With only one weekly football game, no baseball, and no basketball, how has NBC Sports managed to become the worst national broadcaster of sports in the country?

Well, that’s a pretty simple answer: When you screw up the Olympics as badly as they did, and when you consistently mangle your tennis coverage, you end up with a well-earned reputation at being failures at your job. The main problem: NBC refuses to show major sporting events live, insisting instead on putting them in “prime time,” showered with analysis and features. Just show us the damn game/match/event.

There isn’t a lot that NBC Sports is trusted with. But when they are trusted with covering an event, we expect them to do it well. I can put up with glitches in broadcasts and even technical problems — they happen, but what I can’t put up with is not showing the events you are supposed to be showing.

NBC ruined the Olympics in 2008 by insisting on showing the “marquee” events in prime time, even if that meant a long tape delay prior to airing. In today’s world of the Internet and instant news, it is impossible to keep any suspense until the taped coverage begins. So those of us on the West Coast particularly, knew the results of everything that was going to be aired on NBC on the night of Olympic coverage. So what did we do? We didn’t watch it.

Of course, when we really wanted to watch something, NBC forced us to do so on their Web site. Occasionally things were on another channel, which was nice, but too often we were forced to watch these great sporting events in inferior quality on the web. The Olympics was a massive failure for viewers all over the country due to NBC.

This week, they were at it again, as they chose to air a taped Wimbledon match that they damn sure knew was a three set drubbing, rather than show the only American man left in the tournament in the best match of the tournament so far. Viewers in the United States were forced to watch Andy Roddick play Lleyton Hewitt on the Internet (NBCSports.com again), once again in inferior quality, while the television showed a taped, three-hour old Roger Federer drubbing.

Even the New York Times says it is time for NBC to walk away.

The problem is, NBC is convinced that us viewers want to watch a giant production, in prime time, with analysis, of every major sporting event. We don’t. We want to watch the sports, live, as they happen.

NBC screwed up the French Open as well, and they have certainly done this to us sports fans many other times in the past. For that matter, we went through this at Wimbledon last year, too.

ESPN gets it. For all of the things that I don’t like about the Worldwide Leader, at least they show things live. If a big soccer match starts at 3am, ESPN will show it live. Same with tennis and baseball. Now if only they would learn that when they do show things on tape (sometimes it’s necessary), they remove the final score of what they are showing from their ticker. But baby steps…

In fact, ESPN’s coverage of the first week of Wimbledon was fantastic. DIRECTV even provided a mix channel that let me pick what match I wanted to watch — live, at 4am. It wasn’t until the second week, when NBC played their exclusivity card that all of a sudden I couldn’t watch tennis anymore.

While we’re at it, let’s throw in the story that NBC wouldn’t allow the Pittsburgh Penguins to show a playoff game on a big screen outside of their arena, something that the Pens had done throughout the playoffs. They continued to air any games broadcast on FSN, but NBC put the kibosh on their broadcast being used.

Yeah, I get it — it’s all about advertising. NBC wants more people watching their broadcasts of games at the times they want them too to maximize revenue. But at what cost to the actual broadcast? Sports don’t work in tape delays, and sports broadcasts don’t work when the top priority is the advertisers and not the fans.

Say what you will about ESPN, but at least they put the game first.

NBC, on the other hand, could apparently care less about the sports it is broadcasting. When that is the case, then they need to get out.

When it comes to ranking the sports broadcasters in the United States, the only thing that is clear is the NBC is dead last. The day that NBC is outbid for the Olympics and tennis coverage is going to be a great day for sports fans who actually want to watch sports when they happen. Until then, I’ll just continue to not watch sports on NBC, since I already know the results of what they are showing.

These two phone calls are tied together by the same common ingredient. Tillman left the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers after Sept. 11, and was eventually sent to Afghanistan, where he was ultimately killed by friendly fire. Had the first phone call not been necessary, the second also wouldn’t have happened.

I remember getting a call first thing in the morning on Friday the 23rd of April from my co-host at the time, Paul. He was broken up, having just heard the news that Pat was killed the day before, April 22. From that point on, my phone didn’t stop ringing. Everyone I knew also knew Pat Tillman. All of my colleagues also covered the Cardinals and most had covered the Arizona State Sun Devils when Tillman was playing there as well. We all felt like we lost a friend.

I spent the rest of that day at the Arizona Cardinals training facility, where a makeshift memorial was set up. Fans poured in all day to pay their respects to Tillman. There was a giant banner out in front of the facility, which soon became completely hidden behind the flowers, baskets and homemade signs.

It was extra busy at the Cardinals facility, since the next day was the NFL draft. I had the duty of anchoring our station’s coverage of the draft, something that thankfully gave me something else to think about during that day as I did research and prepared notes. I spent the entire day at the Cardinal facility, partly amongst team personnel and partly amongst fans. I was a fan of Tillman, both the football player and person, but I was also a reporter with a job to do. Needless to say, this wasn’t my favorite ever workday.

The next few weeks were spent reading the news, trying to find out what really happened to Pat. There were memorials for him in Arizona and California. During the next football season , there were multiple tributes by both the Arizona Cardinals and the Arizona State Sun Devils, both of which were very moving. For a year after his death, it seemed like it would be impossible for people to ever forget Tillman.

What has gotten lost over the years is who Pat Tillman, the person, was. Every news story about Tillman now seems to be about the war or his death, not about his life. Pat was a great person, and to those of us that had the privilege to have met him, he was exactly what his legend has become. He would talk to anyone, and about anything. He didn’t care if you were famous or just passing by. He was a genuinely nice person, and more than likely, everything you’ve ever heard about him is true.

Lost in the mix over the years is that he was a great football player. I know that in the long version of the story he was so much more than a football player, but to a lot of people, that was an important part of him. The reason it matters is that he wasn’t supposed to be good in the NFL. He was a 7th round draft pick that went on to be a damn good NFL player. He was an undersized, overachieving linebacker in college and became an undersized, overachieving safety in the NFL.

Perhaps some people want to say that Pat was an Army Ranger and a great man that happened to be good at football, but to some of us, Pat will always be a great football player that was also a great man and an Army Ranger. His football career does not have to be mutually exclusive from the rest of his life.

