Street League announces the 2011 schedule, locations, and the increased prize purse

Street League Skateboarding has announced the 2011 League schedule and locations for it's second year. Founded by Rob Dyrdek the 20-year professional skateboarder and entrepreneur, Street League was a success in it's inaugural season effectively launching a new way of judging skateboarding by using live scoring to determine the winner. The new system made for more exciting finishes and better live television.

The season kicks off May 7th in Seattle culminating in the Street League championships in New Jersey on August 28th.

Two changes to the 2011 series immediately stand out; the championship prize purse is being raised from $150,000 to $200,000, and unlike last year, the competitors will no longer be allowed to compete in other events like the Dew Tour or the Maloof Money Cup. They will, however, be allowed to compete in the Tampa Pro and the X Games, the two Street League sanctioned events.

The 200k makes Street League the richest first place prize purse in skateboarding history, but will it be enough to get the worlds best skaters to sign an exclusive contract?

A couple of situations will play out if indeed this is the case; the best 24 competition skaters like P Rod, Chaz Ortiz, Nyjah Huston, Greg Lutzka, and Ryan Sheckler will battle it out for the $200k while also making X Games Skate Street a contest worth watching.

The rest of the skateboarding world will get their opportunity to compete for the prize money from the remaining street contests. The Dew Tour could become irrelevant fast unless they figure out a way to make it worth the top remaining skaters time to compete. The Maloof Money Cup is no walk in the park either, there's plenty of money up for grabs which will be sure to bring out skateboardings favorite skaters that don't normally compete in contest.

The most interesting fallout from the new contract rule will be which side the skaters choose. For some the decision is already made, for others it may be more difficult, but no one will have a tougher time deciding than Chris Cole.Chris has made a great living just by winning the Maloof Money Cups, but also has history with Street League and the X Games.

One things for sure, the Maloofs will attempt to help influence his decision one war or another, and Street League threw the first punch by launching their new announcement with a shot of Cole from last year.

In any of these situation the winner will be the fans, so lets sit back and see how this all plays out.

Stop 1: May 7 - 8th Key Arena, Seattle WA (Sunday Finals 4-6pm EST on ESPN)
Stop 2: June 11-12th Sprint Center, Kansas City MO (Sunday Finals 4-6pm EST on ESPN2)
Stop 3: July 16- 17th Jobing.com Arena, Glendale AZ (Sunday Finals 5-7pm EST on ESPN2)
Championship: August 28th Prudential Center, Newark NJ (5-7pm EST on ESPN2)

Skate League official series information

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Shit up a Unicornz ass

The iPath team skating Utah slickrock featured in Skateboarder Mag

Jonathan Mehring's article "Darkside of the Moon" from our April/May issue featuring iPath skaters Fred Gall, Jack Sabback, Aaron "Jaws" Homoki, Ryan Lay, Ben Raybourne, Ryan Reyes, Jon Goemann and Kenny Reed skating Utah slickrock.

About as raw as it gets. Filmed and edited by Thad Croskey.

Watch the Skateboarder Mag exclusive feature

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Don't Expect Coaching Confrontations on TUF 13

During the 12-season run of The Ultimate Fighter, many of the most memorable moments have involved the show's coaches. Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz wanted to kill one another. So did Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson. Josh Koscheck spent most of his time on the show trying to get under Georges St. Pierre's skin. Multiple coaches have broken the door that leads into the Ultimate Fighter gym.

But from the way Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos are talking, moments like those are going to be lacking on the 13th season of the show, which begins on Wednesday night. On a conference call to promote their show, Lesnar and dos Santos were nothing but respectful toward each other, and they indicated that they both prefer to save any negative energy they feel for each other until they fight in June.

"He's actually a pretty nice guy," dos Santos said of Lesnar. "But on June 11 none of that really matters because my goal is to go in there and beat Brock." (Dos Santos was speaking Portuguese and I'm cleaning up the quotes his translator provided.)

Dos Santos said he's excited about the opportunity to reach more fans than he ever has before, thanks to Lesnar's popularity.

"Being on the show with Brock was great because Brock is so used to the media spotlight and being in front of the cameras," dos Santos said. "Brock is a guy that's bringing a lot of fans into MMA, he's a guy that's very well known in the U.S. and I'm starting to come up right now and this is a great opportunity for all of his fans to be able to see me."

Dos Santos had never even met Lesnar until their first day in the Ultimate Fighter gym together, but he says he was pleasantly surprised by what a nice guy Lesnar was.

"Prior to the show I'd never actually met Brock, so I was a little bit surprised of how easy to deal with Brock was, even though we weren't able to be together all that much," Dos Santos said. "It was great to be able to meet my next opponent and the experience overall was phenomenal."

Lesnar said that all he saw of dos Santos was when the two of them had to get together to set up the fights, and he was fine with that.

"I probably spent a total of 30 minutes with Junior on the show," Lesnar said. "I didn't make it a point to run into him or anything in that nature. ... I saw very little of him other than what we were doing for television."

For Lesnar and dos Santos to exchange anything more than pleasantries, we'll have to wait until they fight.

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RECAP: D.C. United 3 - Columbus Crew 1

WASHINGTON ?�Three second-half goals propelled D.C. United to an opening-day victory over the visiting Columbus Crew in front of 18,132 fans at RFK Stadium. Debutant Charlie Davies? two goals will get the headlines, but fellow newcomer Josh Wolff got the rout started with his first goal in a United uniform.

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The lone Crew goal came from a Robbie Rogers penalty kick late in the second half.

Both sides began the game with five new starters compared to 2010, and the evidence of change was prevalent early on, as midfield and attacking exchanges were a bit out of sync.

In Ben Olsen?s first game as permanent head coach of United, his side was aggressive early and had chances to open the scoring. A scintillating Josh Wolff run found Dax McCarty wide open at the top of the box, but he scuffed his shot wide.

On the other end, Crew midfielder Dejan Rusmir couldn?t convert a set piece chance as United defender Marc Burch cleared off the line a few minutes later.

PHOTO GALLERY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 - RFK Stadium

The second half saw more fireworks, beginning in the 51st minute. While Davies was preparing to come on as a substitute, Wolff got on the end of a through ball from Jed Zayner, out-muscling rookie Rich Balchan and firing a shot past goalkeeper Will Hesmer with the outside of his right foot.

Five minutes later, United doubled the lead, when midfielder Chris Pontius was fouled in the box. With US national team fans across the country crossing their fingers, Davies stepped up and slotted his penalty home to Hesmer?s right side.

The Crew weren?t ready to go away, looking the most threatening on set piece opportunities.

D.C. goalie Pat Onstad was called into action in the 69th minute, when new Crew forward Tom Heinemann tested the United ?keeper with a header off a Eddie Gaven free kick.

Davies then added his second, pouncing on a Crew defensive mistake as Chad Marshall slipped while trying to deal with a Marc Burch long ball, Davies was able to round Hesmer and slot home.

Just seconds after Davies? second goal, Columbus scored when Dejan Jakovic handled Robbie Rogers? shot in the box. Rogers struck from the spot, reducing the Crew deficit to two goals.

But it wasn?t enough on a night that clearly belonged to Davies and United head coach Ben Olsen, who earned three points in his first game without the interim tag.

RELATED: Debut double strike a "special moment" for Davies

Scoring Summary:

• DC -- Josh Wolff 1 (Jed Zayner 1) 51
• DC -- Charlie Davies 1 (penalty kick) 63
• DC -- Charlie Davies 2 (Marc Burch 1) 77
• CLB -- Robbie Rogers 1 (penalty kick) 79

Misconduct Summary:

• CLB -- Dilly Duka (caution; Reckless Tackle) 16
• DC -- Marc Burch (caution; Reckless Tackle) 38
• DC -- Josh Wolff (caution; Shirt Removal) 52
• CLB -- Julius James (caution; Reckless Tackle) 60

Lineups:

Columbus Crew -- William Hesmer, Sebastian Miranda, Julius James, Chad Marshall, Rich Balchan, Dejan Rusmir, Emmanuel Ekpo, Eddie Gaven, Dilly Duka (Robbie Rogers 66), Jeff Cunningham (Tommy Heinemann 60), Andres Mendoza.

