The Pittsburgh Steelers have punched their ticket to the Super Bowl with at 24 – 19 win over the New York Jets on Sunday. The Jets spotted the Steelers a 24 – 0 lead before finally getting a field goal at the end of the second quarter to make the score 24 – 3 at halftime.  The Jets reeled off 16 unanswered points in the second half to make the game close, but miscues at the Pittsburgh goal line and on crucial third downs on defense eventually did the Jets in.  The Steelers were able to rack up a lot of running yards against a Jets defense that is normally stingy against the run, as Rashad Mendenhall rushed for over 100 yards on the night.  Mike Tomlin is going for his second Super Bowl in his young coaching career.  Critics will say the Jets got what they deserved, but those are people who won’t look past the trash talk.  A head coach and quarterback both in their first two years, and they make two conference title games?  They beat Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, before losing to Ben Roethelisberger all on the road?  That’s impressive no matter how you look at it.

The Green Bay Packers will be the other team in the Super Bowl after they took care of the Chicago Bears 21 – 14. The Packers jumped on the Bears early with a 14 – 0 lead before the Bears defense stiffened up and prevented the Packers from scoring on offense for the remainder of the game.  The Bears starting quarterback Jay Cutler injured his knee and had to leave the game, which caused Todd Collins to enter.  He was ineffective, and the Bears turned to their third string quarterback who threw a TD pass to Earl Bennett late to make the score 21 – 14 a drive after Green Bay’s B.J. Raji ran back an interception for a touchdown.  The Bears have to wonder what would have happened if Jay Cutler was able to finish the game with the defensive performance they put up against Green Bay.  Aaron Rodgers threw two interceptions, but did enough to get his team a win and a trip to the Super Bowl.

Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer is expected to request a trade out of Cincinnati according to reports. Palmer is not happy with the direction of the team, and feels he needs a chance to start over with another franchise.  It seems Palmer is hoping a trade can send him to Seattle or San Francisco, because his ex-coach Pete Carrol is currently coaching the Seahawks and his wife is from San Francisco.  It also seems that the Bengals are not going to re-sign Terrell Owens, and will bring back Chad Ochocinco and Cedric Benson.  It is unclear if the Bengals are going to honor Palmer’s request or not, but Palmer used the word retirement as an option if his demands are not met.  You can hardly blame Palmer, he has done all he can to win in Cincinnati, but it just has not worked out for him.  Maybe a change is what he needs, but for the Bengals there seems to be little motivation to trade their star quarterback.

Popular cyclist Lance Armstrong has yet another set of doping allegations that came out against him. Armstrong’s former mechanic Mike Adams accused Armstrong and his associates of consistently misrepresenting their record on banned drugs. The 39-year-old Armstrong has repeatedly denied using such substances.  Armstrong won the Tour De France seven times, and is despised and hated by the people of France.  These doping allegations have done him no favors with his image, but Armstrong remains a popular figure and role model among people in the United States.  Armstrong has also raced his final International race, and will only participate in races within the United States.  Adams contends he once found a box labeled “Andro” in Armstrong’s house – a term used to describe androstenedione, a banned steroid.  At this point who knows what the truth is, Armstrong probably did dope just like many did during that period of time.

Floyd “Money” Mayweather is one of the best pound for pound boxers in the world, some would consider him the greatest ever.  Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have danced around the opportunity to fight each other, with Mayweather seeming to be the most uninterested in making the fight happen.  While Pacquiao continues to stake his claim as the best pound for pound fighter ever, Floyd Mayweather is in the midst of another battle.

A Las Vegas court has ordered boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. to stay away from his former girlfriend and their two sons after prosecutors say he hit her and threatened to beat his children if they called 911.  Authorities allege Mayweather also took mobile phones belonging to Josie Harris and his sons following the Sept. 9 dispute.

