Sports, Ink

Ali-Frazier in video perspective

If you weren't around when Joe Frazier fought Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight championship in the 1970s, you can find plenty of fight footage on YouTube and other video sites. To put into perspective what their first bout meant in 1971, a time of social unrest in the country and an era in which a boxing match could command the nation's attention, give a look to HBO's 2000 documentary, "Ali-Frazier I: One Nation ... Divisible."

The whole program is available on YouTube. Part I is below.

 

--Greg Connors

 

Post Time: Florida Derby locked and loaded

By Gene Kershner

Has there been a stranger week than this past one? First, a No. 11 seed (VCU) advances to the Final Four.  Next, an Egyptian cobra escapes from the Bronx Zoo. To top it off, the Maryland Jockey Club announces its mascot for the Preakness is a centaur named Kegasus. Does this mean we’re in store for another Derby trail upset again this weekend?

The Derby trail returns to Florida on Sunday afternoon with the $1 million Florida Derby to be run 1 1/8 miles over the Gulfstream Park strip. The race is loaded with talent with Fountain of Youth winner Soldat, Holy Bull winner Dialed In, Nashua/Remsen winner To Honor and Serve and Gotham winner Stay Thirsty. Throw in allowance winners Flashpoint and Arch Traveler both looking for graded stakes earnings and a trip to Louisville.

The Florida Derby has long been a key prep race on the road to the roses. Just in the past five years, two Kentucky Derby winners, Barbaro (2006) and Big Brown (2008). Last year’s winner, Ice Box, finished a game second on the First Saturday in May, and without a difficult trip, may have been wearing the roses in the winner’s circle.

While last weekend’s prep races were rather uninspiring, over the next three weeks it is much more likely that you’ll see this year’s Derby champ running in the Florida Derby, the Wood Memorial or the Santa Anita Derby.

When we reviewed the Fountain of Youth last month, we thought that 2-To Honor and Serve needed a race under him, and he finished third behind 1-Soldat and Gourmet Dinner. The Bernardini colt has been working out extremely well and should improve off his last effort. He should have some value if the betting public uses his last race as an indication of how he will run on Sunday.

With the speed involved in the race, where 8-Flashpoint most likely will go to the lead from the outside post, the pace scenario may work right into the wheelhouse of 7-Dialed In. A true closer, look for Dialed In to be flying late, and picking up the pieces if the race falls apart. Nick Zito ran him in an allowance race off the Holy Bull, so he comes in third off the layoff off a bullet four-furlong workout at Palm Meadows.

The Gotham winner 6-Stay Thirsty enters for trainer Todd Pletcher. Uncle Mo’s stable mate was forced to ship down to Florida with Mo scheduled to run in next weekend’s Wood Memorial on Aqueduct’s main track. The Gotham field certainly wasn’t as strong as this race, so we’ll only use Stay Thirsty underneath in exotics.

We see a late closing Dialed In overtaking To Honor and Serve at the wire as the favored Soldat tires in the stretch. 

Post Time selections:
1st – Dialed In
2nd – To Honor and Serve
3rd – Soldat
4th – Stay Thirsty

Good luck and let’s cash some tickets!

Gene Kershner is a Buffalo-based turf writer, handicapper and member of the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance who blogs at equispace.blogspot.com and tweets @EquiSpace.

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Pound for pound, the best

     February 15, 1949 - The phrase has become a cliche over the years - the best pound-for-pound boxer in the history of the sport. It was applied to Sugar Ray Robinson, and it remains in force to this day - more than a half-century after his prime.

     Most people in Western New York don't remember that Ray Robinson fought in Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium - twice. Not only that, but he didn't win here in this particular bout. And that was quite unusual.

     Robinson came to town as the welterweight champion of the world, sporting a 90-1-1 record in his career. Think about that - 90-1-1. His opponent in the nontitle bout was Henry Brimm, his opponent for a March 16, 1948 fight in the Aud. Robinson won a unanimous decision in that bout, but this time the two men fought to a draw over 10 rounds.

     Sugar Ray might have been a little tired. He fought Young Gene Buffalo -- honest! - in Wilkes Barre, Penn., only five days before his Buffalo bout. Robinson won that fight with a first-round knockout.

     Sugar Ray won every fight after that until 1951, when Randy Turpin beat him in London. Sugar Ray finished with a 173-19-6 record when he finally retired in 1965.

---Budd Bailey

UFC: Packing a punch

Buffalo News columnist Bucky Gleason profiles ultimate fighter Rashad Evans, a Sanborn native, in Saturday's Buffalo News.

Evans knocked out UFC star Chuck Liddell in September, a punch that makes the rounds on You Tube.

On Saturday night, Dec. 27, Evans fights for the UFC light heavyweight championship against Forrest Griffin in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Tonight's purse hasn't been announced but, to quote Gleason: "Evans stands to make more money in 15 minutes or less than he ever imagined when he was a wrestling and football star at Niagara- Wheatfield High."

What do you make of the sport of professional mixed-martial arts, which combines boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, jujitsu and other forms of fighting?

Rewinding Tuesday: Some sporting debate

There were no baseball games on television Tuesday night. ESPN's programming was relegated to Madden (the video game, not the "BOOM!" guy) and poker.

But that didn't mean there wasn't any sports on TV.

"You don’t run the four corners when you’re behind," said Republican media guy Alex Castellanos on CNN, yearning for John McCain to push the ball upcourt after the second presidential debate.

Baseball fans know what happens when a player reaches the base at the same time as the ball. Maybe CNN's Gloria Borger is one of them. In talking about the effect of poll-leading Barack Obama not losing the debate, she said: "Tie goes to the front-runner."

Over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews' show is called "Hardball" but he and his guests had boxing on the brain.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman referenced the story of fellow Pittsburgh native Billy Conn; ostensibly (sorry, I flipped over halfway through) because Barack Obama had not gone for a knockout punch late in the debate, as Conn did against Joe Louis.

"In the 13th round when he had him on points," Matthews summarized, "[Conn tried] to take out the Brown Bomber and the Brown Bomber took him out ... you are Pittsburgh until the end, Howard Fineman."

Panelist Pat Buchanan got his gloves up, describing an Obama line (the shot about McCain's "bomb, bomb Iran") as "a solid haymaker punch which really landed."

Later, Matthews called McCain's "not you, Tom" response to moderator Tom Brokaw's question about the selection of a Secretary of the Treasury as a "suckerpunch."

The most bizarre politics/sports collision of the night was a Fox News story about a voter registration fraud probe in Las Vegas. One of the alleged violations was that a canvasser filled out forms not with the names of actual people interested in registering to vote, but with the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys, including Tony Romo and Terrell Owens.

The debate was already being described as not being a "game-changer." That term, which has been very popular throughout the political season, sounds like a sports term but really isn't.

Until now, perhaps?

Man, did you see that Reggie Bush on Monday Night Football? He's a real game-changer.

---Keith McShea