Substitutes Not Used: Kevin Burns, Andy Iro, Emilio Renteria, Josh Williams, Andy Gruenebaum.

D.C. United -- Pat Onstad, Jed Zayner (Rodrigo Brasesco 70), Dejan Jakovic, Perry Kitchen, Marc Burch, Andy Najar, Dax McCarty, Clyde Simms, Chris Pontius, Joseph Ngwenya (Charlie Davies 52), Josh Wolff (Santino Quaranta 83).

Substitutes Not Used: Branko Boskovic, Blake Brettschneider, Kurt Morsink, Joe Willis.

Referee: Mark Geiger
Referee's Assistants: Eric Boria; Sean Hurd
4th Official: Landis Wiley
Attendance: 18,132
Time of Game: 1:51
Weather: Partly Cloudy and 55 degrees

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United Drives to collect baby essentials during March

Washington, D.C. - D.C. United announced today that the club will collect baby essentials during the month of March to benefit Community Lodgings. Each month during the 2011 Major League Soccer season, D.C. United will collect items at every home game to benefit pre-determined non-profit organizations within the Metropolitan Area.

Founded in 1987 by eight Alexandria churches, Community Lodgings is an independent, non-profit organization that works to lift families from homelessness and instability to independence and self-sufficiency through their Transitional Housing Program and Youth & Adult Education Programs, held at the Fifer Family Learning Center.

A D.C. United Challenge has been established to help encourage and create an opportunity for elementary and middle schools to give back to the community. It provides a competition between D.C. area schools to collect the greatest amount of United Drives items each month. The monthly winners will receive a pizza party with a D.C. United Player to celebrate the schools? achievement. If your institution is interested in taking The Challenge, please contact D.C. United's Community Relations Department.

Additionally, all fans that donate an item will receive a "Buy One, Get One Free" ticket voucher, redeemable for that day?s match or another 2011 regular season home game. The collection bin on game days is located outside RFK Stadium?s Gate A, and is open from two hours prior to the game until 15 minutes after kick-off.

Donations are also accepted in the D.C. United offices on non-game days, located on the fourth floor of Gate A. This season marks the eighth year of the United Drives campaign, which collects much-needed items to help with each beneficiary?s mission.

For more information on United Drives or any of D.C. United?s community initiatives, please call (202) 587-5000.

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HDNet Offers an Honest Assessment of Bobby Lashley

The worst thing a TV announcer can do is lie to the audience. That's true in any sport, but mixed martial arts has a particularly egregious history of announcers hyping up fighters at the expense of the truth: When a promoter wants to make one fighter or another into its next star, there are far too many announcers willing to overstate the fighter's abilities and mislead the viewers into thinking they're watching a better fighter than they are.

So it was refreshing on Friday night to hear the HDNet announcing team of Michael Schiavello and Frank Trigg tell the audience the truth about Bobby Lashley, who was fighting in the main event of a Titan Fighting card: Although the easy thing to do would have been to hype up Lashley as Titan Fighting's biggest star, Schiavello and Trigg instead offered a frank assessment of Lashley and told the audience the truth about who he is: A big, muscular former wrestler whose physique looks impressive but whose MMA skills are limited and whose cardiovascular conditioning is atrocious.

Schiavello and Trigg weren't out to badmouth Lashley. At the start of the fight, when Lashley slammed Ott to the ground, Schiavello shouted, "Bobby Lashley just pulverized him into the canvas like he was a rag doll."

But within a couple minutes, the announcers started noting, accurately, that Lashley hadn't finished the undersized Ott, which a good fighter would have. Midway through the first round, Schiavello said, "It's gone longer than most people thought it would."

And by the end of the first round, Schiavello was praising Ott for withstanding the barrage of punishment that Lashley was dishing out, exclaiming, "John Ott survives!"

Between the first and second rounds, Trigg identified Lashley's biggest problem: He's not in good enough shape to fight for more than five minutes.

"Lashley is exhausted," Trigg said. "He burnt everything he had in the first round."

In the second round, Schiavello added, "Lashley is slowing down -- that's not what you want. ... Lashley has visibly slowed down."

As the second round wore on, Schiavello said that Lashley was "showing himself off to be a one-dimensional fighter." And at the end of the second round, both Schiavello and Trigg pointed out that Lashley wasn't doing anything to shake his reputation as a WWE star who has not yet become a legitimate fighter.

"This does not do Lashley any favors in trying to generally establish himself as a true mixed martial artist and impress his scathing critics," Schiavello said.

"No, not at all," Trigg replied.

As the third round began and Ott started to pepper the exhausted Lashley, the crowd began to cheer loudly for Ott. Schiavello and Trigg joined the crowd in their enthusiasm, and continued to note that Lashley had no steam left.

"Bobby Lashley is breathing through his mouth," Schiavello said. "Bobby Lashley is gassed here."

"Lashley's in a lot of trouble here," Trigg said. "He's exhausted. He's got nothing left."

As the fight came to an end, Schiavello and Trigg praised Ott for lasting 15 minutes with the much bigger Lashley, and didn't praise Lashley for his efforts at all. This exchange was exactly the kind of candid assessment the fans at home deserved:

Trigg: "Lashley didn't prove to us, or to any naysayer, to anybody watching at home, one way or the other that he's a legit heavyweight contender in any shape, fashion or form. He's got a lot more work to do."

Schiavello: "He has not silenced any critics yet."

Trigg: "No, he made them louder. He still isn't that good. He was exhausted after the first round. He still showed that he can't finish a fight unless a guy just stands there and decides to get beaten up."

Schiavello: "And he had no other options but the right hand and the ground and pound."

Trigg: "Basically, what he is is a high-caliber college wrestler who spent some time in WWE, crossed over into fighting without learning anything else."

Schiavello: "Bobby Lashley, look how gassed he is."

In the end, Schiavello summed it up nicely.

"Bobby Lashley back in the winner's circle," Schiavello said. "Not an impressive victory."

But it was an impressive display of the right way to call a fight.

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Post-match quotes: D.C. United 3 - Columbus Crew 1

MLS 2011 QUOTESHEET

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011 ? D.C. UNITED 3, COLUMBUS CREW 1

D.C. UNITED HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN

On beginning the 2011 season with a victory over Columbus:
I?m pretty pessimistic, so I don?t envision things like this, but it was a good night. I really enjoyed it and I?m happy for those guys, it?s kind of like a monkey off the back early and now we can move forward. It takes a complete team effort and we have another [game], so we will enjoy it tonight and get back to work and try and get that next [win].?

On Charlie Davies:
It could get scary, yeah [Davies] was great tonight. You know, speed is real, it changes the game. I?m really proud of him. Putting Charlie [Davies] aside for a second, because it is a great story, he deserves every ounce of credit, coming back and scoring two goals, but it was a team effort. Every guy in the [locker room] is exhausted. They worked their tales off. They helped each other out, if one guy missed a guy, the next one was there. Our team defending was pretty good. You know, we had some early season moments. We could have gotten punished but overall, I thought we were the better team today and the atmosphere was great. Overall, a pretty good start.

On the penalty kick:
It wasn?t my call. And if I could be absolutely honest with you, I probably wouldn?t have picked Charlie. Just because he had just gotten into the game and I saw [Josh] Wolff grab it and I thought he was going to take it, Dax McCarty grabbed the ball, walked it over and gave it to Charlie, and said, ?you take it.? Charlie stepped up and made the PK. So I would have to credit Dax on that one.

On seeing Davies back on the playing field:
I don?t take any credit for what [Davies] is doing, I mean he took a chance and came on his own to tryout for this team and he has done a lot of work to get back here and it is emotional for myself and anyone who is close to him right now to see him come back and come back in this way, it?s pretty impressive.

