Your Mania matches with Flair, Razor Ramon, Chris Jericho, HHH and Benoit, Hart, Angle, and the two with Undertaker will be remembered until the end of time. Its been a hell of a ride.

Thank you for everything Mark Callaway and Michael Hickenbottom. The Dead Man and The Sexy Boy have created more memories and kicked more ass, and entertained more fans than almost anybody in this industry.

You two are the masters.

Shawn Michaels: Forever Awesome.

Thanks for stopping by everybody. I will offer my thoughts on the rest of the WrestleMania 26 card later this week. Come back to hear my thoughts on Vince-Bret, Batista-Cena, Edge-Y2J and everything else that happened in the biggest sporting event of the year.

Long old column this time round. Sorry about that. I also need to say sorry for the ridiculous amount of time since the last London Chronicles turfed up here. You see, I try to get them out every other week except in the last 6 weeks I have given up sleeping, leaving the house, smiling and bathroom breaks due to a ridiculously busy spell working. Without a word of a lie, I thought that it had been 2 weeks since I last updated ya’ll about what was going down in the hood, yo. Instead, it has been a month. I’m sorry, I’ll do better and if I see you at the bar I’ll get you a drink. Anyway, that is enough humility for one evening. Shall we progress? We have an awful lot to get through today…

It is well known that the English apologize through the medium of sorrycats.

The Table Don’t Lie

I’ve long said that, based on my vast experience playing Football Manager (my current game is in 2034 with over 26 day’s playing time logged…), the last 10 games of the season are when you decide your fate. The first 10 are a gauge of where you are, the next 18 are just trying to stay afloat and then with 10 to go you see who you are fighting with. With that in mind, lets have a good look at all the battles.

The race for the title comes down to Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. Currently, Chelsea are out on top with 61 points, one more than United and three more than Arsenal. Right now who wins is anyone’s guess. Chelsea may be in the lead but are struggling, United may be hot on their heels but are completely riding the genius that is Wayne Rooney and Arsenal have been struggling but are about to come into an easy spell of games. Honestly, although I backed Chelsea a few months back, this has now gotten too close to call. This will come down to the last 3 games, with all 3 teams still in it.

The battle for forth place and the final Champions League spot, too, is still up for grabs. Currently Spurs and Manchester City are tied with 49 points, although City have a game in hand. One point behind them is Liverpool and four points behind are Aston Villa. I have to admit, Liverpool have done an epic job of getting back into the battle but I think that the climb may have taken too much out of them. Sadly, Villa too look like they may slip away once again after doing the same thing last season – getting close then not being able to win at the business end of the season. End of the day, this should come down to Spurs, Liverpool and Man City and, much like the title race, it will be a last 3 game decision.

In the relegation zone, Portsmouth are so far gone they have asked for their ‘balloon’ payments to be given out early. For the other two drop-spots, though, there are 7 teams within 4 points of each other. A couple of wins here or there, a few injuries and unlucky losses, and any of them could find themselves back in the Championship. Once more, in one of the closest Prem seasons ever, we won’t know who is going down until the magical 3 games to go marker either.

The battles may be established with 10 or 11 games to go, but the winners and losers are far from decided here.

Chelsea Players Can’t Keep It In Their Pants

Chelsea has traditionally been one of those clubs a bit like the Dallas Cowboys teams of the early 1990′s – yeah, they get up to an awful lot of mischief but very much behind closed doors. They only do it to let off a bit of the steam that being a dominant force creates. Well, recently their dominance has dropped off a bit and their mischief has turned into full blown scandal.

In the last few weeks, there have been two Chelsea players caught playing away from home – John Terry and Ashley Cole. Both of them, though, under different circumstances.

Let’s start with Ashley Cole, who I should point out I cannot stand. I can’t stand the fact that he said things to a ref, things that I don’t think even the free-loving Senior Elevation would let me repeat, during a game which was on a gameday used to promote fair play. Also, I cannot stand the fact that he said in all seriousness that he felt ‘physically sick’ when he found out Arsenal were only going to offer him £60,000 ($110,000) a week base salary. Then, he couldn’t understand why the entire British public, who based on the average wage would take about two and a half years to earn what he turned his nose at for a weekly pay packet, turned against him.

Anyway, he also has this to come home to. The lovely Mrs. Cheryl Cole.

I can't believe I've taken this long to post a picture of Cheryl Cole.

Yeah, I know. Personally, I’d never leave the house if I was married to her. But, still he was caught sleeping around. The thing is, Chelsea don’t particularly care that Cole was sleeping around. What they care about is that he was doing it on team time, getting aides to sneak girls into his hotel rooms before away matches. Apparently, that crime has cost him between £200,000 ($350,000)to £400,000 ($700,000) in fines (depending on who you trust) and may even get him sold to Barcelona or Real Madrid in the summer. Thing is, with Ashley Cole, that is just one guy being a complete and utter blithering idiot.

What John Terry did, though, was much much worse. I’m not usually one to be serious in any way, shape or form but frankly I don’t really want to make fun of JT’s fall from grace. Basically, the story goes like this:

First things first, John Terry is married with two kids. Keep that in mind as you read on. One day, all of the papers get into a tizzy because it turns out that Terry had tried to gag a story that was going to be published by The Sun. Everyone then wants to know what it was, and it turns out that what he tried to keep secret was that he was having an affair. Not a one night stand or sending some flirty texts, but an actual pre-meditated affair. Then it came out that the affair was with a French underwear model – Vanessa Perroncel. An affair that lead to her falling pregnant, and Terry paying for an abortion and giving her some hush money. Oh yeah, did I mention that Perroncel is actually the ex-girlfriend of Terry’s former best friend and Chelsea team mate Wayne Bridge? Oh yeah, did I mention that she is also the mother of Wayne Bridge’s child?

As soon as that stuff hit the fan, Terry was stripped of the England captaincy by Fabio Capello (which was duly handed over to Rio Ferdinand) and all sorts of rumours started to spring out of the woodwork, many of which are just scuttlebutt and I won’t repeat here. A quick Google, though, of what Terry has been up to should open your eyes a bit more.

To begin with, Terry seemed to be doing an excellent job of compartmentalising his life. His play, which had been drab all season, actually picked up a bit and he seemed motivated to just throw himself at football. That lasted for about two games. Since then, he has single handedly cost Chelsea about three games (that I can think of off the top of my head) and been a complete and utter liability. John Terry is in meltdown. Although publicly his wife forgave him after about a week, I’m sure all too many of us know that you cannot forgive that kind of stuff that quick.

Right now, John Terry needs to get his act together fast, and for two reasons. The first is that Chelsea are looking vulnerable as ever, have a few injuries around the team and have a few players suspended after their nightmare 4-2 home loss to Manchester City. The second is his England future may hang in the balance.

