Cheick Kongo"s knock out of the Year vs Pat Barry

PITTSBURGH – French striker Cheick Kongo (16-6-2 MMA, 9-4-1 UFC) had not competed in the octagon since an October 2010, but he made a triumphant return on Sunday.


The towering Frenchman returned to action against fellow striker Pat Barry (6-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC) in the main event of UFC on Versus 4, which took place at CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh.


In the night's Versus-televised main event, Kongo survived being hurt by Barry's heavy punches on multiple occasions and shockingly landed a devastating right hand that sent Barry crashing to the canvas. Post-fight, Kongo spoke to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) about the "Knockout of the Night" performance

"What gave me the ability to come back was maybe the agility stuff," said Kongo, who earned a $50,000 "KO of the Night" award for the first-round stoppage. "Maybe I'm able to receive more shots than (other) people, and that's the difference I have between the others."


After Nate Marquardt failed to gain medical clearance for his scheduled fight with Rick Story, the event needed a new headliner. Kongo, a would-be co-main-event fighter who was promoted to the headlining spot on the eve of the event, seized the opportunity that was given to him.


"That kind of news always makes you excited and scared because you don't want to disappoint the people and the fans," said Kongo, who was seconds away from being on the raw end of a TKO stoppage. "Everything changes. You've got more pressure, and you say, 'OK, it's going to be good, and I'm going to have a good performance tonight, and it's going to be exciting.' So, I'm very happy, very happy."


While Kongo enjoys the highlight-reel victory, it came at a price. After Kongo delivered the vicious uppercut knockout, Barry lay dazed on the mat for a few uncomfortable moments.


The five-year UFC vet admits he doesn't enjoy hurting his opponents. But for him, pleasing the fans with an exciting performance is something to take pride in.


"I feel sorry for Pat," Kongo said. "It's never easy to knock out or hurt people. It's a fight. It's a business for me. It's a sport, and it's a business. I'm going to keep going with my team the best way that I can, and for me, it's a good thing.


"The people are happy, and they enjoyed the fight."


After an eight-month layoff due to back and shoulder injuries, Kongo isn't sure what the remainder of 2011 has in store for him. But he does plan on racking up victories and climbing the ladder in the heavyweight division now that he's returned to full health.


"The thing is just surviving," Kongo said. "This sport is tough – keeping my smile, my teeth, and staying in good shape. We'll see later, but I have no plans about the rest of the future. The thing is just survive, get more wins, and see if I have the chance to fight again. And that's good."

The best-paid Benchwarmers in Sports

Albert Haynesworth seemed to represent everything sports free agency was about. After starring at the University of Tennessee, the fierce defensive lineman was picked in the first round of the 2002 NFL Draft by the local Tennessee Titans. After seven productive seasons, which included All-Pro honors in 2007 and 2008, he had earned the right, at age 28, to cash in big.

The free-spending Washington Redskins obliged, inking Haynesworth to a seven-year, $100 million contract before the 2009 season, a deal that included a $21 million bonus for 2010. But that 2010 season, his second in Washington, is when Haynesworth’s problems really began. He skipped minicamp, clashed with coach Mike Shanahan, who dogged him for being out of shape, and ultimately played in just eight games (starting none), registering just 2.5 quarterback sacks before a suspension in early December ended his season altogether

Disappointment for Redskins fans, and a classic management misstep for the team: dead money. It’s been a problem in sports for the better part of three decades, since the free agency era led to players winning bigger slices of the financial pie. While few would argue with players pocketing their fair share – after all, they are the show – sports free agency has never been about pure pay for performance. Service time counts as much as talent, skewing higher pay toward veterans. An older player often winds up with a lengthy contract that runs past his prime. General managers operate under enormous pressure to show fans they’re willing to spend for a winner. It adds up to many teams taking risks that lead to big money is exchange for not so great play or, worse, little play at all.

The Redskins got hit with $24 million (salary and bonus) in dead money with Haynesworth in 2010, more than any player for any team in sports. Not far behind Haynesworth: Milwaukee Bucks guard Michael Redd ($18.3 million; 10 games), Dallas Mavericks forward Peja Stojakovic ($15 million; under 19 minutes a game for 33 games) and Seattle Mariners outfielder Milton Bradley ($13 million; 28 games before being released in May).

We compiled our dead money list by looking for high-salary players ($3 million and up) who logged minimal playing time in the just-completed (or about to be completed) 2010-11 NFL, NBA and NHL seasons, and the first third of the current 2011 Major League Baseball season. One caveat: we generally cut slack for injured players, concentrating on those whose performance led their coaches to play them sparingly. But perpetually hurt players are fair game: at some point a player needs to show he can stay on the field. Hence we included Indians designated hitter Travis Hafner, who hasn’t had 400 at bats in a season since 2007. Hafner has played in just 32 of 59 games this year while making $13 million.

