(UPDATE: Marquez won a controversial 12 round decision and with it took Barrera’s WBC Super Featherweight Championship. Scores were 118-109, 117-111, and 117-111. A rematch was requested immediatly after the fight and is expected to take place in Las Vegas in the middle of September.)

This Saturday night, live from MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Marco Antonio Barrera (64-4 42 KO’s) will defend his WBC super featherweight title against challenger Juan Manuel Marquez (46-3-1 35 KO’s).

Marquez’s only loss in this decade was to Indonesian Chris John back in winter of 2004. Ringside observers have said that Marquez was repeatedly deducted points for low blows that weren’t even occurring during the later rounds of what had been a close fight. This wasn’t the first or last time that questionable things have happened during a Chris John bout, so one can almost look past this fight as a true loss for Marquez. To find a truly legitimate loss for Marquez you must go all the way back to 1999, when he lost a title shot to Freddie Norwood.

One would think that the 33 year old Marquez is close to losing a step, but just last year he knocked out two formidable opponents in Terdsak Jandaeng and Jimrex Jaca. Speaking of slowing down though, everyone is wondering when his opponent will.

Barrera is actually the same age as Marquez, but has fought 18 more bouts than Marquez, and most of those have been against hall of fame type material. Barrera has fought fellow Mexican legend Erik Morales three times, Naseem Hamed, Johnny Tapia, and Pilipino superstar Manny Pacquiao, just to name a few of the bigger names on his resume. There comes a point in every great fighter’s career when you begin to wonder if his time is running out, but Barrera has already proved us wrong before.

In 2003, Barrera’s last loss, Pacquiao beat him from ring post to ring post en route to an 11^th round TKO. Everyone in the boxing world was half expecting to hear the great Barrera give a retirement speech sometime shortly after, but instead he has gone on to win his next six fights. Paulie Ayala, Morales, Mzonka Fana, Robbie Peden, and Rocky Juarez will all tell you that Barrera doesn’t need to retire quite yet.

Pacquiao has actually fought both of these warriors. Of course he beat Barrera, but he actually fought to a draw with Marquez in a sensational battle back in May of 2004. Marquez was actually on the ground three times in the first round, but won enough of the remaining 11 rounds to pull off in improbable draw. Some even said he should have been awarded the victory. A few days ago a member of the boxing media asked Pacquiao who he is favoring in Saturday’s fight and surprisingly he said Barrera, despite having an easier time with him of the two.

Who should you put your money on? That’s a very tough question. Marquez is a slight underdog, sitting at +120, while Barrera is currently at -145. A lot of times in boxing, the question comes down to, “what have you done for me lately?” What Marquez has done is probably a little more enhanced than what Barrera has done over the last few years. As mentioned, if it wasn’t for a dubious loss in Indonesia, Marquez could be looking at an eight year undefeated streak. But since Barrera’s loss to Pacquiao, he has beaten his lifelong foe Morales, again. Where he hasn’t looked stellar is in his last two fights against Juarez. In their first fight in May of 2006, Juarez nearly escaped with Barrera’s title, losing a split decision many thought he deserved to get. In that fight Barrera looked lethargic. However, he easily won the rematch four months later. At that time, Juarez looked lethargic. At times Barrera has been accused of not being able to get up for the smaller types of fights. That shouldn’t be a problem for this fight though, because this is about as big a fight as you can get.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year to millions of people across American, and, no, I’m not talking about Christmas.  With the exception of the Super Bowl, the NCAA March Madness tournament is the most gambled on event in the USA, and the second most popular sporting event, as well.

With so many good players across the country, there are always many close games that usually go right down to the wire.  This also means that we have a new NCAA basketball champion nearly every year.  Last year the University of Florida took home the championship, and amazingly enough they have returned almost every player from their title winning team.  Florida Gator nation may be a little worried though, because their team has stumbled down the stretch, losing three out of their last five games, and all the loses were by ten points or more. 

Those stats are a genuine concern heading into the tournament, but American sports fans have a way of forgetting the past too soon.  Heading into last year’s tournament the Gators dropped three out of four games, before winning six straight to take home the championship.  Eerily enough, the 2007 Florida Gators have nearly the same identical record as the 2006 championship winning team did at this time.  If the Gators win one conference tournament game, and go on to win the championship, both teams would have finished with a 33-6 record.

The team that Florida beat for the championship, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) will also probably make a deep run in this year’s tournament.  UCLA was near the top of the national rankings all year.  Unfortunately, much like their counterpart Florida, they too have struggled down the stretch, losing their last two, including a first round Pac-10 Conference tournament loss to bottom feeder University of California.  Just like UCLA, they brought back a good majority of their championship runner up team.  It may be that teams with a ton of talent and a chance to win a national championship pack it in at the end of seasons.  This could be an attempt to save energy going into the stretch run, or it could be they are already gearing up for a championship run, and can’t keep up the enthusiasm while playing soft teams during the final weeks of the regular seasons.