In fact, it was his football career that made him a news story and a hero. Pat had the opportunity to make more money than a guy like him would ever be able to spend, but it was more important to him to do what he felt was right. I will also never forget standing in a radio studio when we got the phone call that Pat Tillman was retiring from football to join the Army. We thought it was a joke for about ten seconds, then thinking about Pat we all thought, “yeah, that’s about right.”

Being a football star brought a lot of attention to Tillman’s decision, attention he didn’t necessarily want. But it was warranted attention. In an age where heroes are hard to find, here was one in our backyard. Tillman understood that there were far too many soldiers who weren’t getting any attention for making the same decision, and in his time after the NFL, never spoke of his decision. He didn’t want to be treated any differently than the men and women he was serving with.

It’s easy to forget about Tillman as the wars, football and our lives continue on. But five years after the death of Pat Tillman, I still remember him, I still think of him and I still remember every detail of April 23, 2004 — the day after Pat died and the day we all found out. Every year when the NFL draft comes along, I’ll be reminded of Tillman, and I only hope that everyone else finds a way to remember him as the years go by.

But what happens when a change may need to be made for the good of the game, and the union is against it? Do they let the game suffer to keep their “hard-earned” lifestyle and bargaining agreement? Do they fight to win, regardless of right or wrong, like they did with steroid testing? When it comes to a salary cap, getting the union to agree may be the most difficult negotiation in sports history.

One thing, however, is getting more and more clear with each passing season: Major League Baseball needs a salary cap. The parity that exists in baseball is a myth, and restoring the competitive balance can only be achieved with control of salaries and a proper revenue sharing program.

There are some intelligent people that I respect, like CNBC’s Darren Rovell, that point out that baseball has had 10 World Series winners in the last 15 years (16 actually), therefore there is enough parity that a salary cap for that reason is wrong.

But those winners (Phillies, Red Sox [twice], Cardinals, Marlins [twice], Angels, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Yankees [four times], Braves and Blue Jays [twice]) don’t tell the real story about why a cap is needed.

Just because you have 10 champions in 16 years doesn’t mean that the season and the league have true competitive balance. All it means is that in those 16 years, 10 different teams have had playoff success. What it doesn’t tell is who is making the playoffs.

What it also doesn’t tell is that in the last 16 years, eight championships came from the top four media markets in the country, and another two from the top media market in Canada. That is not competitive balance. That is major market dominance.

Baseball is not a sport that creates the most deserving champions. After 162 games, the best teams usually make the playoffs, but five and seven-game series are not the best way to crown “the best team” in baseball. It’s just too small a sample. Therefore, basing all of baseball’s level of competition and competitive balances on World Series winners alone is flawed.

So let’s go a little deeper.

Competitive Balance vs. Other Sports

Since 2000, seven MLB teams have not been to the playoffs (Expos/Nationals, Royals, Pirates, Blue Jays, Reds, Orioles, Rangers). In the NHL, NBA and NFL combined, two teams have missed the playoffs (Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions) since the turn of the century. That’s it. Every NBA team has made the playoffs this decade, and every hockey team has made the playoffs — and they skipped a season!

The seven teams that baseball has not seen go to the playoffs is more than three times as many as all of the other major professional sports combined.

That is not competitive balance.

That is clear proof that Major League Baseball has created a situation where only certain teams are even capable of success, a situation that is exclusive to baseball.

Since the player’s strike in 1994 caused the cancellation of the postseason, salary caps have been a touchy subject. A salary cap is the reason we had no World Series in 1994, and it’s the reason that baseball is facing another threat to its well-being in the foreseeable future.

The only sport with no salary cap has the least competitive balance. Coincidence?

How Salary Caps Affect Competition

The premise of the salary-cap-promotes-parity argument is simple: If teams all have to spend about the same amount of money, then everyone has a fair chance of winning.

I agree with many people that it just isn’t that simple. Imposing a salary cap, by itself, does not promote parity. What it does, as part of a bigger system, is include revenue sharing whereby teams from the biggest markets, perhaps even with their own television networks, provide a level playing field across the board with teams that genuinely can’t do that.

You could make the argument that teams like the Oakland A’s have done pretty damn well for having such a low average yearly payroll. I can’t argue that. But can you argue that they are not doing as well as they could be? When a team excels like Oakland has at finding young talent, how fair is it that the day those talented players hit free agency, they’re gone.

The Florida Marlins have proven that they are as good as anyone at scouting and building a winning team. But twice after winning the World Series, they have had to have a huge fire-sale to get rid of everyone before their contracts skyrocketed. Small market teams can have fleeting success, but because of the economic conditions in baseball, they can’t maintain it. That is where the problem lies.

A salary cap, and the matching salary floor, coupled with a solid revenue sharing program, will allow teams like these to compete year-in and year-out. It’s not fair that teams like this have to take a year or two off after being successful, just to stay in business. The Cubs, meanwhile, haven’t put a World Series winner on the field in over a century, but being in Chicago, they can do business differently.

It’s not just about competing for salaries, it’s about competing in business. The Cubs and Yankees don’t work off of the same business model as the Marlins and A’s. Being in the same league and the same sport, that’s just unfair.

What Works and What Does Not

The NHL

The NFL, NBA and NHL all have some form of salary cap, and yet they not only survive, but they thrive.

The NHL has seen better days, but it’s not the salary cap that caused their downfall. Their ticket sales are through the roof, with better attendance numbers than prior to the work stoppage. But because of their newest Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), they have moved on from the work stoppage.

The most important thing facing the NHL is keeping their business in the black. The only way to do that is for the wealthier cities to help out the not so wealthy cities, all the while allowing for even competition.

The NHL’s CBA includes a hard salary cap, as well as a salary floor, guaranteeing that each team’s total salaries stay within a predetermined window.

The NHL Player’s Association had vowed to never accept a hard salary cap, but after a year of no hockey, they gave in to the realism that it was going to have to happen if they wanted to play again. With the acceptance by the NHLPA of a salary cap, the league offered a version of revenue sharing that would allow for a higher salary cap, making both sides happy.

Since the lost season of 2004-05, the NHL has prospered. Certain cities continue to have financial troubles, but those are issues that run a lot deeper than salary caps and revenue sharing. Ticket sales are up league-wide, and when they get a better television contract — which they will eventually — the revenue sharing that is in place is going to help out many, many teams in the league while driving up the salary cap. Everybody wins in the long run.

