(10) Georgia Tech vs. (2) tOSU | (5) Michigan State vs. (4) Maryland | (10) Missouri vs. (2) West Virginia | (12) Cornell vs. (4) Wisconsin

It wasn’t the first time Williams and a Guillen have butted heads over the interwebs. Ozzie wasn’t allowed to create a web page despite the fact that he had MLB’s blessing. Ozzie has been tweeting though and its much dumber than anything @OswaldoGuillen could have possibly dreamed up. I really can’t believe that Ozzie Guillen is a real person. It blows my freaking mind.

Every week The Sports Hernia and Cousins of Ron Mexico will recap the top five stories of the week. They are listed by importance, humor and relevance with a high degree of historical perspective in mind. Mostly, we’ll be reviewing the stuff TBL has run into the ground over the last few days, but sometimes a story slips through the cracks. Or some third reason allowing us to bring up something pointless.

This week, instead of covering the top stories, we’re going to cover the top 5 things about March Madness. Besides, who gives a shit about Tiger Woods coming back to play golf in a month? (Shut up, Spencer.)

1. Lots of Basketball
CRM – Have you noticed how much college basketball is televised during the tournament? That shit is crazy.

TSH – Is it me, or does CBS’s MMOD player go to commercial every 30 seconds? Yes, I recognize that this complaint is in the direction of an online source that gives us live games in HD for free, but what can I say, dwelling on the negative is healthy for the soul.

2. Alcohol

CRM – The reason this is being posted on a Saturday.

TSH – Currently feel horrific.

3. Gambling

TSH: It’s a massive upset that I still haven’t gotten into gambling.

CRM – The safest bet is that I love Jimmer.

4. You’ve Got A Team In The Tournament
TSH – For five months, I really thought this dude’s name had to be Jim, or Jimmy. Nope, Jimmer is all too real. He dropped 37 yesterday. As much as Ty Detmer sucks, I’m firmly in BYU’s corner the rest of the way.

CRM – As you may have noticed, I’ve adopted BYU because of my absolute favorite player in the world, Jimmer Fredette. Last year I live-blogged their loss to Texas A&M over at Deadspin. This year, I spent Thursday at my brother’s house with some family. It was awesome and then fucking awful and then fucking amazing. Jimmer!

5. Not Working

TSH – This.

CRM – Who?

Honorable Mention: Yes, we bronzed that thread from earlier this week … To CRM and TSH for writing this week’s top five on a bar napkin … A fucking hat!

TJ Fredette Rap Video of the Week

If you don’t root for Jimmer, Michael Loyd Jr (full name only, please) and BYU tonight you’re dead to me.

Of course, by “mixed” I mostly mean (for the most part) “piss poor.” With all these pretenders and wannabes thinking they can either stay relevant or actually compete there comes a philosophical issue for the people in charge of major MMA promotions like the UFC and Strikeforce – “Do we take advantage of someone who has no business competing at the highest level to help ratings and make money? Or do we say no and continue to look like a professional organization?” Its the kind of stuff I climbed on a soap box and audibly feared two years ago.

Brock Lesnar is the exception that proves the rule. After a stellar career at the University of Minnesota, failing to catch on with the Minnesota Vikings and becoming a superstar in the WWE, Brock Lesnar turned his focus to MMA. When Dana White gave Lesnar a shot, it was against a former – and future – UFC Heavyweight Champion in Frank Mir. Lesnar lost his debut, but the foundation was set. He was a monster of a man and a freak athlete. From there he won his next 4 fights including a rematch against Mir.

Kevin Freguson played football at the University of Miami and became famous because of internet clips of his brutal backyard, parking lot and underground brawls. As his legend grew, people wondered if he could be the same force inside a cage with a referee watching. He signed with Elite XC where he never did anything notable and eventually lost a fight in front of the biggest audience to ever watch a mixed martial arts event in history. Results be damned, people wanted to watch Kimbo Slice. Now he’s in the UFC – a place Dana White said he would never be.