Mayweather faces charges of felony coercion, grand larceny and robbery, and misdemeanor domestic battery and harassment.  He could face up to 34 years in prison if convicted on all charges.  The story told from that night is grim, Floyd Mayweather Jr. allegedly dragging the mother of two of his children through the house by her hair, as the children watched in horror.

I am going to give Floyd the benefit of the doubt here; he is innocent until proven guilty at this point.  The problem for him is that is not a nice picture of him painted in the media, especially a boxer who allegedly beats up women.  This could simply be another story of a famous athlete’s jaded ex-girlfriend who is upset about child support or the fact that the relationship is over.

Floyd has to be smarter than this, why would he risk throwing away a lucrative boxing career just to beat up a disgruntled ex?  Floyd has to be smarter than that, and athletes with as big of an ego as Floyd do tend to get a sense that they are invincible to the law at times.  Maybe that was the case this time, maybe Floyd was so pissed off about something that he let his temper get the best of him, but to allegedly tell your children that you will beat them if they call 911 just seems out of character for him.

We will see how all of this plays out, but Floyd will probably get out of this without any jail time.  It may cost him a significant amount of money in lawyer fees, and a decent sized payoff to the ex-girlfriend in order to keep her from pursuing this further.  It is well chronicled about his relationship with his father, and history has shown that people who had those types of family issues will very often treat their children the same way.  We hope this is not the case with Floyd, come January his boxing career may be over if he is put in jail.

Lebron James has worked hard to shape his image over his seven years in the NBA; he has a publicly stated several times that he wants to be the first billionaire athlete.  People refer to him as “The King” because of his last name and the fact that some believe he is the best player in the NBA.  Lebron has been very careful to keep his private life out of the limelight, which is relatively easy to do when you play for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

There is now a new reality for James one that he may not have considered when making “The Decision”.  James now plays in Miami, Florida which is a place where keeping your personal life quiet does not happen all that often.  The media in Miami are much different than the media in Cleveland, and now that he is in a more visible place reporters from all over the country will be snooping around for any information they can get their hands on.

Recently reporter Arash Markazi for ESPNLosAngeles.com had the opportunity to party with Lebron James in Las Vegas, and the subsequent story he wrote about his experiences was pulled by ESPN.  The story chronicled an event that was straight out of a dream for most men, here is an excerpt from the story to give you the full effect.

“About a dozen security guards, moving their flash lights, direct us to a roped off section on the dance floor of Tao next to a couple of apparently nude women in a bathtub full of water and rose petals.

Bottle after bottle of “Ace of Spades” champagne is delivered to the table by a waiter flying down from above the dance floor like some overgrown Peter Pan on a wire. One time he’s dressed like a King, another time as Indiana Jones and another in a replica of James’ No. 6 Miami Heat jersey.

James, who can hardly see the flying figure through his tinted glasses, almost gets kicked in the head on the waiter’s last trip down. He looks at the girls around him and says, “I wish they’d have one of these girls with no panties do that instead of the guy.”

Toward the end of the night, Boston Celtics forward Glen Davis walks past James’ party and looks at the scene up and down several times like a painting in a museum, soaking in the images of the go-go dancers, the “King” sign and the costumed man delivering bottles of champagne.

Davis shakes his head and walks on.”

“Five security guards are stationed around him, one at each corner of the table he’s about to sit at and another roving around with him, watching his every move. Anyone who takes two steps toward James is stopped and must have James’ approval to come closer.

The waiter bringing him his cup of green tea with a spoonful of honey and a dash of lemon juice makes the cut, as does the scantily clad brunette with a tattoo of a heart on her right shoulder.

She wants to take a picture with him. “I can’t right now,” says James. “Maybe later, upstairs, I’ll remember you’re the one with the tattoo.”

That was during dinner, as James and his entourage head to the club through back hallways in the bowels of The Palazzo Casino and Resort, the story picks up.

“James, now wearing sunglasses in the dark club, immediately stands up on the couch and folds his arms high on his chest and nods his head.  He smiles as he looks at the dozens of people crowded on the dance floor.  Noticing him, they stop dancing and snap pictures as the DJ screams out, “LeBron James in the building!” and plays LMFAO’s “I’m in Miami.”

