I was a little preoccupied.
Programming will continue to be irregular over the next couple of weeks while we fiddle around in anticipation of SportsMyriad 2.0. But please do stay tuned.
The battle for beach volleyball’s soul
When we last checked in on the AVP Tour, the rest of the season was in jeopardy. Now it’s gone.
We also noted last time that beach legend Karch Kiraly had some sort of low-key tour going on as well, and he was touting old-school volleyball with larger courts, a different ball, the old 15-point must-serve-to-score scoring, etc.
With the AVP on hiatus, the city of Manhattan Beach (Calif.) scrambled to save its prestigious event. They’ve done so, with one hitch — they’re going old school with the rules.
Count Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh among those who are unhappy and refusing to play. And a few jabs about the international game being here to stay are included in the midst of Hans Stolfus’ emotional, comprehensive blog post about the AVP situation. (HT: Manhattan Beach Confidential)
Take it from a soccer journalist — niche sports divided do not stand.
Midweek Myriad: PanPac swimming, Diamond League finals
Yes, I’m spending some time away from the computer this week. Coincidentally, I’m pondering a remake of SportsMyriad.com. The experimental phase should be at an end soon; the question is what follows.
This is an unusually busy midweek for Myriad sports — CONCACAF Champions League group stage games, UEFA Champions League playoffs featuring teams you might be able to find on a map, plus the culmination of some swimming and track and field seasons.
Track and field: The Weltklasse Zurich meet wraps up roughly half of the Diamond League events. The shot putters got an early start. The rest of the meet is Thursday on Universal Sports online. Events to watch: men’s long jump (Dwight Phillips leads but hasn’t clinched), women’s 400 (Allyson Felix, who has clinched 200, leads here as well) and women’s long jump (Brittney Reese has narrow lead) . You’ll also see victory laps for Jeremy Wariner (men’s 400), David Oliver (men’s 110 hurdles) and Carmelita Jeter (women’s 100). The most curious event is the men’s 200, where runaway leader Walter Dix has withdrawn, leaving Wallace Spearmon a chance to clean up.
Swimming: The Pan Pacific Championships — mostly USA, Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea, but with a handful of people from non-Pacific places like South Africa — are on Universal Sports and Swim Network.
Soccer: Seeing Joe Public FC play at home in Trinidad carries a reminder of a sad incident in international youth soccer. The stadium is named for Marvin Lee, a Trinidad & Tobago Under-20 player who was paralyzed in a collision during a game and died a couple of years later. The player with whom he collided — Landon Donovan.
MMA: Sorry for the lack of advance warning, but you’ll want to get to a TV now to see WEC on Versus. Dominick Cruz and Joseph Benavidez are in the main event.
MLS player ratings: Aug. 18-22
After nine games last week, it’s another full slate this time.
Volunteer via Twitter, Facebook or the comments, then leave your comments below:
All times ET
Wednesday
Chicago-New England, 8:30
Saturday
Toronto-New York, 1
San Jose-Los Angeles, 4 (TeleFutura)
Columbus-Colorado, 7:30
Dallas-Chivas USA, 8:30 (FSC) – I’ll take one of the 8:30s
Houston-Chicago, 8:30
Kansas City-New England, 8:30
Sunday
D.C. United-Philadelphia, 2 – me
Friday Myriad: EPL madness
Catch up on your EPL previews now. Check out the whole team-by-team series at The Guardian.
MLS, meanwhile, has Donovan vs. Henry. Sign up to do player ratings.
We also have an interesting grab bag of events from a pretty big gymnastics competition to a USA Basketball friendly.