No league doles out more dead money than the NBA, a salary cap-driven enterprise that leads to teams offering contracts based more on available cap space than on any true rational analysis of a player’s worth. Of the $332 million we found in dead money across the four leagues in 2010-11 (the total from adding up those $3 million and up contracts for players spending the bulk of their time on the bench), $127 million, or 38 percent, comes from the NBA. Unlike, say, Major League Baseball, where GMs often make payroll by sprinkling several low-paid young players on the roster alongside expensive stars, NBA rosters are littered with expensive part timers. Redd and Stojakovic may be understandable – both are onetime stars who have simply slowed down in recent years.

But how to explain $7.3 million for the Nets’ Dan Gadzuric, who’s averaged 15 minutes a game during a nine-year career? There are many like him around the league who didn’t quite make the overall top 10, including Charlotte’s Joel Przybilla (about 18 minutes and two points a game the last two seasons for $7.4 million per) and the Lakers’ Luke Walton (zero starts, nine minutes a game over the past two years; $5.3 million). No wonder David Stern is adamant about changing the system.

The top five:

1. Albert Haynesworth, Washington Redskins
2. Michael Redd, Milwaukee Bucks
3. Peja Stojakovic, Dallas Mavericks
4. Milton Bradley, Seattle Mariners
5. Travis Hafner, Cleveland Indians

BDL Interview: Jason Terry on retired jerseys, ‘elite status’ and Obama vs. Cuban

Jason Terry(notes) is really, really enjoying being an NBA champion
This should come as no shock to anyone who's followed his 12-year professional career. (If you haven't been, do yourself a favor and check out this great GQ.com guest spot by SLAM Editor-at-Large Lang Whitaker, which offers up 11 things you might not know about the Dallas Mavericks' second scoring option.) JET's always been a talkative, gregarious dude, and he's always seemed to perform best late in games, when the spotlight shines the brightest. His outsized personality has long made him an excellent fit next to the typically reserved, lower-register brilliance of Dirk Nowitzki(notes), as good a complement at the post-game presser as he is in the pick-and-pop.

It also makes him basically the perfect guy for a public relations team to have on-call in the aftermath of a championship. Given the opportunity to fill a sound vacuum, JET will; given the opportunity to fill airtime, blank notebooks and audio recorders of media members eager to hear how the Mavs beat the Miami Heat to win the first NBA championship in franchise history, he will.

He'll gladly talk to just about anyone. Even us.

BDL caught up with JET via telephone on Friday afternoon to get a snapshot of what it's like in the hours and days after reaching the top of the mountain. Despite a scratchy, Tom Waits-y voice, Terry hung with us, talking about the experience of winning and reaching what he called "elite status." We also discussed his decision to auction off his Game 6 kicks for charity, recent rumblings that he wants the Mavericks to retire his number 31 after he hangs 'em up, finding the perfect pick-up opponent for the leader of the free world, and more.

***

Congratulations, Jason — it's been a heck of a few days for you, I'd imagine.

Oh, unbelievable. My voice is one sign of what I'm going through right now, but it's an unreal feeling, man. A tremendous blessing.

Well, you've been puffing on cigars of late, and that can hurt your voice a bit, I understand. You were going pretty good with those around 11 yesterday.

(laughs) No question. Not only the cigars, but all the playing, all the yelling — not only throughout the playoffs [and] the final game, but then yesterday, the parade in front of all those fans … an unreal feeling, man. You definitely feel like a rock star. You can honestly wake up, every day for the rest of your life, and say you are a champion.

At the celebration yesterday, you touched on the Mavericks' past. You said, "Brad Davis, [Rolando] Blackman, move over, there's some new jerseys coming to town," referring to the only two Mavericks to have their numbers retired. Most fans would say Dirk is an obvious choice for that kind of honor, but if I'm somebody who doesn't follow the game that closely, explain to me: Why does Jason Terry belong in that conversation? What have you brought to the Mavericks over the years that you feel puts you in that same kind of category?

Well, first of all, I've bought into the community — you know, I've really embraced Dallas as my own. It really feels like home. The fans, they've taken a liking to me — a genuine care for everything I do, all the hard work, all the energy I put into going out and making it real for them. You know, I'm always available; I'll sign every autograph. So it's more of a tribute to them than for me.

To see my jersey go up there … a guy that has sacrificed so much by coming to Dallas and over the years, all the hard work we put in to try to be champions, and then to be the only point guard to take their team to the Finals in '05-'06, but to finally get there this year and win it? Sixth Man of the Year two years ago — [and] should've been the last three years? (laughs) You know what? I'm very humble, I'm a hungry guy, but sometimes you got to toot your own horn. And if it means telling them, "Move over, Ro, move over, Brad Davis," then that's what you got to do.

Just to follow up on that: You got your jersey retired at Franklin, back in high school. You had a phenomenal career at Arizona, but there have been some issues with having your jersey retired there. What would mean more to you moving forward — the opportunity to be recognized for your college career at Arizona, where you won a national title and earned All-American honors, or in Dallas, with what you've meant to that franchise?

