Alexis Arguello, one of the greatest boxers to ever compete, was found dead in his Managua, Nicaragua home in early July of an apparent suicide. He was 57 years old. Arguello was the mayor of Nicaragua’s capital city at the time of his death.

Known for his class outside the ring as much for his tenacity inside the ring, hes best known to casual fight fans for his epic war in’82 with Aaron The Hawk Pryor when he moved up in weight after dominating at lighter weight classes. Though Arguello would lose via–th round knockout (amid some controversy due to an apparent mystery drink offered to Pryor by his trainer Panama Lewis) it was a thrilling toe to toe battle that even the most knowledgeable boxing experts remember fondly to this day. Ring Magazine not only named it Fight of the Year, but later would dub it Fight of the Decade. Promoter Bob Arum offered these thoughts on Pryor/Arguello:

“It was a brutal, brutal fight. That was something I will never, ever forget as long as I live. That was one of the most memorable fights I ever did.”

Arguello is arguably the best lightweight and junior lightweight in the history of the sport. Arguello never lost a fight at-0 pounds and would end his career with an astounding 82-8 record with 65 knockouts and championships in three different weight classes. At the time, he was only the sixth man in boxing history to hold title belts at three different weights.

Ironically, Arguellos career didn’t get off to a good start and he lost his debut in’68 via first round TKO. He won his next three fights, before losing again via unanimous decision to another lower tier foe in his native country. After that, he seldom lost again and would go on to be respected as one of the best pound for pound fighters of his day. He was at his best against his toughest adversaries including Ray Mancini, Bobby Chacon and Ruben Olivares. Bob Arum remembered him not only as a great fighter, but as a great man:

“Not only was he one of the greatest fighters I’ve ever seen, he was the most intelligent fighter. He was a ring tactician. Every move was thought out. And he was a wonderful, wonderful person.”

The articulate, intelligent Arguello was frequently quoted on the fight game and how champions should conduct themselves. Here, he speaks of his attitude toward his opponents:

“Of course after the fight you want to make sure that you’re okay and so is the other guy, its a brotherhood in there, so you want to make sure everyone is okay after the war is over.”

Arguello didn’t fight for his first title until he’d had 58 fights, and would frequently admonish boxers who didn’t show the same respect for the sport or their status as champion:

“When you won that title you should know now that you are representing a whole country or nation with your actions and you are now in a glass house or under a microscope and you better be ready to make your people proud.”

Most significantly, Arguello loved boxing and sought to protect it from those who would undermine its greatness:

“I respect boxing because it has given me so much and thats why I will never allow anyone to mistreat the sport of boxing if I can help it.”

While the modest, dignified Arguello would never say it himself, that was for from a one sided debt–he also gave immeasurably to the sport of boxing with his grace, intelligence, talent and toughness.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance sports writer and respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and betting odds portal sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and an emu. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

It’s funny that we desire to travel through time. Besides self-ish interest, what purpose would it serve? We are actually timetravelers all the time. Or should I say channel surfers?

We get carried away either by thinking about our past or piling up with dreams of the future. These two activities take most of our time. The actual now moment we are currently experiencing is something we would rather not like to have.

It’s far better and safer to sail in our dreams, where all the outcomes are already known and we can speculate with endless what-if scenarios.

The future is even better. For us it has not happened yet and, therefore, we can make it up any way we desire. Well, almost. The only limitation is that we cannot just dream about anything of which we have no knowledge.

For example, in medieval times people did not dream about having cars and flying around the world in airplanes. So dreaming is also quite boring. All the outcomes are predictable in one way or another-like LEGO blocks that can only be set up in a certain way based on their shapes.

Our channel surfing concerns the current living moment. We seldom stay in the channel. We’d rather jump on and off many times in a second. This happens by switching either to the dream or the history channel. Reality TV is something we prefer to consume as a recorded version, just to be on the safe side.

Still, all the action happens in the reality mode. We cannot change our history and cannot predict the future. We have to do all the things right now. The paradox is that the only unpredictable (and therefore nonboring) moment is the fresh now time, what we are all the time experiencing.

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Though it is sometimes overshadowed by more famous tracks back East like Churchill downs and Belmont Park, Del Mar Racetrack in Southern California has a rich and fascinating history. Located 20 miles north of San Diego and known for its iconic slogan “Where The Surf Meets the Turf”, Del Mar has not only hosted the best horses and jockeys on the planet but a ‘who’s who’ of show biz elite.

The Del Mar Race Track was founded in the late’30′s by a group of business and show biz elite, including Bing Crosby, Oliver Hardy and Jimmy Durante. During much of the pre WW II era, horse racing ran a close second to baseball in mainstream popularity, so these racing enthusiasts were clearly at the right place at the right time in terms of market forces.

Additionally, the star power involved with the project also provided a trendy cachet that the tonier race courses back East lacked. Bing Crosby himself greeted patrons at the gate on opening day, and during the late’30s and early’40s it became a place to be seen for Hollywood A-listers and those who aspired for celebrity. In addition to known gambling enthusiasts like W.C. Fields, Edgar Bergen and Red Skelton, the Del Mar patrons during that time also included some of the top female stars of the era including Ava Gardner, Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour.

