Michael Buffer has been the ring announcer for some of the most famous boxing matches in recent history, he has played such diverse roles as “Ring Announcer,” “Boxing Announcer,” and “Announcer” in over 24 movies and television shows, and — here’s the thing that will really burn your ass — he’s made millions of millions of dollars off of a mere 5 words.
Now 65-years-old, Buffer has been THE go-go-guy for booming voices in a boxing arena. His catchphrase “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble” has been trademarked and made him insanely successful and wealthy. Since trademarking it, Buffer has generated over $400 MILLION in revenue, ranging from video games, merchandise, music and television. In addition, he makes some lucrative coin doing personal appearances — although you have to be a special caliber of sucker to pay money to meet the guy who announces the fight. In fact, Buffer actually makes more from his trademark than he does from actually announcing fights.
The Breeder’s Cup Classic is one of the single largest purses in horse-racing, with the winner taking home $5 million, making it one of the most sought after prizes in the sport. Among the horses running was Zenyatta, a Kentucky-bred filly who had won all 13 races she previously entered.
The Breeder’s Cup did not start off well for her though, after the first few furlongs Zenyatta was in dead last. By the time the pack was passing the stands for the second time though, Zenyatta was FLYING, and took home a most surprising and incredible victory to make her record a perfect 14-14.
Even if you couldn’t care less about horse racing, watch the first 2 minutes of this race because it’s pretty fucking incredible.
During an Australian Rules Football game Sunday a brawl (not picture) featuring several hundred people, some armed with axes and spears, broke out. Initially the fighting began on the field when one team was awarded a free kick. This, obviously led to such a massive free-for-all that, when the police arrived on scene, they legitimately feared for their own safety.
“As you can imagine, even when a number of police cars turn up, when you’ve got a crowd that’s potentially 500-strong, it’s difficult to take proactive action at the time,” Superintendent Brent Warren told reporters, “That’s why we tend to respond to these kind of incidents by doing the follow-up investigation the next day and taking action against individuals we can identify later on. Police are confident they have identified some of the people involved.”
The nascent Groote Eytlandt football league only began about 6 months ago and will be responsible for disciplining the players involved. The police believe, though that “the sport is really important for the community,” Warren said, “As a result of what happened the police will be maintaining a presence at all Groote Eylandt football matches until the end of the season. The behaviour that was displayed yesterday is just not acceptable and we won’t tolerate it.”
In September when Andrew Teall’s father Tom required knee surgery, Andrew stepped in and took his dad’s place on his local bowling team, Wipeout, in the Monday Night Invitational League at Medford Lanes in Medford, NJ.
This past Monday, at his final frame, Teall reached his arm back, and rocketed the ball down the lane, STRIKE. Not in itself that exciting, except when you consider that throw was his 36th consecutive strike, making him the 15th sanctioned person to roll a perfect 900 series, scoring three straight 300s.
“It’s somewhat comparable to a perfect game in baseball where 27 batters come up and all go down,” said Mark Miller, corporate communications manager for the United States Bowling Congress, the governing body for bowling in the US. In recorded bowling history there has been a grand total of 21 900 series in 114 years.
“There was quite a silent crowd during the 10th frame,” said Teall, a 2003 graduate of Shawnee High School who as senior was a second-team All-South Jersey bowler. “After I did it, the first thing I heard was my Dad’s loud voice and then there were a lot of hands in my face for high fives and a lot of man hugs.”
“There was a big crowd that kept growing and by the time the 10th frame hit, the place was packed,” said Dave DeSantis, vice president of the South Jersey Bowling Association.
“It was actually very surreal and to be honest, I wasn’t nervous,” said Teall, who has been bowling competitively since he was a high school freshman. I had bowled 300 (five times) before but never twice in a row. When I got halfway through the second game, I actually thought I could do two in a row and when I did, it was an unbelievable feeling. Then the third game, it just came and went.
“I’m pretty superstitious when I’m bowling. I have the same routine and I get in a groove. I only touch the same five or six people all night for congratulations and I try not to look around to see who’s watching. You just have to drown everything out.”
Amazingly, despite the rarity of a true 900 series, the previous one was done just 3 days before Teall did his, by Chris Aker in Winnermucca, Nevada.
