Month: May 2021

Nonito Donaire is a Hall of Famer and one of the best small fighters in history, having held titles at 112, 115, 118, 122, and 126 pounds throughout his sensational career, but at 38 years old coming off a loss in his last fight back in 2019, there was some wonder if he was still at the top of his game. On Saturday night, fighting the WBC bantamweight champion Nordine Oubaali, he answered that question emphatically with a dominant fourth round knockout of the champ to reclaim the title.

It was late in the third round where Donaire pounced on the young champ, punishing him with his vicious left hand and sending him to the canvas twice — including a somewhat controversial final knockdown right at (or, to some, after) the bell.

That punch was allowed and Oubaali was allowed to continue, but was clearly in trouble with little time to shake off the flurry that had put him down twice moments prior. In the fourth round, Donaire continued stalking Oubaali and ended the fight for good with a three punch combination along the ropes that started with a left hook, followed by a right, and a left uppercut that left Oubaali slumped against the ropes.

With the win, Donaire, for the second time in his career, becomes the oldest bantamweight champion in boxing history, as he continues to cement his place among the greatest ever in the lighter weight classes. The 38-year-old dominated the undefeated Oubaali and put him down for the first, second, and third times in his professional career to secure the victory. Donaire looked more than sharp and now many are hoping for a rematch with Naoya Inoue, who lost the titles to Oubaali after defeating Donaire in 2019.

After losing Game 1 in rather stunning fashion to the 8-seeded Grizzlies, the Utah Jazz were able to win Game 2 despite the best efforts of Ja Morant and sent the series to Memphis tied at 1-1. In Game 3 on Saturday, it looked for three quarters like Utah was going to cruise to a win and reassert themselves as the clear favorite in the series, but as has been the case with this Memphis team all year, they just simply would not let Utah get a win that easily.

The Jazz led by as many as 15 and had not trailed all game until a furious fourth quarter rally from Memphis gave them their first lead at 107-105 with five minutes to play. The usual suspects, Morant and Dillon Brooks, led the way, but it was a quick five-point run from Grayson Allen to tie the game with eight minutes to go that lit the FedEx Forum on fire as the belief that they could pull out another comeback win.

However, after trading buckets after Memphis first took the lead, Utah went on a 12-0 run over the next three minutes to shut the door on Memphis’ rally attempt, with Donovan Mitchell, who hadn’t had his best game, taking over down the stretch to push the Jazz to a 121-111 win.

Grizzlies legend Mike Conley had 27 points, including 7 three-pointers, to go along with eight assists and six rebounds to lead the way for Utah much of the night, with Mitchell closing strong to lead all scorers with 29 points despite a 2-of-10 night from deep.

For Memphis, Morant and Brooks had 28 and 27 points, respectively, and Allen’s 17 off the bench was critical in making this game the most competitive and fun of the Saturday slate that had been three blowouts prior to this one. Unfortunately for Memphis, it seemed like they ran out of gas on offense down the stretch as Mitchell found his way to the free throw line and to some clutch buckets to help seal things for Utah.

Game 4 now becomes critical for Memphis to get at least one at home, and they’ll need the continued efforts of Brooks and Morant but to also find someone else to give them consistent offensive production because without a lot of three-point shooting (13-of-41 on Saturday) their margin for error against a Jazz team that bombs away from deep is very slim.

With Olivia Rodrigo, pop fans finally have a star who is doing Drake and J. Cole numbers. After notching her second No. 1 single with the release of “Good 4 U,” the emerging Filipina songwriter is reportedly on track to have not just “Good 4 U” in the top ten on the Billboard chart, but also have her other two early singles, “Drivers License” and “Deja Vu” surge back into the top ten — and have a fourth song added with Sour album cut “Traitor.”

Though rappers like Drake can easily see this kind of success off a new single, and even more independent rappers like J. Cole can stack the top ten during album release week, it’s incredibly rare for a pop star to be doing rapper numbers in this day and age. Olivia’s numbers for these four tracks are still just rumors, but it’s interesting that not only her first three singles have moved back up the chart, but an album cut has, too.