The NBA

I’ve long felt that the NBA had the best CBA in all of sports. It has some things I could do without, and it is probably the most complicated of all CBAs, but overall, I think it is the best CBA for its sport.

Of the specific items in the NBA CBA that I like the most is the “Larry Bird” exception, as well as the maximum salaries. In the future, I think all leagues will need to have both of these in order to survive. Baseball is currently seeing similar drastic rises in salary that the NBA saw in the 1990’s, and in order to keep things in line, changes will have to be made.

The “Larry Bird” exception allows teams to resign their own players, regardless of their team salary. That means even if a team is over the salary cap, they can resign their marquee players to A) keep them happy, B) keep the fans happy, and C) not get outbid by another team simply because they couldn’t fit a superstar under the cap.

There are many “exceptions” to the NBA salary cap, allowing teams to sign players even if they don’t have the cap room to do so. While their rules and codes may be complicated, the NBA has a lot of good ideas that seem to be working in practice.

There is no doubt to me that some of the provisions from the NBA’s CBA must be included in a Major League Baseball salary cap.

The NBA has put in limits on rookie salaries (something the NFL will need soon), veteran salaries, and allowed for all kinds of exceptions to allow teams to work with the cap to create their team. This is why I believe that the NBA has the best system, and all future sports CBA’s should be based off of the NBA’s.

There are no penalties for being over the cap in the NBA, but there is a luxury tax. This is something that I think can be improved upon.

The NFL

Like the NHL, the NFL has a “hard cap,” meaning that you can’t go over it. For this reason, you see a lot more wheeling and dealing in the NFL than you do in the NBA with regards to the salary cap. You still don’t get a lot of trades in the NFL, but you see marquee stars get waived far more often than any other sport. The reason that that happens is that the NFL, in addition to the hard cap, does not have guaranteed contracts, allowing for high paid players to be cut and their salaries to not kill their cap numbers.

From Wikipedia:

“The salary cap has also served to limit the rate of increase of the cost of operating a team. This has accrued to the owners’ benefit, and is widely regarded as being responsible for the NFL being overall the most financially stable of the major North American sports organizations.”

The NFL is probably the best run of all of the sports, even if it is not technically the best designed. I prefer the NFL and NHL’s hard cap over the NBA’s soft cap, but I think each league has something to offer when creating the perfect CBA.

What Will Work For Baseball

So with all of this in mind, how do you create the perfect Collective Bargaining Agreement for Major League Baseball?

Well, step one is getting the Player’s Association and the owners to agree that baseball needs to make this change. Right now, there are several owners that are willing to entertain the idea of a cap. But getting the owners on board is the easy part.

The hard part is convincing the MLBPA that a salary cap works to their benefit. Currently, you have pitchers that are, by all definitions, below average, being paid ridiculous amounts of money. The salaries are no longer in line with the performances, but teams are still forced to overpay for mediocre talent just to have any talent.

Players like Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez will never support a salary cap, and even less likely to support it are players that think they are the next Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia or Manny Ramirez. These guys have at least already been paid, but the future is dependent on these exorbitant salaries to support them when they reach the top.

The players and their union fought tooth-and-nail to keep steroid testing out of the sport, now you want to drastically cut their potential salaries? Good luck with that.

But like the players of other sports, they will have to learn one way or the other that it’s going to happen eventually. You can do like the NFL and NBA and reluctantly agree to a cap and go on and prosper, or you can do like the NHL and fight it to the point of a drastic work stoppage, then take a massive pay cut and still get a salary cap. Which one sounds better?

The key to a baseball salary cap is to have a good combination of the other sports CBA’s, while preserving some of the things that makes baseball special — like the importance of the major baseball markets.

You don’t want to give a team like the New York Yankees a completely unfair competitive advantage for being so marketable, but at the same time, you can’t take that away.

The Perfect CBA

Revenue sharing is essential to the future of the sport, but so is a proper cap. You can’t just put a sharing program in place and set an arbitrary number for a salary cap, but you have to accept that they will happen and go from there.

Teams like the Yankees and the Mets are living in a different world than a team like the Minnesota Twins. Yes, the Twins can find and nurture talent, and occasionally put a good team together, but they just can’t sustain it. That’s why Johan Santana is with the Mets and not the Twins. It was about who could afford his next contract, and it wasn’t the Twins.

Baseball has a luxury tax system in place, and that’s a fine first step, but it’s just not enough. When teams like the Yankees scoff at the tax and pay it like it is a backup shortstop, it’s not doing its job. The luxury tax does not replace proper revenue sharing, it only adds a few bucks into the league’s general fund. Only a handful of teams even pay it, and at no point can you be guaranteed that a team will be paying it in future years. This means that you can’t put a proper plan in place to build for the league’s future based off of that revenue source.

To create a perfect CBA, I think you need to borrow from each of the other three major leagues and put their best pieces together.

I like the exceptions that the NBA has, but I think there needs to be a hard cap. The solution for that would be to have a soft cap with a strict luxury tax on top of it and less exceptions. If you are not signing players to the stricter terms of exceptions, then there would have to be a strict enforcement of the hard cap. The hard cap would only become soft with the signing of players to any of the exceptions.

From this point, some type of calculation could be made to create a “post-exception” salary cap, a number each team must fall under when you remove any exceptions from the total payroll. Think of it as a prorated hard salary cap.

In order for this or any cap to work, it must be paired with a lower-limit salary number. This means that you could no longer have your Florida Marlin teams that have entire payrolls below those of single players on other teams. With the increased revenue sharing, teams could no longer use the excuse that they can’t afford to compete, thus they would have to try to compete.

Why It Must Happen Now

Baseball is a numbers game. For over a century, people have read stats and box scores inside and out, comparing stats and inventing new ones. But it’s also a numbers game off the field. Agents like Scott Boras have taken over the game because of their ability to sell a player based on his stats. And since it is the only part of the game that Boras has to be concerned about, he’s often better at it than those sitting across from him at the negotiating table. Because of this, we are seeing salaries rise faster than the game can support, and the only way it will stop will be the bursting of the bubble, or calmer heads finding a proper solution.

Rather than watch our National Pastime crumble and fail, I’d rather see it overcome and be better. I want to see small market teams who are great at finding talent keep that talent and build a winning franchise, not just the occasional passing decent team. I don’t want to see players have to leave the team that nurtured them to take the bigger paycheck in a bigger city.