Fabio Capello has in no uncertain terms made sure that everyone knows that they are playing on his team based on form alone, not intangibles such as how much they earn and how many endorsements they have. John Terry may be a great leader, that is something I will never take away from him, but right now he is one of the worst central defenders in England. With the likes of (off the top of my head) Ryan Shawcross, Jonathan Woodgate, Garry Cahil, Matt Upson (despite a wobbly start against Egypt last night), Joleen Lescott and Phil Jagielka all gunning for World Cup places, along with wiley vetrans such as Wed Brown and Senior Elevation’s favourite Sol Campbell, Terry needs to show over the last 16 games or so of his season that he is still a quality centre back.

Another ‘upside’ to not taking Terry is that it means England could take Wayne Bridge. Bridge pulled out of the England squad for the friendly against Egypt because, basically, he could not stand the thought of being on a team with John Terry. Ashley Cole is currently England’s stand out number one left back, but he has a broken ankle and is in the fight of his professional life to get fit in time to go to South Africa. One setback and he is not making the plane. Wayne Bridge, who also hilariously snubbed John Terry’s handshake when his Man City side beat Chelsea 4-2 the other day, would then become more valuable than John Terry based on the two players’ current form.

No matter what way you look at it, John Terry has fucked up something fierce. The next 12 weeks or so will be the biggest in his life.

Portsmouth FC, We Hardly Knew Thee

Where to begin… Portsmouth look like they have fought off a winding up order, that would have seen them be put completely out of business (i.e. no relegation or anything, just disappear off of the map) but are still going to go into Administration. For any of you who don’t know, allow me to elaborate what that means.

Administration is when a business is so riddled with debt and unable to turn a profit, it can either voluntarily or by order of the courts be put under the control of a special kind of accountant – an Administrator. Their sole job is, in this instance, not to think about on the field success or the club’s needs or jobs or anything like that, they have to strip away assets, slice the wage bill and do anything in their power to pay off debts and get the business back to a somewhat normal state. I’ve actually worked for no less than three companies who have gone into administration and let me tell you something, it sucks.

Without a word of a lie, this was the conversation I had with an Administrator when I was last laid off from an office based role -

“So, how would you justify your role here?”
“Well, the last marketing campaign I ran only had a budget of £7,500 but I managed to bring in a total of £115,000 worth of investment, saving saving £11,500 worth of commission being paid out as the leads were generated in house. Oh, and did I mention that I did all of that with just a £7.5k budget?”
“You’re fired.”

Okay, they didn’t get all Donald Trump on me right then and there, but still the point remains the same.

Anyway, Portsmouth are in Administration as this special accountant person tries to strip away at the wage bill and assets and stuff in order to make Portsmouth FC once again a viable business. Except, seeing as this is Portsmouth, they can’t even do that right. The UK Government has ordered the Administrator to stop what he is doing as apparently he is just a friend of the current owner (I’ve lost track of who the fuck owns that club right now) and is only there to help him get his money back. An Administrator has to be impartial, you see. So you can’t just appoint your mate to go in and sort it out.

Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Portsmouth are a rotten club up top. Their players play with so much heart and passion it makes the whole thing actually kind of tragic, but it really does show that no matter how much those on the pitch are willing to lay on the line in order to help a cause, those who sit in the boardroom eating prawn sandwiches are willing to cock it all up again.

Aaron Ramsey, Ryan Shawcross and the Tackle Of Doom

Take a look at this video (Warning: It is not pretty)

Eurgh. Yucky, right? That video is of Stoke FC defender Ryan Shawcross breaking the leg of Arsenal’s attacking midfielder Aaron Ramsey. It does not make for pleasant viewing. Still, and I know this will probably come as a shock to you, I have an opinion on it.

After it happened, Arsene Wenger went on and on about how his Arsenal players are targeted for rough treatment because they are perceived as a physically weak team. He said that the fact that three of his players – Diaby, Edu and now Ramsey – had had their legs broken in sickening fashion over the last 3 years was proof.

Sorry, Mr Wenger, that isn’t what happened up there with Shawcross and Ramsey. What happened between those two is an absolute tragedy.

Ryan Shawcross is just 22 years old. Ramsey is only 19. Both of them are at the very beginning of their careers and both of them, hopefully, have another 10 – 15 years left playing good football. I’m a big fan of Ryan Shawcross (he is the linchpin of my Fantasy Football defence) and, just as Stoke manager Tony Pulis repeatedly said, that kid does not have a bad bone in his body. You want to see a tackle where someone went out to deliberately injure someone, go see what Roy Keane did to Alf-Ingre Haaland. Keane ended Haaland’s career on the spot, and then said later in his autobiography that is exactly 100% what he wanted and intended to do. All Ryan Shawcross did was get just upfield enough with the ball to be in slightly unfamiliar territory and, when he saw an Arsenal player go for it after it had gotten just out of his reach, try and kick it. The shame was that that player was the lightening fast Ramsey, who had been able to move the ball on and so instead just got a kick in the shin for his troubles – a kick hard enough to shatter his leg.

When Shawcross saw what he had done, he was in tears. That is not the way that a man reacts after he has set out to deliberately hurt another man. It is an absolute tragedy for Shawcross, as that moment will haunt him for the rest of his life, and it is an even bigger tragedy for Ramsey as his career will now hang in the balance. Sometimes players bounce back from broken legs. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, two young careers were irrevocably changed that day. That is all that really matters in the end.

Manchester United Clearly Fellated Their Bank Manager

I wonder if that section title will make it past Senior Elevation’s Red Pen Of Editing Doom? Oh well, let’s hope…

search Google for "happy bank manager"

Just weeks after announcing that they owed the banks over £700m, Manchester United have announced that they now only owe just over £500m. Don’t get me wrong, that is still an absolutely ridiculous amount of debt, one which is still skirting close to the $1bn mark and one that is enough to buy an NFL franchise\build a new stadium\pay for a night of passion with Olivia Wilde\etc. but it is at least smaller.

Despite the reduction in debt, though, Manchester United fans are still hell bent on removing the Glazer family from office. There are currently two movements with their aims set on achieving this.

The first is a fan movement. Whenever you watch United on the telly, you will see a number of fans shunning the traditional red colours of the club and instead sporting Green and Gold scarves. The Green and Gold, you see, were the colours of Nuneaton Heath, the team who morphed into Mancester United about 100 years ago after (this should sound familiar) running up debts and needing to be rescued. Although this movement will only really serve a purpose as a very prominent show of discontent amongst the United faithful, it will at least keep the topic hot.

The second movement is where United fans hope change will actually come from. A group of prominent Manchester based businessmen (much like those who transformed Nuneaton Heath into Manchester United all those generations ago) who call themselves ‘The Red Knights’ are looking to buy the club. Now, the Glazer family have said that they just plain and simple won’t sell but the cool thing here is that if The Red Knights table an offer, the Glazer’s are legally bound to sit down and listen to it. Amongst the numbers of The Red Knights are the likes of Goldman Sachs accountants and millionaires, so these guys mean business. This will be a story that could be interesting to play out.

Quickies

Now, time for a few quick stories that don’t deserve their own headings, but still who I think should be covered.

Firstly, in case any of you did not see the Manchester United vs AC Milan match in the Champions League a few weeks ago – watch it. It is a perfect summation of everything that is right with European football as two styles collided in spectacular fashion.

