Spike TV broadcast their 2008 Video Game Awards on Sunday night, and the big surprise wasn’t any of the winners. (Your Game of the Year? “Grand Theft Auto IV”. Yawn.) It was an appearance by Mike Tyson, there to promote the upcoming release of “Fight Night Round 4.” Not that he did anything particularly exciting: no trying to bite off show host Jack Black’s ears, no threatening to “eat Luigi’s children.” No, the shock was, quite simply, his appearance:

One of the people above is King Hippo from “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” and the other is Tyson himself, sporting a physique more along the lines of Buster Douglas than the Baddest Man on the Planet. Can you spot which is which? (Hint: Tyson is the one whose wardrobe is sponsored by Dockers.)

Read more…

You might be surprised that high school football players are getting fatter. You might also be surprised that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. The signs have been obvious for years and years; whereas in the ’80s, the only comically overweight athlete on film was that center in Teen Wolf who sweated more than Patrick Ewing’s balls, now we have movies like Remember The Titans starring linemen who already have six different types of diabetes.

(NOT A REAL ATHLETE IN ANY SENSE OF THE WORD)

The BOSTON GLOBE has the wholly predictable but still depressing story detailing how America’s growing class of violently obese teenagers is turning to the one sport that makes jerseys in 5XL: football. Sure, everyone’s getting fatter, but it’s not like some 5′9″, 280 pound kid is going to run cross country. Well, he technically could. And it would technically be hilarious. Read more…

The Dodgers might be considering that would have been unfathomable before the start of the season: sending Andruw Jones down to the minor leagues. Tony Jackson of the L.A. DAILY NEWS writes that Joe Torre and Jones’ agent Scott Boras had a lengthy conversation on Sunday morning, which Jackson speculated revolved around sending Jones down to the minors to “get his swing right.”

When asked about it, Torre gave a “non-denial denial.” Getting Jones and his .161 batting average off of a major league roster & sending him down to the minors might seem like a good idea. But such a scenario is actually a horrible and possibly dangerous notion. Why?

In one word: Buffets.

Read more…

Mike Williams is the definition of an NFL bust. And by “bust,” I mean “cleavage caused by giant, heaving man boobs.” And I also mean “terrible waste of talent,” because he quickly went from being an unquestionably gifted USC receiver & Top 10 draft pick, to a fat, out-of-shape NFL train wreck, tipping the scales for the Raiders last season at a hefty 280 lbs. Basically, he’s the guy that has to take a break every two or three plays during your annual Turkey Bowl family football game at the park, or else his heart will explode.

Now it appears that Williams is likely to be out of the NFL at age 24, after he was cut on Thursday by the Tennessee Titans. To give Mike credit, he had lost 30 pounds in the off-season. But according to THE TENNESSEAN, there were still concerns about his conditioning and weight, as well as his shaky hands. Surprisingly, being a painfully-slow 240 lb. wide receiver with bad hands endears you to coaches about as much as being a painfully-slow 270 lb. wide receiver does.

Read more…