Well, first of all, I've stepped into elite status now as a professional athlete. I've won in high school — a championship, two of 'em. College — the national championship in '97. A gold medal at the Goodwill Games. And now, an NBA championship. So right there in itself, I mean, I don't care what happens; I'm really a champion. College would be great — you know, obviously, my career at Arizona, I love those people — but to do it right here in Dallas, man, it would be phenomenal. Phenomenal.

You've got this charity auction that you're working on — tell me a little bit more about that and how some of our readers might be able to get involved.

Well, you know, two or three weeks ago, my shoe — not my face — was on the cover of Sports Illustrated …

That had to hurt you, by the way, that it was your shoe and not your face. That had to hurt your heart a little bit. Don't lie

I know. But knowing that nobody in the world wears those high socks and nobody else wears the coolest shoe in America, the Reebok Zig Slash … nobody has those ones. Those were custom-made by myself. So I knew it was me, even if everybody else might not have.

But anyway, we wanted to give the fans a piece of history. You know, to be able to do what I did in Game 6 — 27 points in a closeout fashion, to win the world championship — we wanted to make it special for the fans and for the great people in the community. So all the proceeds from the auction will go to the Jason Terry Foundation and you know what, it's just been unbelievable what Reebok has done. They came up with the idea. [Fans] can go to Reebok.com, bid on it and get your piece of Mavericks history from the NBA Finals.

Obviously, it's been a whirlwind few days since Sunday night. You've had a fantastic career and you've been looking forward to the opportunity to grab this brass ring for so long — what's been the most surprising thing about the aftermath of becoming a champion? I'm sure you've thought about it a million different ways, but has anything caught you by surprise over the course of the past week?

The surprise to me is just that the feeling hasn't really set in yet. You know, when I won in college in '97, instantly — right after that game, when you win — the crowd goes crazy, they rush the court and you know right then, at the moment. But we were in Miami. You think everyone will jump up and down, jump on the net, cut the nets down, but it really wasn't like that. So I don't know if it'll be when I meet [President Barack] Obama later on this fall or when I get my ring at the ceremony that the feelings will finally set in.

When you get the opportunity to meet the president, will you be looking to get out on the court with him at any point?

You know what? I'm going to put that on somebody else. I'mma let my teammate handle it. None other than Mark Cuban's gonna challenge the president of the United States to a one-on-one game. He and Mark Cuban at the White House.

That would be very interesting, no doubt about it. There was quite a bit of attention paid to the tattoo that you got of the Larry O'Brien Trophy prior to the season; it became a topic of conversation over the past couple of weeks. As you go through the photos from after Game 6 and during the celebration and parade yesterday, it becomes clear that you've been showing it off quite a bit. Basically, there's been a lot of flexing going on.

Has there been any soreness stemming from the flexing? Have you been doing anything to keep the biceps loose? Heat? Ice?

(laughs) Man, nothing could hurt this arm at this point, with this feeling. You know what? I told 'em before the series — I was blatantly honest. I said, "This thing will hurt worse if I have to take it off than it did putting it on." We knew what was at stake, man, and I loved every moment of it, and again, God is good. There was a reason that I put this thing on in preseason — and it wasn't right before the Finals, this was in preseason — and the reason was my faith in this team
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Odd photo starts internet uproar over LeBron’s nonexistent sixth toe

About two hours before Sunday's Game 6 of the NBA Finals, a photo (pictured above) began to circulate of LeBron James(notes) in the Miami Heat locker room getting himself set to take on the Mavericks before Thursday night's Game 5. James has been at the center of virtually every major NBA news story of the past week, but the uproar over this photo didn't revolve around his pre-game habits. Instead, everyone thought it'd been revealed that LeBron has a sixth toe on his right foot.

To be fair, the photo did suggest that this was the case. It was enough to get J.E. Skeets of The Basketball Jones to post. Andy Hutchins countered with a bit of detective work, all of which proved inconclusive. Thankfully, Matt Moore, in Miami to cover the Finals for CBSSports.com, helped provide some closure by counting LeBron's toes in the flesh and informing everyone that he has five on his right foot.

It appears that the photo in question only showed LeBron's swollen feet, a trick of the light, or a very successful guerrilla marketing tie-in by the NBA and the producers of "X-Men: First Class." Either way, the craziness surrounding this story helped prove that any story involving LeBron James can be blown out of proportion. (For one thing, sixth toes are not that uncommon: NFL great Deion Sanders has one on his left foot.) Earlier Sunday, I suggested that stories about James are becoming more like fodder for supermarket tabloids. I just never thought the most likely publication would be Weekly World News.

After the jump check out a photo that proves the five-toe reality from the 2007 NBA PEnjoy Game 6 between the Mavericks and Heat. It's an exciting moment for the league with tons of fascinating storylines, none of which involve extraneous digitslayoffs (via Skeets at TBJ).