On United captain Dax McCarty:
He?s a two-way midfielder. He?s a box-to-box guy for us. We need him to continue what he did tonight. He?s scrappy. He?s a guy that?s going to do it all for us in there.

On the performance on United rookie Perry Kitchen:
He?s a stud. He certainly didn?t look like an 18-year -old, how old is he now? I?ve got so many damn teenagers on this team, I can?t keep track of how old they are. But, he was great and we are going to miss him for the 20?s [call-up for U.S. U-20 National Team duty] so we are going to need a couple guys even next week and we are going to be digging into guys like [Rodrigo] Brasesco, even young guys like [Chris] Korb. Jed [Zayner] has got a little bit of a hamstring problem. We?ve built this team deep, so hopefully we can use them.

On Josh Wolff?s enthusiasm after scoring United?s first goal:
He looks good for a man his age, he?s entitled [to celebrate]. It doesn?t matter how old you are, when you get a new start you want to prove yourself and I know last year at Kansas City, he was in and out and played a little bit out of position and at the end of the day I think he wants to show that he?s still got it.

On Pat Onstad?s performance in goal:
He [Onstad] was great. He?s a calming influence for us back there. He directs traffic and it?s like having a coach on the field. Actually it is, right? He?s been great. He?s played a couple games now so he?s pretty composed out there.

D.C. UNITED MIDFIELDER AND CAPTAIN DAX MCCARTY

On the emotions surrounding his first match with D.C. United:
Words can?t really describe how amazing the fans were tonight ? I?m just not used to this. That constant screaming and yelling, everyone from Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles, they made the atmosphere fantastic and it was a true home field advantage. I thought our team was fantastic. From the opening whistle, we knew that we had the desire to win, we finished superbly, and I think our defending was something to be proud of. Everyone defended well - from the forwards back to the defenders and goalkeeper.

On earning three points on First Kick weekend:
I think with our team we had a quiet confidence. I think some people are giving us a little bit of credit, thinking that maybe we would be a bit better than we were last year, but I think we really believed. There is definitely a quiet confidence. Maybe we didn?t expect to explode like we did in the first half, but we knew we were capable [of winning] and we have a good team.

On Charlie Davies? two-goal performance:
I could not be happier for Charlie [Davies] ? he?s a guy that deserves it. He was shunned out of his club team in France, and we believed in him. Everyone in this locker room knew what he was capable of, and I still think we have only seen 75 percent of Charlie ? he has a lot more to give. It?s scary to think about how much better he can be based on what you saw tonight.

On moving forward against New England next week:
This is the perfect way to start the season off. You always want to defend your home turf and getting three points is a must. We?re going to enjoy it tonight and go into New England looking to continue this thing by going the right direction and getting three more points.

D.C. UNITED FORWARD CHARLIE DAVIES

On the emotions of returning to soccer after his car accident in late 2009:
I don?t even know what just happened tonight. Literally, it was just like a whirlwind. The support from the fans was overwhelming tonight, and I feel so overcome with emotion.

On the emphatic nature of his first game for D.C. United:
This has been like a storybook tonight. I don?t think you could write this stuff. You can?t make this up, and once the whistle blew I was so relieved that we had won. I looked at the fans and that?s when the emotion hit me. I thought to myself, look at the support, look at how much people wanted me to succeed. To score two goals on my debut after a year and a half out, it?s honestly amazing. I knew I was ready, and I knew that I wanted the opportunity, but it feels great to seize the moment. To survive the [car] accident and still be able to play soccer, it seems like there is a reason why it happened and this goes to show that with faith and belief that you can achieve the impossible. Tonight it feels like I achieved the impossible.

On taking the penalty kick for his first goal:
Dax [McCarty], our captain, handed me the ball. I told [Josh] Wolff and Dax that I was taking [the penalty], and they didn?t even hesitate. Dax came over and said that he trusted and believed in me, and when he gave me that ball the confidence was flowing out of me. This team put all their trust and faith in me and I knew that I had to come through, and once I scored I thought, okay I?m back. There is a long way to go but it felt like the right start tonight.

D.C. UNITED FORWARD JOSH WOLFF

On his debut with the Black-and-Red:
Basically getting the result is always the most important thing, but we have put in a lot of work and effort so far. It was good to get that first goal, those are critical in any game and you want to get the fans on your side. Once we did that, you could see the guys elevate and we kept pushing the game. Charlie [Davies] got a couple of goals which was fantastic. Overall it was a great group effort and we were glad to win.

On scoring the first D.C. United goal of 2011:
It?s our first game, our home opener, and we had a good crowd. At that point it was going to be a play or two on either side that was going to determine the game, so it was good to get that first goal.

On his goal celebration with Barra Brava:
Anytime you score it?s euphoric. I?m always up for enjoying it with the fans and I felt like celebrating that goal with them was the right thing to do [laughs].

COLUMBUS CREW HEAD COACH ROBERT WARZYCHA

On the club?s loss to D.C. United:
We couldn?t string passes together. I thought that whatever we said before the game wasn?t working. There were moments that there was only one team on the field and that was D.C., especially in the second half when they got a couple of goals and we couldn?t respond.

On D.C. United?s ability to generate scoring opportunities in the 2nd half:
I think [the opportunities] came mostly from our mistakes and they led to goals, but obviously you have to run and want the ball to stop the chances. I think a couple goals came from our mistakes and you have to just eliminate that.

On what his team can work on moving forward:
Basically a game like today shows that you have to do a little bit of everything. We have to become a better and a stronger team. We were a couple steps slower than D.C. today and we reacted instead of anticipating, so it?s tough to play that way. You have to be more creative and you have to hold the ball a little bit more.

COLUMBUS CREW MIDFIELDER ROBBIE ROGERS

On his team?s play:
I thought we were really sloppy. I thought the effort was there ? maybe it was nerves, I?m not quite sure ? but tough way to start the season. The good thing is that we have about 33 more games and we have time to turn things around. Our home game next weekend is very important and hopefully we can figure it out.

On his team?s chances in the second half:
I thought we did better in the second half for sure. We scored a goal and we created more chances, but I think when we watch this game and see all the poor things we did, all the movement we didn?t make, and all the passes we didn?t complete, we?ll learn from it. The most important thing is that we learn from this game and take something away from it.

On what to work on moving forward:
[We need to work on] moving off the ball. Defensively I thought the shape was pretty bad. The work rate was there, so that?s not a problem, but we need to work on everything offensively and defensively.

COLUMBUS CREW DEFENDER JULIUS JAMES

On his team?s efforts:
I think we all worked hard, but this is one game. It?s the first game of the season and there are many more. We all will go back to the drawing board and learn from our mistakes and come out for the next game which is the most important game.

On what went wrong during the game:
We lost the game. That is all I have to say. We?ll take it as a learning lesson and we?ll move on from there and go and win the next game. I think Coach [Warzycha] saw the game from the sideline and he is going to watch the tape and stuff like that and when we go back to the drawing board we will work on stuff. I can?t really point out anything right now, but when we see the game on tape we will find out exactly what we need to do. After some review and after some training, we will have a good idea of what we need to work on.

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USSF Development Academy weekend preview

As the arrival of spring looms, the schedule of the USSF Development Academy ramps up into overdrive. This weekend is going to be the busiest 2011 has seen so far, with 64 games are on the schedule.

Six of those teams heading into action are MLS Academies, and all but one faces the prospect of playing games on both days of the weekend.

Starting out west, Real Salt Lake stay at home, welcoming the Santa Cruz Breakers and De Anza Force.

San Jose also remain at home, playing first against Real So Cal, then hosting the Cosmos Academy West. The Quakes won?t be the only MLS Academy side to play against a Cosmos side, as D.C. United Academy lines up against Cosmos East on Saturday, before wrapping up the weekend against visiting Met Oval.