Just because his son rolled a perfect series though doesn’t mean Tom intends to sit out the rest of the year, “I’m hoping to get back sooner than later and I think that once I’m able to bowl that he’ll take some time off,” said Tom Teall.
Not content with just being the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt has adopted a pet that makes sure IT is faster than the rest of his neighbors’ animals, a cheetah.
In an effort to help save the endangered cheetahs, Bolt formally adopted a three-month-old cub to which he gave one of his own monikers to, naming it Lightning Bolt.
The cub will cost Bolt $3,000 a year after he paid an initial $13,700 so that it can live in an animal orphanage in Nairobi.
At first reluctant of the fully grown cheetahs, Bolt was very comfortable holding and feeding Lightning Bolt from a bottle.
While Bolt’s top speed is around 25 MPH, Lightning Bolt should be able to reach 65 MPH at least, with some cheetahs going even faster. All this means now that Usain and Lightning Bolt should be kept out of the neighborhood owner/pet race.
This video isn’t new, but I have been long-remiss in never posting it. If you have ever played ping-pong and thought, “Hey, I could do this a lot better with nunchuks instead of a paddle,” this video is definitely for you. Apparently it’s an ad for Nokia in China, but regardless, it is a real video featuring Bruce Lee playing some ping-pong with the aforementioned nunchuks and then using them, with a bit of sandpaper, to light a cigarette. Awesome!
If you missed last night’s Colbert Report, you missed out on the news that Stephen Colbert is using his well-documented power as a leader to rally his audience for the US Olympic Speed Skating team. Facing a dire budget situation after their Dutch sponsor, DSB Bank NV went bankrupt. With the games only a few months away, the speed skating team, which has historically been one of the highest medal-yielding sports for the Americans in the games, faced a $300,000 deficit for its athletes.
On his show last night, Colbert announced that the Colbert Nation will be sponsoring the team and called on his viewers to contribute to the cause. Colbert has also previously asked his viewers to contribute to The Yellow Ribbon Fund, a charity aiding former armed service members and their families to great success and hopes that his sizable audience will follow his urging once more, promising victory for the Americans.
“On their enormous, billboard thighs, it will say, ‘Colbert Nation,'” Colbert said in an interview before Monday’s show. “Be looking for that logo as it comes around the final turn. It will be easy to see because it will be in first place.”
U.S. Speedskating executive director Robert Crowley came onto the Report last night and acknowledged it was a “definitely unconventional arrangement,” but one that should proved beneficial.
“We’re highly optimistic that the country is going to get behind this and get behind the Colbert Nation and support this amazing team,” Crowley said. “I don’t have any idea if it’s going to make $5 or $500,000. I couldn’t tell you.”
I think it’s safe to say that speed skaters will be liberally used on the Report in the next few months which is a win for us all. Although, Colbert admitted there are certain drawbacks about sponsoring a Winter Olympics team:
“It still tragically involves a lot of Canadians. It’s kind of unseemly how many Canadians I’m going to have to be dealing with.”
After massive flooding in the 1990s from the Mississippi overtook some fish farms, a horde of silver carp, a non-native species found their way into the river and are now reeking havoc on the local ecosystem. With no natural predator, the carp have been breeding like crazy and, more problematically, eating the plankton that juvenile native fish would normally eat. Now the native fish are dying out due to a lack of food and the carp are spreading out.
The carp are bony and don’t taste particularly good, they also are full of PCBs and mercury, making them all the less appetizing. They also don’t eat flies and so catching them with a rod and reel is nearly impossible. Besides being a menace to the ecosystem, the carp constantly are jumping out of the water to avoid humans, and in the process can slam into us, causing broken bones, bruising and even concussions.
Chris Brackett has come up with a unique way to curb the population, something he calls aerial bow-fishing. Riding in a 20-foot boat along the river, Brackett notches an arrow and waits for the fish to jump out of the water, as they do, he fires and takes them out.
“For the foreseeable future, there is still an opportunity for virtually unlimited shooting and harvest of Asian carps by bowfishers, in many parts of the invaded range,” said Duane Chapman, a research fisheries biologist for the United States Geological Survey. “Recreational fishers and bowfishers should not feel bad about killing all the Asian carp they want to kill. Every little bit helps.”