FRIDAY
2 p.m.: Track and field, Diamond League, London Grand Prix. Check the preview and hope the stream works. Universal Sports online
3 p.m.: Soccer, Bayern Munich-Real Madrid. Interesting friendly. ESPN / ESPN Deportes / ESPN3
11 p.m.: MMA, Strikeforce Challengers. The main event is veteran Joe Riggs vs. Louis Taylor, and Randy Couture’s son, Ryan, makes his debut. But most eyes are on the women’s tournament, featuring Miesha Tate and Carina Damm. Showtime (delayed to 11 p.m. PT on West Coast)
SATURDAY
7:30 a.m.: Soccer, Tottenham-Manchester City. Online only? ESPN3
9:30 a.m.: Track and field, Diamond League, London Grand Prix, Day 2. Universal Sports online
10 a.m.: Soccer, Aston Villa-West Ham. Your first EPL game of the year on FSC should feature at least one American (Brad Friedel) and a lot of chatter about a possible American coach (Bob Bradley). FSC
12:30 p.m.: Soccer, Chelsea-West Brom. Your first Big Four game of the year on U.S. TV. FSC
3 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) semifinals. ESPN2
4 p.m.: Action Sports, Dew Tour. NBC
4 p.m.: Soccer, Philadelphia-Colorado. TeleFutura
5:30 p.m.: Soccer, New York-Los Angeles, including a 30-minute pregame to hype all the Designated Players. FSC
7 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) semifinals. ESPN2
8 p.m.: Gymnastics, Visa Championships. NBC
SUNDAY
11 a.m.: Soccer, Liverpool-Arsenal. Your first really, really big game of the EPL season. FSC
1 p.m.: Basketball, USA-France. ESPN2
3 p.m.: Tennis, ATP Rogers Cup (Montreal) final. ESPN2
4 p.m.: Action Sports, Dew Tour. NBC
6 p.m.: Soccer, WPS, Boston-Sky Blue. FSC
MORE MYRIAD
- Full soccer listings at Soccer America: MLS, EPL, Mexico, elsewhere in Europe and Latin America.
- Selected weekend listings at USA TODAY
- ESPN3: Soccer, tennis, Aussie rules and a bunch of different forms of baseball, from Little to Mexican.
- Tennis Channel: WTA Cincinnati.
- Universal Sports: More gymnastics, track and field, triathlon, FIVB beach volleyball.
- More Olympic sports: The Youth Olympic Games open for the first time Saturday in Singapore. Women’s volleyball has World Grand Prix action with occasional streaming.
MMA tournaments: How to, how not to
The UFC started with a simple concept — eight men, one tournament, one winner.
Since then, the “tournament” idea has remained but has been spread over more time. Japanese promotions have often held quarterfinals one night, then held semifinals and finals on the same night a couple of months later. Strikeforce will do the same with a women’s tournament Friday night (11 p.m. ET, Showtime).
Bellator, which opens its third season tonight (check with your local FSN affiliate) has opted for season-long tournaments over a couple of months. The UFC isn’t such a fan of the tournament concept, but that’s essentially what you get in The Ultimate Fighter.
Shine Fights has announced an old-school fight card next month in Fairfax, Va. Eight fighters — some notable — fighting up to three times during the night for a tournament title.
Several reasons why this is a tricky concept:
1. No time to promote. With The Ultimate Fighter, we know the fighters by the time they reach the final.
2. Logistics. Shuffling fighters in and out can be a challenge.
3. Fatigue and trivial injuries that can affect the outcomes. When one fighter has a brutal quarterfinal bout and the other sails through with ease, who do you suppose gets the win? And heaven forbid someone breaks a finger or gets a cut that would normally clear up in a couple of weeks but causes him to forfeit the next fight.
4. Serious injuries. Dr. Johnny Benjamin explains.
Diamond League: The pen-penultimate meet
As with many track and field competitions, the Diamond League is coming to a conclusion that should be exciting but is a little odd.
Each event is contested seven times during the spring and summer. The finals in each event are split between the last two meets in Zurich and Brussels. In those meets, the points are doubled — 8 points for a win, 4 for second, 2 for third.
This weekend’s meet in London is two days (Friday/Saturday, hopefully on a working Universal Sports stream), and it has the penultimate gathering for each event. Except, for some reason, five — men’s 200, men’s 800, men’s 5,000, women’s 100 and women’s pole vault.
The full standings in PDF form are here under the link “Actual Standings.” The events to watch, admittedly from a provincial U.S. point of view:
MEN
100: The marquee sprint has been disappointing because of the injury wave among the Big Three of Usain Bolt (JAM), Tyson Gay (USA) and Asafa Powell (JAM). Bolt only ran twice, beating Powell in Paris and losing to Gay in Stockholm, before shutting things down for the season. Powell leads the Diamond Race with 10 points, winning two races, but he sat out in Stockholm. Powell, Richard Thompson (TRI, 7 pts) and Gay (4) are all scheduled to start. They’ll run two heats, so several more Americans are in the current field of 16.