A giant red crown-shaped cake is brought over to James while go-go dancers dressed in skimpy red and black outfits raise four lettered placards that spell out, “KING”.

This is nothing new for James much like many other athletes, but stories like this about Lebron have only been rumored for the most part.  Very few concrete stories of his off the court activities are out there, this is all part of James’s plan to keep his image on the up and up.  He saw what happened to Tiger Woods and his endorsement deals when Tiger lost control of the information about himself being released to the public.

My problem with this situation is not the fact that James is celebrating his fame by partying it up in Las Vegas, any young red-blooded man would do the same thing.  But the fact that the story was posted on the internet and pulled within a half hour tells me that both James and ESPN did not want the story out there.  ESPN claims the author did not go through proper editing channels and the story was posting prematurely, then later they said the story would not be posted at all.

Why the cover up?  ESPN has invested a lot in Lebron and cannot afford for his image to take a hit in the public eye.  Having a self serving party in Las Vegas is par for the course when dealing with professional athletes.  I think Lebron over did it a bit, and I think he is over playing this “King” moniker a bit too much.  When a majority of the television viewers see themselves as conservative, and a majority of the viewership is struggling financially the last thing ESPN wants is their marketing cash cow viewed in an arrogant light.

The interesting part of all this is what if this were Ron Artest, Terrell Owens, or Chad Ochocinco would all of this be covered up so fast?  The answer is no, it would be almost front page news.  Ron Artest at club with a crown on dancing with naked strippers!  That would be the headline, but when it is King James all we hear is silence.  I have a variety of sports sources and I only stumbled across this story purely by accident, once again I am not saying that Lebron cannot party and have his fun.  My only point here is, let’s eliminate the double standard, if Terrell Owens self serving actions get reported on in the media then Lebron should be no different.  Making an ass of himself in public is his choice, but he should not be free from the same scrutiny as everyone else.  Doing crossover dribbles, shooting fake baskets, and faking dunks on signs outside of businesses inside a Casino are all immature and childish things to do.  But who can blame him, all the people around who want his money and to profit off of his fame are going to continue enabling him to act this way.

You can read the original posted article here if you want to see all the details about what went on at the party, this was captured by a few people before it was removed by ESPN.

In 12 years, former NBA player Antoine Walker made more than $110 million playing professional basketball moderately well.  Account for taxes, and add a few Adidas endorsements, and an EA Sports NBA Live 99′ video game cover, and he probably has about $70 million to toss around.  During the last several months, Walker has been pursued by multiple financial institutions for unpaid debts.  It is estimated that Walker owes more than $4 million to his creditors and is facing felony check fraud charges in Las Vegas.  The 33 year old walker owed money to a Las Vegas casino for a marker extended to him, and he bounced a check he wrote to pay the debt knowing he did not have that much money available.

The average person still is in disbelief, but if you look at how Walker blew his money it is very easy to see where the money went.  Walker had a problem telling people no, as he played in the NBA he traveled with a large entourage of people.  Not only did he have an entourage of 10 or so people, but as with most people family members start to come around asking for money with all sorts of life or death problems.  Walker told them yes I can help you, and before you know it he was supporting somewhere around 70 friends and family members financially in some form.

There is a fair amount of stupidity involved int his as well, as with most people who come into money Walker wanted to do something for his mother.  He built her a mansion in the suburbs of Chicago which has an indoor pool, 10 bathroom, and to top it off a full-size basketball court.  Why in the world would you build such a huge place for your mother when she is not going to use most of the amenities that you are including with the house, then with a house that size it has to be maintained and that means housekeeping staff, lawn maintenance, and pest control among other things.  I am sure Walker’s mother would have been quite happy with a mansion that had only five bathroom, and no basketball court, it was a ridiculous waste of money.