While it is illegal to use a gun to fish, there are really no regulations against using a bow. “The invasives really do present a guilt-free pleasure for those who bowfish,” said Robert Rice of Carpbusters, a group advocating the removal of invasive fish by arrow or hook. “The common carp, silver carp and now-emerging snakeheads provide plenty of quarry for most people in the country.”
Brackett meanwhile has turned his aerial bow-fishing into a semi-lucrative business, taking tours of other bow-enthusiasts out on the water, has filmed a DVD that has sold thousands of copies and has produced a bow-hunting television show.
“Anyone who would give us a hard time does not live where we live,” he said. “I foresee it being a problem for some folks, but they have yet to see the damage they do here [to the local bass population.]”
Marathons attract thousands of insane people, I mean, the race is supposed to be based on a soldier running for 26 miles to tell Athens about their victory over the Persians, but last I checked, we have cell phones now and there is simply no good reason to ever run that far. What makes even less sense is to run that far in New York City where there is a GIANT public transit system. Really, these people should just take the subway, they’d get wherever they’re going easier and without pooping on themselves.
Among the 43,000 participants in Sunday’s NYC Marathon were some people who are far more important than the rest of us, REAL celebrities and not runners. Among the stars who tied up their New Balances and gave it a go were Anthony Edwards (his time was 4:08:20), Alanis Morrissette crossed the finish line in a casual 4:28:45, the late Christopher Reeve’s son Matthew did the race in 4:23:06 but best of all was the finish by Edward Norton. The 40-year-old actor finished the grueling course in a mere 3:48:01, meaning he averaged under 9 minutes a mile, not too shabby at all.
The celebrities were all running for charities, Norton was running for the Massai Wilderness Conservation Trust and joining him in the running were 3 Masai tribesman. After the race Norton wanted to do just one thing,
“I’m going to get a piece of pizza!” he said.
Me, I’d pass out. But then, I’m much more of an athlete.
Now I’m not much of a car guy, my last car was a Corolla after all, but for those of you out there who are into this sort of thing, here is some incredible hot car porn for you. These are some super-luxury private garages and exotic car collections that’ll make even someone not that into cars drool with envy and desire. If someone would just give me a couple million bucks I could make one of these garages and I promise I’ll take pictures of it for you guys to enjoy as I fill it with sweet rides. The line to give me money forms to the right.
I must say that these all-glass ones where the car is parked in the living room are pretty goddamn sick. Although it is a bit depressing when you see cars living in far far far nicer places than where I get to sleep. There’s a TON more photos at the link below if you’re so inclined to torture yourself with things that most people never get a chance to own.
My favorite part of this video is how, despite a large man running full-steam directly toward her, Gabriela Szabo, a Hungarian long-distance runner remains completely oblivious and even turns her head the opposite direction right before he rams into her. Hilarious.
We’ve seen 80-year-old bodybuilders strutting their stuff and that was weird, now at the tender age of 5, Romanian Guiliano Stroe has entered the Guinness Book of Records for his own feats of strength, specifically the “fastest ever 10 m hand-walk with a weight ball between his legs,” done live on television. The six-packed 5-year-old has been going to the gym with his father Iulien since he was two and they work out together.
“He has been going to the gym with me ever since he was born,” Iulien said, “I always took him with me when I went training. I have been training hard all my life myself. He is never allowed to practice on his own, he is only a child and if he gets tired we go and play.”
When he’s not working out Guiliano, the oldest of 4 siblings, likes normal 5-year-old activities like watching cartoons, playing in the park and painting.
Please join us in this cause and sign the petition below so we can all share in this special and fantastic moment of baseball history. THANKS! SIGN THE PETITION HERE! AND PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND PASS THIS ALONG!
Michael Buffer has been the ring announcer for some of the most famous boxing matches in recent history, he has played such diverse roles as “Ring Announcer,” “Boxing Announcer,” and “Announcer” in over 24 movies and television shows, and — here’s the thing that will really burn your ass — he’s made millions of millions of dollars off of a mere 5 words.
The Slanch Report 
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