General Archive

Muscle Shark tests positive for steroids

Filed under: General Archive

UFC lightweight champ Sean Sherk tested positive for the substance Nandrolone Metabolite following his successful title defense earlier this month, according to the California State Athletic Commission. His opponent, Hermes Franca, also flunked the post-bout drug screen, testing positive for Drostonalone. Both have been fined $2,500 and suspended for one year by the CSAC. It's likely that Sherk will also be stripped of his title by the UFC. That's what happened to heavyweight Tim Sylvia after he tested positive for steroids following a 2003 fight.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 20, 2007 9:39 AM | Comments (4)

 

Muscle Shark frustrates Franca, defends title

Filed under: General Archive

Sean Sherk's first UFC lightweight title defense nearly ended disastrously. In the opening seconds of his match against Hermes Franca on Saturday night, Sherk got caught in a guillotine that looked like it would mean lights out. But somehow the champion slipped out of the choke hold and went on to control the opening round.

Sherk also got caught with three punishing knees to the face, including a vicious second round blow that dropped him to the canvas and would have rendered most human beings unconscious. But Sherk somehow shook off the blows without evident damage and proceeded to dominate the five-round, 25-minute bout. His superior wrestling skills may have bored the drunken yahoos at ARCO Arena (who booed throughout the match), but impressed the judges. Sherk earned a unanimous decision.

Who will be next for the Muscle Shark? BJ Penn?

Posted by Paul Demko at July 9, 2007 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

 

Muscle Shark title bout set for Saturday

Filed under: General Archive

Sean Sherk will defend his UFC lightweight title for the first time on Saturday night at ARCO Arena. The 155-pound, Minnesota-based fighter will take on Hermes Franca, a Brazilian born Jujitsu specialist at UFC 73: Stacked. (For a list of bars that will be showing the pay-per-view event go here.)

Sherk won the title in October with a bloody unanimous decision over Kenny Florian, improving his fight resume to 33-2-1. But he's been on the shelf for the last nine months nursing a shoulder injury. Greg Nelson, Sherk's trainer, reports that the champ is ready to defend his belt. "So far everything is going very good," he says via cell phone from Sacramento. "I think he's going to do fantastic."

Posted by Paul Demko at July 5, 2007 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

 

In Defense of Pam Borton

Filed under: Gophers , Gophers , Gophers , Gophers

I don't know Pam Borton and I never played ball for her. All I know is what I saw and what I wrote in City Pages two years ago; a scenario of a tough coach and a tough player who found each other and who wanted the same thing:

"Last March 22, at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, California, the Gophers were down 28-27 at the half to Tulane in the opening game of the NCAA tournament. Uncharacteristically, [Lindsay] Whalen was held scoreless throughout the first half. As the teams came out for warm-ups before the second half, Whalen sidled up next to Borton, with whom she shares a certain steely purposefulness. The two women stood watching the other players, not talking to each other, for a minute. Two. Maybe three.

"All that silence left an observer wondering about what might have transpired between the pair at halftime, about how they get along, and about how Whalen has dealt with having had three coaches in three years--Borton, Littlejohn, and Brenda Oldfield, who left the Gophers for Maryland after the breakout season of 2001-2002. The answer, in part, came as the horn sounded for the second half. Without a word, a blank-faced Whalen wind-milled her arm and spanked Borton hard on the butt. Borton barely reacted. Neither said a word. Borton picked up her clipboard, Whalen roared at her teammates in the huddle, then went out and hit two three-pointers to open the half. She finished with 18 points, and the Gophers blew out Tulane, 68-48."

Jamie Broback was a freshman the next year. I saw her at practice and at games, and the distinct impression was of a talented, moon-faced farm girl who was in over her head. I had hoped she'd adjust to the rigors of Big 10 basketball, and she did for a while, but the obvious answer now is that she wasn't cut out for it. She wanted to be a kid. It looked to me like she was tired of basketball, and all the pressure.

Borton is class act. Rumor has it she has information about at least one of her former players that would cast this recent brouhaha in a different light, but she was recently quoted as saying, "this is not going to get ugly."

I coached my ten-year-old son in basketball this year. Near the end, I yelled at them, saying, "You guys are pathetic. You don't even play defense. You're PATHETIC." Some of them laughed at me, some got pissed and played defense. None of the parents complained.

Some of the Gophers' former players' parents have been quoted as saying their little girls didn't get enough playing time or that Borton called them "selfish."

I wonder what Whalen would have to say about that?

Actually, when it comes to jock-quotes, Whalen is as garden-variety as they come; she's a show-don't-tell artist who prefaces everything with, "Obviously...," so she likely wouldn't have much to say about the situation, other than that Borton's tough, demanding, and likes basketball played the right way: With rhythm and five-as-one.

Like I said, I don't know Pam Borton, or why the team tanked this year. All I know is that I'd love to have my son or daughter play basketball for her, and if they ever came crying to me (hello, Kris Humphries' father) about playing time or how "abrasive" the coach is, I'd tell them to shut up and pass the ball and play defense and get their degree.

Posted by Jim Walsh at April 9, 2006 8:19 AM | Comments (12)