Living at the Bishops Forest condominium complex in Waltham during the Celtics season, Walker turned the pavement surrounding his home into a virtual luxury car lot — two Bentleys, two Mercedes, a Range Rover, a Cadillac Escalade, a bright red Hummer. Often, the vehicles were tricked out with custom paint jobs, rims, and sound systems at considerable added expense. He also collected top-line watches — Rolexes and diamond-encrusted Cartiers.”

Condos, luxury cars, watches I guess that’ll eventually force you into bankruptcy. Especially when you’re not investing your money smartly, Walker was also a majority owner of a set of condos in Chicago.  The units have had issues that need to be fixed, and there were problems with the property before Walker ever invested his money.  It was just bad decision after bad decision for Walker, and he is paying the price today.

The difference between this situation and other similar ones, is that Walker’s lavish lifestyle wasn’t all me-me-me.  He was also a generous friend and teammate who had custom suits made for coaches, routinely picked up giant team dinner tabs, and when there were funds to spare, gave to underprivileged youngsters. He was basically spending money as if it were a never ending well, I think he looked in the bank and told himself there is no way he could ever spend that much money.

Well he did, and now he is attempting to pay his creditors back by playing in a Puerto Rican basketball league for $150,000 a year.  Good money for most people, but not for a guy who is millions of dollars in debt and past the prime of his career.  Sorry Antoine, welcome to the Hall!

The show opens with Floyd Money Mayweather telling Mosley that he’s definitely talented, but Money Mayweather is “god-gifted”. Naazim Richardson says that Floyd Mayweather was protected in the streets because his dad and uncle were fighters. I’m trying to remember when Floyd said he was a street fighter.

Shane comments that Floyd barks the most when he is intimidated as he did prior to the De La Hoya fight and he feels Floyd is intimidated by him. Team Mosley watched old fight tapes of Money Mayweather and are bored and unimpressed. Nazim makes a joke that his fights are boring and they need to reshow 24/7 between rounds to get the audience excited. Nazim then stays up later then everyone else watching more tapes and studying him all night. Nazim predicts Shane will hit “Money” Mayweather in the mouth and that will cause him to sprout wings and turn into a dragon.

We then see Mayweather’s seven man bodyguard team talk about their daily workout routines which involves eating healthy egg whites and of course pumping iron at the local Gold’s Gym.

They lift weights and then say it’s time to protect the champ. Mayweather shows up to the gym in his white Porsche as the bodyguards just wait sitting down in front of the gym.

Floyd feels the gym is packed everyday because he is part of history and he truly believes he is the best. He then states he is better than Ali and Robinson making it clear that there is not a fighter better than him. Forty minutes straight with no breaks hitting the pads with his Uncle Roger, as he states he’s the hardest working boxer in the sport.  Floyd senior then recites a poem standing on the side of the ropes of the ring.

Shane then goes on the George Lopez show with his promoting partner Oscar De La Hoya. George behind the scenes states that he feels Shane has a good chance. On the show George asks Mosley how he will win. Mosley states he has the power. George then tells him to have Floyd wear these blue shoes with the George Lopez Show logo on the bottom of the shoes, implying that Floyd will be knocked out.

Uncle Roger is then seen next door to the Mayweather gym at a Chinese café drinking a fruit smoothie. He is with his son spending quality time with him. Roger then goes into a media conference call with Nazim where reporters call in with their questions.  One reporter from USA Today asks if Mosley is the fastest fighter that Mayweather ever has faced?

Roger responds with it’s all about skills and it’s not some fake Rocky movie stuff its about skills. Nazim in an aggressive voice makes it clear that Mosley has not tested positive for anything.  The subject then goes into Floyd and the rumor that he injects some foreign substance into his hands. Another party interjects to defend Floyd and states that is nothing more than a rumor that was put out on the Internet that spread.

Shane is then seen training his son Shane Jr. Shane feels his 19-year-old son is his own man and can do whatever he wants. The subject then turns into Shane and his own father, Jack Mosley who he felt was not fully focused in the sport of boxing and training him in the past. Shane then states that he loves his father but he needs a trainer who is giving their 100 percent in training him.