With the recent “steroid era” in baseball, fans are hesitant to embrace the sport like they did in their childhood. One way to win back the trust of the fans is to spread the love a little bit. Allowing cities like Kansas City and Pittsburgh to field a winning team is important. The successful football and hockey teams in Pittsburgh will tell you that they have loyal fans, they just don’t have the pure numbers to provide for their players like teams in New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.

It’s a shame when a baseball star is about to becomes a free agent and before the season is even over, you know that his options are limited to about six teams in the offseason. Competitive balance is not about how many teams have won championships in the last 15 or 16 years. Competitive balance is about allowing every team the opportunity to compete each and every year.

Right now, baseball doesn’t have that. A salary cap and revenue sharing program like all of the other sports have is the only way to accomplish this. The players might not like it, and some of the owners might not like it — but it is essential to the future of any sport in the 21st century.

The Player’s Association may be the strongest union in the world, but that does not make them right. They were wrong on the steroid issue and for that reason alone, the owners have the right to play hardball with them. At the end of the day, the owners are the ones writing the checks, and if they feel that this step needs to be taken to protect their business, they need to do it, union be damned.

Trust me — it’s going to happen. The question is does baseball want their salary cap to be instituted preemptively, or do they want to wait for a work stoppage and see if they can rebound again like they did after 1994.

For these reasons, I believe that the time is now for Major League Baseball to take the step to begin instituting a salary cap and revenue sharing program to save the future of the game.

On the offensive side of the ball, we told you that the biggest stories were injuries and disappearances. Michael Crabtree showed up with a broken foot and missing two inches of height, Andre Smith showed up and left, and Brian Mandeville showed up and had all of his hopes and dreams crushed when they told him he couldn’t play football ever again. Sadly, those were the top stories on the offensive side of the field.

On the field, Mark Sanchez surprised a lot of folks by working out and throwing, Pat White surprised a lot of folks by throwing so damn well (he’s quite fast, too), and the wide receivers may have stolen the show (ESPN Insider required for link). Jeremy Maclin and Percy Harvin were good (not great), but the not-so-big names flashed some wicked speed. Johnny Knox, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Mike Wallace were all impressive on their feet and have put the pressure on the DBs to show similar speed.

One of the biggest stories coming out of this combine is that the entire top-end of the draft, the marquee players, are all showing some kind of disappointment. Between Smith’s disappearing act and Crabtree’s shrinking act, there were already enough “uh-oh’s” from the projected top-ten picks. Then Sanchez and Matthew Stafford, the projected top two quarterbacks in the draft, both measured in at under 6′3″. That’s not good.

I’ve long been a believer in the theory that the worst thing you can do on draft day is take a quarterback high in the first round, and I think this year’s crew is going to reaffirm that theory. Next year will too, when Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow all turn out to be busts. The risk just isn’t worth the investment.

Well, after the weekend of not-so-stellar offensive combining, the defense took the field. One thing that immediately stood out — Aaron Curry is the real deal. Freak on the field, Workout Warrior. That is what makes someone a high draft pick. The linebacker out of Wake Forest was the fastest linebacker at the combine, and was outstanding in all of his other drills. He came in as the guy to beat, and probably solidified his high draft pick status. He may be the best football player in the draft, but is the NFL ready for a linebacker to be the first guy taken?

The defensive backs were the last ones to hit the field, wrapping things up at the combine on Tuesday. All eyes were on Ohio State’s Malcolm Jenkins, the perceived top pick at corner in the draft. But, like most of the other players not named Aaron Curry, he probably hurt himself more than he helped himself. His 40 times were in the 4.5-range (very average) and he was anything but spectacular in his on-field drills.

The most impressive defensive back at the combine may have been Jenkins’ former teammate at Ohio State, Donald Washington, who gave the best overall performances in both the vertical jump and the standing broad jump. But he too struggled with the 40. While some thought that his amazing leaping ability would translate to a sub-4.4 40, he landed in the 4.5-range as well.

There will likely be a lot of spin and debate about all of the performances, but the bottom line is that each team is looking for something different. Some teams want pure speed at corner or receiver, and others value hands. Since there is no “hands drill” that objectively measures the skill, us non-scouts can only take so much out of the combine.

Really, the combine has just become like any other job interview, where the most important thing is to show up, be prepared and make a good impression. If you do that, your proven football skill will determine where you get drafted. The majority of players don’t really hurt or help their status a whole lot at the combine, but some do (see: Smith, Andre).

As it was last year, top-notch performance by the NFL Network. Rich Eisen and friends cover the combine as well as one could want the combine covered. In fact, their coverage is so good that several NFL coaches have hinted at not showing up in person next year, since the television coverage is so good that you can get most of your information from home. Eisen also just missed out on making the top performers list with his 6.35 40-yard dash. But he did score a 35 on the Wonderlic, which was better than everyone at the combine in 2008.

Here’s your top performers from the 2009 Combine:

Fastest 40-yard dash

Darrius Heyward-Bey (WR, Maryland), 4.30
(though Johnny Knox did run an unofficial 4.25, Heyward-Bey had the fastest official time

Most bench reps

Louis Vasquez (OL, Texas Tech), 39 reps

Fastest 3-cone drill

Malcolm Jenkins (CB, Ohio State), 6.59

Highest vertical jump

Donald Washington (CB, Ohio State), 45″

Longest broad jump

Donald Washington (CB, Ohio State), 11′3″

Fastest 20-yard shuttle

Kevin Barnes(CB, Maryland), 3.96

Fastest 60-yard shuttle:

Brian Hartline (WR, Ohio State), 10.92

lukekohler.com Workout Warrior One

Aaron Curry (LB, Wake Forest), 4.56 40-yard dash, 25 bench reps, 37″ vertical, 10′4″ broad jump

lukekohler.com Workout Warrior Two

David Buehler (K, USC), 4.54 40-yard dash, 25 bench reps – That’s right — a kicker.

Here is a list of all combine performers and their relevant numbers.

But 2008 has brought us to a whole new level. What Roger Clemens and Brett Favre have teamed up to accomplish in “retirement” is practically as legendary and impressive as their actual careers were.

First Clemens put together the blueprint for how to go from first-ballot Hall of Famer to unwanted scumbag in one single offseason.