Also getting to play the role of host this weekend is the Revolution Academy. Making the trip up north to go up against New England is Potomac Academy and Baltimore Bays Chelsea.

Two MLS Academies will get to spend some time on the road, but it won?t be too far from home. The New York Red Bulls U-16s and U-18s matchup against Match Fit Chelsea and NJSA 04, while the youth derby of Ohio takes place on Saturday, when the Cleveland-based club Internationals hosts the Crew Academy.

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Three Reasons to Watch Nik Lentz vs. Waylon Lowe

The UFC made nine fights available to fans live on Saturday night, with five streaming on Facebook and four on Spike TV. And if nine UFC fights wasn't enough for you (and really, is any amount of MMA ever enough?) now there's a 10th fight available live and free at UFC.tv.

The preliminary bout between Nik Lentz and Waylon Lowe, which wasn't part of either the Facebook or Spike broadcast, is available in full online, and it's worth watching for a number of reasons: Lentz won again and won the way he wanted to win, Lowe got a stern talking-to afterward from one of the UFC's major decision-makers, and a mistake at the end of the first round showed once again that too many state athletic commissions lack competent employees.

Allow me to go into a little more detail.

1. Lentz was unapologetic in victory, as he should be.
Although Lentz is 5-0-1 in his UFC career, he's been the subject of a great deal of criticism from fans who find his style boring. The victory over Lowe, however, wasn't boring at all: It was a back and forth battle that got more active as it went on and concluded with Lentz making Lowe tap to a guillotine choke, the first time Lentz has finished an opponent in the UFC.

After the fight, UFC announcer Joe Rogan asked Lentz if he had fought more aggressively as a response to that criticism, but Lentz said he just fights to win.

"I always try to fight fights how you're supposed to win them," Lentz said. "When you fight strikers, you out-grapple them."

That's the right answer: Lentz hasn't always been in the most exciting of fights, but he fights like a winner. And if the strikers he has fought don't like the fact that he out-wrestles them, that's their problem, not his.

2. Joe Silva gave Lowe some tough love.
Silva, the UFC's matchmaker, lectured Lowe in the Octagon immediately afterward, telling him he should have been more active when he had a dominant position over Lentz in the first round.

"You took him down and just laid on him," Silva said. "You didn't do anything on the ground. You just laid on him."

Although Lowe entered Saturday on a two-fight winning streak, he can't feel good about his future with the UFC. He didn't just lose, he lost in a fashion that wasn't pleasing to the UFC's brass.

3. The first round was marred by a timekeeper error.
This is the big one.

Ben Fowlkes described the end of the first round in his live blog: "A weak sound that may or may not be the airhorn signaling the end of the round is temporarily ignored. Eventually the ref figures it out and round one is in the books."

That pretty well sums it up, and it was disgraceful. When the first round was over, the timekeeper just tapped on the airhorn to make a faint sound that the fighters and the referee didn't seem to hear.

Rogan, sitting just feet from the airhorn at cageside, said, "I think that was the bell."

After about seven seconds of additional fighting someone yelled, "The bell rang," and the referee stepped in to separate the fighters. The referee then yelled to the timekeeper, "You need to stay on that horn." At that point the horn sounded again, more loudly than before, and the referee said, "Thank you."

"That was the weakest horn ever," Rogan said.

Although those extra seven seconds weren't pivotal to the fight, they did include Lowe drilling Lentz with a hard right elbow to the head. If that elbow had badly hurt Lentz, we'd have a huge controversy on our hands.

This isn't the first time we've seen something like this happen in the UFC: At UFC 123, the first round of the Maiquel Falcao-Gerald Harris fight ended seven seconds early, likely costing Falcao a first-round submission victory. The state athletic commissions need to do a better job of getting competent timekeepers who won't make such mistakes. And the UFC needs to tell the athletic commissions that if they can't run a fight competently, their states won't get UFC events and the revenue that comes with those events.

When three NCAA basketball referees ended this month's St. John's-Rutgers Big East tournament game when there should have been 1.7 seconds left on the clock, they were removed from the rest of the tournament. Officials who make timekeeping mistakes in MMA should also be dealt with harshly. This is a serious mistake, and there should be consequences.

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Mostic Inc - Artsy Skate Montage

The iPath team skating Utah slickrock featured in Skateboarder Mag

Jonathan Mehring's article "Darkside of the Moon" from our April/May issue featuring iPath skaters Fred Gall, Jack Sabback, Aaron "Jaws" Homoki, Ryan Lay, Ben Raybourne, Ryan Reyes, Jon Goemann and Kenny Reed skating Utah slickrock.

About as raw as it gets. Filmed and edited by Thad Croskey.

Watch the Skateboarder Mag exclusive feature

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UFC Fight Night 24: Amir Sadollah Beats Up DaMarques Johnson

• Michael David Smith
• Lead Blogger

In what may have been his most impressive performance in the Octagon to date, former Ultimate Fighter winner Amir Sadollah put a serious hurting on DaMarques Johnson at UFC Fight Night 24 on Saturday night, forcing him to tap out as he rained down vicious elbows on the ground in the second round.

Sadollah showed off precision punching in the stand-up, some good takedowns and a killer instinct when he had Johnson in trouble in the second round. It was a great showing for Sadollah, although Sadollah made a point to credit Johnson for taking the fight on short notice.

"I want to say a huge, huge thank you to DeMarques," Sadollah said afterward. "He took this fight on two weeks' notice, which a lot of guys wouldn't have done. I have a lot of respect for him."

---

---

It's hard not to have a lot of respect for Sadollah after the way he fought.

Sadollah briefly struggled in the early going: He appeared to slip on the Bud Light logo in the middle of the Octagon while throwing a kick early in the first round, and Johnson got on top of him. Sadollah was able to shake Johnson off and get back to his feet without taking any punishment, but it wasn't long before Johnson caught a Sadollah kick and put him on his back again. Later in the round Johnson would utilize a great throw to put Sadollah on his back, and Sadollah would show off a textbook takedown to put Johnson on his back. That's how the first round went, they'd go to the ground and get back up, and neither fighter had much of an advantage.

But the second round began with a brutal stand-up exchange, with Sadollah landing some hard knees to the body in the clinch and following with several punches, while Johnson could land only a few punches of his own. Sadollah was getting the better of the exchanges, and when the fight went to the ground Sadollah went to town, getting into full mount and raining punches down. When Sadollah switched to elbows and controlled Johnson's wrist so that Johnson couldn't block those elbows, Johnson tapped out to save himself.

Sadollah has had an up-and-down career in the UFC, and he has looked at times like a guy who's getting overly promoted because he was a reality TV star. But you can't argue with the way he fought on Saturday night: Sadollah looked great.

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Post-match quotes: D.C. United 3 - Columbus Crew 1

MLS 2011 QUOTESHEET

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011 ? D.C. UNITED 3, COLUMBUS CREW 1

D.C. UNITED HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN

On beginning the 2011 season with a victory over Columbus:
I?m pretty pessimistic, so I don?t envision things like this, but it was a good night. I really enjoyed it and I?m happy for those guys, it?s kind of like a monkey off the back early and now we can move forward. It takes a complete team effort and we have another [game], so we will enjoy it tonight and get back to work and try and get that next [win].?

On Charlie Davies:
It could get scary, yeah [Davies] was great tonight. You know, speed is real, it changes the game. I?m really proud of him. Putting Charlie [Davies] aside for a second, because it is a great story, he deserves every ounce of credit, coming back and scoring two goals, but it was a team effort. Every guy in the [locker room] is exhausted. They worked their tales off. They helped each other out, if one guy missed a guy, the next one was there. Our team defending was pretty good. You know, we had some early season moments. We could have gotten punished but overall, I thought we were the better team today and the atmosphere was great. Overall, a pretty good start.