Nazim then calls him and Shane, Louis, and Clark and explains they will be pioneers for they will be the first to defeat Mayweather.  While Floyd laments over the money taken from him by the IRS.

Floyd then explains that all his children and nephews and nieces are all named Money just like him and introduces one kid in particular Cash Flow who is a 6-year-old Latino kid who hits the pads with impressive speed in Mayweather fashion.

Floyd Mayweather shows his softer side with his daughter while watching TV and telling her to always be her best and that there will always be people jealous of you for you are the best.  He says that as long as she loves him, he can’t lose.

Shane tells the camera that he does not care for Floyd’s mind games he feels he gets frantic and upset if his mind game tactics are not working. Shane says he does not care, all he cares about is being the best.  Floyd says that on May 1st, there’s going to be a stick-up. Less than two weeks to go until fight time.

Watch Episode 2 of Mayweather-Mosley 24/7 below:

She has been with the company for 3 years now and has seen it explode. She has appeared in many magazines including FHM, Maxim, Maxim espanol and many more. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she has had the opportunity to be in films and music videos. One of her main passions is music. She loves to sing and has recorded some original songs. Another passion of hers is fitness. She loves to help others and finds it very rewarding.

Her Favorites: dark chocolate, sushi, fish, mango, pineapple, movies, Louis Vouitton, beaches, singing, dancing,  pilates, kickboxing, muy thai, dogs, and her family.

Her Dislikes: cheese, sour cream, red meat, rude, judgemental,lazy, people.

(Bio taken from her website:  http://www.missariannyceleste.com/)

Russell was benched several weeks ago in favor of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Bruce Gradkowski, and he still believed he was the “future” of the Raiders franchise.  Well Gradkowski was injured and Raiders coach Tom Cable chose to go with journeyman QB Charlie Frye, who hasn’t been seen in about three years.

In a turn of fortune during the last game of the season Frye suffered a concussion and JaMarcus Russell was again entered into the lineup at Quarterback.  Russell threw an interception and the Raiders subsequently lost the game, but that isn’t the main reason he is being inducted today.

We are inducting Mr. Russell today because he skipped the end of the year team meeting to go to Las Vegas.  Reporters called the Palms Hotel and Casino to confirm that Russell was checked in and he in fact was, during the same time his teammates were meeting to close out the season.  This is quite interesting behavior for the “future” of the Raiders franchise, and what’s worse is apparently the Raiders are okay with it.

The Raiders claim Russell was excused for personal reasons, and they were aware he was in Vegas as it was an approved trip by the team.  Even more they said he was there with a Raiders staff member?  Umm was it a Raiders cheerleader?  They claim it was a legitimate reason, and I don’t claim to know why Russell was there, but I will say one thing it didn’t sound like an emergency and it may say more about his future with the Raiders than anything else.

JaMarcus welcome to the Hall!!!

Boxing promoter Bob Arum has declared the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather fight to be officially dead.  This stems from a disagreement over what type of drug test to use to ensure both fighters are not doping before the fight.  Don’t believe what you read this fight is going to happen, and any one that says otherwise isn’t looking at the big picture.

First of all with each fighter guaranteed to get $25 million each at the minimum, and the promoters and everyone else involved with making the fight happen standing to make substantial paydays as well they won’t just let this fight not happen on a technicality.  Arum claims to be moving forward with plans to have Pacquiao fight Paul Malignaggi on March 13th instead of Mayweather, I think this is purely posturing on Arum’s part.  Mayweather’s camp is insisting upon using Olympic style drug testing by the USADA.  Arum has claimed that Pacquiao is “scared” of needles, and that he believes having blood drawnus too close to the fight weakens a fighter.  I don’t think Manny really cares either way, and I believe the objections are coming from Freddie Roach (Manny’s trainer).  I don’t beleive Manny is doping, and I think he always wants to prove himself against the best and he lets the people in his camp handle all of the out of the ring details.  If you notice all of the comments on this have come from Bob Arum and Freddie Roach, Manny hasn’t said anything with regards to this, so we will never know if these are really things coming from him.