You also can’t forget about the Big Ten Conference that gives us two legitimate title contenders.  Wisconsin and Ohio State both have been in the top ten the entire year.  Both of them have legitimate superstars.  Wisconsin has player of the year candidate Alando Tucker, and Ohio State has the best center in the country, Greg Oden.  They also both play great defense, and that will get any team far into the tournament.

What about one of the mid-major conference teams?  I think we’ve reached a point in college basketball where we can’t be shocked when a smaller university takes out of the big dogs.  But, I don’t think we’ve reached a point where we can expect one of the smaller Cinderella schools to win the whole thing.  The reasoning is that, even though the big named schools attract players who usually leave after one year, they are still overall getting better players than the small schools.  In a few years though, 5-10 years, I think a small school will win the championship.  This is because the smaller schools are attracting better players when they are getting more exposure, and also players are stay at these schools for their entire four years.  In these four years these players become a more cohesive unit, making it possible to beat an outstanding freshman class from Duke, for example. 

These are the top contenders for the championship, with teams like North Carolina, Texas A&M, and Memphis rounding out the second tier.  Part of the fun of March Madness is not knowing what to expect, so hopefully for the sake of excitement and for fans everywhere, everything I’ve said is wrong, and something totally unexpected happens. 

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Last year George Mason, out of Fairfax, Virginia, surprised basketball fans everywhere by advancing all the way to the final four of the 2006 NCAA March Madness tournament.  George Mason beat powerhouse team Michigan State in the first round, North Carolina in the second, and Connecticut in the fourth.  In the third round, or what is better known as the sweet sixteen, they lost to another mid-major conference surprise, Wichita State.   They would eventually lose to Florida, who would go onto become champion, but not before capturing the imagination of unheralded teams, and hoop fans, everywhere.

So, with the start of the 2007 NCAA tournament just a week away, who will be this year’s George Mason?  One thing is for sure, because of an 18-15 record the real George Mason will not be this year’s George Mason.  They nearly punched a ticket to the dance, but lost to Virginia Commonwealth University in the Conference Athletic Association (CAA) title game on Monday, 65-59.

A trio of teams from the CAA could make some noise in this year’s tournament, but two of the teams have to hope the tournament selection committee will pick them to be in the tournament on Selection Sunday.  Those teams are the already mentioned VCU Rams, Drexel, and Old Dominion.  Drexel had a great run in the early in the season when they beat Villanova, Syracuse, and Temple, all on the road.  Those three teams are not what they once were, but to beat them all on the road, in less than two weeks, shows what kind of force they could be in the NCAA tournament.  Old Dominion University doesn’t have quite the resume Drexel has, but they did finish second in the CAA and beat top ten nationally ranked Georgetown back in November.  VCU was solid all year, losing only two conference games and only six games overall.  They didn’t really have any standout wins, but played hard in their road loss to Atlantic-10 regular season champion Xavier.

One team that won’t have to wait to hear if they are in the tournament, because they punched their own ticket, is the Winthrop Eagles.  Winthrop University is a small school looking to make big noise in this year’s big dance.  They have won the Big South Conference regular season seven times in the last ten years.  This year they even one upped themselves, finishing a perfect 14-0 in conference, then completing the sweep by eventually winning the Big South Conference championship. The Eagles have won 18 games in a row, including a mid-season non conference game to Missouri St.  Winthrop became nationally ranked for the first time this past week, standing at number 25 in the nation.  Could this be their first step towards shocking the basketball world by advancing far into the tournament?

Other teams to keep an eye on are the Universities of Creighton, Missouri State, and Southern Illinois, all out of the Missouri Valley Conference.  It seems like every year a team from this conference makes it to at least the sweet 16.

The truth is though, maybe we aren’t supposed to see these Cinderella teams coming.  After all, who can truthfully say they had George Mason advancing to the final four last year?  It is very possible that I have overlooked a team that will make a big run in the NCAA tournament.  Actually, I hope I’ve overlooked a team.  Everyone loves a surprise.

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UPDATE: The Tournament is only five days away.  Satellites are still running, and will continue to run up until the start of the first day of the tournament.  

In just a few short weeks a good majority of the world’s best poker players will embark upon the city of Elizabeth, Indiana for their 2007 World Series of Poker circuit event. The first of the tournament players will arrive March 26^th and stay through the tournaments finale on April 4^th.

Caesars Indiana Casino is located on a riverboat that floats on the Mississippi River. Just a few steps off the boat is the Caesars Indiana Casino that has 503 rooms. As you know though, many poker players have gained fame for their marathon sessions at a poker table, so the poker players probably care a little more about the poker room.