Bobby Lashley has followed the Lesnar plan. A former collegiate wrestler and Olympic hopeful, Lashley made a name for himself in professional wrestling. Another physical freak, Lashley worked his way through smaller promotions before finally signing with Strikeforce. There are still questions about Lashley’s ability as he hasn’t fought any of the top-tier heavyweights under contract with Strikeforce. That doesn’t look like it’ll be changing anytime soon.

Jose Canseco has been a freak show since he was still playing baseball. We all know the dumb shit he’s done since then, including fighting the 7-foot 2-inch, 320 pound, Hong Man Choi.

Herschel Walker turned to MMA in his late 40’s and won his debut on the main portion of a Strikeforce card on Showtime. It was one hell of an achievement for someone his age, but what purpose did it serve? A future possible fight for Walker could be – wait for it – Jose Canseco.

Former Detroit Lion Johnnie Morton took a shot at MMA a few years back. It was the lat time anyone heard from Johnnie Morton outside a Ty Duffy post.

Ray Mercer is a former heavyweight boxing champ. Mercer knocked out Tim Sylvia is a pseudo-exhibition-boxing-kickboxing fight. Sylvia was just a couple short years removed from the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Sylvia is the same guy who wouldn’t tap when Frank Mir broke his arm.

This brings us to James Toney, a 41-year-old boxer who hasn’t been relevant since… I don’t know. You’d have to ask someone that follows boxing. Closely.

Presumably taking inspiration from Ray Mercer, Toney decided he wanted to fight in the UFC so he started making unintelligible YouTube videos and following Dana White around. Eventually, White caved. No one knows for sure why he decided to give a washed up boxer a chance (Strikeforce was interested in signing him, he was afraid he would sit on him, no one knows), but he did, signing Toney to fight sometime later this year.  Of course, that didn’t mean the dumb videos would stop.

So what does this all mean? What place does this have in the biggest organizations in MMA? Japan-based fight organizations have held fights that you’d consider freak show fights alongside legitimate bouts for years. It’s a thin gray line, a fence that’s being straddled and whatever other metaphor you can think of for something that makes you shrug your shoulders.

Can the sport continue to grow at this pace if these – for lack of a better term – interesting match ups aren’t scheduled alongside high-level competition? Or has MMA hit a glass ceiling where everyone that will watch is watching? What if this is the only way to get new people interested. Could this be the sports world’s version of jumping the shark?

The truth is, fans hear about these signings and they shake their heads. What the hell is James Toney doing in the UFC? Herschel Walker doesn’t deserve to be part of the main card of a freaking Strikeforce event. This is ridiculous! In fact, its the exact same stuff I was railing against two years ago.

And then we tune in to see the train wreck. I watch and so does everyone else. While I recognize the audacity of these signings, I’ve grown enough to not be pointlessly offended by them. MMA has more in common with professional wrestling than some people want to believe. Spectacle is an important part of the show and these fights provide that.

Not every fight on every card is going to have a title implications. We’re already treated to fights that are simply made to be entertaining, these fights are just an extension of that. So if the UFC and Strikeforce want to keep signing these guys who serve no purpose but to draw new eyes, that’s their prerogative. Its our job as the spectator to know the difference and if there are a couple few million dummies simply watching to see Jose Canseco and Herschel Walker compete in celebrity kickboxing, so be it.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Here’s video of the 4th round of the Pacquaio – Clottey fight. The reason this video is interesting is because it actually captures Clottey throwing some punches. PacMan threw 1231 punches over the 12 rounds while Clottey only managed 399 attempted strikes. Pacquaio won virtually every round as one judge scored it unanimously for Pacquaio (120-108)  and the other two felt bad about the idea of Clottey getting shut out, so they gave him a single pity round. (119-109, 119-109) The fight was about as one-sided as a game of Fight Night on XBox360 when one player puts down their controller and leaves.

You can’t really blame Cottey, what was he supposed to do? Mess up the monster payday coming to Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather when they finally meet later this year? Mayweather is set to face Shane Mosley on May 1st. After Mayweather dances his way to the win, we’ll be subject to more bullshit negotiations as they try to build hype for the only fight that anyone is actually interested in seeing. Jim Lamply certainly won’t miss it.

(Bang Bang Bang vid via Guyism)
Read actual insight into the fight - The Rumble, ESPN, FanHouse, USA Today