Category: News

Kamaru Usman (17-1) earned a decision victory over Jorge Masvidal (35-14) to keep the welterweight championship in the main event at UFC 251 from “Fight Island” at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Masvidal opened the first with a slew of swift leg kicks, but Usman caught one of them and took the challenger to the mat. Masvidal worked off his back and jumped back to his feet, where he landed stinging knees and a sharp elbow. Usman went for the takedown again, but the challenger fought it off. Masvidal appeared to stun Usman with a right hook late before the end of the round.

Throughout the second, Usman had Masvidal backed against the cage, where he traded stomping his feet and attacking his body. Toward the end of the round, Masvidal showed some life and landed a handful of shots.

The third was much of the same, with Usman dropping Masvidal with back-to-back takedowns. Usman controlled the ground and went to work on Masvidal’s midsection. Usman pushed Masvidal against the cage to open the fourth yet again, trading foot stomps with body shots. Masvidal exploded out of the clinch and moved forward with his own burst of attacks. That was short lived though, with Usman yet again earning an advantage by holding Masvidal against the cage.

In the final round, Usman took Masvidal to the ground again, where Usman chipped away with elbows and maintained a dominant position. With less than a minute remaining, Masvidal made his way back his feet and began throwing a flurry of strikes but didn’t have enough left to finish the fight.

After resurrecting his career to the tune of three consecutive wins, most recently winning the Baddest Motherf***er championship, Masvidal has called for a title shot for the last six months. Gilbert Burns got the opportunity instead, but Masvidal stepped in on one week’s notice after the challenger tested positive for COVID-19.

His opponent, Usman, also saw a meteoric rise over the last year, beating Tyron Woodley in an incredibly one-sided tilt before breaking Colby Covington’s jaw in an impressive first title defense.

Seven months after their first showdown, Alexander Volkanovski (22-1) made good on his promise to keep his featherweight title run going with a decision victory over Max Holloway (21-6) at UFC 251 from “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi.

Volkanovski and Holloway needed much of the first round to get reacquainted, with neither fighter in a rush to get the action started. The champ attacked Holloway’s leg early, chipping away at this challenger in their return bout much like he did in the first go-around. Holloway sat down on a right that looked to stun the champ and dropped him toward the end of the round with a right head kick.

The champ opened the second with repeated stinging leg kicks, but it was Holloway who was able to piece together combinations as swelling started to show on Volkanovski’s left eye. Up top, anything Volkanovski attempted, Holloway used his length to counter. Again toward the end of the round, Holloway sent Volkanovski to the mat, this time with a quick uppercut counter.

Volkanovski started to find openings in the third, continuing to chip away at Holloway’s lead leg and snapping short combinations inside. Holloway stuffed a takedown attempt midway through the round and continued to press forward with a healthy mix of attacks.

In the championship rounds, it was Volkanovski again pushing forward, opening a cut across the bridge of Holloway’s nose. The challenger appeared to stun Volkanovski with a spinning kick to the abdomen, but the champ battled right back with a takedown. Holloway immediately sprung to his feet and charged ahead with a snapping jab.

Holloway and Volkanovski came out swinging in the final round, with each fighter throwing heavy-handed shots. Late in the round, Volkanovski took Holloway to the ground yet again, but the challenger was burst back to his feet. With a minute remaining, Volkanovski picked up the pace again, shooting over and again while looking for opportunities to end the fight, but it went to the judges.

Volkanovski came into his first title defense unbeaten in the last six years and 18 fights, including wins over Holloway, Jose Aldo, and Chad Mendes. Holloway lost two of his last three fights coming into the co-main event. Before his loss to Dustin Poirier in 2019, Holloway hadn’t lost in five years.

Woj Bombs are going to be left unlit for a little. According to multiple reports, ESPN has decided to suspend Adrian Wojnarowski for an undetermined amount of time following the headlines that the veteran basketball reporter made earlier this week. The news was first reported by Ryan Glasspiegel of Outkick and eventually confirmed by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post.

Earlier this week, United States Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri sent a letter to a collection of media personalities that called on the NBA to, among other things, disclose how much money it makes in China. Wojnarowski apparently received this in his inbox and decided to send Hawley a two-word response that summed up his thoughts on the matter.

A myriad of individuals started to call for some sort of punishment for Wojnarowski. He eventually offered up a statement that apologized for the email — which Hawley, in a corresponding tweet, did not seem to accept — and ESPN sent out a statement of its own that called Wojnarowski’s email “completely unacceptable” and “inexcusable.”