400: Jeremy Wariner (USA, 16) is 4-for-4 and can clinch the Diamond title by beating Jermaine Gonzales (JAM, 8), who won in Wariner’s absence in Monaco.
110 hurdles: David Oliver (USA, 16) has dominated the event with four wins and should make his season title official here. Ryan Wilson (USA, 6) is second. Dayron Robles (CUB, 4) won in Oliver’s absence in Rome but will miss this one.
400 hurdles: Bershawn Jackson (USA, 16) has three wins and has twice finished second to Kerron Clement (USA, 10). Clement is out, so Jackson almost has this one sewn up.
Long jump: Dwight Phillips (USA, 12) has had a good season-long duel with Fabrice Lapierre (AUS, 11). Irving Saladino (PAN, 7) also is in the mix and upset Phillips in Eugene.
Shot put: Christian Cantwell (USA, 20) is the only male athlete with a perfect record. He has clinched the season title ahead of Dylan Armstrong (CAN, 6).
Javelin: Andreas Thorkildsen (NOR, 18) won the first four of the season but finally dropped one to Tero Pitkamaki (FIN, 8), leaving a mathematical chance that the Finn could catch him.
WOMEN
200: Allyson Felix (USA, 10) took control of the event with two straight wins after a loss to Veronica Campbell-Brown (JAM, 4). She’ll virtually clinch it here.
400: Felix (USA, 8) has two wins here as well, sharing the lead with Amantle Montsho (BOT). They’re both entered in London along with Shericka Williams (JAM, 5), Debbie Dunn (USA, 5) and everyone else.
800: Alysia Johnson (USA, 8) has won the last two events to take the lead from Janeth Jepkosgei (KEN, 7). This is wide-open — 10 runners have points.
100 hurdles: Lolo Jones (USA, 13) is looking to bounce back from an upset loss in Stockholm. She leads Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (CAN, 10) and Sally Pearson (AUS, 4), who finished 2-1 in Stockholm.
400 hurdles: Lashinda Demus (USA, 12) won the first three, then stumbled in Monaco and isn’t entered here. Kaliese Spencer (JAM, 12) is.
High jump: Blanka Vlasic (CRO, 20) has edged Chaunte Howard-Lowe (USA, 10) in all five meets so far. Vlasic has all but clinched the title, but their competitions have been entertaining.
Long jump: Brittney Reese (USA, 10) won in Lausanne and Paris ahead of Naide Gomes (POR, 7) before both lost in Stockholm to Darya Klishina (RUS, 5).
Javelin: An American contender in a women’s throwing event? Kara Patterson (USA, 8) trails Barbora Spotakova (CZE, 12).
Other events:
MLS player ratings: Aug. 11-15
Thanks to all for your contributions to Week 1 of the MLS player ratings project. As Lois Griffin once said about dinner, it was so much fun, we might as well do it again.
Let me know via comments, Twitter or Facebook if you’d like to handle one of the games below, then leave your ratings in the comments. Then tell all your friends to come over and check out your brilliant analysis. (Actually, I was quite impressed with all the contributions.)
All times ET
Wednesday
Philadelphia-Salt Lake, 7:30
New York-Toronto, 7:30
Saturday
Philadelphia-Colorado, 4 (TeleFutura)
New York-Los Angeles, 6 (FSC)
New England-Houston, 8
D.C. United-Dallas, 8
Salt Lake-Columbus, 9
San Jose-Kansas City, 10
Chivas USA-Seattle, 11
MMA: Not pro wrestling
Mixed martial arts has a few historical links to professional wrestling. The connection is stronger in Japan than in the USA, but it exists here. They’ve chased some of the same audiences, and a couple of people have existed in both worlds. Ken Shamrock went back and forth between the two. Brock Lesnar left pro wrestling behind to climb quickly to UFC heavyweight champion. We even have an overlap in journalism — Dave Meltzer, who dove aggressively behind the scenes with Wrestling Observer, is a very good MMA writer.