On the penalty kick:
It wasn?t my call. And if I could be absolutely honest with you, I probably wouldn?t have picked Charlie. Just because he had just gotten into the game and I saw [Josh] Wolff grab it and I thought he was going to take it, Dax McCarty grabbed the ball, walked it over and gave it to Charlie, and said, ?you take it.? Charlie stepped up and made the PK. So I would have to credit Dax on that one.

On seeing Davies back on the playing field:
I don?t take any credit for what [Davies] is doing, I mean he took a chance and came on his own to tryout for this team and he has done a lot of work to get back here and it is emotional for myself and anyone who is close to him right now to see him come back and come back in this way, it?s pretty impressive.

On United captain Dax McCarty:
He?s a two-way midfielder. He?s a box-to-box guy for us. We need him to continue what he did tonight. He?s scrappy. He?s a guy that?s going to do it all for us in there.

On the performance on United rookie Perry Kitchen:
He?s a stud. He certainly didn?t look like an 18-year -old, how old is he now? I?ve got so many damn teenagers on this team, I can?t keep track of how old they are. But, he was great and we are going to miss him for the 20?s [call-up for U.S. U-20 National Team duty] so we are going to need a couple guys even next week and we are going to be digging into guys like [Rodrigo] Brasesco, even young guys like [Chris] Korb. Jed [Zayner] has got a little bit of a hamstring problem. We?ve built this team deep, so hopefully we can use them.

On Josh Wolff?s enthusiasm after scoring United?s first goal:
He looks good for a man his age, he?s entitled [to celebrate]. It doesn?t matter how old you are, when you get a new start you want to prove yourself and I know last year at Kansas City, he was in and out and played a little bit out of position and at the end of the day I think he wants to show that he?s still got it.

On Pat Onstad?s performance in goal:
He [Onstad] was great. He?s a calming influence for us back there. He directs traffic and it?s like having a coach on the field. Actually it is, right? He?s been great. He?s played a couple games now so he?s pretty composed out there.

D.C. UNITED MIDFIELDER AND CAPTAIN DAX MCCARTY

On the emotions surrounding his first match with D.C. United:
Words can?t really describe how amazing the fans were tonight ? I?m just not used to this. That constant screaming and yelling, everyone from Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles, they made the atmosphere fantastic and it was a true home field advantage. I thought our team was fantastic. From the opening whistle, we knew that we had the desire to win, we finished superbly, and I think our defending was something to be proud of. Everyone defended well - from the forwards back to the defenders and goalkeeper.

On earning three points on First Kick weekend:
I think with our team we had a quiet confidence. I think some people are giving us a little bit of credit, thinking that maybe we would be a bit better than we were last year, but I think we really believed. There is definitely a quiet confidence. Maybe we didn?t expect to explode like we did in the first half, but we knew we were capable [of winning] and we have a good team.

On Charlie Davies? two-goal performance:
I could not be happier for Charlie [Davies] ? he?s a guy that deserves it. He was shunned out of his club team in France, and we believed in him. Everyone in this locker room knew what he was capable of, and I still think we have only seen 75 percent of Charlie ? he has a lot more to give. It?s scary to think about how much better he can be based on what you saw tonight.

On moving forward against New England next week:
This is the perfect way to start the season off. You always want to defend your home turf and getting three points is a must. We?re going to enjoy it tonight and go into New England looking to continue this thing by going the right direction and getting three more points.

D.C. UNITED FORWARD CHARLIE DAVIES

On the emotions of returning to soccer after his car accident in late 2009:
I don?t even know what just happened tonight. Literally, it was just like a whirlwind. The support from the fans was overwhelming tonight, and I feel so overcome with emotion.

On the emphatic nature of his first game for D.C. United:
This has been like a storybook tonight. I don?t think you could write this stuff. You can?t make this up, and once the whistle blew I was so relieved that we had won. I looked at the fans and that?s when the emotion hit me. I thought to myself, look at the support, look at how much people wanted me to succeed. To score two goals on my debut after a year and a half out, it?s honestly amazing. I knew I was ready, and I knew that I wanted the opportunity, but it feels great to seize the moment. To survive the [car] accident and still be able to play soccer, it seems like there is a reason why it happened and this goes to show that with faith and belief that you can achieve the impossible. Tonight it feels like I achieved the impossible.

On taking the penalty kick for his first goal:
Dax [McCarty], our captain, handed me the ball. I told [Josh] Wolff and Dax that I was taking [the penalty], and they didn?t even hesitate. Dax came over and said that he trusted and believed in me, and when he gave me that ball the confidence was flowing out of me. This team put all their trust and faith in me and I knew that I had to come through, and once I scored I thought, okay I?m back. There is a long way to go but it felt like the right start tonight.

D.C. UNITED FORWARD JOSH WOLFF

On his debut with the Black-and-Red:
Basically getting the result is always the most important thing, but we have put in a lot of work and effort so far. It was good to get that first goal, those are critical in any game and you want to get the fans on your side. Once we did that, you could see the guys elevate and we kept pushing the game. Charlie [Davies] got a couple of goals which was fantastic. Overall it was a great group effort and we were glad to win.

On scoring the first D.C. United goal of 2011:
It?s our first game, our home opener, and we had a good crowd. At that point it was going to be a play or two on either side that was going to determine the game, so it was good to get that first goal.

On his goal celebration with Barra Brava:
Anytime you score it?s euphoric. I?m always up for enjoying it with the fans and I felt like celebrating that goal with them was the right thing to do [laughs].

COLUMBUS CREW HEAD COACH ROBERT WARZYCHA

On the club?s loss to D.C. United:
We couldn?t string passes together. I thought that whatever we said before the game wasn?t working. There were moments that there was only one team on the field and that was D.C., especially in the second half when they got a couple of goals and we couldn?t respond.

On D.C. United?s ability to generate scoring opportunities in the 2nd half:
I think [the opportunities] came mostly from our mistakes and they led to goals, but obviously you have to run and want the ball to stop the chances. I think a couple goals came from our mistakes and you have to just eliminate that.

On what his team can work on moving forward:
Basically a game like today shows that you have to do a little bit of everything. We have to become a better and a stronger team. We were a couple steps slower than D.C. today and we reacted instead of anticipating, so it?s tough to play that way. You have to be more creative and you have to hold the ball a little bit more.

COLUMBUS CREW MIDFIELDER ROBBIE ROGERS

On his team?s play:
I thought we were really sloppy. I thought the effort was there ? maybe it was nerves, I?m not quite sure ? but tough way to start the season. The good thing is that we have about 33 more games and we have time to turn things around. Our home game next weekend is very important and hopefully we can figure it out.

On his team?s chances in the second half:
I thought we did better in the second half for sure. We scored a goal and we created more chances, but I think when we watch this game and see all the poor things we did, all the movement we didn?t make, and all the passes we didn?t complete, we?ll learn from it. The most important thing is that we learn from this game and take something away from it.

On what to work on moving forward:
[We need to work on] moving off the ball. Defensively I thought the shape was pretty bad. The work rate was there, so that?s not a problem, but we need to work on everything offensively and defensively.

COLUMBUS CREW DEFENDER JULIUS JAMES

On his team?s efforts:
I think we all worked hard, but this is one game. It?s the first game of the season and there are many more. We all will go back to the drawing board and learn from our mistakes and come out for the next game which is the most important game.

On what went wrong during the game:
We lost the game. That is all I have to say. We?ll take it as a learning lesson and we?ll move on from there and go and win the next game. I think Coach [Warzycha] saw the game from the sideline and he is going to watch the tape and stuff like that and when we go back to the drawing board we will work on stuff. I can?t really point out anything right now, but when we see the game on tape we will find out exactly what we need to do. After some review and after some training, we will have a good idea of what we need to work on.

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Street League announces the 2011 schedule, locations, and the increased prize purse

Street League Skateboarding has announced the 2011 League schedule and locations for it's second year. Founded by Rob Dyrdek the 20-year professional skateboarder and entrepreneur, Street League was a success in it's inaugural season effectively launching a new way of judging skateboarding by using live scoring to determine the winner. The new system made for more exciting finishes and better live television.