In’38, Del Mar hosted an internationally anticipated match race between Seabiscuit and Ligaroti. This event drew a record crowd and gained worldwide notoriety for the track. Seabiscuit won the $25,000 winner-take-all duel by a nose, and would forever be enshrined in the annals of American popular culture. Horse racing at Del Mar continued to be a smash until the facility went dark in’41 due to World War II. It would remain closed until’45, and for a time was used as a training facility by the military.

After the war, Del Mar reopened with a bang. The track reopened the day after Japan formally surrendered to Allied forces, and on that day Del Mar attracted over 20,000 fans through its gates who wagered what at the time was a record $958,476. The postwar prosperity was also a boon to Del Mar, which also benefitted from the Santa Fe Railroads daily Racetrack Special that brought bettors down from Los Angeles to enjoy a day at the track. During the latter part of the decade a new crop of Hollywood glitterati would flock to Del Mar, including Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Mickey Rooney John Holmes, Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante. Durante would become such a regular that the turf course at Del Mar would later be renamed in his honor.

Even though the popularity of horse racing among the mainstream populace would ebb over the years, Del Mar remains a viable part of the thoroughbred community to this day. Theyve updated their facility, with a state of the art grand stand and most recently a synthetic polytrack surface that was installed in 2007. The racing season at Del Mar begins in mid July, and hosts crowds of 20,000+ on a daily basis throughout.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer and highly respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former energy secretary Donald Hodell.

Decades before mixed martial arts became popular in the United States, events matching fighters of different fighting disciplines were very common in Japan. They weren’t called “mixed martial arts” at the time, but that’s essentially what they were.There’s an entire history of pro wrestlers fighting specialists from other martial arts (particularly judo) that were leaving out, but during the’70′s Antonio Inoki began to put the concept of “mixed martial arts” on the map with his matches against fighters from other disciplines.

Inoki billed himself as ‘World Martial Arts Champion’ and would frequently face other high profile fighters in contests that are generally believed to have had a pre-determined outcome similar to professional wrestling. Inoki faced a ‘who’s who’ of the martial arts world, but none were more famous than heavyweight boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

There are differing accounts of how the best heavyweight boxer in history found himself in a ring in Tokyo’s Budokan Arena against a pro wrestler. One thing is certain–it was viewed as an easy payday for Ali, who’d lost a good chunk of his prime earning years to his controversial stance over the Vietnam war. That’s what got him there in the first place, and that’s what kept him there after the two sides began squabbling over the rules and the outcome of the fight. Some suggest that it was supposed to be a “fair fight” going in and once Ali saw Inoki spar he insisted on rules changes to tilt the fight in his favor. Another more likely version of the story suggests that Ali’s handlers knew that the fight was supposed to be a “work” all along. They made the deal with Inoki’s people based on this fact, and were all on board as to the outcome of the match and how it would “finish”. The “original” plan was to have Inoki win in a controversial manner that would keep his undefeated streak in “MMA” matches intact while allowing Ali to “save face. The only person who wasn’t aware of the game plan, however, was Ali himself. When informed that he was supposed to “take a dive”, even in a convoluted fashion, Ali refused. No agreement was reached between the two camps and at the last minute a legit fight transpired. The promoters were left with a sold out Budokan, a worldwide PPV audience and two fighters who despite every effort to the contrary would actually have to fight each other.

Many conspiracy theorists have noted that these rules were never announced to the crowd on fight night, leaving many with the impression that they were being made up as they went along. Action in the fight would further validate this view, but there actually were rules that both camps agreed to heading into the fight. Not surprisingly, most of these were designed to protect Ali. In fact, they were so one-sided that if Inoki hadn’t been so concerned about preserving his big payday he would have been justified in not fighting. Inoki was prohibited from punching with a closed fist or striking Ali in the head (ostensibly since he wasn’t wearing gloves). Inoki was prohibited from using any sort of submission maneuver. The most absurd limitation was that Inoki was prohibited from “grappling or trying to take Ali to the ground”. A few observers noted that this was like not letting Ali throw a jab.

The result was an absolutely horrible fight. Neither man showed much interest in engaging the other, with Inoki spending most of the time on the ground doing what he could under the one sided rules. Inoki threw kicks at Ali’s legs, Ali threw an occasional jab and tried to protect himself from his opponent’s leg strikes. The fight ended a 74-74 draw, with the real losers being the fans.

Some interesting trivia about the fight–the referee was former pro wrestler “Judo” Gene Labell, who is considered by many ‘the baddest man on the planet’ even in his 80′s. He could have very likely beaten up both men at the same time–a spectacle that might have been welcomed by the live crowd and closed circuit audience worldwide.

In the aftermath of the fight, Inoki’s popularity was greater than ever–in a perverse way he was something of a hero due to his trying to fight despite the rules being stacked so soundly against him. He remained one of the country’s most popular professional wrestlers and even enjoyed a career in Japan’s parliament. Without missing a beat, he quickly resumed his series of fights against other martial artists who were apparently all more comfortable with the “worked” environment of pro wrestling. Among his “victims” was none other than Leon Spinks, presumably serving as some sort of vindication for his draw with Ali. The popularity of these matches led to a number of promotions that were essentially hybrids of martial arts and pro wrestling, and these led to the big Japanese MMA promotions of today.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer specializing in casino gambling, entertainment and sports betting. He has appeared on a number of TV and radio programs offering strategies for successful NFL football betting. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a pet llama. He is currently writing a biography of former NFL quarterback Jim Plunkett.