No one would want to drum Lesnar or Meltzer out of the sport, but MMA fans have every right to play up the differences between their sport and the scripted version. Luke Thomas minced few words on Twitter today (not that Twitter gives anyone much leeway to mince words) in talking about it: “I’m going to start swinging a machete if we keep pretending MMA is professional wrestling.”
Thomas, who hosts “MMA Nation” on WJFK and is the editor of great MMA blog Bloody Elbow, expounded in two more Tweets. Combining them: “The other issue that folks need to consider is the longer you pretend there is a cozy relationship btw MMA & pro wrestling, the longer you put off integration into the larger sporting audience. They will not accept it on those terms. And who can blame them?”
Thomas is a passionate defender of MMA as a sport and not just a spectacle, something Bloody Elbow’s critics in the fight world should remember. And he’s right.
In Japan, fans and the media may be more accepting of close links between the “fake” and “real” worlds. In the USA, that’ll go over as well as the “European carry-all” on the great old Seinfeld episode.
All of this is in the wake of UFC 117, which played out like a pro wrestling storyline, vividly spelled out at Watch Kalib Run. Chael Sonnen hyped the fight with ludicrous overstatement, dominated for most of the fight and then lost when Silva pulled a submission win out of nothing. That’s Sonnen playing the heel to Anderson Silva’s babyface.
It’s not a perfect analogy. Sonnen had a lot of fan support against Silva, whose popularity has suffered through some erratic performances.
But the differences between MMA and pro wrestling were more apparent in the rest of the card, which no one would script:
– Jon Fitch took a typically methodical win over Thiago Alves in the type of bout.
– Matt Hughes, a few years past his championship run, beat Ricardo Almeida with an improbable choke. (Maybe you’d script that one.)
– Clay Guida beat Rafael dos Anjos on an injury — a Guida punch injured dos Anjos’ jaw, and dos Anjos tapped out when he was caught in a hold that made the injury worse.
– Junior dos Santos beat up Roy Nelson in a matchup of contrasting builds.
UFC fight build-up is sometimes nasty. Lesnar and Frank Mir had some pointed exchanges, and Lesnar went way over the top in celebrating his win. But it’s generally a different vibe. Even Sonnen and Silva embraced after the fight, with Silva going out of his way to praise a fighter who had spent several months ridiculing him.
As a journalist who has come to love this sport, I’m with Luke. I can deal with pre-fight confidence-building boasts, but not with pro wrestling-style histrionics. I’d bet I’m not the only one.
Update: At Bloody Elbow, Kid Nate sums up one of the problems — the more MMA resembles pro wrestling, the more likely observers may think it’s predetermined.
There is no “try” — Adu or not Adu
Anyone made that pun yet? I think we’re all racing now to make the last possible pun on Freddy Adu’s name.
The young American’s status is up in the air again after a trial with Switzerland’s FC Sion didn’t pan out. (Aside to headline writers: “Not signing” and “failed to impress” or not the same thing.)
Now we have a report that Adu is “close to signing” with the Los Angeles Galaxy. My background doesn’t give me much faith in anonymous reports — which works out well, because no one ever tells me anything — but World Soccer Reader has shown itself to be more sincere and reliable in its reporting than most. And it’s interesting that the mainstreamers who could easily throw cold water on such reports have not done so.
“Close to signing,” of course, is a nebulous term, and many things can derail a deal that seems close to happening. This isn’t the NBA, where teams are basically bidding against each other for free agents, and players are weighing only a couple of factors. This is international soccer and MLS, where the multiple parties must agree on transfer terms, contract terms, compensation for the team holding allocation rights, salary cap impact, etc., etc.
So while we wait to see if this deal comes to fruition, we can ask: Should Freddy Adu come back to MLS?
I say no. Here’s why:
Adu is the classic example of how the old media “build up, tear down” celebrity cycle has been accelerated and magnified in the Internet Age. Some people thought he was never that good. Some people legitimately bought the “new Pele” line, though no one in a position of authority was actually calling him that. Some people thought he was several years older than he said.
Let’s destroy all three of those arguments, in reverse order:
Duresport.com 