It looks like Liverpool could be saved from themselves by an unlikely source – Juventus. Apparently, Rafa Benitez is wanted mainly by Juventus, but also a few other prominent continental clubs, to take over as manager. This would be fantastic for Liverpool as quite often Rafa is the main problem with that team – his style of football tactics and coaching are perfect for the European game. However, as anyone will tell you, The Premiership is a different kettle of fish entirely. Rafa has been in charge for long enough to prove that he will not win The Premiership and the contract he is tied down with means the club can’t afford to fire him. Having another team poach him away is an ideal solution.

Finally, for the first time in about 712 years the Football Association saw some sense and quickly shot down proposals to use a Playoff system to decide the 4th spot for the Champions League. Good for them. The point of The Premiership is that it is a league – there is no need for a knockout post-season as every club in England already gets at least 2 knock out tournaments a year to enter. As soon as you start throwing a knockout tournament for the 4th Champions League spot, you might as well start doing it for the 3rd Relegation spot as well. It could have been the start of a very slippery slope and all just to get some extra TV revenue. Happily, though, for once the FA’s integrity could not be bought.

England Squad For South Africa

I’m going to start sliding these in here from now until the World Cup, mainly just for me. You’re more than welcome to read them, though. I’m going to start laying out who should be on the pitch for England’s opening World Cup game on the 12th of June against the good old US of A. It’ll be fun, I promise.

Joe Hart – Hart is definitely the best English goalkeeper around at the moment, except he has zero meaningful international experience. Capello will be faced with a tough choice here – go with James or Green and have an experienced, albeit beatable, option or go with Hart who has no experience but has been a brick wall for Birmingham this season.

Wayne Bridge – Bridge is picked here by default. I really think that with everything going on in Ashley Cole’s private life, namely the fact his marriage is as good as dead, his rehabilitation from injury will seriously suffer. That could well mean that Bridge is the automatic replacement.

John Terry – Terry will find his form and him and Bridge will sort things out like men do. They will sit on opposite ends of a table with a bottle of scotch each and not leave until they have at least come to a workable arrangement.

Rio Ferdinand – Is the England captain. So, yeah… d’urh!

Glen Johnson – The only serviceable right back England have.

Aaron Lennon – Capello is in love with Lennon’s speed, and is willing to look past his questionable final product. He’ll start up the right, although share time with Sir David of Beckham deep in games.

Frank Lampard – Like it or lump it, Fat Frank is deeply entrenched in England’s centre. He ‘aint going nowhere.

Gareth Barry – For some reason known only to Fabio Capello, Gareth Barry is worthy of a spot in the middle of England’s team despite the fact he can’t pass, can’t shoot and can’t tackle. He is, in all fairness, very good at annoying people from Birmingham though.

Steven Gerrard – Barry in the middle means Gerrard will be plonked out on the left of midfield again. Left midfield is the one position that England has always struggled to produce at, as shown by every England manager in the last 10 year’s decision to just stick Gerrard out there, probably wasting the international career of a very talented attacking midfielder.

Peter Crouch – I don’t care what his club stats say, how much game time he gets at Spurs or if Defoe is actually outscoring him. Play this man for England. He scored 2 goals against Egypt on Wednesday night and is the leading single-season goalscorer for England. He gets goals at the International level so for the love of god play him. There is one slight downside, though, and that is that some referees in major International tournaments give free kicks against him whenever he tries to head the ball as he is so fucking tall his elbows automatically go in other people’s faces.

Wayne Rooney – Assuming that he doesn’t break his foot (it is a well known fact to all those who know it well that the most important player for England before a World Cup breaks their foot), he will not only be the star of England but also the entire tournament. Written off as either someone who had hit a glass ceiling or, even worse, been a disappointment, just last year, Rooney has thrived since Cristiano Ronaldo left United for Spain. He, along with Evra and Giggs, is the heart and soul of Manchester United and will now have to carry England on his young shoulders as well.

Well, that is all from me. I promise I won’t leave it so long next time. Blame the evil bastards who expect me to actually do work on time. I do.

The Predator is a great American.

March 2, 2010
Host: Elevation
Guest: Don “The Predator” Frye

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio/2010/03/02/elevation-radio-with-don-frye

Don’s website: www.donfrye.com

Elevation Radio was proud to be joined by Don Frye, the rambunctious Charles Barkley of MMA last Tuesday. The Predator was in amazing form and shared many interesting tales, opinions, and memories from his legendary pro wrestling and MMA careers. Don offered his thoughts on a variety of topics including his long time friendship with Dan Severn, being a college wrestling teammate of Randy Couture, taking the MMA world by storm when he won the tournament at UFC 8 in a combined time of just over three minutes, how retirement is treating him, acting in movies like Public Enemies and Miami Vice, thoughts on forming a reality show with Gary Busey, his legendary mustache and so much more.

Here are a few highlights:

Don’s memory of facing WWE Hall of Famer Antonio Inoki in his retirement match before 75,000 people at the Tokyo Dome and the crazy aftermath:

“They had Muhammad Ali show up and light the torch like the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta, it was a great celebration to be a part of….after someone’s career of thirty years, who was the top athlete in the nation (Inoki), you’re supposed to give him you know a 30, 45, 60 minute retirement match, something to say goodbye to the to the crowd…about two minutes into the match I broke his ribs. You know, two or three ribs, hell 30 year career, ended in 4 minutes. So I ruined that right away. I thought he was going to have the Yakuza wipe me out you know, so I was telling my wife goodbye. We made it out and got to the airport, we were boarding got on the airplane, you know, and snapped my belt, let out a big sigh and grabbed my wife’s hand, petted her in the hand, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I look up and the stewardess says ‘There’s a phone call for you outside.’ And I went ‘s***’, so I walked outside to pick up the phone and it was Inoki. He says ‘Hey, I wanted to thank you for the match.’ I felt that ‘oh man, I’m going to die’, but that’s how much power that guy had. He stopped the whole international airport to make a phone call. “

The Predator on the difficulties of being in a faction with Ken Shamrock in New Japan Pro Wrestling:

“You know Ken and I, they put us together as kind of a gang, you know, where we would be a tag team, a disgruntled tag team, and you know have more hate towards each other than our opponents, and that would prevent us from winning and we would eventually after the match get into a fight, and that was the whole storyline. That’s what happened. Hell, they (NJPW) called me up and said ‘Do you want to do the job?’ I said ‘why?’ ‘ Well, Ken Shamrock doesn’t want to do the job, (Keiji) Mutoh doesn’t want to do the job, the other guy doesn’t want to do the job, and now you don’t want to do the job. I said ‘Hell, I don’t give a s***, if somebody’s gotta do it, I’ll do it. That’s why I ended up doing the job and that kind of wound up biting me in the ass because the last 5 or 6 matches I did over there in Japan, they had me jobbing out. You can understand, its hard to decide who is going to do the job and who is going to go over, but in the fan’s mind they want somebody strong. The biggest mark is in the locker room in pro wrestling. Generally the person who runs around saying that is the biggest mark, because they’re trying to get everybody else to go their way.”