My money would’ve been on the album’s intense opening number, “Brutal,” but it appears more people have been on the verge of being cheated on but never had a song for it until “Traitor” showed up. Keep an eye out on Monday too see if these numbers get confirmed, and also to check up on Taylor Swift’s record-breaking evermore vinyl sale numbers. What a weekend for the pop girls.

Emo Nite lovers, get ready to be depicted on the big screen. According to a report from Variety, the massive EDM duo The Chainsmokers are among backers of a feature film about Emo Nite entitled Every Nite Is Emo Nite, which you have to admit is a pretty Emo Nite title. The film in development is based on fictional characters but will take place during the real-life events of Emo Nite itself gaining popularity in LA’s nightlife.

The screenplay for the film was written by Brandon Zuck, and it has the support of all of Emo Nite’s co-founders, along with The Chainsmokers’ production company, Kick The Habit Productions; rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, who has been on a roll with Power and other projects, Five All in the Fifth (Known for their Rick James documentary and the Hip-Hop Uncovered documentary) and 3BLACKDOT.

The Chainsmokers, aka Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, told Variety that while they might not be making emo themselves, the scene has deeply impacted their lives. “Emo music has greatly influenced our lives, taste and the music we make,” they said. “The community around the music is one of a kind, and we’re excited to showcase Brandon’s amazing story for the world to see.”

I, for one, will be purchasing tickets to see this film in theaters. Get more background on the film here.

Air travel over the last year has been fraught with additional safety regulations and fears of illness in the COVID-19 era, but as vaccinations help bring the pandemic to an end the return to the skies for some has been marred by poor passenger behavior on flights. And now some airlines are apparently trying to combat bad behavior by banning alcohol altogether.

According to the New York Times, two airlines are banning alcohol on flights, or more specifically extending a ban on alcohol from earlier in the COVID era. But the reason this time is that passengers acting out on flights, oftentimes ending violently and harming people working for airlines. On Saturday, reports circulated that Southwest and American Airlines will not serve alcohol to passengers in future flights.

Both airlines announced the policies this week after the latest assault was captured on a widely watched video that showed a woman punching a flight attendant in the face on a Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento to San Diego on Sunday.

The flight attendant lost two teeth in the assault, according to her union, and the passenger, who was identified by the police as Vyvianna Quinonez, 28, has been charged with battery causing serious bodily injury. She has also been barred for life from flying Southwest, the airline said.

As the Times report indicates, cases of disturbances on airlines have risen dramatically in 2021, in part because of disputes about mask mandates but also for other reasons, often ending in violence. The Federal Aviation Administration has seen about 2,500 reports of “unruly behavior” since January 1, about 1,900 of those failure to comply with mask mandates. One of those instances you can see below, a viral video that in part seems to have helped institute the policy changes.

As CNN reported, the change comes amid internal communications between Southwest and its employees about the rash of violent incidents between passengers and staff.

“Flight attendants are on the front lines every day not only ensuring our customers’ safety, but are also calming fears, answering questions, and enforcing policies like federally-required face masks,” said Brady Byrnes, managing director of flight service at American, in a memo to flight attendants obtained by CNN.

“Over the past week we’ve seen some of these stressors create deeply disturbing situations on board aircraft,” the memo said. “Let me be clear: American Airlines will not tolerate assault or mistreatment of our crews.”

Despite many mask mandates loosening for vaccinated Americans in states around the country, rules for mask wearing have not changed on flights and in many airports. The CDC recommendations, despite allowing vaccinated Americans to go maskless in most indoor settings, do not include on airplanes, which has clearly been a point of contention for some. Southwest said its policy of not selling alcohol on flights will last until September 13, which coincides with the listed end of the TSA’s current mask mandate on airplanes.

Game 3 of the Wizards-Sixers series went an awful lot like the second, as the Sixers continue to just overwhelm the East’s 8-seed with their size, defense, and shooting. The Sixers can seemingly get whatever they want on offense against the Wizards, which isn’t a huge surprise given how poor Washington was on the defensive end this season. Joel Embiid is dominating as he often does, Philly’s shooters keep finding themselves wide open for catch-and-shoot opportunities, and after a slow Game 1, Ben Simmons is carving his way to the rim to put additional pressure on Washington.

