Saturday night’s Khan v Brook fight was a magnet for drama – brawls broke out in the crowd, Brook settled a 17 year feud by winning in the sixth round, and Jordan Pickford called someone a parrot.
Meanwhile, Man City wonderkid Phil Foden and his mum Claire were involved in an ugly backstage scrap with a group of men, one of whom punched Claire.
The fight, captured in a fairly shocking video, started after the blokes taunted Foden over his side’s 3-2 loss to Tottenham and called him a “cunt”, leading his mum to come looking for the culprits.
There’s rightly been a lot of condemnation for the guy who hit her, but frankly we think Claire deserves some praise for her mean right jab.
If we’d taken a punch from some lowlife in a dingy corridor, we’d be running for the safety of the VIP room, but Claire came out swinging, and landed several shots to the face before one of her entourage brought the noise with a fire extinguisher.
We’ve watched the full tape a few times, and while overall it’s a fairly horrible scene, it’s a clear points victory for Ms Foden.
It’s Battle of the Utter, Utter Morons on Saturday night as Amir Khan and Kell Brook face off in Manchester.
The pre-fight trash talk has been atrocious, and quite homophobic. But there’s been plenty of entertainment courtesy of Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle, who has real “just left the Marines and came to Ayia Napa on my own” energy.
In a recent promo video, Ingle persuaded Brook to wring out the sweat from his training vest into a pint glass so he could “sell it on eBay”.
Clearly, he had no plans to sell the glass of horrible, cloudy brine, and he eagerly waited for someone to suggest he drink it.
When the encouragement finally came, Dom greedily knocked it back and gargled, before letting out a satisfied “ahhh”.
Can’t shake the feeling he’d been planning to drink Brook’s sweat for a while, if he could just get hold of some.
Sure, winning the Super Bowl sounds great, but no one tells you about the mandatory trip to Disneyland the next day.
Fresh from a huge victory party that went on late into the night, the LA Rams players and their families got up at the crack of dawn so they could stand in line for Space Mountain in 25 degree heat.
As you can see above, there were some very hungover parents on the merry-go-round.
Just when Sunderland fans thought they had their club “back”, their hated former CEO Charlie Methven popped up in the stands at the Stadium of Light.
It turns out Methers and his pals are still very much the majority owners of the club, despite previously suggesting they’d sold most of their shares and handed control to 25-year-old billionaire Kyril Louis-Dreyfus.
Personally, we’re delighted at the return of a character who provided so much comic relief in the Sunderland ‘Til I Die Netflix documentary.
In the very first episode, with the club in financial and footballing crisis, Methven hauled his direct reports into his office to discuss the pre-match music, which he wanted to be “like a massive rave, a bit like Ibiza”.
Asked about his personal philosophy, he replied: “Fearlessly ‘going for it’ – in life, in business, and sport – begets precisely the positivity and desire required to be a winner.”
As Private Eye wrote last year: “Given that he is a Brylcreemed, permatanned, Thatcher-worshipping Old Etonian Hooray, Wearsiders were not expected to make Charlie their darling”.
But even by those standards, Methven did his absolute best to piss off the Mackems, telling them they “lacked the understanding of business” that “people in the south” had, because there were “less entrepreneurs” up North.
With its rich history of doping, the Astana cycling team is to clean and fair competition what Edward Scissorhands is to wanking.
Given that tradition of dodgy dealings, it’s fitting that the Kazakh outfit have released a new rap track, imaginatively titled Astana is My Team.
The video sees a procession of riders and staff deliver patriotic rhymes and slightly laboured dance moves.
Overall we’d describe the vibe as “international school kids borrowing their Dad’s GoPro”, although the chorus “rolling pedals, for the gold medals” is surprisingly catchy.
There’s even a role for the team’s Bond villain manager, Alexander Vinokourov. A former doper himself, Vino is, and we don’t use this expression lightly, bent as a nine bob note.
Most famously, he paid a rival €100k to let him win a race, which is one way to get those gold medals.
Starting a new job is a nerve-wracking experience at the best of times, so spare a thought for new St Étienne signing Joris Gnagnon, who was mistaken for a security guard on his first day at training.
The French centre-back reportedly turned up at the Geoffrey-Guichard Stadium 20kg overweight, leading a teammate to remark “he was very plump” after confusing him for a training ground doorman.
It’s not the first time a club has raised concerns over Gnagnon’s fitness – Sevilla sacked the defender in September after repeatedly criticising his physical condition.
The Frenchman is yet to make an appearance for the Ligue 1 strugglers, whose on-field travails have led to heated fan protests.
Angry fans invaded the pitch and damaged goalposts during a top-flight game against Angers in October, resulting in a temporary stadium closure, while bottle-throwing hooligans also halted a recent cup game against Jura Sud.
If St Étienne’s form doesn’t pick up soon, Gnagnon might find himself useful after all.
