The King of Pop and the Sports Figures He Inspired

In a few hours, hundreds of thousands of dillusional idol worshipers will descend upon the Staples Center in LA to pay homage to recently deceased pop cultural wackadoo Michael Jackson.

Over the years, several athletes have paid their own respects to King of Pop in their own unique and special ways. Today, we look back at some of those tributes.

Frank Drebbin, Moonwalker

Byron "Beat It" Houston

Bruce "Man in the Mirror" Jenner

Ray "Smooth Criminal" Lewis

Billie Jean King is Not My Lover

Donovan "Thriller" McNabb

"Iron" Mike Jackson

Heee Heeee...Oowww

Play Him Off, Ron Artest...

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Holiday Special: Bad Ass Mothers

In honor of moms everywhere, HHR has compiled a list of our favorite sports bad ass mothers. Who'd we miss and why?

Bill Romanowski


With his admission to using steroids and HGH in the wake of the BALCO scandal, it should come as no surprise that Romo had a chemically enhanced mindset to go along with his chemically enhanced body.

In 1995 he was ejected from a game and fined $4,500 for kicking Cardinal fullback Larry Centers in the head. In 1997 Romo was fined $20,000 after his hit on Panther QB Kerry Collins in a preseason game that broke Collins' jaw. That same year, he spat in 49er WR J.J. Stokes' face. In '99, he was fined $42,500 for three illegal hits and for throwing a punch at Chief TE Tony Gonzalez, and for an undisclosed amount for hitting Jet LB Bryan Cox in the nuts with the ball. His most high profile altercation came against his own teammate, backup TE Marcus Williams, during a scrimmage while with the Raiders. Williams accused Romanowski of roid rage after Romo ripped off his helmet, broke his eye socket and forced him into retirement. Williams sued for $3.4 million, but was rewarded 10% of that.

Ron Artest


Artest made it cool to shave things into the side of your head for the first time since another bad mother - Anthony Mason - patrolled the paint in New York. An integral part of the brawl in Detroit, he has a penchant for technical fouls and bad rap albums. Moreover, despite his past misgivings, Artest is completely self-aware of his own reputation, referring to himself in the third person recently, "Does Kobe know he just elbowed Ron Artest?" Lastly, all this underrates him as a heck of player, a lockdown defender and one who can hit it up from deep.

Bo Jackson


Long after Jim Thorpe mastered about 17 sports, Bo Jackson made playing two of them at the same time cool. Specialized in "Bo Knowing", running people over as a member of the Oakland Raiders, and breaking bats over his knee like twigs on the Kansas City Royals, Bo was just a freak athlete whose career ended way too early due to injury.

His most memorable bad ass moments occurred off the field. Anyone who ever played Techmo Super Bowl or read a Bill Simmons article can tell you, most of his victims not nicknamed "Boz" where pubescent boys playing against the Raiders on NES.

Anthony John "A. J." Pierzynski


I could say "professional wrestler in the off season" and need to give no further explanation, but let me dip a little into his day job: professional ballplayer and all around pain in the ass. He has been punched in the face on the field, runs inside the baseline on purpose, knees team personnel in the nuts, runs to first base when he is out and then gets called safe for it. Now THAT is a bad mutha move we wish every major league player should try at least once.

Buddy Ryan


Largely credited as the architect of the 46 defense, Ryan was a defensive mastermind. However two incidents solidify his status as a coaching bad ass.

The first was the Jimmy Johnson-alleged "bounty" Ryan placed on the head of former Eagle and then-current Cowboy kicker Luis Zendejas and QB Tory Aikman. Following a hit from Eagle LB Jessie Small, Zendajas left the game with a concussion, but not before mistakenly heading towards the Philadelphia sideline. "Bounty Bowl" as it became known, spurned the CBS marketing-driven rematch "Bounty Bowl II" in which fans (including would-be Philadelphia Mayor and PA Governor Ed Rendell) pelting snow, ice and beer aimed at Dallas, officials and broadcasters, forced players to flee for safety.

Ryan's second memorable badass moment is when, as coach of the Oilers, he coldcocked his own offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, on the sideline after a shouting match brought about by a Cody Carlson fumbled snap.