On the other end, the Wizards simply don’t have the firepower to keep up. Their Game 1 performance was admirable to stay close throughout, but even the best from Bradley Beal wasn’t enough to topple Philly. Now, with Beal ice cold from three-point range, Davis Bertans providing almost nothing, and Russell Westbrook putting up normal Russ numbers instead of the outrageous stats he was posting late in the season, there just isn’t anything keeping Washington in contact with Philly over the course of 48 minutes. The result in Game 3 was a 132-103 throttling from Philadelphia with Joel Embiid setting a new playoff career high with 36 points on 18 shots and all five Sixers starters reaching double figures while all playing 32 minutes or fewer.

This isn’t unusual in a 1-8 series, but the way this series and the Bucks-Heat sweep went, it has, for some, called into question the necessity of seven game series in the first round. There’s no way the NBA, its TV partners, and the owners would ever give back the extra games they get with 7-game sets, but I would like to put one idea into the ether for consideration: Create a 3-0 skunk rule for the sake of everyone involved.

No team has ever erased a 3-0 deficit to win a series and only three teams in any round have forced a Game 7 after going down 0-3 (once in the first round, Portland against Dallas in 2003). The upside to playing further are, mostly, the teams get an extra game of revenue, it’s another game for the TV partners, and, well, that’s pretty much it. There are few if any Wizards fans who want to see this series continue after the way the last two games went. There are probably a few Sixers fans who enjoy watching Embiid torture Washington who will be excited for Game 4, but I think even they would trade an extra day of rest and ensuring the health of all their stars for the honor of watching Embiid send Daniel Gafford into the dark dimension again. The ratings of Game 4s at 3-0 will almost always be rather abysmal, so you could even pitch the TV partners that it would help raise their overall ratings average for the postseason by giving them up, leaving the owners of the teams down 3-0 (almost always the road team in the series) as the chief losers in all of this as they forfeit a game’s worth of revenue to avoid the indignity of getting thwacked once again on national television.

That last point ensures the league will never go for such a thing, but we can dream of a day when we can just end a series we know is over. Teams already are aware of the history of teams down 0-2 who lose Game 3, and if the sense of urgency created by being in that scenario isn’t enough to push them over the top, then it’s time to put an end to it. Alas, the Sixers and Wizards will meet on Monday in Washington once again, with Philly just looking to put this away and stay healthy, while the Wizards will claw one more game’s revenue away from the faithful fans that make the trek to the arena for what will assuredly be the last home game of the season, win or lose.

After Taylor Swift’s Folklore swept in last summer to dominate 2020, and ended picking up the Grammy for Album Of The Year at the ceremony a few months ago, it seemed like her stranglehold on the industry might finally be rescinding, leaving room for her acolytes like Olivia Rodrigo to shine when it comes to record-breaking pop. But they’d be wrong — and forgetting about one little thing. Folklore wasn’t even the only album Taylor released while the rest of us were just barely keeping afloat during quarantine. Her second 2020 record, Evermore, came out right before Christmas, and it seems like that timing might have something to do with that album’s latest record-breaking feat.

According to the Twitter account for industry monitor, Chart Data, Evermore is on pace to break the all-time record for most vinyl sold in a week, with between 80,000-100,000. Is that fans who are just now getting the album in the mail? Buying extra copies for their friends to stream all summer? Is it Olivia fans realizing they need to check back in on the woman who inspired their fav? No, truthfully this is the first weekend where the album has been available on vinyl in stores, and perhaps the pre-orders are counted in that whopping number, too. Given this impressive introduction, Evermore just became the next album on the docket to rack up accolades for Tay. Odds are, this album’s story has only just begun.

The NBA Playoffs is often described as a marathon, not a sprint, but in the current era of social media many struggle not to overreact wildly from game-to-game during seven game series. It can be hard to take the long view and not resort to hyperbole based off of one result, and as such some analysts and talking heads can’t help but have their takes swing violently from night to night when discussing the same series.