Frye’s memories about the time he and the WWF had a meeting regarding the Predator joining the promotion:

“Back in ’97 when I was fortunate enough to train Scott Ferrozzo for his fights, Scott and I had a contact with WWE. We went up there together, interviewed together, and apparently they didn’t like our attitudes you know. Scott was a used car salesman, and he walked in there with a used car salesman attitude you know, and I was pretty full of myself at the time. Those boys (The WWE), they don’t want somebody coming in there with their own idea, they want someone who is going to rollover and do what they tell them to do…….they keep everyone the same. The cookie cutter formula. That way they keep the son-in-law(HHH) on top.

Visit www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio to hear way more from Don including his memories of his legendary fight from PRIDE 21 with Yoshihiro Takayama, the potential creation of a Masters Division for older MMA legends, dealing with dishonest MMA promoters and much more.

Also check out John’s interview with the likes of Bret Hart, JJ Dillon, Dan Severn, Frank Shamrock, Vince Papale, Cullen Jones, Ivan Koloff and more!

Fresh off the greatest all around show in Elevation Radio history with Jamaican bobsled legend Devon Harris, I will be joined Tuesday March 2 by UFC and PRIDE legend Don Frye.

The recently retired Frye was the winner of the tournaments at UFC 8, UFC 10, and Ultimate Ultimate 96. He also had a storied career in Japan, including an illustrious run with PRIDE.

He holds career victories over:

Ken Shamrock
Tank Abbott
Gilbert Yvel
Gary Goodridge and many more.

His legendary fight with Yoshihiro Takayama is regarded by many MMA fans as the most exciting of all time.

Frye-Takayama slugfest

He is also a Japanese pro wrestling legend. He was the last opponent of Antonio Inoki. The match had an attendance of 70,000 people.

He was a college amateur wrestling teammate with Randy Couture.

Besides fighting, he is involved with acting and has made appearances in Public Enemies, the Miami Vice movie, and Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Also Don Frye is a modern day John Wayne. He is a complete nut just like his close friend Dan Severn and will not be afraid to express his political views, thoughts on being a badass and much more.

Check it out at: www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio

Don Frye: The greatest American of all time.

————-

Included on this jam packed show:

-My interview with Jamaican bobsled legend Devon Harris. It was a wide ranging interview, and we covered a large variety of topics including what the Olympic scene is like live in Whistler, his bobsled memories, his background, plus thoughts on Usain Bolt, Cool Runnings,  public speaking, and being an author.

People have really loved this interview and it makes for a great listen during the Winter Olympic season. This show should win the definitive bobsledding interview award for 2010. For more on Devon visit www.devonharris.com

-My phone call with The Ed where we yell at each other for 15 minutes about UFC, Randall Cunningham, Mike Tyson, and a variety of other topics.

-The call with my young old cousin Brendan. Maybe the best part of the show. I offered my life coach tips on his education, attitude, work ethic, video games and so much more. This was just surreal and hysterical.

- and my talk with my dad as he enjoyed creating dead air in the beginning of the interview and shared his thoughts on Brian Westbrook getting cut from The Eagles, live curling play by play and much more.

YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

Elevation Radio with Devon Harris.

Devon joined me live from Whistler to provide one of the great interviews in Elevation Radio history.

First off I want to congratulate the New Orleans Saints and the people in the Crescent City for their amazing Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts at Super Bowl 44 in Miami. It is a hell of an achievement for their city and the franchise.

Enjoy some U2:

I have to say that I have really been enjoying the Winter Olympics so far. I really like the pace of the Winter games compared to the Summer because it gives you a chance to absorb all the action and you don’t feel completely overwhelmed knowing there are 45 other concurrently taking place on 45 different channels. It allows you to get a better understanding of the narrative and just enjoy what is happening.

Also the events have been awesome and full of drama. The men’s and women’s mogul events were extremely captivating to watch and came down to the very end. Americans won three medals in those two events and the tension just kept building and building after every run, especially with all the crashes.

Who will ever forget the Korean pileup that allowed Apolo Ohno and JR Celski to win silver and bronze in short track speed skating and wiped away the chance for a South Korean sweep?

Apolo Ohno and JR Celski celebrate the fact Asians lived up to their reputations as poor navigators.

Then you throw in the excitement and precision of luge plus all the drama surrounding the pre-event death of the Georgian and that made for an exciting event as well. Also, you will never forget the excitement of the end to the men’s Nordic Combined. I was stunned to see Americans finish 2nd and 4th. I thought for sure that was one of those events that only Norwegians and Russians would ever win.

Of course you do have to unfortunately deal with hours upon hour upon hours of figure skating. I appreciate the athleticism, will, and determination of those competitors, but I just can’t get into it. The music bores me and the scoring system is far too indecipherable to the common man.

The snowboard cross events have been pretty mixed. Seth Wescott winning the gold medal was very neat to see, but your heart can’t help but go out to Lindsey Jacobellis. She spent the last four years hearing every single day about how she made a fool of herself when she hotdogged away a medal in the 2006 games. She had a one shot deal at redemption and saw it all go to hell when she was DQ’d after veering off course and clipping a sign following a poor landing. Now she has to live with all this again. Snowboarders have a casual attitude about their sport and say that snowboarding is more about being stylish and having fun than metallic achievements. However, regardless of the talk you know Jacobellis has to be feeling a lot of pain right now. This was her moment, but fate had other plans. Life can be a bitch sometimes. Screw that. I’m going to call it right now. The blonde bombshell is going to win gold in Sochi Russia for the 2014 games. Mark it down.

Come on Lindsey. Make me look like an Oracle in 2014. And sleep with me.

My final Olympic note is that you must tune into Elevation Radio on Tuesday Feb. 23rd at 4:30 EST/ 1:30 PST when I will be joined live from Whistler Canada by Olympic hero Devon Harris. You may not recognize the name Devon Harris right off the bat, but you will.

Devon Harris was one of the leaders of the original Jamaican bobsled team that competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Their story was the real life influence behind the movie Cool Runnings. Thats right baby, one of the main spirits behind the movie Cool Runnings will be joining me on Elevation Radio
to discuss his books, motivational speaking career, Cool Runnings,  the current games, and his Olympic memories and experiences as a member of the Jamaican bobsled teams.

Besides the 1988 “Cool Runnings” games, Devon later represented Jamaica in the 1992  Albertville and the 1998 Nagano games. He took part in two-man bobsled teams at those competitions.

It should be an awesome interview. Hopefully Devon can make me a little cooler just by talking to him.

Tune in at: www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio

Edge: The Master of Mental Chess.

#18 Edge

WWE (1998- Present)

4 Time WWE Champion

5 Time World Heavyweight Champion

12 Time World Tag Team Champion

2005 MITB Winner

2010 Royal Rumble Winner
The placement of Edge was one of the toughest decisions I had to make with the Best 20 countdown. I crafted my list together about a week before Edge made his shocking return to win the 2010 Royal Rumble, and I have been weighing what to do with him ever since. I decided to bump him up one spot over RVD as  reward for his perseverance.

