The Mercy Rule

The Least Important Important Thing

Our Sports Columnist Bids Farewall

I would not and should not be writing about sports if I didn't think they were a way to better understand and enjoy a complicated moment-to-moment existence—not to mention a pretty righteous excuse to tell that existence to fuck off for a couple hours, because you are watching the NBA Finals and drinking a beer. Full story

The Miami Heat Reader

Chris Bosh is considerate and thoughtful, interested in discussing the physics of a sentence, the use of dreams in creating plot, and irregular meter. For several years he kept a reading diary on LiveJournal under the username BigUpsBoshMane, which he later deleted, finding as he… Full story

The Mercy Rule

The Joyless Joy of Bad Baseball

Watch a lousy team on a losing streak, though, and you'll eventually see what baseball skeptics see whenever they watch: a game that’s aimless and dull and stilted and long, and which isn't even quick about it. But for months we settle in, drink down the bitter, warm draft of bad… Full story

Fightland Show

Pakistan - Part 3

Bashir Ahmad takes us behind the scenes of Pak Fight Club 3, the latest in a series of big MMA nights he's orchestrated in Lahore. Full story

Eddie McGuire's Ape Escape

A 13-year-old girl who calls a black football player an 'ape' is reported as having hurled a racial slur, whereas if you're the president of a football club and your name happens to be, say, Eddie McGuire, suggesting same is merely a 'gaffe'. Full story

Running Wild in Russia

There's something so intense about the UFC Octagon. The problem is that legitimate UFC chain-link cages are difficult to come by. You either have to rent one, build one, or you can be a fight promoter in Russia and skip it entirely. These days, Russian MMA is showing up in the mo… Full story

Meet the Nieratkos

Jeff Grosso Has a Beautiful Mind

Is Jeff Grosso the last vestige of free speech in skateboarding? We don’t know, but we like the way he talks about drugs. Full story

MMA's Greatest Moment (and Ben Henderson's Worst) Makes Its Way into the Mainstream

As long as he lives, Ben Henderson—who is the UFC lightweight champion of the world—will never be free of Anthony Pettis’ mind-scrambling, sport-redefining, iconic leaping-off-the-cage head kick that capped off their championship fight, especially since it has been immortalized i… Full story

Fightland Show

Pakistan - Part 2

Pakistani MMA got its start in an apartment above a real estate office. It's come a long way since. Fightland traveled to Lahore to meet Bashir Ahmad, a professional fighter and founder of the country's first-ever mixed martial arts team, PAK MMA. In part two of the series, Bashi… Full story

Taji's Mahal

Shredding with Galen DeKemper

Galen DeKemper has been shredding New York City for the last decade. For this week's Taji's Mahal, I got to talk to him about his latest skateboarding video, 'MMM,' how Houston Bump and Gay Ledge are his favorite skate spots in the city, and the future of the New York skateboardi… Full story

The Mercy Rule

Hearing the Spurs

As I age, my ear is retuning itself; I can finally hear something other than “ugh” watching the San Antonio Spurs play, which is cool, except how it parallels suddenly finding a 'Rod Stewart Sings the Standards' record soulful and great. Full story

Photos of the Phenom, Vitor Belfort

Before his fight this weekend in Brazil, legendary UFC middleweight Vitor Belfort posed for photographer Kenneth Cappello. See shots of the UFC titan with Royce Gracie, his son, and his fists up. Full story

Pigeon Racing Is a Dying Sport in Canada

We hung out with one of Toronto's finest pigeon racers to find out why anyone would want to pigeon race. If the sport's death rattle is anything to go by, it seems like a lot of other people have the same question. Full story

Anna Krien Explores the Dark Side of Australian Football Culture

Anna Krien's book Night Games is primarily about a rape trial of a footballer, and in it somehow Krien manages to pry open a world of tacky nightclubs, gangbangs, and locker-room jokes, by first of all admitting how lost she is in it herself. Full story