2011 June at LinesMaker

No-nonsense Froch Is a Welcome Change

By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports There are a A lot of box­ers who talk about how they want big fights and insist they want to take on the tough­est chal­lenges. All too fre­quently, though, their actions don’t back up their words. Carl Froch, though, is not one of those box­ers. And although he’s far from a house­hold name, he should be right near the top of the list when you think of box­ers who will fight any­one at any time in any loca­tion and will put on a great show to boot. Since late 2008, Froch has fought five times. Four of the five bouts were against cur­rent or for­mer... 

Tony Ferguson — Here Right Now

Tony Fer­gu­son had three hours to kill. He and his cast­mates on sea­son 13 of The Ulti­mate Fighter had just fin­ished tap­ing on the Spike TV real­ity series, and before they met up with UFC Pres­i­dent Dana White for din­ner, he had a quick errand to run, one that couldn’t wait until he got back home to California. “I went to Jared (Jew­el­ers) and I got a ring,” said Fer­gu­son. It wasn’t for him, a dia­mond encrusted skull or some­thing like that. It was an engage­ment ring for his girl­friend, Cristina, and if six weeks away didn’t show him how much he loved... 

FIA Announce 21-race 2012 Calendar

FIA announce 21-race 2012 calendar While most of the focus was on Bahrain, the World Motor Sport Coun­cil gave the go-ahead to a 21-race cal­en­dar for the 2012 season. Next year’s Cham­pi­onship will kick off in Bahrain despite the island kingdom’s 2011 race only tak­ing place on October 30th. Added to that, Korea has been moved up the order to April while the United States GP will slot in after Canada and Turkey is sub­jec to a new con­tract being signed. The sea­son will end with the Brazil­ian GP on November 25th. There are also seven times dur­ing the Cham­pi­onship when... 

Carl Froch, Bold and Boastful, Fights Glen Johnson

By DAVE SKRETTA, AP Sports Writer NEW YORK —His pro­moter calls him one of the best fight­ers to emergefrom Britain. If Carl Froch wants to live up to such a billing, he’ll have to beat42-year-old Glen John­son in the semi­fi­nals of the Super Six World Box­ing Clas­sicon Sat­ur­day night in Atlantic City, N.J. The boast­ful Froch holds the WBC ver­sion of the super mid­dleweight title,which he earned by dom­i­nat­ing Arthur Abra­ham last Novem­ber. The vic­tory pushedhim for­ward in the mod­i­fied round-robin tour­na­ment that con­sists of the best168-pound box­ers... 

Ramsey Nijem — Producing His Own Brand of Reality TV

There’s been noth­ing put out there in bright neon let­ters, but let’s just say that with Court McGee and Jonathan Brookins in his train­ing camp, Ram­sey Nijem doesn’t have much wig­gle room when it comes to what’s expected of him Sat­ur­day night in Las Vegas when he faces Tony Fer­gu­son for the Ulti­mate Fighter sea­son 13 title. “I have to win,” he smiles, know­ing that he will get lit­tle sym­pa­thy from the win­ners of the last two TUF sea­sons should he return to Utah with­out a glass plaque and a UFC con­tract. That’s okay though, because he is walk­ing... 

Philadelphia Honors Native Champ Hopkins

By DAN GELSTON, AP Sports Writer PHILADELPHIA —Bernard Hop­kins has a lot in com­mon with Rocky Balboa. Both are Philly fight­ers who keep throw­ing punches long after a career (orfilm fran­chise) should be finished. Hop­kins, though, doesn’t need a movie script to tell him who wins. He writeshis own story. Like Bal­boa, Hop­kins landed tri­umphantly at the bot­tom of the Philadel­phiaMuseum of Art steps. Hop­kins was hon­ored by Mayor Michael Nut­ter at the base of the “Rocky“statue out­side the museum near the steep steps made famous by the box­ing filmsfor win­ning... 

Ferguson Proposes a ‘TUF’ Title

By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports LAS VEGAS — The bag­gage claim area at Los Ange­les Inter­na­tional Air­port isn’t the place most roman­ti­cists would choose to pro­pose mar­riage to the love of their lives. And, if truth be told, nei­ther did Tony Fer­gu­son. Things just hap­pened that way. For weeks, Fer­gu­son would lie in his bed at ‘The Ulti­mate Fighter’ house and think of his fiancée, Cristina Servin. He’d kiss her pic­ture. He’d think of what he’d say when the time was right. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her and how he looked for­ward to spend­ing... 

Bahrain Set to Learn GP Decision

Bahrain GP called off amid polit­i­cal unrest The fate of the Bahrain Grand Prix will be decided at a meet­ing of For­mula 1’s gov­ern­ing body on Friday. The Gulf king­dom was due to host the open­ing race of the 2011 sea­son until it was called off amid civil unrest. Bahrain Grand Prix organ­is­ers have asked the FIA to resched­ule rather than can­cel the race. As he arrived for the meet­ing in Barcelona, F1 supremo Bernie Eccle­stone insisted that the deci­sion will be “noth­ing to do with money at all.” “This has to do with whether peo­ple… I don’t know, to... 

Age Relative to Veteran Boxers Hopkins, Johnson

By DAVE SKRETTA, AP Sports Writer NEW YORK —Age has always been a rel­a­tive con­cept in boxing. Many fight­ers are shot by the time they’re 30, the accu­mu­la­tion of punchesfrom all the bloody brawls tak­ing their toll. They’re a bit slower, a bitheav­ier, a shell of a once-proud fighter try­ing to hang around for one lastpay­day under the lights. Then there’s Bernard Hop­kins and Glen Johnson. Hop­kins won the light heavy­weight title at age 46 on May 21, sup­plant­ingGeorge Fore­man as the old­est boxer to win a major cham­pi­onship. On Sat­ur­daynight, the 42-year-old... 

Ramsey Nijem Follows Friend Court McGee to ‘Ultimate Fighter’ Success

LAS VEGAS — If Sea­son 13 of “The Ulti­mate Fighter” was a test for Ram­sey Nijem, he cer­tainly could have done worse than Court McGee as his study guide. McGee, the Sea­son 11 win­ner of the show, is a friend and train­ing part­ner of Nijem, who fights in this season’s finale on Sat­ur­day. Watch­ing McGee go through the same tri­als and tribu­la­tions in the house got him pre­pared for what he would have to face when his turn came. Now things are going just about as planned, with one last hur­dle to clear. “I’m good friends with Court McGee, and when he went through...