Ronnie Lott

The dude had part of his finger amputated rather than miss playing time. Hall of Famer Art Monk freely admitted that a shot from Lott in 1984 “"pretty much messed me up for my career." In his own words, Lott described his style as, “Grab a football, throw it in the air, and before you can catch it, have your best friend belt you with a baseball bat. No shoulder pads. No helmet. Just you, your best friend and the biggest Louisville Slugger you can find.” No offense to Sam Jackson, but if Ronnie Lott had been on that plane, the snakes would have been looking for the parachutes.

Ty Cobb


The Georgia Peach was one of the greatest to ever play the game of baseball. He was also one of the nastiest. Tales of his attempts to take out opposing players with his metal spikes are legendary. He was racist, anti-Catholic and a heavy drinker. He regularly got into fights with his teammates and at least once went into the stands and put a beatdown on a heckler. In 1912, he was robbed by three men in Detroit. He chased down one of the thieves and beat him to a bloody pulp. When he died in 1961, despite his long baseball career and numerous records, reportedly only four people from his baseball days came to his funeral.

Mike Tyson

What more can be said about Iron Mike that hasn't already dissected a thousand times over? That said, let's just point out a few of our favorite bad ass highlights:

• He was and arguably is the most volitial and ferocious man to not only step into a boxing ring, but to walk the earth.
• He did time for rape.
• He bit off a man's ear.
• He threatened to eat a man's children.
• He threatened to send a man to Bolivia.
• He has a tatoo on his face.
• He told a Maxim interviewer that punched tigers in the nuts, because they like it. And then tried to stab said interviewer in the neck with a fork.
• He can take his hand off to people.
  
• He stiffs women on bar bills.

Brandon Jacobs

He'll explain...

HHR @ NFL Draft Classic - What Makes Brandon Jacobs Feel Good? from HHR on Vimeo.

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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

Movie Review: Tyson

Walking down 34th Street to the theater, I was expecting Notorious with a sprinkle of When We Were Kings. I love Mike like I love Biggie, and looked forward to seeing and hearing them on the big screen, but I know all the plot points so it can't be too great, right?

Then the movie starts. Great opening montage of Mike's first title fight. And on the big screen in surround sound with an audience oohing it's amazing, and I'm like goddamn I've missed seeing him fight.

Then the movie proper starts, and I remember the only thing I miss more than seeing Mike fight is hearing Mike talk.

And that's what we get through the whole film, nothing but archival footage and Mike now reflecting back on his entire life. We never hear an interviewer's question, so it plays like an autobiography mixed over one of boxing's greatest highlight reels. And Mike, who's an executive producer on the film, sounds realer and more comfortable than I ever remember hearing him.

Is it gonna change anybody's mind? I like to think it might if it lures in a few open minds. Somebody's got to see something of what I've always seen in Mike -- something out of epic literature, such savage power and such profound loneliness that I'm this close to launching into Stan Lee's monologue from Mallrats.

So if you go looking for humanity, you'll probably see it. If you go for the fights on a big screen with big sound and an audience, you'll be happy. Or if you just go to snicker at the freak show, you'll get that too.

The film is mostly laid out chronologically -- we start with Mike growing up on the mean streets of Brownville, a fat kid like the young Biggie shocked by the cruelty of strangers who steal his glasses for no reason. The pigeon incident that leads him to his first fight, his first arrest at 12 when he says the cops caught him with $1500 in his pocket.

There's Mike choking up talking about his legendary mentor/trainer Cus D'Amato, but what he can barely keep it together to say is that what he's most grateful for is that Cus got him to the point where he knew no one would ever be able to fuck with him ever again.

Speaking of fucking, the film is probably at its most intense when Mike talks sex. There's no greater feeling in the world than after a long time abstaining from sex finally having sex. His marriage to Robin Givens was nobody's fault, they were just kids. He has some pretty nasty words for Desiree Washington, the woman he was convicted of raping. While he still maintains those charges were false, he says there may have been other women he took advantage of. Later, over footage of him walking alone on a beach, he talks about liking to sexually dominate women and that his favorite thing to say during sex is No.

And still, Mike manages to come off sympathetically. He's got a lot of demons, no doubt, but he does seem to genuinely want to be a good person and a good father to his six kids (including one named Exodus). Personally, I left the theater wondering why HBO or Showtime don't try to give him an analyst gig. Wouldn't that be a dream?

