Random Rumblings: I still can't get into MMA

• Those who read this web site regularly know how I feel about MMA. I just can’t fall for a sport whose fan base considers the curb stomp scene in American History X to be cinematic brilliance. I feel like arguing that fans don’t watch for blood (the group I was with cheered for it) is basically arguing that people don’t rob banks for money. And worst of all, every time a new, bigger, badder and skinheadier fighter comes along, he seems to always disappoint.
  
  But with all that said, I decided to watch UFC 94 with a few friends last Saturday night and give it one last chance. Maybe I wasn’t seeing something. I mean, I missed the boat on backyard wrestling and I do have pretty awful vision, so anything is possible.
  
  So I sat there, drinking Bud, waiting for blood and praying no one would slap and arm bar on and beg me to tap out (I don’t watch enough MMA to know reversals). At some point, I wondered when I would be overtaken with excitement. There were a flurry of punches here, a nice takedown there, but nothing that made me not wish I was watching the Royal Rumble. Even the main event, which featured B.J. Penn, a great snowboarding name and Georges St. Pierre, a great skiing name, couldn’t have been more boring if they were squaring off in some snowy X Games competition instead.
  
  My final conclusion was this: There weren’t any interesting storylines, no one got knocked out and too many guys in the crowd had bad haircuts. I watched UFC 94 on a 50 inch plasma, but I saw nothing that could possibly make me enjoy this sport.
  
  
• I have two different thoughts when it comes to the Michael Phelps “Up in Smoke” tour:
  
  1) By no means am I one of these hippy-dippy, “legalize it,” Call of Duty playing pot heads, but can we give the kid a break? It’s not like he was pushing his ADHD medicine on the street corner.
  
  2) If Phelps were a guy with tattoos and black skin, we would be debating the merits of rehab versus jail time.
  
  
• So let’s get this straight: Alex Rodriguez is obsessed with being the best player in baseball and works harder than just about anyone in history to achieve the numbers he puts up every single year. And somehow this is a bad thing?
  
  How, New York sports fans, is he supposed to become more of a team player? Should he start bunting? Should he lead team stretches before games?
  
  
• You have to wonder what Knicks players must feel like knowing that on any given night, just about any given player can score 50 on them.
  
  
• People seem to thinks throwing Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens in jail will somehow help the steroid era in baseball vanish. The truth is, you could execute both of ‘em live on television and their records, along with the accomplishments of every other cheater from this timeframe will be around for the rest of time.