The poker room is host to 33 tables, with plenty of elbow room to go along with it. In case people did not think poker was as popular in the Midwest of the United States as it is on the coasts, they expanded their poker room to over double the size it previously was just last year.

Last year, Quoc Al Vihn, better known as Vinny by his peers, took down 126 other players to win the $10,000 buy-in main event. With the victory, Al Vihn picked up a cool $437,760 and the respect of all his poker rivals. The big difference between this year and last year though is the buy-in. This year participants will only be paying $5,000 buy-in. This does not necessarily mean less prize money, however. Because of the cheaper buy-in, tournament officials expect to shatter the mark of the 126 players in last year’s event.

It is unclear which poker superstars will participate in this year’s main event of the Indiana 2007 WSOP but, if it is anything like last year the competition will be stiff. Regulars on the WSOP tour circuit William Edler, Rico Carli, and Men “The Master” Nquyen all finished in the top ten of last year’s event and are all considered to be ranked among the best handful of players in the world.

If you have a dream of participating in one of these events with the big boys of poker then now is your chance to get into the bigger events, for a fraction of the cost. Satellite events have already begun for this WSOP circuit event. Starting at 9am everyday and running to 3pm single table tournaments will be played for each of the tournaments ten events. The ten events that will be played are all no-limit hold’em games with various buy-ins, with the exception of one H.O.R.S.E. tournament, and a no-limit hold’em event specifically for the ladies.

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With about 10 laps to go in this past Sunday’s Busch race, team owner Chip Ganassi told ESPN viewers, “The only team orders we have is ‘Don’t wreck each other.’”

Two laps later Juan Pablo Montoya hit teammate Scott Pruett to take the lead in the Telcel-Motorola 200 in Mexico City, Mexico, and to eventually win his first NASCAR race ever. As expected, tempers were heated at the end of the race.

“That was just lowdown, nasty, dirty, driving,” said a visibly upset Pruett. Montoya would later say that he thought Pruett, “Saw him coming.” But, the real questions was did Montoya have to make his move that quick?

Danny Hamlin had the best view of what happened because he was in 3^rd place at the time, and eventually finished second. When asked by a reporter, Hamlin stated, “I wouldn’t call it dirty driving, but it was a bit aggressive.” Pruett agreed with most observers that “Juan had the fastest car and he would have taken the lead sooner or later. He was overzealous.”

A little more than halfway through the race Montoya, who had been near the front of the pack all day, had a fuel tank problem that forced him back into 19^th place. There was hardly a glitch though, as Montoya quickly rebounded back into the top five.

Not only did Montoya have the fastest car on Sunday, but he also had the freshest tires. With 8 laps to go, or roughly 16 miles remaining in the race, Montoya no doubt had other chances to win the race.

Even Montoya’s crew chief Brad Parrott felt the victory had come with a taste of bittersweet, “I’m really glad we won, but really upset we took out a teammate.”

It is a testament to Pruett’s racing ability that he was able to bounce back and finish the race in 5^th position

Montoya had repeatedly battled back from near the back of the pack during the race, and it was clear to pretty much everyone watching, including Ganassi, that Montoya could have made a clean pass, and theoretically would have given team Ganassi a 1-2 finish.

Up until this point, Pruett and Montoya had found success working as a team, winning the 24 hours of Daytona race just last year. However, when you almost knock your teammate out of a race, all the happy times can be soon forgotten.

Controversy is nothing new to Montoya. Over a five year career as a Formula 1 driver he was routinely criticized for being too much of a risk taker during races. In what was considered one of the most shocking moves in a race ever, he used a daring move to pass former F1 champion Michael Schumacher during a race in 2001. Even though he did not win this race it was moves like this that helped Montoya gain a considerable following in the racing world, despite never winning a championship, and only a handful of races.

Montoya also has a history of not getting along with teammates, including not hiding the fact that he and former F1 teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Admittingly their relationship was strained in 2004 in part because Montoya would be leaving the team in favor of another. But it should not come as a complete shock, just a few races into the NASCAR season, that we may have a team feud brewing.

After cooler heads prevailed, the Ganassi team issued a statement that had both drivers give comments. Pruett said, “Sunday’s race brought out a wide range of emotions for me. Although I am still upset that I did not win the race in Mexico City or finish 1-2, I do feel a lot better. I spoke to Juan Pablo and he apologized and I do know what happened was not intentional on Juan’s part.”

Montoya responded, “As I said for the last couple of days, I am very sorry about what happened with Scott and I am really disappointed that we did not finish 1-2. I think that we had the best cars in the field and I know Scott, Brian [Pattie, Pruett’s crew chief] and the whole 41 team deserved better. I feel bad that the whole situation happened and told Scott that I was sorry about it. I completely understand Scott’s frustration as I would feel the same way. I am not just looking forward to Las Vegas.”

Hopefully for team Ganassi this kind of damage control will not be needed after every week’s race.

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