The Rated R Superstar has been one of the WWE’s most consistent performers for the past decade. Edge is the second best talker in the WWE behind only Vince McMahon. He is so fantastic on the microphone and is naturally gifted as a heel performer. He has proven his versatility as a singles champion and a tag team champion. His most notable tag run of course came with Christian, but he also had entertaining championship reigns with Chris Benoit, Hulk Hogan, Rey Mysterio, and Randy Orton (as part of Rated-RKO). Nobody will ever forget the three-way Mania match between Edge and Christian, the Hardys and the Dudley Boys.

He has also consistently proven himself as a single’s star. He consistently carried Smackdown on his own from Early 2007  to mid 2009.

Edge never bullshits his way through matches and is similar to the Rey Mysterio, Shawn Michaels, and Kurt Angle in that I can never remember him having a horrible match.

Edge will also always be remembered for 4 particular moments and periods of his career:

1- His relationship with Lita. His live sex in a bed celebration in 2006 was one of the most memorable segments in the history of Monday Night Raw. He was the man.

2- His relationship with Vickie Guerrero. Thank God they never had live sex in a bed. However, Edge and Vickie were human heat machines who were able to completely enrage WWE audiences just by their mere presence. They were one of the most effective couples in wrestling history.

3- His feuds with Cena. the 2006 and 2009 versions of the feud were equally entertaining. I will never forget their Last Mand Standing match from Backlash in 2009. The spot where Cena threw Edge with an FU straight into the crowd was definitely a “HOLY SHIT” moment.

4- His work with Mick Foley. Their hardcore match Wrestle Mania 22 was one of the best of both their careers. The taking of the old “through a table through the fire without a shirt on” was particularly crazy. I really enjoyed when Foley turned heel and the two of them teamed up together to take on Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer at One Night Stand later in 2006. Their mic work was spectacular and were able to drag a damn good match out of 156 year old Terry Funk.

So Edge, thank you for all your contributions to the WWE. Your future Mania main event against Jericho will be spectacular. Thank you for great feuds with Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Mick Foley, Cena, Undertaker, Batista, and the Dudley Boyz.

Thanks for always reeking of awesomeness, Edge.

Welcome to the first edition of my rants about things that matter.  I’ll address mainly MMA and why I think it sucks that PRIDE doesn’t exist anymore.  I’ll also keep some mention of pro wrestling, mainly WWE, and why I think it sucks that Linda McMahon is running for Senate.  Once in awhile I’ll talk about other things that matter, like the return of The Manning Face.  Super Bowl XLIV will mark the return to reality for all of the Manning family not named Archie, who has seen his two sons and the team he loves win three of the last four Super Bowls.  Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, move over.  Archie Manning is in the house.

Speaking of old people who have managed to stay famous for far too long, Hulk Hogan’s return to burying young, talented pro wrestlers has taken a new twist in TNA.  He’s put the weight of destroying an entire wrestling promotion on his shoulders, which isn’t smart since I don’t know if his hip can support the weight.  Bringing along such esteemed talent as Orlando Jordan along for the ride makes it all the more embarrassing for a company trying to compete with the McMahon empire over at WWE.

Hulk Hogan has indicated that he wants to bring The Macho Man into TNA. No word on whether Dixie Carter has any teenage daughters for him to rape.

What’s that?  The McMahon empire is down to Vincent, Stephanie, and Terra Ryzing?  With Shane McMahon feeling like doing something else with his life, and Linda McMahon’s innate desire to run as a Republican in Connecticut we are down to three.  Well, this doesn’t seem like a terrible thing since the only creative forces in WWE are named Vincent, Kennedy, and McMahon but something hasn’t seemed right recently.  Oh yeah, family friendly.  In a desperate attempt to clean up their act so that whoever faces Linda in the GOP primaries won’t have fuel to mock her with they have tried becoming a product that is acceptable for the whole family to watch.  This of course means that the average pro wrestling fan, who is somewhere in the thirties, has to stomach smiling John Cena high-fiving little kids and big mean pantless Randy Orton not doing anything to draw the ire of the crowd besides being the only reason Cody Rhodes has airtime.  I will continue these rants later, and instead leave you with a clip expressing what a real crowd-favorite does.

As for MMA, what a long strange trip it’s been.  Saturday could not have possibly been the first time UFC legends Randy Couture and Mark Coleman faced off in the Octagon, but it was.  This was sort of a dream match for UFC fans, only it happened ten years too late.  A variety of reasons played into this being the first time they have headlined a PPV against one another, but at the combined age of 91 it seemed that those reasons should have been used to explain in twenty years why they never faced each other.  Randy Couture, who is closing in on 47, hasn’t looked washed-up even against Brock Lesnar and Minotauro.  A much-needed drop in weight class has revitalized his career, at least until he loses against Machida or Shogun in the fall.

However, Mark Coleman reached his peak as a fighter ten years ago.  He has used his successes in the early days of UFC and his initial success in PRIDE to carry on for a decade in headlining bouts against the best MMA has to offer.  In his fights against the cream of the crop, Coleman has always tasted defeat.  Since 2001 he has beaten Allan Goes, Don Frye, Milco Voorn, and most-recently Stephan Bonnar.  His victory over Mauricio Rua in 2006 was the fortunate result of a broken arm.  UFC 93 showed what would have happened without that injury.  It isn’t that Coleman has a legacy to protect, all but the oldest of MMA fans think of him as some washed-up legend trying to hang on for far too long.  It’s simply that Coleman is wasting his time trying to stick around.  Up next he could become a sacrificial lamb to Kimbo Slice, or a sacrificial lamb to any number of guys over at Strikeforce.  A fight with Tito could be on the table, but what would anyone gain from that?  Tito could punch Coleman into retirement or Mark could win and then decide he can stay around a bit longer.

Is Mark Coleman the Rickey Jackson of the UFC Hall of Fame or is Rickey Jackson the Mark Coleman of the NFL Hall of Fame?

Saturday could have served as the closure to Coleman’s career.  Despite looking lost for the six minutes the fight lasted, he at long last was standing in the Octagon with the legendary Randy Couture.  He could have thanked the fans of MMA for all their support, he could have had the crowd cheer him in the main event of a PPV.  Instead Mark Coleman’s career looks set to conclude in a preliminary bout against some also-ran in 2013.  He took his one chance to leave gracefully from a sport whose fans know so little about him and is instead working on becoming someone where fans will remember him as that old guy who refused to quit.

Here is how the power lies…among the two teams that are left, with a little bonus blurb on the two teams that weren’t quite good enough to make it to the Super Bowl. Enjoy the big game on Sunday, and remember to savor it, as we won’t see meaningful NFL football again until early September.

