What a week I'm having!

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Yo sports fans. What a weekend! mardi gras down at Soulard on Saturday. Oh my goodness. What a neat experience. I’ve never been there for a mardi gras celebration. Nice. People turned out in force. It was kind of cold outside but it did not matter. It was time to have fun and blow it out. And for me, it was time to throw beads. Now, at the beginning I wouldn’t just throw the beads out of fear of nailing an unsuspecting spectator in the face. The wind was kicking up and my command wasn’t there on Saturday. So at the beginning I would walk the beads up to someone and just hand them over. But half way through the one mile parade route I was doing my best Rick Ankiel pitching impersonation. My lord we had so many beads in the back of the 101espn van that I thought there’s no way we are going to give all these out today. Boy was I wrong! I remember right before the parade started moving, (we were float #72) some drunken guy told me “with beads you are a rock star!” I thought he’s full of it and drunk, wrong again. People went berserk for beads! I’m still amazed at how crazy get for two cents worth of plastic. Now I am a guy and don’t get me wrong. I like to do guy stuff. But I have a problem making someone I don’t know show me their “private parts” just for me to toss beads to them. Just ask me and nine times out of ten I’ll just give them to you. I didn’t pay for the freaking beads! And they will most like likely wind up in a landfill somewhere so I really don’t care who gets them. And, I kind of hated being the bead czar anyway. You can’t please everyone. But I did try to give beads to kids first and tried to stay away from some of the people who looked like they had had way too much fun way too soon.  I hope everyone made it home safely.   

Saturday night I bought a pay per view boxing event. I think it cost somewhere around $45 to $50 bucks. It was completely worth it for me. I love nothing better than a fight night at the crib. Set out the munchies. Stock the fridge before first bell. Make sure I returned all my phone calls so no one calls during the fight. Check, check, and double check! Kicked back on the couch and completely lost myself in the broadcast. Charlie Steiner of ESPN Sportscenter fame was the lead broadcaster for the night and let’s just say that HBO’s Jim Lampley doesn’t have much to worry about. Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini did his best to add his perspective to the fights. It was tough sledding early but I knew what he was trying to say most of the time so I enjoyed his insight.  It was a Top Rank event meaning Bob Arum was the promoter for the event so I knew most of the fights would end by knock out and I was right. Four fights, four knockouts! Bob likes to give people what they want and schedules matches accordingly. Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik were the headliners. Though they did not fight each other, (Cotto is a welterweight at 147 lbs and Pavlik is a middleweight at 160) they were both fighting for the same thing, redemption. Both were coming out bad losses in their previous fights. Cotto was blasted into submission by Antonio Margarito in July. Pavik was beaten soundly by Bernard Hopkins last October.  Both guys needed big wins on Saturday to prove that they still had something left in the tank, and to secure bigger fights down the road. The opponents were meaningless Saturday. They were good fighters with equally good resumes but were largely unknown and most likely hand picked by Arum. They seemed to be over matched form the start. Cotto who fought in Madison Square Garden, looked like he was over the loss to Margarito. He knocked his opponent out in the 5^th round winning the WBO welterweight belt. Fighting in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio Pavik scored a 9^th round TKO retaining his middleweight titles.  

Not a bad weekend!