The only detail we know of the suspension is that, per Marchand, it will be unpaid. It is unclear whether or not his suspension will conclude before the NBA’s bubble league in Orlando tips off at the end of the month.

Theater fans are still abuzz about Hamilton‘s appearance on Disney+, so much so that the mention of a retired basketball player named Rip Hamilton caused some considerable confusion on social media. Or at least that’s the best working theory anyone can come up with after the phrase “Rip Hamilton” trended on Saturday and confused a lot of different sections of the internet.

Hamilton‘s streamable version first appeared on July 4 weekend in the United States and saw a surge of people signing up for the streaming service and tweeting about the show’s movie format. For many fans, it was the first time the show’s critically-acclaimed soundtrack came to life, and the reaction to seeing it in motion was a huge social moment. According to a Hollywood Reporter story about the rise of big streaming movies gaining viral buzz, people on social media tweeted about Hamilton two million times on the holiday weekend, three times what the buzz of its Broadway debut in 2015 garnered.

But that attention caused a lot of trouble when people started tweeting “Rip Hamilton” and no one could quite pinpoint whether it was because of some news about the show, the basketball player Rip Hamilton, or merely people noting the anniversary of Alexander Hamilton’s duel with Aaron Burr, which eventually killed him a day later.

Given the intense interest and scrutiny of any and all Hamilton content, the confusion is understandable. And there’s a somewhat interesting history of entertainment fans not into sports completely unaware of, say, a character on The Good Place‘s favorite quarterback actually existing as a real human being. Because a lot of people had no idea Rip Hamilton was a fairly famous athlete.

Hamilton, of course, played for three NBA teams from 1999 to 2013 and won a title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He’s beloved for his play with that Pistons team and for his decision to wear a mask the remainder of his playing career after breaking his nose twice during that championship run. If the trend started because of him, it’s likely because of this ESPN tweet about masked players, of which Rip is pretty clearly the most iconic and thus may have prompted a lot of responses with his name in them.

Rip, to his credit, also claimed that he wore it best.

Some people were even worried that Rip Hamilton had, you know, died.

To non-hoops fans, though, the confusion is understandable. “RIP” along with the name of a thing often trends on Twitter when it is widely discussed, usually when something scandalous happened and some are attempting to “cancel” it, so to speak. Which is why many theater fans and perhaps some denizens of Canadian cities on Lake Ontario were confused when “Rip Hamilton” was trending on Twitter on Saturday night.

There are, of course, a considerable number of basketball fans who are also aware of the musical Hamilton, so the middle of that Venn diagram isn’t exactly the product of an obscure pairing. Those in the middle were far from confused Saturday night, but perhaps amused that a plastic mask-wearing former Piston got a lot of theater folks worried about Lin-Manuel Miranda for a little bit.

A mint copy of one of the most beloved classic video games was sold for a record-breaking price at auction this week. The 1985 title Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System, was sold by Heritage Auctions recently that broke the record of $100,150 the same title sold for at an auction last year.

Super Mario Bros. is a classic for a number of reasons, starting with that it was the most popular NES game in the console’s history. It also is the first appearance of Bowser, a staple of the franchise moving forward. All of that is why a copy in very good condition had already owned the current record for highest-priced video game sale in history. But this new copy, also in remarkable condition and featuring a few unique elements, broke the record recently and went for a record $114,000.

As The Verge pointed out, Heritage Auctions explained in detail that a very special feature on this copy made it particularly valuable: cardboard hangtags that are an odd part of the game console’s packaging history.

What’s the deal with cardboard hangtabs? one may, understandably, wonder. Cardboard hangtabs were originally used on the US test market copies of black box games, back before plastic was used to seal each game. As Nintendo began to further establish their company in the US, their packaging was updated almost continuously. Strangely, the addition of the plastic wrap came before the box cutting die was altered to remove the cardboard hangtab. This rendered the functionality of the cardboard hangtab completely useless, since it was under the plastic seal.

There are four sub-variants of the plastic sealed cardboard hangtab box (this particular copy of Super Mario Bros. being the “3 Code” variant) that were produced within the span of one year. Each sub-variant of the cardboard hangtab black box, produced within that timeframe, had a production period of just a few months; a drop in the bucket compared to the title’s overall production run.

The new record copy was graded 9.4 out of 10, about as close to perfect as you can expect for a game that was released more than three decades earlier.

[h/t The Verge]

After seeing the video of the everyday hero who called out the racist rant of Kelly Anne Wolfe, we should all go out and purchase a bicycle if there is even a chance we could become as cool as this guy.