--written by special correspondent David Chalk of Bugs & Cranks who covered the movie on behalf of HHR.


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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

Brown Sugar, Iron Mike and the GOP

During the 2006 Maryland US Senate campaign, then-GOP Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele was peppered with questions about his ex-brother-in-law, Mike Tyson, when the former imprisoned rapist was seen training in one of Steele's campaign t-shirts.

Recently elected as the Republican National Committee's first African-American Chairman, Steele just can't shake his Tyson association.

Over the weekend, the NY Times published an article: New G.O.P. Chairman Defends Payment to Sister. That sister is, you guessed it, the former Mrs. Mike Tyson.

Mr. Steele did not dispute that his sister’s company, Brown Sugar Unlimited, of Bethesda, Md., had been paid $37,262 by his Senate campaign in February 2007, as federal election records show.

Federal law does not prohibit a candidate from hiring a relative, and Mr. Steele said in the statement that the payment was for legitimate work. The federal records indicate that the payment to Brown Sugar was for catering and Internet-related services provided in 2006.

The article points out that while technically not illegal to hire one's relative, the snafu is linked to the fact that "Monica Turner, Mr. Steele’s sister and an ex-wife of the former boxer Mike Tyson, incorporated her company in 2003 and dissolved it in 2006, before the payment by Mr. Steele’s campaign was made, according to state and federal records."

Interestingly, the accusation was made by Steele's former finance chairman Alan B. Fabian, who "was sentenced in October to nine years in prison for his involvement in a $40 million fraud scheme, unrelated to his work on the Steele campaign."

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HHR Exclusive: Iron Mike's Shanghai Surprise

Sometimes, friends tell you stories and you think they're just full of sh*t. And then they go and show you a picture that backs it all up...

"So, it's my last night in Shanghai and I've been traveling for two weeks. After a few cocktails celebrating our long awaited return to New York, my coworkers and I head back to the Four Seasons for one final beverage in the lounge.

As I'm walking into the lobby, I see a pink shirt moving towards me. I hear a voice say "I noticed you earlier." I look over and there he is, Iron Mike. I swear his voice is not as high as it is in interviews, but tattoo is even scarier in person and his head must weight 30 lbs- it's massive.

Being slightly intoxicated, I thought it would be a great idea to invite him for a drink and get to know him better. We head up to the bar on the top floor and plant ourselves on some fluffy couches. Mike chooses to sit next to me, quite close. He tells me he is in town visiting a Maoist shrine and also to promote a club opening.

Iron Mike proceeds to order a cup of tea (he's totally straight edge now) and 7 bottles of Evian for his body guards / entourage that are peering at us from a few feet away. I don't remember too much from the conversation other than he thought I was "funny and fine." After not too long, Mike and his crew left the bar to head back to their rooms. He also left us with the bill of $74 worth of tea and water. My coworkers and I begrudgingly paid the bill and went back to our rooms. I would be lying if I didn't say I checked to see if my door was locked quite a few times before I settled into bed. Aside from the bill stiffing incident, he was actually quite the gentleman."

So excited we are touching our Bald Bull

Oh the memories. Oh the possibilities. Oh the fact the HHR staff has found another reason to ignore their families after work.

Spring 2009 can't come soon enough.

Sadly, Mike Tyson doesn't seem to be involved. It's a conspiracy. A c-o-n....spiracy.

Iron Mike Talks About "Tyson"

Interesting interview that makes me even more inclined to check out the flick. Tyson's seemingly come a long way.

Cannes: A Q&A with Mike Tyson and James Toback

The fight of the year (if this year were 1992)

Not since Screech/Horseshack I has there been a worse idea for a boxing match.

Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson are mumbling about rematch.

Holyfield, 45, has revealed he is considering an offer from 41-year-old Tyson's camp to meet in the ring for a third time. "There has been some talk between us," Holyfield told The Guardian newspaper on Thursday.

Unfortunately, Tyson was talking into Holyfield's bad ear, and actually asked him 'if he could count to ten' not 'do you want to fight again.' I am not sure Tyson is even talking to the right guy, it all depends who answers the phone at Holyfield's house.