1. Colts – Things were starting to compound on Indianapolis. The Jets had put together an 80 yard bomb to Braylon Edwards and a great trick play where Brad Smith faked an option run and pulled back and launched a 45 yard strike (okay, it floated like a duck, perhaps strike isn’t the right word, but it was complete) to Jerricho Cotchery which led to another touchdown. The Jets were up 17-6, and looked for all the world like they had an excellent shot to shock the world and somehow make it all the way to the Super Bowl. The Colts had just seen a 48 yard Jay Feely Field Goal split the uprights, and there were only two minutes remaining in the half. Things looked bleak, but then in strode Number Eighteen. Just like that, after rifling his way down the field with three completions to Austin Collie in less than a minute the last one resulting in a touchdown. BAM, Peyton Manning was suddenly in control of the game, and despite the fact that the Jets were up at the half, they were finished.

You could tell the exact moment that Manning clicked into gear…it was a ridiculously accurate bomb right down the middle of the field to Austin Collie for 46 yards that broke the Jets spirit. After that play, the game was over, Manning decided that the Colts were going to the Super Bowl. He just decided it, and no one could argue. Peyton Manning has that rare ability to absolutely end a game in the second quarter with a cool confidence that destroys his opponents. The Jets still technically led the game 17-6, but you could stick a fork in them at that moment, because Manning was going to win, you could feel it. The second half unfolded exactly as expected, and the Jets ended up getting trounced by a 30-17 final score. It wasn’t really a blowout, as the Jets held a double digit lead at one point, and were within 3 in the fourth, but it wasn’t exactly NOT an upset either because at no time from the moment Manning dissected the Jets secondary for 46 yards did I think the Jets had even a remote chance of winning the game. The Colts dominated from that point on.

The reason that the Colts must be listed as the Super Bowl favorite and the team at the top of the final Vertically Striped power rankings of the season is the quarterback. Drew Brees put up superior numbers, and he is a great quarterback in his own right. However, I have never seen Drew end a game in the 2nd quarter while trailing by 11. I know it sounds hokey, but Peyton Manning totally did that in the AFC Championship. It’s silly to ascribe super powers to mortal athletes, but there is something about the confidence that Manning possesses that puts him into the rarified air of a player like Michael Jordan…someone who is just a winner, someone who will not allow his team to lose. Take Manning off of these Colts, and they are a middle of the road team that may or may not make the postseason. With Peyton, the Colts are clearly the team to beat. He’s that important, and he is the sole reason that I have to place the Colts as number 1 in this week leading up to the big game with all the Roman numerals.

2. Saints – This team is exciting, and fast paced and fun. When they are on their game offensively, I have seen few teams who can keep up with their fast flying ways. They have a city that has spiritually rallied around them, and the Saints probably mean more to New Orleans right now than any professional team means to any community in the world. If you have a soul, and you aren’t a Colts fan, I have a hard time understanding how you could not be pulling for this team. The Saints are the spirit and symbol of a place that was ravaged by a horrible hurricane and are trying to fight their way back. Yes, I’m cheering for the black and gold on Sunday.

However, despite the good vibes and spiritual optimism surrounding this team, they are still a group of football players who have to make it happen on the field on Sunday. In that regard, the Saints make me a little nervous. Clearly, they’re a stud team, but their defense is middling, and their offense is a lot like a Ferrari…when it’s engine is roaring it can fly, but it can be a bit temperamental, and sometimes it needs to go into the garage for repair. Against the Vikings, the Saints as a team rode a wave of crowd support and enjoyed the benefit of being plus four in the turnover differential. Had the Vikings not coughed the ball up five times, likely Minnesota and Brett Favre would be in Miami getting ready to figure out a way to try and beat the Colts. Even with those advantages, the Saints also needed boneheaded mistakes from the Vikings and a beneficial coin flip in order to win the NFC Championship.

The Saints are a very good team, and they have a shot against the Colts in XLIV. (Check back to VerticallyStripedSocks.com on Friday to find out how much of a shot I think they have.) However, they are an underdog for a reason, and when there are only two teams left, someone has to be number two in the rankings. That lot falls on the Saints, but for this week, I join a chorus of zealots in Louisiana and with optimism and hope scream, “Who Dat?” (Hopefully NFL Properties doesn’t charge me royalties for saying as much.)

Thanks for coming, Best of luck to you all next year. (Except, of course, for you Mr. Favre.)

Vikings – I was watching the final quarter of the Saints-Vikings NFC Championship from the same restaurant that I saw the Giants-Packers NFC Championship two years earlier. Amazingly enough, the same exact thing happened…Just when it appeared that Brett Favre was on the cusp on qualifying his team for the Super Bowl, he threw up a terrible interception and ended his teams season. I was bummed two years previous, as I wanted the Packers to make it, but this year I was ecstatic. The people of Minnesota deserve better. After watching four Super Bowl losses (all before my time) and then seeing their chances to make Super Bowl 33 get blown by a shanked field goal against the Falcons in 1998, and seeing their team get throttled by the Giants 41-0 a few years later in another NFC Championship, those people have suffered too much already. With all apologies to those poor people of Minnesota, I was extremely happy. Favre is who we thought he was, and it only took until the final minutes of the NFC Championship for him to finally reveal himself. Now it’s on to another edition of the Brett Favre “will he or won’t he” retirement tease. Favre has proven over the past half-decade that he is a championship caliber Hamlet imitator, and now the fans in Minneapolis will get to live out his indecision for months. For now, he says he is “Very unlikely to return.” If you believe that will be the last word before a simple retirement announcement in a few weeks, you simply haven’t been paying attention to recent history. He’s playing well enough to come back, and it’s hard to deny that the NFL is more interesting when he’s around. I guess despite the fact that I love rooting against the guy, I do kind of hope he comes back.

Jets – If you’re the Jets, there is no way possible for you to feel bad about your season. You were able to sneak into the playoffs, and then make the most of it by improbably winning a couple of games and playing admirably in the AFC Championship. You have the lovable and bombastic (and fat) Rex Ryan as your leader, and things seem to be pretty positive. If Mark Sanchez can continue to develop in this system and avoid eating hot dogs on the sideline, the future looks bright in the city so nice they named it twice. Not to mention the stellar way that the Jets played defense this season. They probably weren’t good enough to achieve to the level that they did, but they did it anyway. New York, New York indeed! Start spreading the news! (All that positivity and chances are excellent that they go 6-10 next season…after all, this is the NFL.)

No time for a fun and quirky entrance segway this week. Far too much to get done to go through the motions of foreplay. Have a quirky image to enjoy, and lets get down to business.

“I'm a chilling out naked kinda guy, I tried turning it on while standing underneath. Bad times...”

Manchester United And The Amazing Sinking Finances

Oh Malcolm Glazer, thou art one heartless bitch. Also, if you don’t like financial stuff just skip this  bit. I won’t take it personally, I promise.

One of the biggest stories of the last few weeks in the Premiership has been the financial state of one of English football’s, and probably the world’s, biggest clubs – Manchester United. When the Glazer family, who have done such a wonderful (sic) job of running the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, decided to expand their sporting empire to the Premiership, they chose Manchester United.