The unnamed citizen was riding his bike through the streets of Toronto and came across a group of people eager to get out their message that no one needs to wear a mask. When they handed him a “face mask exempt” card, he calmly ripped it up.

Racist anti masker Kelly Anne Wolfe in Toronto

www.youtube.com

Some of you might be aware of the cards people are handing out absolving anyone of responsibility to wear a mask. These cards have appeared all over social media, claiming the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has cleared certain individuals from wearing protective face covering because of mental and/or physical conditions. Last week, the DOJ claimed that it does not endorse any such identification.”Do not be fooled by the chicanery and misappropriation of the DOJ eagle,” U.S. Attorney Matthew G.T. Martin of the Middle District of North Carolina said in a statement. “These cards do not carry the force of law. The ‘Freedom to Breathe Agency,’ or ‘FTBA,’ is not a government agency.”

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As seen in the video, these anti-maskers are pushing the “face mask exempt” cards on everyone who passes by, including our man riding a bicycle who took the card and turned it into confetti. And that is when things took a bit of an unexpected turn.

You can hear another anti-masker announcing through a megaphone, “If somebody is being rude to you, the only thing you say to them is have a good day.” You then see Kelly Anne Wolfe, a name that sounds like she’s Trump’s next press secretary, saying, “That’s okay. Those are the people that walked the Jews into the gas tanks.”

She repeats it again, using the same grammatical and historical inaccuracies from her original statement. Someone tells her to be polite. Of course, she responds saying: “I’m being polite. It’s a fact.” The Bike Guy decides he’s not going to let this slide. He asks, “What was that?” while filming the entire event on his phone. Kelly Anne repeats the same racist comment for a third time. Bike Guy just says, “Oh, good. Thank you. I got you on video.”

“Anyone who is going to commit to this kind of civil obedience is the same kind of people that believed their government when they walked the Jews into the gas tanks,” she says, for a fourth time. Bike Guy is stunned.”Hmmmm,” he says. That’s pretty much all he had to say. Take a lesson from Bike Guy. Capturing the anti-Semitism lets the world know that these hateful words still exist. It brings light to the situation and hopefully will inspire change.

Kelly Anne went on to say that she is a successful musician with “13 degrees in psychology,” a master’s degree in political science and is a member of Mensa.

Bike Guy laughs, uncontrollably at her, saying, “How much did you pay for those degrees?”

She quips, “He’ll never be as smart as me.”

Her science knowledge might be laughing but we’ll give her an honorary degree in unintentional stand-up comedy.

If you still think that wearing a mask is a violation of your civil rights, just read about Richard Rose.

As a country, we need to band together and protect each other. People are still dying every day. Thank you, Bike Guy. Thank you for bringing this type of ignorance to the forefront. For the record, I do not believe that you were responsible for the Holocaust, despite the accusations of Kelly Anne Wolfe. We all applaud you for taking a stand and getting it on video.

The Pinkett Smith family was the talk of the Internet on Friday when Jada Pinkett Smith’s tell-all interview on Red Table Talk covered some serious relationship drama between herself and Will Smith. The Facebook Watch show became the center of drama when Pinkett Smith disclosed a relationship she had with 27-year-old musician August Alsina while she and Will were separated.

Both Will and Jada Pinkett Smith took part in the tell-all interview, in which the two detailed their separation and the relationship Jada had before the two apparently reconciled. The episode, entitled “Jada Brings Herself to the Table,” addressed headlines about Pinkett Smith and Alsina that the family had initially denied, clarifying the timing of the romantic relationship and addressing what happened and an attempt to find “peace through pain.”

Social media was abuzz with the episode’s details and further rumors that it sparked, and all that talk certainly translated into viewers. According to the Daily Mail, the episode garnered more than 12 million viewers in just 16 hours, far and away the most popular video in the platform’s history. As of this writing, the episode has more than 17 million views and counting, and as talk about the episode and its fallout intensifies that’s sure to increase in the coming days.

Interestingly, Red Table Talk also had the record for another scandal-filled episode that featured an interview with Jordyn Woods which detailed the Tristan Thompson cheating scandal. That episode had a one-day record of 7.6 million views, a record now dwarfed by Pinkett Smith’s own drama.

The Philadelphia 76ers, one can argue, is the single-most interesting team entering the NBA’s bubble league in Orlando. The team is healthy, which hasn’t always been the case this season, and if they can iron out some of the wrinkles that emerged a little more frequently than you’d like, they have legitimate aspirations of winning a championship under such incredibly unique circumstances.