In Mayweather’s case for once he has the high road in an argument and has agreed to the Olympic style testing, now his motives for this clearly are not because its his responsibility to make sure both fighters are clean.  This is Floyd’s way of getting back at the Pacquiao camp for insisting on the weight restrictions in the fight contract.  In Mayweather’s last fight he had to pay Marquez $600000 in penalties because Floyd was overweight by two pounds, Marquez agreed to the fight anyway and subsequently lost.  In negotiations for this fight the Pacquiao camp insisted on a 147 max weight limit which means that at not time even after the weigh in Mayweather can’t weigh more than 147 pounds.  Any weight over the contracted amount would have cost each fighter $10 million dollars per pound which is almost unheard of in a fight contract.  The Mayweather camp agreed to these terms, and they picked an issue to jab at the Pacquiao camp with which was the USADA drug testing.

Unfortunately these tactics and gamesmanship have put the fight on ice for now, the fight will happen eventually if the March 13th date comes and goes without the sides coming to an agreement.  There is too much at stake for it not to happen with the Staples center offering $20 million and Jerry Jones of the Cowboys offering $25 million to host the fight.  This is one of the things that plagues boxing, and fuels all the critics who clamor for people to turn to MMA as an alternative.  Generally in MMA all the fighters are under contract with an organization and for the most part have to honor the agreements, you have disputes but most of time when there is a mega-fight in MMA scheduled it happens.  I suspect that all of this is merely a way for them to hype the fight even more, which is a clever move by both sides.  Think about it all these venues will up their offers to host the fight, and the public is going to be even more thirsty to see it with all of this controversy surrounding the fight.

This is all part of the grand plan and they are working it to perfection, for those that believe Floyd is being a coward and doesn’t really want the fight you aren’t thinking clearly.  If you will remember they call him Floyd “money” Mayweather and that’s what this fight is about money.  He owes the IRS back taxes, and this fight would more than cover what he owes them and give him enough to retire on if he wanted to.  Floyd isn’t scared to lose he is much too cocky to fathom losing a fight, and he is much too greedy to leave that much money on the table.  Pacquiao would cement his legacy as the best pound for pound fighter, and maybe the best boxer ever if he beats Mayweather.  This is even magnified by the fact that Pacquiao came out on Dec. 25th and said that he plans on suing Floyd Mayweather, and the people in his camp for defamation of character.  He says people now come up to him and ask him has he ever taken steroids, Pacquiao was taken back by all of this and feels the need to defend his reputation.  This was Pacquiao’s exact statement, “I have instructed my promoter, Bob Arum, head of Top Rank Inc., to help me out in the filing of the case as soon as possible because I have had people coming over to me now asking if I really take performance-enhancing drugs and I have cheated my way into becoming the No. 1 boxer in the world,”.  This lawsuit is posturing by Pacquiao and an attempt to put pressure back on Mayweather to bypass the Olympic style blood testing.  As I stated earlier in this article Pacquiao only wants to prove himself and wants to get past all the semantics, in this statement “”Now, I say to Floyd Mayweather Jr., don’t be a coward, and face me in the ring, mano-a-mano, and shut your big, pretty mouth, so we can show the world who is the true king of the ring.” it shows he wants to prove just fight and prove himself.

The money is nice too and stakes too big, we all know Manny wants this fight to happen as well and from his statements he wants the fight.  Based on those facts the fight will happen next year sometime, I still believe March 13th will be the date and at the last minute they will find some sort of resolution to keep the fight date intact.  The lawsuit is all posturing Pacquiao has no foot to stand on in a defamation case and he knows it, it’s just another way these types of things are worked out in boxing.

-Happy Holidays