This was followed by Favre one-upping him with how his own How-To, showing us how to go from the most popular athlete in the history of Wisconsin — well on your way to the Hall of Fame — to being the guy that will now likely be remembered for the way he chose to leave the game, instead of how he played it.

Clemens was good, but Favre is redefining the role of Went-Out-The-Wrong-Way-Guy. Let’s face it, Clemens was always going to be hated in about 27 Major League Baseball cities, as well as the majority of non-MLB cities. Finding out about his (alleged) banging of the 15-year old, the selling out of his trainer, and the (alleged) drugs and such was not at all shocking, nor did it invoke any type of sympathetic emotions. More than anything, it just reaffirmed what many of us suspected about Clemens.

As for Favre, well that’s a different story. After 17 years in the NFL, Favre had guaranteed himself “legend” status. He could have gotten elected King of Green Bay, and served as such for life. The countdown to the Hall of Fame had begun. Favre could have spent the next 20 years hosting the occasional pregame show, hunting for dinner, and getting by just being “former legendary quarterback, Brett Favre.”

Now, there’s a good chance that Favre is forever remembered, even in Green Bay, as Hall-of-Fame-Asshole. I’ve never seen someone voluntarily kill their legacy so fast, and so drastically, as Mr. Favre.

Here’s the quick version of events.

• Favre has his best season in years, narrowly missing a chance to return to the Super Bowl. Choosing to go out on top (or at least closer to the top than recent years), Favre announces his retirement on March 6.
• For the next months, rumors continue to swirl that he never actually finished all of his retirement paperwork, and was considering playing.
• The Packers move on, proceeding to handle the draft and free-agency on the assumption that Favre would not be returning.
• Favre waits until August before deciding he has “an itch” to keep playing.
• Green Bay is not interested, so Favre wants a release.
• Green Bay will not release him, so Favre wants to play for Green Bay.
• Green Bay still does not want him, so Favre wants to be traded.

Blah, blah, blah…Favre thinks he should be able to be in full control, when it is he who in fact is the one screwing over the Packers, not the other way around.

Here’s the thing, folks. In the NFL, they have this thing called the salary cap. This is how much money your team can spend. When you plan for a season without last year’s highest paid player, you tend to make adjustments in the offseason to get back up to the cap. When you sign free agents, every dollar of that salary cap matters. When you sign your draft picks, every dollar of that salary cap matters. When your highest paid player waits until August to tell you he wants to play again, you’re completely screwed.

Another thing, when your franchise quarterback retires in March, that gives you five months to plan your offense around the new quarterback. Aaron Rodgers has been at camp full-time for the last five months preparing to be the quarterback. Offensive lineman and receivers are learning an offense custom built for Rodgers. So when Mr. Hall of Fame comes back, it wipes out five months of work.

When Favre doesn’t understand why he isn’t welcome, he wants to get traded to a division rival. Is he really as stupid as that? If the Yankees had a say, would they trade Clemens to Boston right now? Hell no. Why would you give this guy a chance to beat you twice a year, directly impacting your ability to reach the postseason?

The bottom line in all of this is that Favre is in the wrong. If he wants to keep playing football, he should have A) informed the Packers much earlier; and B) show up to training camp and practice, all the while work with Green Bay to make a trade happen. The Packers are not going to release him, and they aren’t trading him in the division. They also don’t really want him as a backup quarterback. Favre has no reason to have any leverage here, but he is still trying to call the shots.

When it comes to ruining your going away party, Clemens and Favre have reached a level we’ve never even dreamed of. Clemens had people convinced (wrongly) that he was the best pitcher of his generation, and one of the best of all-time. Now, he has more proof of guilt than Barry Bonds and his entire legacy is either ruined or at least in question. No matter how wrong the anti-steroid conclusion-jumpers are about the actual effects of performance enhancing drugs, the damage has been done. Clemens has ruined an otherwise amazing 20-plus year career.

Favre, on the other hand, was the guy who beat his pain-killer addiction. He stepped up on Monday Night Football when his dad died. He won a Super Bowl after everyone said he wouldn’t. He had one more great year when nobody thought he could. Then he just kept going. He didn’t retire when he retired. He went from being the biggest legend in the Midwest to being the example of what not to do. Favre’s legacy on the field is much safer than Clemens’, but Brett Favre the legend will never be viewed the same.

So let this be a lesson to any professional athlete who has earned their way to the Hall of Fame in their respective sport. Watch what these two men have done in the last eight months, and learn from it. This is no way to end a career.

Who would have thought that in the summer of 2008, Barry Bonds would have a better reputation than Roger Clemens, and the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin would rather sport a green number 12 jersey over a number four?

The scene in Las Vegas this weekend was surreal. Between the 20,000 Brits who flew over to the Colonies with no tickets, and the 40,000 rednecks in town for the National Finals Rodeo, the whole town was insane. I had tickets to the fight, but there was nothing in the world that could have gotten me into that room on Saturday night. So we ordered a bunch of pizzas and the pay-per-view, and stayed clear of the strip on Saturday.

And if you’re wondering whether rednecks still exist, I can strongly confirm that they do. And I have nothing against cowboys, rodeo fans, or anyone with a cowboy hat. Hell, I own cowboy hats, boots, and enjoy country music. But there are some true rednecks out there, and they are giving a lot of people a bad reputation. There were five of us sitting around, enjoying some adult beverages at the Gold Coast on Saturday night after the fight. A redneck in a cowboy hat comes up to us and proceeds to complain that his face hurts because he was pepper-sprayed. At that point, you feel for his pain, and wonder why he got pepper-sprayed. As he tells it, there was no good reason. He was simply taking a piss on the side of the building, and when someone caught him and yelled at him, he proceeded to call him a ni**er. And in his watered eyes, there was nothing wrong with this. So he proceeded to try to talk our ears off about how that ni**er is lucky he didn’t have his .45 on him. And how he’s lucky that he didn’t beat his ass. Meanwhile, the redneck is about 5′10″ and 140 pounds, but as he told it, that ni**er had it coming. Sometimes it takes a night like that to realize just how messed up some of this country still is. But I digress…

As for the fight, unfortunately, it’s what all of our heads told us was going to happen, no matter how much our hearts fought it. So while the fight was what it was, the weigh-in was a different animal altogether. I’m sure the crowd on fight night was just as crazy, but at the weigh-in, they seemed to run the show and have the place to themselves.