It also helps that basketball fans are going to get a unique look at life in the bubble thanks to a member of the Sixers’ roster. Rookie wing Matisse Thybulle posted a video on Saturday afternoon showing his journey from Philly down to the bubble, along with what life is like for an NBA player in Orlando.

Thybulle tweeted out that this isn’t some project being put together by members of Philly’s communications team or anything like that. The No. 20 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft tweeted that he shot and edited the entire video himself — which, if I may be honest, makes the way he used Mase’s “Welcome Back” around the 2:11 mark all the more impressive.

A quick Google search indicates that Thybulle majored in communications during his time at the University of Washington, so it stands to reason he cut his teeth making videos while he was in school. Regardless, we’re excited to see how this all turns out, if only because we’d enjoy frequent updates on how the food is in the bubble.

The NBA’s bubble league in Orlando will have a few goals. From a basketball perspective, 22 teams will head to Disney to try and determine a champion for the 2019-20 campaign, which has been on pause since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But following the nationwide unrest in the aftermath of George Floyd death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, the league — following some lobbying by a handful of players — will use this as a chance to highlight the worldwide efforts to protest police brutality and systemic racism.

One way this will happen is that NBA players will get their pick of a number of words and phrases that they can wear across the backs of their uniforms in place of their last name. A collection of players have already picked out which phrases they’ll wear, but on Saturday afternoon, we learned that LeBron James will go the more conventional route and put his last name across his back.

As James explained, while he is in support of the initiative — which is by no means mandatory for players who participate in the bubble — none of the messages from which he could choose resonated with him.

James alludes to this, but the various phrases that players can wear were agreed upon following conversations between players and the league. There’s no word on which words or phrases James would have wanted to have in lieu of his name, should he have opted to go in that direction.

This week, a Supreme Court ruling has acknowledged that, at least for the sake of federal criminal prosecutions, most of the eastern half of Oklahoma belongs to the Muscogee (Creek) Indian Tribe. The ruling enforces treaties made in the 19th century, despite objections from state and federal governments, and upholds the sovereignty of the Muscogee to prosecute crimes committed by tribe members within their own lands.

The U.S. government has a long and storied history of breaking treaties with Native American tribes, and Indigenous communities have suffered greatly because of those broken promises.

Stacy Leeds, a former Cherokee Nation Supreme Court justice and former special district court judge for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, described the ruling in an article on Slate:

“Yesterday’s long-awaited United States Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma pulled no punches in recognizing and reaffirming the political and territorial boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The court held that the treaty-guaranteed geographic borders of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation survived Oklahoma statehood and that these reservation boundaries remain legally valid jurisdictional markers for criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens.

The court noted that Oklahoma repeatedly overstepped and stretched its governmental powers beyond what federal law provides. In short, Oklahoma has no legal authority to prosecute Native Americans for crimes committed within an Indian reservation. Oklahoma spent a century actively creating a law on the ground that was contrary to the law on the books.”

Leeds also described the history of the U.S. abrogating its own laws, violating treaties, and abusing non-native police powers in the name of “law and order” on Indian lands. “Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law,” the Supreme Court ruling states, in a rebuke Leeds called “powerful.”

“If ever there were a statement to capture the collective experience of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities across the United States, that was it,” she wrote. “Might does not make right.”

Native American groups also celebrated the ruling, with the National Congress of American Indians saying in a statement they “applaud” the decision, “which confirmed that the treaty-defined boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation still remain in full force today.”

The NCAI continued, pointing to the specific treaties being upheld:

“Through treaty, the United States ‘solemnly guarantied’ the Muscogee (Creek) Nation their reservation as a ‘permanent home’ in exchange for leaving their eastern homelands (Treaty with the Creeks (1832) and Treaty with the Creeks (1833)). In a later treaty, the United States reaffirmed that the reservation was ‘forever set apart as a home for said Creek Nation’ (Treaty with the Creeks (1866)).

Today’s historic decision by the United States Supreme Court reaffirms that understanding. In issuing the opinion of the Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch said, ‘Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.'”

Holding the government to its word. What a novel idea.

Leeds pointed out that the ruling wasn’t radical, but right in line with what we should expect in sovereign nations, which the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is:

“The sun came up just fine in Tulsa today. Oklahoma state court judges will do their jobs and exercise jurisdiction over most crimes that take place in Oklahoma for the rest of their careers.

Thirty-six miles to the south, Muscogee (Creek) Nation judges will do their jobs today, but for the first time in over a century, they will exercise jurisdiction over all of their citizens who commit crimes within their nation. It’s not a radical notion. It’s a basic right of governance exercised all over the globe.”