The season kicks off May 7th in Seattle culminating in the Street League championships in New Jersey on August 28th.

Two changes to the 2011 series immediately stand out; the championship prize purse is being raised from $150,000 to $200,000, and unlike last year, the competitors will no longer be allowed to compete in other events like the Dew Tour or the Maloof Money Cup. They will, however, be allowed to compete in the Tampa Pro and the X Games, the two Street League sanctioned events.

The 200k makes Street League the richest first place prize purse in skateboarding history, but will it be enough to get the worlds best skaters to sign an exclusive contract?

A couple of situations will play out if indeed this is the case; the best 24 competition skaters like P Rod, Chaz Ortiz, Nyjah Huston, Greg Lutzka, and Ryan Sheckler will battle it out for the $200k while also making X Games Skate Street a contest worth watching.

The rest of the skateboarding world will get their opportunity to compete for the prize money from the remaining street contests. The Dew Tour could become irrelevant fast unless they figure out a way to make it worth the top remaining skaters time to compete. The Maloof Money Cup is no walk in the park either, there's plenty of money up for grabs which will be sure to bring out skateboardings favorite skaters that don't normally compete in contest.

The most interesting fallout from the new contract rule will be which side the skaters choose. For some the decision is already made, for others it may be more difficult, but no one will have a tougher time deciding than Chris Cole.Chris has made a great living just by winning the Maloof Money Cups, but also has history with Street League and the X Games.

One things for sure, the Maloofs will attempt to help influence his decision one war or another, and Street League threw the first punch by launching their new announcement with a shot of Cole from last year.

In any of these situation the winner will be the fans, so lets sit back and see how this all plays out.

Stop 1: May 7 - 8th Key Arena, Seattle WA (Sunday Finals 4-6pm EST on ESPN)
Stop 2: June 11-12th Sprint Center, Kansas City MO (Sunday Finals 4-6pm EST on ESPN2)
Stop 3: July 16- 17th Jobing.com Arena, Glendale AZ (Sunday Finals 5-7pm EST on ESPN2)
Championship: August 28th Prudential Center, Newark NJ (5-7pm EST on ESPN2)

Skate League official series information

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Skateboarder Jake Donnelly

The iPath team skating Utah slickrock featured in Skateboarder Mag

Jonathan Mehring's article "Darkside of the Moon" from our April/May issue featuring iPath skaters Fred Gall, Jack Sabback, Aaron "Jaws" Homoki, Ryan Lay, Ben Raybourne, Ryan Reyes, Jon Goemann and Kenny Reed skating Utah slickrock.

About as raw as it gets. Filmed and edited by Thad Croskey.

Watch the Skateboarder Mag exclusive feature

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UFC Fight Night 24: Anthony Johnson Beats Dan Hardy

• Michael David Smith
• Lead Blogger

Anthony Johnson is back in the Octagon after an absence of more than a year, and he looks great.

Johnson, who had been sidelined since 2009 with a knee injury, stepped up and destroyed former No. 1 welterweight contender Dan Hardy Saturday at UFC Fight Night 24.

For Johnson, it was a big win that shows that when he's healthy and in shape, he's a force to be reckoned with at 170 pounds. For Hardy, the showed, a year after he lost his welterweight title fight to Georges St. Pierre, that he still doesn't have much in the way of takedown defense or ability to fight off his back. Any good wrestler is going to give Hardy problems until he shores up those weaknesses.

---

---

Johnson leveled Hardy with a huge head kick a minute into the first round, jumped on him and dominated Hardy from the top for the rest of the round. However, considering how much Johnson had controlled the first round, Hardy had to be happy that he made it out of the round relatively unscathed.

Early in the second round Johnson took Hardy down and got on top of him again, and he stayed on top for about four full minutes before the referee finally stood them up. It wasn't the most action-packed round, and it left the crowd booing, but it was a round that Johnson clearly won, thanks to his superior size, strength and wrestling ability.

Prior to the third round Hardy's corner told him that he needed a knockout. So it was surprising that Hardy, instead of swinging for the fences, went for a takedown at the start of the third round. Johnson went to the ground with Hardy but got on top of him yet again, and he controlled things the rest of the way. Although Johnson wasn't able to finish the arm-triangle choke submission he attempted, Johnson won easily and deserved the decision he got, 30-27 on all three judges' cards.

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MLS Reserve League returns, kicks off Sunday

NEW YORK ? Major League Soccer is re-launching its Reserve League this year, with games beginning this weekend.

The MLS Reserve League will provide essential developmental opportunities to players and is made possible by the growth of first team rosters from 24 in 2010 to 30 players in 2011.

MLS clubs previously fielded reserve sides from 2005 through 2008, benefiting players such as 2010 Budweiser Golden Boot winner Chris Wondolowski (San Jose), Omar Cummings, Jeff Larentowicz, and Kosuke Kimura of the defending MLS Cup Champion Colorado Rapids, and many others.

The new MLS Reserve League will be split into East, Central, and West divisions with teams facing each divisional opponent twice for a total of 10 games per team. Clubs may schedule additional games for their reserve squads against non-MLS opponents. The games featuring two MLS reserve teams begin March 20 and conclude Oct. 16.

The full MLS Reserve League is below. Media members are encouraged to contact the home club?s PR department prior to attending any MLS Reserve League match.

D.C. United's Reserve League schedule

�

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Three Reasons to Watch Nik Lentz vs. Waylon Lowe

The UFC made nine fights available to fans live on Saturday night, with five streaming on Facebook and four on Spike TV. And if nine UFC fights wasn't enough for you (and really, is any amount of MMA ever enough?) now there's a 10th fight available live and free at UFC.tv.

The preliminary bout between Nik Lentz and Waylon Lowe, which wasn't part of either the Facebook or Spike broadcast, is available in full online, and it's worth watching for a number of reasons: Lentz won again and won the way he wanted to win, Lowe got a stern talking-to afterward from one of the UFC's major decision-makers, and a mistake at the end of the first round showed once again that too many state athletic commissions lack competent employees.

Allow me to go into a little more detail.

1. Lentz was unapologetic in victory, as he should be.
Although Lentz is 5-0-1 in his UFC career, he's been the subject of a great deal of criticism from fans who find his style boring. The victory over Lowe, however, wasn't boring at all: It was a back and forth battle that got more active as it went on and concluded with Lentz making Lowe tap to a guillotine choke, the first time Lentz has finished an opponent in the UFC.

After the fight, UFC announcer Joe Rogan asked Lentz if he had fought more aggressively as a response to that criticism, but Lentz said he just fights to win.

"I always try to fight fights how you're supposed to win them," Lentz said. "When you fight strikers, you out-grapple them."

That's the right answer: Lentz hasn't always been in the most exciting of fights, but he fights like a winner. And if the strikers he has fought don't like the fact that he out-wrestles them, that's their problem, not his.

2. Joe Silva gave Lowe some tough love.
Silva, the UFC's matchmaker, lectured Lowe in the Octagon immediately afterward, telling him he should have been more active when he had a dominant position over Lentz in the first round.

"You took him down and just laid on him," Silva said. "You didn't do anything on the ground. You just laid on him."

Although Lowe entered Saturday on a two-fight winning streak, he can't feel good about his future with the UFC. He didn't just lose, he lost in a fashion that wasn't pleasing to the UFC's brass.

3. The first round was marred by a timekeeper error.
This is the big one.

Ben Fowlkes described the end of the first round in his live blog: "A weak sound that may or may not be the airhorn signaling the end of the round is temporarily ignored. Eventually the ref figures it out and round one is in the books."

That pretty well sums it up, and it was disgraceful. When the first round was over, the timekeeper just tapped on the airhorn to make a faint sound that the fighters and the referee didn't seem to hear.

Rogan, sitting just feet from the airhorn at cageside, said, "I think that was the bell."