Among those who feels it is his duty to fire off a take about every game and offer a proclamation about what it means going forward is ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, who fired off this thought after the Blazers dropped Game 3 to the Nuggets as Nikola Jokic went off once again.

Calling out Kanter’s defense isn’t necessarily breaking news, but lumping Jusuf Nurkic in with Kanter, when by every possible metric the Blazers have been buoyed by Nurkic’s presence in the second half of the season on that end, was a significant misstep. On Saturday afternoon, Nurkic dominated in a Portland win to even the series at 2-2, and afterwards he responded to Perkins by saying it was a “weak” thing to say and noting that in the modern NBA, Perkins would be little more than a mascot.

Perkins, unsurprisingly, had a response ready, highlighting his own defensive prowess in his prime in Boston.

https://twitter.com/KendrickPerkins/status/1398781633868845056

The way Perk’s career came to a close has certainly clouded the memory of how solid he was for those Celtics teams of the late aughts, and he did have some tremendous defensive performances. That said, Nurkic’s point about the modern NBA is salient as how often bigs are tasked with guarding in space would’ve likely made Perkins less effective. The real lesson in all of this is to remember that in seven-game series, especially one that has gone back-and-forth with each team getting wins, is to fight the urge to make wild declarations, even if your job is to be a takesmith as Perkins is at ESPN.

The baseball gods, if you believe in such divine creatures, are fickle as hell. Especially when you play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Already besieged with cost certainty and ownership more interested in the bottom line than investing in talent on the field, the Steel City’s baseball team has seen some wild things happen over the years. And often they unfortunately go against their favor.

Earlier in the week, for example, the Pirates gave up a run on a play best described as the entire team forgetting how to play baseball. But on Saturday, the Pirates got one back in a game against another team struggling to prioritize winning, the Colorado Rockies.

With the Pirates already up 1-0 in the third, a wild throw into left field gave them an easy second run on an E2. But the throw never really needed to happen: the pitch that led up to the throw to third was outside for a ball. A fourth ball, which would have put the man trying to steal third on the base anyway.

Instead, the ball got past the third baseman nowhere near the bag, and that runner trotted home instead. It’s little consolation for what happened earlier in the week, as it was an error far more routine than a first baseman forgetting that he can simply tag first base to record the final out of an inning. But it is a sign that even teams that forget how to play baseball can benefit from the weirdness of the sport we know and love to see people struggling to execute during the summer months.

While a huge portion of the streaming audience is spending their Memorial Day weekend watching the Friends reunion special, those with Disney+ were given a new add-on option in the new Cruella movie. The Emma Stone-led origin story of the villain from 101 Dalmatians franchise is best described as “gritty,” even if the biggest news from the movie was anything but. That’s because a supposed leak of a pivotal scene from the film went viral, in large part because it was bizarrely funny out of context.

Serious spoilers ahead here, as the rest of the post discusses one of the major reveals from the movie that hit the Disney streaming service (and theaters) this weekend. But, well, Cruella’s origin story apparently follows a lot of other famous works: namely that she’s evil and really hates Dalmatians for a very personal reason: they killed her mother.

In a clip that went viral on Twitter this weekend, a scene from the movie apparently showed the death of Cruella’s mother in front of her as a child. And it was, well, dogs to blame. Dogs running wild and pushing her mother over a cliff to her death. No, really. Many people were shocked that the film resorted to a classic motivational trope here, especially with it being dogs killing a human. Which is why the clip, and many tweets referencing it, quickly went viral.

That disbelief, however, soon gave way to memes that doubled down on the absurdity of dogs plotting the death of a girl’s mother. Especially out of context, the clip was pretty absurd.

It had a few people offering up ideas for future origin stories.

Or even more nuanced origin ideas that would have spawned fewer memes.

There were just other really good Cruella memes out there, too.

We’ll see if Disney continues down this path for antagonist origin stories, but this one didn’t go down as gritty as they hoped this time around.