At the time, this move was met with a mixture of fear, dread and loathing by Manchester United fans who were all very angry at the fact the Glazer’s weren’t buying the club in the sense that Chelsea or Manchester City have been bought, where the owners had the cash lying around down the backs of their sofas. Oh no, the Glazers were buying the club by borrowing the money to buy it. That meant they took out a £500m odd loan out against the club and an extra £200m or so in personal loans, meaning that the day they bought the last share of Manchester United stock to take ownership, the club was in debt by about £700m. That is about $1.15bn.

Just take a second for those figures to sink in.

“The Manchester United Accountant on one of their more 'with it' days”

Manchester United owe around seven hundred million pounds. Or, if you make the lifestyle choice to be American, they owe one point one five BILLION dollars to various banks and hedge funds. That is absolutely staggering. That is unheard of. The club’s debt could buy an NFL franchise or pay one week of the Yankee’s payroll. It may even be enough to feed John Goodman for a month.

When the Glazers announced their evil plans to take United in 2003 (they completed the sale in 2005), there were fierce fan protests. There is even a football club called FC United that plays in the lower leagues of English football that was set up by disgruntled fans who vowed to give up the Red Devils. Anti-Glazer chants were sung in the stands and everyone who supported the club were all very upset indeed.

Then, things didn’t really change. Revenue went up on the business end of the club, the team on the field stayed at the top and won trophies and the worries were swept under the carpet. Consider it like a wife who finds a saucy text message on her husbands phone from another woman but then chooses to ignore it, taking ignorance over confronting the issue. Well, in the last few weeks the wife has found a few more messages, a thong in the car and a strange rash on her husband’s doodad. Metaphorically speaking, of course…

A few days ago, Manchester United released their financial figures for the last year and it painted a grim picture. Overall, the club made a profit of around £40m, not a bad achievement, but that was a very misleading figure. That profit included money from Ronaldo’s £80m transfer to Real Mardid. Without his sale, the club would have fallen another £40m into debt.

The reason that the club would have fallen another £40m into debt? The interest rates on the £700m\$1.15bn loans that the Glazers took out to pay for the club.

Please leave a comment at the bottom of this article if you know any good bounty hunters.

Let’s hugely simplify just what is happening to Manchester United here. Obviously, the intricate financial details that you have to put together to build up all that debt are a little bit more advanced than the scenario that I’m about to put forward but, hey, I ‘aint no banker, yo.

Let’s say that you wanted something, but couldn’t quite afford it. For the sake of argument, lets say you wanted to go on vacation with all your friends to Las Vegas, except you couldn’t afford on your current bank balance. So, lets say that rather than save up and buy your tickets, you just scrape together your spending money and put the flights on a credit card with the intention to pay them off gradually afterwards. Well, as we all know in Vegas you do dumb things so by the time that you’ve lost a few times at blackjack (“The dealer is showing a 6, double down baby!”), realised that your home game poker skills don’t stand up to proper rounders and drunkenly stuck a few bottles of whiskey on said credit card, you end up owing a lot. For the sake of maths, lets say you end up owing around $1,000.

You get home from  your little trip and after several scalding hot showers to get the dirt off of you, you realise “Holy crap, I owe $1,000!” Its not that bad, you think, things will keep on ticking over the same way they always do. Except you forgot that the interest rate on the credit card means that you can only afford to pay that off, meaning the $1,000 doesn’t budge. Then with the interest building up, the $1,000 starts to grow, generating more interest. All in all, looking back that bottle of whiskey and drunken idea that you could somehow count cards seems more and more foolish.

That is the situation Manchester United are in. The interest rates on the loans, which are around 10% for the £500m bank loans and 16% for the £200m hedge fund loans, are crippling the club. They can barely afford to pay those off. Throw in penalties for not moving the sum, interest rate hikes on certain dates and the fact that any top club still needs to invest whatever cash it has in players and it means that Manchester United are broke.

Finally, the Glazers are starting to do something about it, though. They have recently raised £504m from private investors to clear some of the debts and cut the interest rate (the private bonds have an interest rate of about 8%, significantly less than the banks charge) which should alleviate some of the suffering, but it may be too little too late. Right now, there are two options for United on the road ahead

Option one is that a nice big rich group who have cash reserves buy them. They can clear the debts in one foul swoop, pay the Glazers a few hundred million quid in profit and have the cash reserves to buy players. There have been rumblings about even some of United’s wealthier fans doing this option, but the Glazers appear to be poo-pooing that option on site, saying they are in it for the ‘long run’. The ‘long run’ probably referring to the long run down the table to League One…

Option two is that the Glazers stay in control. United badly need player investment – namely, a new winger, goalkeeper, right back, striker and midfielder – but they won’t get it to the quality needed while still wrestling with £700m worth of debt, even at lower interest rates. More worryingly, Real Madrid and Barcelona are beginning to target United’s talismanic Wayne Rooney, reportedly offering around £70m for his services. If he has to go to help the debt problem…

No matter what way you look at it, United are in financial dire straights. United have got to now hope and pray to either a) keep winning on the pitch to keep the creditors at bay, or b) huge private investment. It is just that simple.

Lets see how Liverpool are doing, eh?

Right, enough of writing depressing things about Manchester United. Let’s check in on another team whose fortunes could be on the slide – Liverpool.

“There is an obvious reason for the similar poses between Rafa and the Manchester United Accountant.

Last time we stopped by Rafa’s merry gang of hop alongs, things weren’t exactly hunky dory. They were well out of the race for a Champions League spot, out of this year’s Champions League and generally looking miserable. Has anything changed?

Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that they are playing a little bit better and are beginning to belly slide up the table a little bit. But, in a much bigger way, no – they are nowhere near where they should be and aren’t exactly showing the quality needing to break through.

Liverpool’s performances have been gradually getting better in the league, despite being unceremoniously dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Reading. When they beat Spurs 2-0 the other day, I would have said it was a proper turning point. Rather than a one off result, Rafa could have said “Look, we lost on the opening day to this team and struggled. Now we have beaten them, so we are that much better than we were. Let’s go forward with this.”

Instead, they drew 0-0 with relegation contenders Wolves in their next league game.

Currently, Liverpool are in 5^th place in the league and are just 3 points off of Spurs, who currently occupy that precious 4^th Champions League spot. However, on equal points with them in 5^th are Manchester City, who look absolutely rejuvenated under Mancini’s reign. City also have 2 games in hand, meaning that all of a sudden Liverpool could once more be 6 points off the Champions League pace. It is ridiculous counting Liverpool in the title chase at this stage as well  – they are 11 points off of 3^rd place alone.

Also just behind them are Aston Villa, one point back with one game in hand.

Liverpool, though, are still injury plagued with Gerard and Torres still picking up injuries regularly, with the later currently out for a month following a minor knee operation. If Liverpool do not qualify for this year’s Champions League they will have hell keeping those two stars at the club, and if they don’t it could be the start of a steady decline – Liverpool have been torrid without them.

Although I may make it seem this way, it really isn’t all doom and gloom for Liverpool. They have dragged themselves back over the last 8 games or so from a situation where a bottom half finish was more than conceivable to being back in the Champions League conversation. As a team, they have much more experience at that level than the likes of Spurs and Aston Villa and have a more gelled team than Manchester City. There is still a chance that they can avoid an internal apocalypse and qualify for next year’s premier European competition, but that is all it is – a chance.