After about seven seconds of additional fighting someone yelled, "The bell rang," and the referee stepped in to separate the fighters. The referee then yelled to the timekeeper, "You need to stay on that horn." At that point the horn sounded again, more loudly than before, and the referee said, "Thank you."

"That was the weakest horn ever," Rogan said.

Although those extra seven seconds weren't pivotal to the fight, they did include Lowe drilling Lentz with a hard right elbow to the head. If that elbow had badly hurt Lentz, we'd have a huge controversy on our hands.

This isn't the first time we've seen something like this happen in the UFC: At UFC 123, the first round of the Maiquel Falcao-Gerald Harris fight ended seven seconds early, likely costing Falcao a first-round submission victory. The state athletic commissions need to do a better job of getting competent timekeepers who won't make such mistakes. And the UFC needs to tell the athletic commissions that if they can't run a fight competently, their states won't get UFC events and the revenue that comes with those events.

When three NCAA basketball referees ended this month's St. John's-Rutgers Big East tournament game when there should have been 1.7 seconds left on the clock, they were removed from the rest of the tournament. Officials who make timekeeping mistakes in MMA should also be dealt with harshly. This is a serious mistake, and there should be consequences.

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Three Reasons to Watch Nik Lentz vs. Waylon Lowe

The UFC made nine fights available to fans live on Saturday night, with five streaming on Facebook and four on Spike TV. And if nine UFC fights wasn't enough for you (and really, is any amount of MMA ever enough?) now there's a 10th fight available live and free at UFC.tv.

The preliminary bout between Nik Lentz and Waylon Lowe, which wasn't part of either the Facebook or Spike broadcast, is available in full online, and it's worth watching for a number of reasons: Lentz won again and won the way he wanted to win, Lowe got a stern talking-to afterward from one of the UFC's major decision-makers, and a mistake at the end of the first round showed once again that too many state athletic commissions lack competent employees.

Allow me to go into a little more detail.

1. Lentz was unapologetic in victory, as he should be.
Although Lentz is 5-0-1 in his UFC career, he's been the subject of a great deal of criticism from fans who find his style boring. The victory over Lowe, however, wasn't boring at all: It was a back and forth battle that got more active as it went on and concluded with Lentz making Lowe tap to a guillotine choke, the first time Lentz has finished an opponent in the UFC.

After the fight, UFC announcer Joe Rogan asked Lentz if he had fought more aggressively as a response to that criticism, but Lentz said he just fights to win.

"I always try to fight fights how you're supposed to win them," Lentz said. "When you fight strikers, you out-grapple them."

That's the right answer: Lentz hasn't always been in the most exciting of fights, but he fights like a winner. And if the strikers he has fought don't like the fact that he out-wrestles them, that's their problem, not his.

2. Joe Silva gave Lowe some tough love.
Silva, the UFC's matchmaker, lectured Lowe in the Octagon immediately afterward, telling him he should have been more active when he had a dominant position over Lentz in the first round.

"You took him down and just laid on him," Silva said. "You didn't do anything on the ground. You just laid on him."

Although Lowe entered Saturday on a two-fight winning streak, he can't feel good about his future with the UFC. He didn't just lose, he lost in a fashion that wasn't pleasing to the UFC's brass.

3. The first round was marred by a timekeeper error.
This is the big one.

Ben Fowlkes described the end of the first round in his live blog: "A weak sound that may or may not be the airhorn signaling the end of the round is temporarily ignored. Eventually the ref figures it out and round one is in the books."

That pretty well sums it up, and it was disgraceful. When the first round was over, the timekeeper just tapped on the airhorn to make a faint sound that the fighters and the referee didn't seem to hear.

Rogan, sitting just feet from the airhorn at cageside, said, "I think that was the bell."

After about seven seconds of additional fighting someone yelled, "The bell rang," and the referee stepped in to separate the fighters. The referee then yelled to the timekeeper, "You need to stay on that horn." At that point the horn sounded again, more loudly than before, and the referee said, "Thank you."

"That was the weakest horn ever," Rogan said.

Although those extra seven seconds weren't pivotal to the fight, they did include Lowe drilling Lentz with a hard right elbow to the head. If that elbow had badly hurt Lentz, we'd have a huge controversy on our hands.

This isn't the first time we've seen something like this happen in the UFC: At UFC 123, the first round of the Maiquel Falcao-Gerald Harris fight ended seven seconds early, likely costing Falcao a first-round submission victory. The state athletic commissions need to do a better job of getting competent timekeepers who won't make such mistakes. And the UFC needs to tell the athletic commissions that if they can't run a fight competently, their states won't get UFC events and the revenue that comes with those events.

When three NCAA basketball referees ended this month's St. John's-Rutgers Big East tournament game when there should have been 1.7 seconds left on the clock, they were removed from the rest of the tournament. Officials who make timekeeping mistakes in MMA should also be dealt with harshly. This is a serious mistake, and there should be consequences.

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MLB - Sporting News

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USSF Development Academy weekend preview

As the arrival of spring looms, the schedule of the USSF Development Academy ramps up into overdrive. This weekend is going to be the busiest 2011 has seen so far, with 64 games are on the schedule.

Six of those teams heading into action are MLS Academies, and all but one faces the prospect of playing games on both days of the weekend.

Starting out west, Real Salt Lake stay at home, welcoming the Santa Cruz Breakers and De Anza Force.

San Jose also remain at home, playing first against Real So Cal, then hosting the Cosmos Academy West. The Quakes won?t be the only MLS Academy side to play against a Cosmos side, as D.C. United Academy lines up against Cosmos East on Saturday, before wrapping up the weekend against visiting Met Oval.

Also getting to play the role of host this weekend is the Revolution Academy. Making the trip up north to go up against New England is Potomac Academy and Baltimore Bays Chelsea.

Two MLS Academies will get to spend some time on the road, but it won?t be too far from home. The New York Red Bulls U-16s and U-18s matchup against Match Fit Chelsea and NJSA 04, while the youth derby of Ohio takes place on Saturday, when the Cleveland-based club Internationals hosts the Crew Academy.

�

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Three Reasons to Watch Nik Lentz vs. Waylon Lowe

The UFC made nine fights available to fans live on Saturday night, with five streaming on Facebook and four on Spike TV. And if nine UFC fights wasn't enough for you (and really, is any amount of MMA ever enough?) now there's a 10th fight available live and free at UFC.tv.

The preliminary bout between Nik Lentz and Waylon Lowe, which wasn't part of either the Facebook or Spike broadcast, is available in full online, and it's worth watching for a number of reasons: Lentz won again and won the way he wanted to win, Lowe got a stern talking-to afterward from one of the UFC's major decision-makers, and a mistake at the end of the first round showed once again that too many state athletic commissions lack competent employees.

Allow me to go into a little more detail.

1. Lentz was unapologetic in victory, as he should be.
Although Lentz is 5-0-1 in his UFC career, he's been the subject of a great deal of criticism from fans who find his style boring. The victory over Lowe, however, wasn't boring at all: It was a back and forth battle that got more active as it went on and concluded with Lentz making Lowe tap to a guillotine choke, the first time Lentz has finished an opponent in the UFC.

After the fight, UFC announcer Joe Rogan asked Lentz if he had fought more aggressively as a response to that criticism, but Lentz said he just fights to win.

"I always try to fight fights how you're supposed to win them," Lentz said. "When you fight strikers, you out-grapple them."

That's the right answer: Lentz hasn't always been in the most exciting of fights, but he fights like a winner. And if the strikers he has fought don't like the fact that he out-wrestles them, that's their problem, not his.

2. Joe Silva gave Lowe some tough love.
Silva, the UFC's matchmaker, lectured Lowe in the Octagon immediately afterward, telling him he should have been more active when he had a dominant position over Lentz in the first round.

"You took him down and just laid on him," Silva said. "You didn't do anything on the ground. You just laid on him."