Let me set the scene for you…

I call on Thursday to find out what time the weigh-in is scheduled for and they tell me it’s a 2:30 weigh-in and the doors will open at 1:00. I got shut out of the De La Hoya – Mayweather weigh-in, so we decided to go early. Upon arriving at the Grand Garden Arena at around 11:00am, we find the doors already open, so we go on in. We are greeted by about 4,000 drunk Brits who have been there seemingly for hours. We take a seat on the side of the stage, and proceed to get serenaded by the drunks for the next three hours.

“There’s only one Ricky Hatton,
One Ricky Hatton,
Walking along, singing a song,
Walking in a Hatton Wonderland…”

Repeat this in your head 200 times in the next three hours and let’s see if you can get it out of your head. In between each rendition of this song, the mob continued to alternate between several soccer chants, “God Save the Queen”, and whatever insult they were hurling at one Mayweather fan with their 5999-to-1 advantage.

They proceeded to tell the bussed in children on Floyd’s side of the room that “You should be in school right now,” among some four letter words. One female had the nerve to dance with Hatton’s “band” and was “asked” by the crowd to “show your tits to the lads” in song form.

It’s actually quite impressive, and a sight to behold watching all of these fans sing and chant in perfect sychronization.

Other than the actual weigh-in, the most dramatic and enjoyable part of the afternoon came when Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins were on the stage together and the crowd let Hopkins know just how much he is the draw in their proposed fight.

After leading a chorus of “One Calzaghe”, and another of “Super Joe”, the crowd went into a beautiful rendition of the song “Hopkins is a Pussy”. This did not go over well with B-Hop, and the two got all up in each other’s fries in what will hopefully lead to a 2008 match between the two.

Luckily for you, I had a camera with me, so here are the videos I shot at the Hatton – Mayweather weigh-in. You can right click the files to “save as” and then watch them on your player of choice.

There’s Only One Ricky Hatton

God Save the Queen

Oscar, Enzo Maccarinelli and Joe Calzaghe take the stage

One Calzaghe song

Calzaghe vs. Hopkins face off

Hatton and Mayweather are introduced

Hatton weighs in

Floyd weighs in – ensuing staredown

Hatton speaks to the crowd

**********

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (38-0, 24 KOs) takes on Ricky Hatton (43-0, 31) on HBO Pay-Per-View in one of the most anticipated matches of the year. Mayweather is more than a 2-to-1 favorite to defeat Hatton, but there are about 16,000 Brits here in Las Vegas that will kindly disagree with that verdict.

For all of the great matchups of this year, this one is the best. There were some great ones like Kessler-Calzaghe, Mosley-Cotto, and Pavlik-Taylor, but I think this one takes the cake. The reason I say that is because this is the only matchup between two superstars that have already earned their superstar status, and they’re both in their prime. Calzaghe is up there in age, and Kessler is still a little green, Mosley is past his prime while Cotto is the future superstar. Pavlik was in his first huge fight against a legit prime champion. But only this fight has two prime, undefeated legitimate superstars. For that reason, this is the matchup of the year.

Many places I’ve seen have only one possible outcome in this fight: Mayweather by easy win. The average fans tend to think that this will be Mayweather-Gatti all over again. Well, I can assure you it most definitely will not be that. Ricky Hatton is an elite fighter. Probably the best fighter that Floyd’s ever been in the ring with. On the other side of that is the fact that Mayweather is also the best fighter Hatton’s ever been in the ring with. Both men’s strengths play right into the other fighter’s weaknesses.

Hatton is a great pressure fighter, and if we’ve learned anything about Mayweather over the years it’s that he is not the same fighter when being pressured as he is when he can dictate the tempo. We saw in the first Jose Luis Castillo fight that Floyd was uncomfortable with the pressure. We saw when Oscar De La Hoya put Floyd on the ropes, that he was able to win those moments of the fight. That is Hatton’s specialty, and he’ll have to keep constant pressure all night to neutralize Mayweather’s speed and defense.

That leads right into the other side of the coin, where Mayweather’s strengths play right into Hatton’s weaknesses. Hatton will likely struggle when this fight is in the middle of the ring, and at distance. Hatton’s got quick hands, but Mayweather will be faster. In the middle of the ring, Mayweather will be able to counter-punch Hatton and set traps for him. Hatton also throws wide, looping punches, something Mayweather should be able to easily exploit.

One of the most important factors in this fight is distance. Floyd will control the fight when there is distance between the fighters, and Hatton will make Mayweather very uncomfortable when there is not. But can Hatton force his way in? Will Mayweather discourage him from walking right in? Those are the key questions in this fight.

I think that Hatton will be relatively successful at establishing his game early in this fight. Floyd is not the type of fighter who will punish you for walking in on him. It’s more a matter of if he is still there when you get inside. For Hatton to be successful in this fight, he’s going to have to make it pretty ugly — grasping, throwing Floyd against the ropes, and in-fighting. For Mayweather, jab, move, and make Hatton pay every time he walks in and tries to go to the body.

Hatton is a relentless body puncher. The best way to neutralize a speed and energy advantage is to work the body. Mayweather must be prepared for that. Mayweather’s biggest risk of being stopped is from one perfect body shot, like the one that stopped Castillo. Hatton’s biggest risk of being stopped is likely swelling and cuts. He’s been susceptible to that in the past, and if Floyd can land a high number of shots, he could make that an issue in this fight.

So here’s how I see it happening…

Hatton will come out full speed ahead at the opening bell, attempting to force Floyd into his gameplan right away. I expect the first round or two to be ugly, as Hatton tries to establish his style early. That means a few rounds of clinching, grabbing, wrestling, whatever it takes, before it settles into being more of a boxing match. For the punch-and-grab reputation that Hatton has, it’s not nearly as bad as people want to say it is. But what he has done in the past, like it or not, will be done in this fight.

Mayweather will make Hatton pay when he walks in. Mayweather will out jab Hatton, and likely dominate the counter-punching statistics. When this fight is in the middle of the ring, Mayweather will do very well. When it’s on the ropes, Hatton should do quite well.

I think Hatton’s speed is underrated. When it comes down to it, I think Hatton has the ability to fight Floyd’s fight better than Floyd can fight Ricky’s. That doesn’t mean Hatton will dominate the fight or anything, but that it will be a close fight.