Comings and Goings

There have been three important comings and goings so far since the last London Chronicles. Let’s have a little look shall we?

Owen Coyle boltin’ to Bolton

Former Burnley boss has Coyle has jumped ship back over to Bolton, this time to take on the club as manager. I really like this move for Bolton – they currently don’t have a lot going for them and those are the conditions that Coyle thrives under. His Burnley side, before they got promoted this season, were already feared after knocking out numerous Premier League teams in cup competitions. With him at the reigns, hopefully Bolton can pick up where they left off when Sam Allardyce left the club.

Eidur Gudjohnsen to Spurs

This move I can’t really understand, but who am I to second guess the genius that is Harry Redknapp? Spurs are pretty stacked at the striker position with Keane, Defoe and Crouch and have some talented wingers in Modric and Lennon. They don’t really need Gudjohnsen, who has always been a little bit over rated anyway. However, I suppose you could argue that if they really want to be a top 4 team they need top cover for key positions, and that was what the former Chelsea and Barcelona attacker will give them.

Robinho to Santos

This one broke literally as I was checking the Premiership table on the BBC website to see just where Liverpool were after last night’s games. Manchester City’s record signing – Brazilian striker Robinho – has left the City of Manchester stadium to go on loan at his former club Santos back home in Brazil.

“When asked about his move, Robinho said 'Baaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Money money money money waaaaaaaaah!”

Although a few top European teams wanted him, I can understand Robinho’s move back to Brazil. That way he doesn’t end up playing for a potential rival and he is in the spotlight in his home country during a World Cup year. Also, as the move is only a 6 month loan, he could potentially be back with his head in the right place for next year’s campaign.

There is a much bigger story to this though. When Robinho snubbed Chelsea in favour of Manchester City and their newly acquired riches, his motivation was pure and simple – money. Nobody turns down Chelsea for Manchester City if they want silverware, or at least they didn’t at the time. Getting Robinho was important for City as it showed they had transfer market muscle. However, it never really worked out – he often sulked, underperformed and ran back to Brazil for ‘injury treatment’ whenever he got out of bed a little bit too fast.

Robinho was a mercantile player – not caring who he played for, just wanting the single biggest pay packet. There is nothing completely wrong with that – professional athletes have maybe an 18 year career with only about 10 of those years to make some serious wedge. You can’t blame them for wanting to make the most money to live off of that they can.

Still, they rarely work out and can often be very expensive mistakes for clubs. Once the honeymoon period of being paid £100k a week wears off, and somehow it does, they are often left at an uncompetitive club and the amazing drive that pushed them to become elite athletes kicks in in a major way. They become all uppity, sulky and end up kicking up a fuss.

Although nothing will stop clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City or Chelsea from trying to gazump other team’s transfers by offering more money to club and player, hopefully the continued failure of players like Robinho will strongly discourage it.

Also, although slightly small in newsworthiness, is the fact that Sol Campbell is back with Arsenal after 3 and a half seasons (or so, I think…). Although this is a landmark occurance as it is the first time Wenger has re-signed a player he has let go, an honour not even Patrick Viera can claim, it has been an open secret in football for months. Since the Notts County Experiment came to a shuddering halt and Sol left after one game, he made it clear lower league football or MLS (sorry, Senior Elevation) wasn’t really of interest to him. He has been training with Arsenal to keep his fitness up and so it is a natural step he returns to the club to offer some much needed experience and leadership to a young team.

I bet you $50 that less than half of the people who clicked on this page are still reading

To quote the prophet Springer, now time for my final thought.

At my day job, as unfortunately I don’t just hang around Elevation HQ drinking beer and playing some serious MW2 the whole time (or at all…), I cover an awful lot of gambling news stories. Three this year alone have caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.

1)      The Chinese Football Association head being questioned over corruption, and investigators saying that if they punished everyone involved with soccer corruption then it would put the country’s football industry out of business.

2)      Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Critterton pulling guns on each other over a poker debt.

3)      Wolves calling in not one but two gambling addiction experts to work with their squad.

Now, I’m not one of these sorts who harp on about the evils of wealth. I love money. If I had a chance, I’d have all the money I could get my grubby little mits on. I enjoy being able to buy shit, go places and do stuff. I would very much like a new car, a new house, three more holidays a year and trophy wife. However, I sadly only have just about enough to live on.

*plays world’s smallest violin*

Anyway, you know who does have an awful lot of money? Footballers. And not just the £75k a week sorts. What people don’t quite realise is just how much money athletes have. A few years ago, I was working in the marketing department for an investment property firm and one of the sales guys ran into our little corner of the office that was full of Spongebob Squarepants posters and LolCats print offs (go into your marketing department at work and it will be very  much the same) absolutely over the moon because he had gotten a sales meeting with a League 1 footballing side. We all looked at him a little bit sideways, until he pointed the following out.

Even in League one, the 3^rd tier of English football, wages of £1,000 a week for squad players and £5,000+ a week for decent players are not uncommon. That is sweet FA when compared to Cristiano Ronaldo’s £200k a week or Rio Ferdinand’s £125k a week, but in the real world terms £5,000 is still an insane amount of money. That is a wage of £260,000 a year. Chuck on bonuses and players are realistically, even at that level, bringing in around £300,000 a year. Sure, that isn’t live-off-it-the-rest-of-your-life scratch, but you would be hard pushed to find a regular job where 21 – 34 year olds are paid £300k.

Anyway, I’ve gone off the point a bit. A lot of footballers have a lot of money is what I’m trying to say. And, despite the expectations placed upon them, footballers are human. Any human with a lot of disposable income does one of five things with it – drinks it, smokes it, snorts it, injects it, gambles it.

The first four of those aren’t exactly options for top calibre footballers, but the last one is. Like it or not, hush hush or not, football has a massive gambling culture attached. From the famous England national team ‘poker schools’ to players and managers owning race horses, injured players sitting at home gambling all day to those who can’t stay away from the tables, it happens. Worryingly, an awful lot of players also bet on football.

I’m not attacking gambling here either – I love poker and blackjack, perhaps too much – but trying to make the following point. Currently, all these young guys who have more money than god and a playboy lifestyle. This can all too easily lead to corruption – as in the China case, or even Italian football as seen a few years back -, to to inter squad problems – as documented by Arenas and Critterton – or to addictions, as shown by the amount of gambling addiction specialists brought in by some clubs and the need for clinics like Sporting Chance in London, which does admirable work treating gambling addictions amongst pro athletes anonymously.

Finances in football are at a stage where even lower league players in major markets are amongst some of the highest paid of the population. I’m not saying that they should be prohibited from gambling, it is plain wrong to tell people how they should spend their money, but already this year I’ve seen three shocking sports gambling stories. Surely, it is time for FIFA\UEFA\The FA to start looking in to the gambling culture in their sport, not leaving it up to clubs and flimsy regulations like “Oh, yeah, offer them help if they need it.”

Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.