Clashing with reality

Before we begin today’s post, let’s take a moment of silence. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of a boxing match that should have been stopped a lot shorter than it was. The boxers, Ray Mancini and Kim Duk Koo, met in an arena outside Caesars Palace on November 13, 1982. They went toe to toe for a good portion of the bout, to the point that Mancini briefly considered quitting. Kim tore open Mancini's left ear and puffed up his left eye, and Mancini's left hand swelled to twice its normal size. After the fight, Mancini's left eye would be completely closed. However, by the latter rounds, Mancini began to dominate, landing many more punches than Kim did. Had the fight stopped after 12 rounds, all would have been well. But when the fighters came out for the 14th round, Mancini charged forward and hit Kim with a right. Kim reeled back, Mancini missed with a left, and then Mancini hit Kim with another hard right hand. Kim went flying into the ropes, his head hitting the canvas. Incredibly, Kim managed to unsteadily rise to his feet, but referee Richard Green stopped the fight and Mancini was declared the winner by TKO nineteen seconds into the 14th round. Ralph Wiley of Sports Illustrated, covering the fight, would later recall Kim pulling himself up the ropes as he was dying "One of the greatest physical feats I had ever witnessed." But if I were the ref, I would've stopped the fight after twelve rounds because 15 is just too much for most boxers. Sadly, the ref didn’t see it that way, but he felt so bad about letting the fight continue that he ended up killing himself the following summer (Northern Hemisphere summer).

But now that that one piece of important business is out of the way, we can now get to something more current: Kevin Clash, the man who's lent Elmo his voice since 1984, has taken a leave of absence from Sesame Street amid accusations from a 23-year-old man who says Clash had sex with him when he was 16 and Clash was 45. But Sesame Workshop says it believes the allegations "are false and defamatory," and that Clash is taking leave so he can "protect his reputation." Clash's accuser has accused Sesame Workshop of trying to silence him, and has hired a team of lawyers that represented one of Jerry Sandusky's victims. But there won’t be any trial to worry about because that bellend has since recanted his little sob story. He seriously needs to get a life. He may have only been going after Kevin Clash because he’s black, and anyone, including but not limited to Obama, could be next.