I see this fight going the distance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one, or both fighters hit the canvas in this fight. I think this will be a spectacular fight, full of energy and action. When all is said and done, I’m going with the upset. I think Hatton’s unorthodox style will bother Mayweather, and Hatton will win the fight with energy and in-fighting. Prediction: Hatton by split-decision.

*****

**One side-prediction…Billy Graham KO1 vs. Roger Mayweather between rounds 5 and 6…

*****

Boxing rankings for December 2007 are now updated.

There was only one undefeated team – Hawai’i, and they weren’t going to get the support of the computers because of their anemic schedule (which isn’t there fault). Of the one loss teams, you have Ohio State and Kansas. Kansas made the terrible error of losing too late. Had they finished the year with one loss and lost in September, they’d be playing in the title game. Unfortunately, the awful system that we have now kills you if you lose too late (unless you’re in the SEC). So of these three teams, only Ohio State has a legitimate (in the eyes of the BCS) argument to play for the title. They’re in.

Of the two loss teams, you have LSU, USC, Missouri, Arizona State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, BYU and Boise State. For the same reasons that Hawai’i isn’t playing for the title, you can cross off BYU and Boise State. Then you have Georgia and Missouri who both lost their conferences. Voters obviously didn’t want them to play for the title. Arizona State lost the Pac-10 by a tie-breaker (technically, so did Georgia in the SEC), but more importantly, lost their second-to-last game of the year to a higher ranked USC.

LSU lost two games in triple-overtime. They also have four wins by seven points or less (all of which they were losing in the fourth quarter) against pretty mediocre teams (Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee). And before the entire southeast of the country e-mails me, remember that Alabama lost to Louisiana-Monroe, Tennessee got thumped by Cal, Auburn lost to South Florida and Mississippi State at home, and Florida has three losses with perhaps more talent than anyone in the country (and no defense). I don’t consider those good wins for LSU, they were simply avoiding terrible losses. So they are a two-loss team that could easily have finished 6-6. Not what I look for in a national champion.

Then there’s USC. Their two losses were to Oregon – no shame there, and Stanford – unforgivable. Since those two losses, however, USC has dominated. They have won four in a row, including at then #6 Arizona State. They may be playing the best in the nation right now, but it’s hard to have a national champion that lost as a 41-point favorite.

Next up is Oklahoma. They also have a case for playing better than anyone right now. Their two losses were at Colorado by three (bad loss) and at Texas Tech by seven (not as bad). They’ve beaten Texas and Missouri (twice) on their way to winning the Big 12. The loss to Colorado is tough, but their resume is as good as anyone’s.

Missouri — they lost twice to Oklahoma. It’s pretty hard to justify them over the Sooners based on this. They had their shot to play for the title and they lost it on the field. I’m okay with that. They should have, however, made it to a BCS game over Kansas. They both had one loss in the regular season, and Missouri beat them head-to-head. Kansas likely would be a two loss team now also if they had to play Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game. No Missouri — no problem here.

West Virginia lost their last game of the year as a four touchdown favorite. Not only is this loss indefensible, but the timing of it assures them of no title game.

Virginia Tech has two losses, but one of them was a 41-point blowout loss to LSU. Pretty hard to justify putting them ahead of LSU for the title game.

Arizona State has two losses, but lost the two biggest games of the year. A win against either Oregon or USC might put the Sun Devils in the title game, but they lost it on the field. They should have made it to a BCS game, though, ahead of Illinois.

I mentioned Georgia earlier as a team that couldn’t win it’s conference, and I stand by that. They had a chance to play LSU in the SEC title game, but lost to Tennessee. Simple as that. If you can’t win your conference, you can’t win the country. There may be situations where this isn’t true, but generally speaking, I think that’s a pretty good guideline.

So it ended up LSU vs. Ohio State. In a year where nobody is “the best team in the country” or at least nobody is making a case for it, this matchup to me is the two most deserving teams. I don’t think LSU is as good as USC or Oklahoma. I think they’d lose big to both, but when comparing the resumes, I give the edge to LSU.

I think the BCS is a waste and a joke, but I think the system put the two most deserving teams in the title game.

One side note… When I say that the BCS put the two teams in, all I am really saying is that the voters voted for the two teams they thought should play. How LSU jumped from #7 to #2 is beyond anyone. The computers have Virginia Tech as the number one team in the country. They have LSU number two. If anyone says the computers spit out LSU vs. Ohio State, they’re wrong. The voters gave you Ohio State vs. LSU. If the voters had kept Georgia and Virginia Tech ahead of LSU (where they were a week ago), you might have a different title game. Somehow LSU’s seven point win over Tennessee is that much more impressive than Virginia Tech’s 14-point win over Boston College. So much that LSU leap-frogged Va. Tech in the rankings, vaulting them right into the title game. It’s not all about the computers. The voters decided that they wanted LSU and Ohio State, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.

The system worked to the extent that the two most deserving teams are playing for the title, but the human voting is what made this game happen. That the system should have given us a different game is proof enough that the system sucks. It’s time for a playoff. Let’s make it happen.

Look, I think Alex Rodriguez is a tremendously talented baseball player. But the way things are in baseball right now, he’ll never win. He commands too much money, far more than his value, and has only made his teams worse. Cry all you want that the Yankees would have sucked last year without him, but the numbers don’t lie.

In his five years in Seattle, they went to the playoffs twice. I don’t blame him for anything in Seattle. He was on his first contract and didn’t cripple them. But it’s no coincidence that the team improved 25 games the year after he left, to a ridiculous 116 wins.

So he went to Texas in 2001, making sick money. The Rangers won 71 games in 2000, the year prior to A-Rod’s arrival. In his three years there, they won 73, 72, and 71 games. The year after he left they improved 18 games to be an 89 win team.

So it was on to New York. Prior to A-Rod’s arrival the Yanks won 103 and 101 games. In his four years there they won 101, followed by 95, 97, and 94. Yes, those are still good numbers, but my theory remains that Alex Rodriguez does not improve your overall baseball team. He hits, runs, and plays the field exceptionally well. But the price tag that comes with him makes it very difficult to fill out the rest of the lineup.

It’s true that baseball has no salary cap. That is, none imposed by the league. But every team, outside of New York and Boston, has a self-imposed salary cap that needs to be respected if they want to keep the team’s head above water. The money that Alex Rodriguez and his agent are expecting to get will only hurt whoever signs him. Hell, even the super-rich Yankees won’t pay him his exorbitant contract out of their pockets. They kept him while they were splitting the bill with Texas, and now don’t want to even negotiate with him if it’s all on their bill.

