I watched the ESPN special on the Mancini-Kim fight. Today is the 25th anniversary of that fight. I recall watching that live on CBS and remembering that Ray Mancini and Duk Koo Kim basically beat the crap out of each other for 14 rounds. Kim was carried from the ring on a stretcher, but I'm not sure the TV audience realized how near death Kim had become, although he had tired in the last few rounds. He died five days later.

Tonight's program was a good one. "Boom Boom" remains such a positive person, he was able to recover and it sort of gets lost that some of his best fights came in the aftermath of Kim's death. As was mentioned, in an era of Larry Holmes, Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Alexis Arguello, Aaron Pryor and countless others, Mancini's popularity and unending hype from CBS made him a star. All the endorsements went away after the Kim fight, however.

There seems to be a misconception of the last few rounds never airing before, which is bunk. I know I've seen this fight in a rerun before. And YouTube has had a copy posted. Here are the last three rounds with Tim Ryan, Gil Clancy and Ray Leonard on the call (KO is at about the 6:25 mark):



A couple of things that, of course, I had to notice occurred during the program. There was a clip of Mancini walking down a street in Manhattan and, by God, there is Steven Crist, the future editor of the Daily Racing Form, walking in front of Ray. And during the Kim fight (held outside at Caesar's Palace), you plainly see Robert Goulet, of all people, in the front row.

Meal of Links

Brooke Burke loves having kids. No, the Burger King is not the father.

Yep, I like Songza. I guess it's the audio version of what's on YouTube. It's great if you have to have a specific tune played right now. I tried to stump it with "Different Drum" by Linda Ronstadt, "President Am I" by Slow Children, Lulu's version of "The Man Who Sold The World", "You Make Me Crazy" by Utopia, "Waitress In The Sky" by Paul Westerberg, and "Gangsters and Thugs" by The Transplants. It found them all.

I liked these vintage New York videos. Bowie on "Cavett", Andy Kaufman singing "I Trusted You" (at his extremely funny, irritating best), too. Click on the Music ones, as well.

Exercise Yard

Captain Cheeseburger won the A.L. Cy Young Award. Price tag...going up.

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42 Across: Giggly Muppet (4 letters) Answer: Elmo