Although Lowe entered Saturday on a two-fight winning streak, he can't feel good about his future with the UFC. He didn't just lose, he lost in a fashion that wasn't pleasing to the UFC's brass.

3. The first round was marred by a timekeeper error.
This is the big one.

Ben Fowlkes described the end of the first round in his live blog: "A weak sound that may or may not be the airhorn signaling the end of the round is temporarily ignored. Eventually the ref figures it out and round one is in the books."

That pretty well sums it up, and it was disgraceful. When the first round was over, the timekeeper just tapped on the airhorn to make a faint sound that the fighters and the referee didn't seem to hear.

Rogan, sitting just feet from the airhorn at cageside, said, "I think that was the bell."

After about seven seconds of additional fighting someone yelled, "The bell rang," and the referee stepped in to separate the fighters. The referee then yelled to the timekeeper, "You need to stay on that horn." At that point the horn sounded again, more loudly than before, and the referee said, "Thank you."

"That was the weakest horn ever," Rogan said.

Although those extra seven seconds weren't pivotal to the fight, they did include Lowe drilling Lentz with a hard right elbow to the head. If that elbow had badly hurt Lentz, we'd have a huge controversy on our hands.

This isn't the first time we've seen something like this happen in the UFC: At UFC 123, the first round of the Maiquel Falcao-Gerald Harris fight ended seven seconds early, likely costing Falcao a first-round submission victory. The state athletic commissions need to do a better job of getting competent timekeepers who won't make such mistakes. And the UFC needs to tell the athletic commissions that if they can't run a fight competently, their states won't get UFC events and the revenue that comes with those events.

When three NCAA basketball referees ended this month's St. John's-Rutgers Big East tournament game when there should have been 1.7 seconds left on the clock, they were removed from the rest of the tournament. Officials who make timekeeping mistakes in MMA should also be dealt with harshly. This is a serious mistake, and there should be consequences.

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Debut double strike a "special moment" for Davies

WASHINGTON ? The Charlie Davies comeback story took a fairy tale turn Saturday evening.

Playing in a competitive match for the first time since the October 2009 car crash, Davies scored two goals, leading D.C. United to a 3-1 win.

WATCH: D.C. 3, Columbus 1

?He deserves every ounce of credit coming back and getting two goals,? head coach Ben Olsen said after the game.

Davies entered in the 56th minute to an already fired-up D.C. United crowd. Josh Wolff had just scored to give United the lead when Davies came on as a replacement for Joseph Ngwenya, who had picked up a knock in the first half.

The chance to open his MLS account came just a few minutes later when Chris Pontius was fouled in the box.

?There was no discussion,? Davies said. ?I was taking that ball. I told Wolff right away ?I?m taking this.? And Dax came over with the ball, and he handed it to me and says ?we trust you and believe in you.? That says it all.?

This was the moment that Davies had been waiting and working for.

?I was ready for this moment,? he said. ?I?ve been waiting such a long time for this exact moment?a year and five months. so it was finally here and I knew I was ready for it. I wanted to go out and succeed, not just go out there and work hard, I wanted to play hard and make an impact, and I was able to do that.?

There were no doubts from McCarty either despite Davies? long layoff.

?His instincts are unlike anyone else I?ve ever played with,? McCarty said. ?I had a one hundred percent confidence, I knew when I gave him the ball he?d bury this, and that pretty much sealed the game for us right there.?

Davies, who had gone through so much to make it back, took a short run up, calmly slotting his shot to the right as Crew goalie Will Hesmer dove the opposite way. It sent the crowd into rapture, and his teammates mobbed him in the corner.

The delirium escalated even further when Davies added a second in the 77th minute. It was a classic Davies goal. Crew defender Chad Marshall slipped while trying to deal with a long ball, and Davies latched onto the loose ball, rounded Hesmer and slotted home for a second goal.

The RFK crowd, which had so profoundly saluted Davies the day after his horrific accident in October 2009, now saluted him for the second time on the night for much happier reasons.

?The support was overwhelming and once that final whistle blew, and I looked at the fans, I lost it emotionally because their support meant so much to me,? he said. ?Throughout this whole process of me coming back as a player, they?ve stuck with me from the beginning to the end, till now.?

While Davies will certainly enjoy his triumphant return to first-team action, he is not going to get too carried away.

?This is just the beginning, I got to keep that in mind and not get too high about this moment,? he said. ?Of course it?s a very special moment to me.?

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MMA Top 10 Bantamweights: Cruz, Faber on a Collision Course

The two best 135-pound fighters in the world will square off some time later this year for the first ever UFC bantamweight title match in what should be a great showcase for what has quietly become one of the UFC's most talented weight classes.

Before the UFC absorbed World Extreme Cagefighting, the smaller guys were largely overlooked by casual MMA fans. But now that the UFC has added the WEC's bantamweights -- and also snapped up some 135-pounders from other promotions -- the bantamweight class is stacked. In fact, as I put together my latest ranking of the Top 10 bantamweights in mixed martial arts, all 10 of them are now under contract to the UFC.

The top two, as you probably suspect, are bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and the only man to defeat him, Urijah Faber. Those two will square off at UFC 132. But the rest of the bantamweight division includes several talented fighters who could become worthy challengers to the bantamweight title in the years ahead.

(Number in parentheses is the fighter's rank in the last bantamweight list.)

1. Dominick Cruz (1): The best in the world at 135 pounds is still largely unknown outside the hard-core MMA fan community, but that will change once the UFC starts promoting his upcoming title fight with Faber. Most of Cruz's wins are by decision, and he'd probably have more fans if he'd go for more finishes rather than out-pointing his opponents, but make no mistake: Cruz is an absolutely sensational, well rounded mixed martial artist.

2. Urijah Faber (2): Faber, the only man to beat Cruz, needed just 98 seconds to make Cruz tap when they fought four years ago. But Cruz is a much better fighter now than he was then. Their rematch should be great.

3. Joseph Benavidez (3): The UFC dropped the ball by not putting the next-best bantamweight in the world on the televised UFC 128 card, or at least on the Facebook stream. Benavidez beat Ian Loveland by unanimous decision to run his record to 14-2, with the two losses coming to Cruz. Not bad for a tiny guy who should be fighting at 125 pounds.

4. Brian Bowles (4): Bowles looked great in his UFC debut, choking out Damacio Page in the first round. Bowles is 9-1 in his MMA career, and like Benavidez, he has lost only to Cruz. A Bowles-Benavidez matchup makes too much sense not to happen.

5. Miguel Torres (5): After dropping back-to-back fights to Bowles and Benavidez, Torres has retooled and improved, taking better advantage of his height and length, and taking fewer reckless chances. If he beats Brad Pickett at UFC 130, Torres could be next in line to take on the Cruz-Faber winner.

6. Scott Jorgensen (7): Following his loss to Cruz on the last WEC show, Jorgensen will make his UFC debut at June's Ultimate Fighter Finale, where he'll be a heavy favorite to beat Ken Stone.

7. Takeya Mizugaki (9): Although the split decision was tougher than expected, Mizugaki earned a victory in his UFC debut, beating Reuben Duran. I'd like to see him take on Eddie Wineland next.

8. Eddie Wineland (NR): Give Wineland all the credit in the world for the way he fought Faber: Hardly anyone gave him a chance of beating Faber in a fight that felt like it was virtually set up to propel Faber into a title fight. Instead Wineland beat Faber in the clinch in the first round and forced Faber to improvise before ultimately dropping a close decision.

9. Renan Bar�o (NR): The 25-1 Barao has one of the most impressive records MMA has ever seen: He lost his first fight, six years ago, and is 25-0 since then. (Barao also has a no contest on his record.) He'll make his UFC debut against Demetrious Johnson at the Ultimate Fighter Finale.

10. Charlie Valencia (10): Valencia, who like Benavidez should really be fighting at 125 pounds, will make his UFC debut in what should be a very entertaining fight against Ivan Menjivar at UFC 129.

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