Again, I am not saying that Alex Rodriguez is anything less than a great baseball player. But for as good as he is, he has become tremendously overrated. He is not now, nor will he ever be, worth $30 million a year in 2008 money. And I feel no sympathy for the idiot owner and GM that fork over that kind of money when Scott Boras bends them over the negotiating table, and that team goes on to be slightly worse than they were last year. It’s not A-Rod’s play that I am criticizing, it’s that his contract will inevitably cripple the team that signs him.

For example, the $30-35 million that Boras is asking for would be more than both the Marlins and Devil Rays paid for all of 2007. It would be 50% of the payroll for three of last year’s playoff teams (Arizona, Colorado, Cleveland).

Scott Boras needs to realize that the last contract Rodriguez signed got him traded because it was too much money, booed out of New York because he was getting too much money — thus creating unrealistic expectations, and he didn’t even get invited back to the negotiating table with the bottomless checkbook that is the Yankees because it was too much money. And now they want to tack on another $100 million to the last contract?

If A-Rod signs a contract worth $350 million, what must he do to live up to that? I would say that he needs to win the World Series at least three times per five years, average in the neighborhood of .325 for the contract, and hit over 50 home runs every year. Anything less than this, while maybe still having great years, will be considered a failure. It’s the nature of sports today. It’s not that you need to be great anymore, it’s that you need to be better than what you were expected to do, and live up to what you make. If A-Rod’s next contract brings him anything less than a World Series ring and the all-time home run title, he will unfortunately be seen by many as a failure.

I have a hunch that Scott Boras is going to be in for a big surprise when he starts talking to teams. When no one will pay the ridiculous money that he wants, what does he do? With any luck, Rodriguez will take some initiative and get himself a proper contract, one that he can live up to. Because seriously, he doesn’t need the money, and he can’t have another contract that he constantly has to try to live up to. Sign a deal that is more in line with the rest of the league and I’m sure you’d see a more successfull A-Rod.

And if someone pays him his sick money that they want, then buyer beware. Good luck finding five starting pitchers for the length of his contract. This contract that A-Rod gets in this offseason may be the most important baseball contract ever signed. Keep an eye on it, because it may just ruin baseball.

UPDATE: Apparently A-Rod has reached out and contacted the Yankees without Scott Boras to try to make a deal happen. Boras had originally told the Yankees that the deal would have to be worth at least $350 million to begin the discussions. More on this as it becomes available…

Both of these fighters have proven themselves to be the elite of the elite, Mosley with a better career resume, but Cotto the younger, action fighter. There is no doubt that this will be an entertaining fight, with the potential for Fight of the Year. It is a very tough fight to handicap, as they are both quite different stylistically.

Cotto has shown that he is without a doubt an elite fighter. While he’s shown at times to be a bit chinny, he has also showed amazing resiliency to get off the canvas and win fights. He has impressed me every time he’s stepped up in competition, most recently with his knockout win over Zab Judah in June. Mosley will be his stiffest test yet, and if he wins this, he belongs in the conversation of top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

As for Mosley, many people considered his career done two years ago. After his second win against Oscar De La Hoya in 2003, he suffered back-to-back defeats at the hands of Winky Wright in 2004. Since those losses, Mosley is 5-0, including a pair of knockout wins over Fernando Vargas, and seems to be back at 147 pounds for good. A win here for Mosley puts him right back in the picture for best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, where he was in 2001.

Picking a winner for this fight is not easy to do. Both fighters are exceptional at what they do. Cotto is a great inside fighter and a devastating body puncher. He is relentless, and has broken down every opponent he’s ever faced. Mosley is lightning fast and also has power. He is a slick boxer with a great defense, and tremendously underrated power. He also has the advantage of being in more big fights.

I see this fight starting off very similarly to the Cotto-Judah fight, with Cotto methodically trying to break down Mosley, while Mosley is the faster and more active fighter early on. The key to this fight, just like any Cotto fight, is whether or not Cotto can get to the body and slow Shane down. Cotto will have to find a way to take Mosley’s legs away from him, since Mosley has the height, reach, speed, defense, and boxing skill advantages. Cotto must find a way to make Shane stand in front of him if he wants to win.

Mosley’s game plan will be to keep distance and not allow Cotto to walk him down. He must avoid the ropes and stay in the middle of the ring. Most of the boxing advantages go to Mosley. He is probably better than Cotto at every aspect of the sport. But he’s 36 years old, and probably not physically as strong as Cotto. Mosley’s conditioning (which has never been an issue) will be a key factor in this fight.

I really like watching Cotto fight, but every time I do, I see giant holes in his game. I still think he has a weak chin, and I suspect that a boxer who knows when to trade with him, and when to avoid him will do quite well. Mosley is a very smart fighter, and as I said earlier, has very underrated power.

I think in this fight Mosley will hurt Cotto early, just as Judah did. Cotto will come right back and continue to press Mosley, trying to break him down. Over the course of the fight, I think Shane’s speed and defense will prove too much for the younger Cotto. I expect Mosley to settle into a rhythm by the sixth or seventh round and begin picking his shots. Once Cotto has to start actively looking for the knockout, he’ll become vulnerable. I think Mosley wins a comfortable decision or wins via late round stoppage. No matter who wins, this fight has Fight of the Year written all over it. This fight is a can’t miss as far as action goes. Official prediction: Mosley TKO 11.

*****
In other boxing predictions…

Cruiserweights are also in action on Saturday, as Jean-Marc Mormeck defends his WBA and WBC cruiserweight titles against David Haye. This is another fight that has action-packed written all over it. Both fighters throw bombs and have questionable defenses, a potent combination in boxing.

Mormeck is the champ who regained his titles from O’Neil Bell in March after a pair of slugfests, while Haye is the 27-year old up-and-comer from the UK. In 20 career fights, Haye has only once heard the scorecards read.

I think Mormeck is a good fighter, but not as good as he was before his two wars with Bell. Haye is the younger fighter that throws with some power. I think Mormeck is getting near the end of his career and has obvious conditioning issues. Despite not having seen much from Haye, I’m picking him to take Mormeck’s titles by KO. Official Prediction: Haye KO 6.